I have been hearing a lot of resentment over the student loan forgiveness plan that Biden introduced the other day – this is in addition to the billions that has already been forgiven, which evidently wasn’t noticed by the naysayers.
There are two camps complaining here – one is the “$10K is not enough – he should eliminate it all” or “What about medical debt” – take note that I do not disagree with either of those statements, and this is not the camp I’m addressing.
The second camp is the “I already paid my loans – it’s unfair – they chose to go to college and take out loans” camp – begrudging any forgiveness at all. To be fair, this is coming from not simply people who are wealthy, had education funds for their children, or paid their children’s loans back. This is also coming from legitimate working-class people that have worked very hard to provide for their children. What they don’t realize is that while they were doing it, they were also supporting a system of policies and implementations that decimated the economy as we knew it and created the mess the current generation is trying to extricate itself from.
In the last 40 years, the cost of attending college has skyrocketed. See the figure below, which is published by the US DOE and shows the increase in costs vs. the increase (or lack thereof) in federal aid. Not only are students forced to borrow a larger percentage of their costs, but that larger percentage, in 2022 dollars, is prohibitive – particularly when federal funding is still hovering around 1980 rates. For those paying attention, this means MORE in debt for poor folks, minorities, first-generation college students, and others whose parents are not able to fund their education.
We have at the same time downgraded the value of a trade school. Being a mechanic, a plumber, or an electrician used to be a valued skill – now it’s considered “beneath us?” and yet, we’re still paying exorbitant prices to get our cars fixed We made a bachelor’s degree mandatory for everything – we, as boomers, told our kids they “had” to go to college. Positions where you could “work your way up” without a degree no longer really exist. So we told them they had to go.
The costs had risen dramatically, and many of us had suffered during the bloated 80s/90s so we couldn’t really help them. They took out loans, and while it may have been in many parents’ mind to help repay those loans, economic instability has made that impossible for most of us – so our kids are the second generation that is basically being left nothing.
We watched while all the manufacturing and factory jobs were sent overseas, decimated trade schools, and then begrudged people flipping burgers a living wage because “those are high school jobs.” Problem is – not only are they the only jobs they could get, the high school kids were being shoved into community service and A/P classes and extracurricular activities and SAT prep classes so they could qualify for scholarships and admission to these colleges we told them they had to go to. We gave rich people and corporations more breaks, because “that will kick start the economy (how many times have we heard that).” And yet, all it does is kick start more off-shore bank accounts. We consistently fail to recognize that politicians, while they may say they work “for the people,” really are working “for the people that keep me in office with their money.”
When our kids wanted to go to college, and we couldn’t pay for it, we casually cosigned on their loans, because when WE needed loans, they were fine – and we were able to pay them back – but we never even thought about how things had changed. This is the reason so many parents gave their kids choices – instead of insisting on community colleges and state schools to keep costs down, they beamed with pride when their kids were accepted into expensive, out of state, or private schools – not realizing that 1) it would be impossible to fund, or 2) it really had no major impact on their future, as long as they graduated with decent grades, where they pursued an undergraduate degree.
We created this mess – maybe not each of us individually, but as a society – and now we resent that it might hurt a little to try to fix it. We elected the people that implemented these policies – and we stood by while things got worse, because it didn’t affect us directly? Or because the “me” attitude and neoliberalism of the 80s and 90s taught us not to care about anyone but ourselves.
We’re also the generation that “normalized” divorce – all of a sudden, we had single parents. In my case, luckily, my children’s father took full partnership in parenting, even after we divorced – including financially. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, and one parent is often left with “holding the bag.” So a lot of children of divorced were left with fewer choices than even their parents had had.
Now we’re bitching at the current generation for their “choices.” The choices that we, as parents, encouraged them to make at 18 – where were we? Did we tell our children not to take out these loans? No, because we were too busy telling them they had to go to college – and since all the changes in education funding had taken place AFTER we went to college, we didn’t recognize it for what it was.
At 45, without a degree, I found myself back where I had started – waiting tables in a diner. Try carrying trays on your shoulder for 12 straight hours – with no health care. That’s not because of my “choice” – that was because of my circumstances – and while I did not always make perfect choices, no one always does, and some people’s circumstances limit their choices.
I am not asking people who paid their loans to be thrilled that others are getting a $10k break.
All I’m asking is that we try – just try – to see the situation from the point of view of the single parent who is sitting in her car crying right now because she may be able to buy food.
$10K is not NOTHING to anyone. But to some people, that $10K is everything. And if we are truly “one nation, under G-d, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” let’s not begrudge some of the least fortunate people a tiny bit of justice.