Is President Joe Biden’s proposal for student loan forgiveness fair and why?
“I think that it’s a little unfair because people can just go to really expensive colleges and take advantage of the system and get their loans paid off through other taxpayers.”
— Zach Wong, sophomore
“I don’t think it’s fair. It’s very clearly a wealth transfer from the lower middle class who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college to the upper middle class who did. I mean, it’s pretty explicitly people who are disadvantaged paying for those who are lucky enough to go to college.”
— Robert Groves, senior
“It seems like a lot of the forgiveness and a lot of the aid is going toward people who have already gone to college, which have been historically very privileged people. I think in more recent times we’ve had an increase in less-privileged people are more traditional minorities getting the opportunity to go to college, so I would assume the best policies would be able to forgive current students or students of more recent times instead of ones who have historically had an easier time getting in and perhaps don’t need the benefits financially as others.”
— Lucas Caldentey, senior
“Student loans suck, and it just takes money out of people’s pockets and it doesn’t do anything good but instead puts hurtful loans on students.”
— Kian Quinn-Calabrese, ninth grader
“The idea of student loan forgiveness is not fiscally regressive. I think it’s a good idea in and of itself, but the question is, does it breed a culture of irresponsibility. Also, quite a lot of people who take student loans aren’t individuals who desperately need loan forgiveness when it comes to time preference.”
— Adi Potinii, sophomore
“I think that it’s definitely helpful and productive and certainly will extract a lot of people from sticky financial situations, but as to whether or not it’s fair, this will certainly result in many people who also need in many people who currently are in college and need loans forgiven but won’t get those forgiven. So I wouldn’t quite say that it is fair, but I don’t really feel that fair is the metric that is particularly relevant here, for there are definitely people who find it helpful.”
— Elias Lawerence, ninth grader
“There are a lot of people in crushing debt because they couldn’t afford to go to college without taking out big loans that they’re not able to pay until long in the future, so I think it’s a really good step into the future.”
—Justin Salomon, ninth grader
