Student Debt is a Problem, but so is Canceling It
The discussion of student debt is back in the media, but the people have been talking about it for years. There are discussions among Democrats and President Joe Biden about canceling student debt. President Biden has already canceled around $17 billion in student loans, and even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has called for canceling all $1.7 trillion in loans, both private and federal. On paper, erasing student loans may seem like a good idea, but it will eventually do more harm to students and the economy. Inflation has been rising, and even tuition will continue to rise.
As someone who graduated from college debt free, it is not easy to do. Gratefully, most schools in Utah are affordable, but that is changing. I had scholarships, I worked jobs throughout college, and even had assistance from parents (which required them to work hard and put money into a fund). Not everyone had their parents help them, and they had to work even harder. I hear stories from friends who talk about their stories of paying off student loans and how it was worth the diligence and saving money years after graduating from college.
Canceling debt for others is a slap in the face to those who paid for a college education and even those who never went to college. My husband, for example, has no college degree and is currently serving in the Army. He has a job with competitive pay lined up for him after he leaves the Army. According to the National Student House Clearing Center, there were nearly 1 million fewer students in college in 2021 than in 2019. People are choosing other career paths, going to trade school, community colleges, or even working full-time.
A few years ago, I wrote an op-ed (with a co-worker) for the Washington Examiner about how “student borrowers, not taxpayers, should be on the hook for their own debt.” We cited several studies, including the Brookings Institution showing how much debt people owed, which has increased since the op-ed was published in December 2020.
Let us not forget that canceling student loans will not lower tuition rates. It will worsen them.
From the op-ed:
Additionally, loan forgiveness and providing more loans to current and future students will not lower tuition rates, which caused all this debt in the first place. A National Bureau of Economic Research study showed that between 1987 and 2010, there was a 106% increase in net tuition, and student aid was the underlying cause for most of those increases.
It was always simple to me, if you take out a loan, you pay it back. I think of credit cards the same way: In a sense, you are borrowing money, and then you pay it back. However, I am also open to private groups and donors to help pay off that debt.
Students loans are completely voluntary, and they should be paid back. There are even programs that provide complete forgiveness, including working at companies that pay off loans as part of recruitment for new employees. We should also ease tax burdens on individuals and get rid of federal student loans. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for the debt of students with unpaid loans.
