Readers of this blog will know that I have consistently opposed free public college. I view college as an investment, much like buying a house, not a public necessity. It makes sense for many people, and usually pays off, but not for everyone. Why should the large number of people who choose not to go to college be taxed for the benefit of others, particularly when the investment is usually made by future white collar workers, and pays off? It doesn’t make sense to me.
At least you can make a straight-face argument that the knowledge economy requires wider access to college, and that a degree is now effectively the new secondary education. But what is the public benefit attached to wiping out all existing student debt? How can that be justified, not only to taxpayers who didn’t go to college, but to people who scrimped and sacrificed and paid off their loans? Debt forgiveness doesn’t increase access; it is just a bailout, mostly for people who actually made a successful investment.
Wiping out student debt is a pander directed at the millennial vote, pure and simple. The taxpayers didn’t pay off my mortgage; I’m not the least bit interested in paying off an entire class of debts (with some possible exceptions on an individual basis for extreme hardship cases) unless, as with the banks in the Great Recession, not to do so will result in a national disaster.