CHEAT SHEET: The Truth About Student Debt

Great to see student loan debt keep being prioritized in reporting. Something I would like to know in the vein though: seemingly all reporting is focused specifically on federal student loan debt (and rightfully so), but there is also a lot of debt held through private student loans as well, and I can't remember seeing much (if any) plans or ideas as to what can be done about that particular subset of the overall student loan debt picture. Is that something a president or even Congress could even potentially directly do anything about it as is? Would it have to be something like the government essentially buys it up first (would this technically be nationalizing it?) before they can do it? As one of the people holding a significant amount of student debt in this area myself, I don't want to end up seeing the millions like myself who hold some amount in that area just left hanging out to dry with still-monstrous amounts of private student debt if/when those with federal loans see some level of forgiveness.

This is a great piece! One thing I've often been curious about is the companies that profit from this massive amount of debt. Do they lobby in DC, to fight cancelling student debt? If so, might The Lever do an article on who those companies are? (apologies if you've already done so, and I missed it)

And it's predatory: standing next to my daughter with my checkbook open to pay for registration, the college administrator asked her if she wanted to apply for a loan. You know - for books or living expenses. A Hispanic Serving Institution catering to first-time students. Target marketing.

Not to mention, if you make college free moving forward, a lot of people have more access to it who didn’t before! That’s definitely a progressive benefit!

You cannot have children from lower income families learning how to think critically. And if they do, it should come with a very large price tag. It's another way to keep the classes divided and the people too concerned with their own survival to have time and energy to change things.

Reagan said America “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity.” What can you say after reading that, but “WOW!” And weep.

Where are all these weird opinion pieces like The Hill article coming from? It seems like all the data shows the student loan system is a complete failure yet these weird articles about how people all have to pay the debt with theirs taxes if the debt is forgiven is completely untrue. Are the loan servicer company paying to create these articles?

Cancel student debt?! This industry employs tens of thousands of debt collectors, managers, consultants, and other hardworking people in the adjacent financial industry. Canceling student debt would throw most of these people out of work, depriving them of a livelihood. What a cruel way to treat American workers and trigger a recession. Keep student debt in full force. Keep America employed!

What's more, canceling student debt is an insult to all those virtuous, responsible Americans who don't act like privileged deadbeats and who have been dutifully sacrificing to make payments on their student loans.

Further, no one forced these debtors to take out those loans in the first place. With freedom of choice comes the burden of responsibility. Make them pay!

[ Satire alert. ]

Not every job requires a college degree, Masters, and/or PhD (they definitely help). If you are struggling with college debt and can't find a job, you shoud get a fed gov job (ironic). The downside is you have to know someone to get the job 80% of the time, but you CAN be part of the 20%!