Student loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.6...

Student loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.6 trillion. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto/Darren415

On Wednesdays, my friend Bob meets me at the gym treadmills around 8 a.m.

Once the treads are merrily milling, we glance at the TVs blaring headlines like “New York City Democrats call 100% income tax 'A good start'" and “Some Republicans support issuance of concealed-carry permits as part of birth-certificate process!”

Then we start shouting at each other, because I am loud, he is deaf, and we are old.

This week's bicker was student-loan forgiveness.

Bob is a business owner, a moderate conservative, a gun enthusiast who is sensible about firearm regulation, a taxpayer who wishes he paid less.

He thinks student loans should not be forgiven! And I disagree. But then he realizes he also thinks certain student loans should be forgiven! And I disagree! I think!

The real problem is not that we can’t agree on what the various nuances of student-loan forgiveness should be. We just know the federal government is incapable of effectuating them.

Student loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.6 trillion, shared between about 45 million people. Much of it should never have been borrowed, including payments to (sometimes) scammy for-profit colleges, and mediocre nonprofit ones. Often the money goes toward qualifying for professions that don’t pay enough to justify the debt, or programs never completed.

Bob opened with: “You have to admit these easy student loans drove tuition through the roof.”

I countered: “Conservative state legislatures reducing the percentage of public-college budgets that come from the general fund by 70% didn’t help!”

Bob: “Nobody made them borrow? What's the lesson if we forgive the loans?”

Lane: “Why is this the only loan forgiveness that bothers you? What about those who give houses back to banks with no penalty? Or rich people who declare bankruptcy repeatedly?”

The student-loan issue was huge during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders led a pack promising to forgive all, but Joe Biden’s measured approach on this and other progressive issues helped him land the nomination.

Loans are back in the news this week as Biden promised to make it easier for some borrowers to get loan forgiveness. The move came as Warren and others pushed Biden to cancel all student debt, and weeks after he postponed the restart of loan repayments until September.

Biden is right to understand that to many of us, “forgive it all” sounds crazy. It would include forgiving loans to rich people who took advantage of low rates, and doctors, lawyers and other professionals whose degrees launched them toward wealth, and that money would then have to be made up partially by less wealthy taxpayers.     

When the shouting was done, Bob and I agreed that we wanted the loans forgiven, but only for people whose hard work, or giving back, or provable poverty, showed they deserved it.

But that’s essentially the system we are supposed to have now. There's a “Public Service Loan Program” through which debt is forgiven, and programs guaranteeing borrowers pay no more than 10% of income, and ones where remaining debt is forgiven after 20 years of payments.

What spurred Biden to action was the failure of Washington to run these programs properly. A bit of competence from our government in running its sane programs, like targeted student-loan forgiveness, would quiet a lot of wild demands.

Columnist Lane Filler's opinions are his own.

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