Student Loan Forgiveness Will Destroy the Value of Your Degree
By Brytin Staab
Hey, President Biden? Thanks to your student loan ‘forgiveness’ proclamation, our college degrees will soon be worthless.
Once upon a time, college was a special path for those who wanted to pursue an advanced education to become better equipped and more competitive to launch certain careers.
A great pillar of American society is the right to a free K-12 education. Everyone is guaranteed a chance to learn in a public school. Then, they move on to a variety of paths. Sometimes it’s a job right out of high school, enrollment at a trade school, joining the armed forces, or higher education. For years, college was accessible to only the affluent elite. Then it was democratized. The government made expanding college attendance a priority, even though it wasn't and still isn’t the right path for everyone. Progressive presidential administrations decided that it should subsidize this prestigious opportunity for as many as possible, at the expense, via higher taxation, of those who don’t choose it.
With student loan cancellation, which many legal scholars say is unconstitutional and many economists say will exacerbate inflation, the Biden administration is cheating many lower-income Americans. Individuals who received degrees in Art and Gender Studies will have financial relief partially because blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt are helping to foot the bill. Where’s the fairness in that? Those who majored in Anthropology or Sociology, probably living in their parents’ basements unable to find a lucrative job to pay off their loans, should reap the repercussions of their decisions. It shouldn’t fall to the hairdressers and mechanics, who scrimped and saved to open their own shops on their own dime.
If certain adults would rather get the “easy” or “interesting” degree, then they face the consequences. They had the freedom to obtain a degree with a higher return on investment, whether Math or Economics, but they instead naively selected a discipline with no industrial value. It is immoral and irresponsible to expect others to be on the hook for their lack of foresight, which student loan cancellation effectively does.
For those who want their student debt to “disappear” so they can start fresh, what about the rest of us? Should my mortgage be paid for by the American taxpayer, even though I bought a $1,000,000 home and my neighbor owns a more economical $500,000 home? Or what about my car loan payments, since I surely can’t be expected to take public transportation?
Progressives push for convenience and comfort at the cost of everyone else. They would happily screw over those who worked multiple jobs to make sure their loans were paid off on schedule. The professors aren’t volunteers, the students who work to pay off their loans aren’t your money bag, and the American people aren’t liable for your poor choices.
If we don’t honor market contracts in this country, we’ll be headed down a dark path. Besides being reckless and wrong, student loan cancellation will erode the value of public education. If we all can go to college, knowing our debts will eventually poof out of existence with no one accountable, then what is the benefit of going?
If the Biden administration wanted to get serious about education, it wouldn’t be making a ploy for the 2022 midterm elections by fulfilling a major campaign promise at the eleventh hour. Since we’re the suckers who actually paid for college ourselves, can we get our money back, Biden?
