Inexplicably, student loans are treated differently than almost any other type of debt; notably, they’re one of the few types of debt that you cannot discharge through bankruptcy. Until recently, lenders have made a killing off of them, collecting money from students while the federal government guarantees that the loans will be repaid.
It’s now time to wipe out student loans altogether. Not stop giving new ones; removing private lenders from the equation has stopped most of the abuses associated with new loans. No, it’s time to get rid of the ones we already have. Many students and former students, who would otherwise be starting new businesses and otherwise applying their newly learned skills, are instead struggling under an insurmountable load of debt. As such, a number of newspapers have called on the government to forgive student loans to stimulate the economy; the reasoning is that the type of people who have student loans are exactly the type of people likely to go out and generate value to the economy if they weren’t struggling to pay the interest on those loans; additionally, money which is currently going to the banks (which are then sitting on it) would instead be quickly spent, directly stimulating the economy.
It has been argued that forgiving student loans isn’t fair to those who have already paid theirs off or avoided taking loans in the first place. Well, no, it isn’t, but it’s still necessary. Additionally, the people who would most benefit from this are exactly those who weren’t able to benefit from the other stimulus programs the government has enacted, such as the homebuyers tax credit, so it is fair in that way.
Other people have claimed this would hurt the banks, which is silly; the government would be paying off the loans, not canceling them. What this would do is make the banks start lending again, as they suddenly have a lot more money that’s not earning for them, which will help ease the credit market, again improving the economy.
The only question left is, it this too obviously a good idea to get enacted? We shall see..