Written by Michael Thervil
There is so much that we can say about the Supreme Court Justices ruling on the resuming of student loan debts as of October this year. On one side of the argument there are people that are saying that the students that borrowed the money to attend colleges and universities should pay back the money they owe. On the other side of the coin, there are millions of Americans that need the financial relief that the cancellation of student loans would bring them. Although these both arguments are valid – they only scrape the surface of what the real issue is and that is: “why does getting an education in America cost so much in the first place?”.
Before we touch on the root cause of student debt, we must address the first two arguments. The first being that students that borrowed student loans should pay them back. It sounds good. It sounds ethically and morally right. However, of the people that are saying students should pay back what they owe, most of them have no college or university schooling under their belt. According to Nerd Wallet:
“45 million Americans have student loan debt – that 1 in 5 U.S. adults (17.4%), according to an analysis of Census Data.”
What we find interesting is that the decision not to cancel student loan debt is being supported by the vast majority of people who either lived in a time where education was not nearly as much as it is today, or they don’t have any or haven’t completed their college education. Their argument is: “why should I have to pay someone else’s debt?”. Which again on the surface appears to be sound reasoning. However, that reasoning is a slippery slope of an argument. If they refuse to pay for someone else’s debt, why do they remain silent when the government takes taxes out of their earnings to fund people who perpetually stay on food stamps programs, and other governmental programs such as TANF and WIC.
Let’s also include other governmental programs such as public housing, FEMA, the sending of relief checks to people who live in flood zones even though most of the people in this country don’t live by any body of water themselves, and let’s not forget jails, and prisons. It is this cherry-picking that invalidates the argument that “students should pay back what they owe''. And since it was the Republican Supreme Court Justices that went hard on striking down the cancelation of student debt – last time we checked, it was Republicans who on average who had a lower personal credit score then Democrats; not that the average Democrat fared any better – but you can’t throw stones in this case if your credit is lacking behind the party you dislike.
The other argument which is: “there are millions of Americans that need the financial relief that the canceling of student loans would have brought them”. This is also true, but it too only scrapes the surface of the student debt cancelation argument. Yes, students that fall into this category would be better able to stimulate the economy because they have more disposable income, their scores would increase thus placing them in a position to have better interest rates, and homeownership would significantly increase.
These are both great points. However, it's time we address the real issue and that is why getting an education costs so much in the United States, especially during a time when many people who obtain a college or university degree fail to obtain employment in the major printed on their degree in the first place. Adding injury to that, many college and university graduates are severely underemployed and there are millions of college and university graduates that can’t even find a job – hence are left in a state of financial hardship and despair because they can’t even make a single payment to their Lenders. Higher education in this country is expensive in this country because the Federal Government got involved. When that happened, every college and university in this country raised their prices as they started operating on a business model instead of solely focusing on educating the American public.
Student loans wouldn’t even be an issue if the Lenders didn’t lobby Washington to block students’ ability to include student loans on their bankruptcy. Truth is, you must give a little to get a little. Having millions of Americans deadlocked with their hands financially tied will backfire as it’s not sustainable for the socio-economic times we live in.
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