The 2020 election is upon us. Primary candidates have fully laid out their policy plans, some of the candidates have run out of money and dropped out and Americans on the left are trying to decide who their pick should be.
A large part of successful campaigning is grassroots: talking to potential voters, giving them a chance to voice their concerns and answering the nitty-gritty questions that may not get answered on the debate stage. But sometimes, this can backfire if candidates don’t have answers for their voters.
At a campaign event on Tuesday, Jan. 21, Democratic Senator and Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren didn’t have an answer for a voter who asked her about her student loan forgiveness plan. The man told Warren that he had saved up his daughter’s whole life so she could go to college and not have to take out loans. He recalled knowing other people who had not done the same — giving a story of a family who went on vacations and bought new cars — and had to take out loans in the end because they had not saved. The man asked Warren if he, too, would be reimbursed for the money he had spent for his daughter to go to college since he did “the right thing” to which Warren responded, “Of course not.”
A lot of people are likely wondering the same thing. Lots of people save up money through high school, or maybe their parents do, as a way to try and lessen or avoid the amount of debt they will likely take on after college. Some students may choose cheaper schools because they wanted to avoid debt, or waited for a later point in their lives to go to school because they found it better to wait than to take on the debt.
When someone buys a house and takes out a mortgage, they make that choice. When someone takes out a loan to buy a new car, that is entirely up to them to make that decision. The same thing happens when people take out loans to go to college.
Something that people often forget is that college is an investment. Only about 45% of people in the U.S. are college-educated. Worldwide, less than 7% of people have gone to and completed college. College education is not as common as we’d like to believe.
This plan is disincentivizing thoughtful and informed financial decisions by not helping people who have either saved for college or worked to pay for their loans. Those who have planned financially to avoid debt will have actually paid for their education, while those who opted to take out loans will essentially have their education paid for.
It is also worth mentioning that student loan forgiveness will cost the government about $85 billion. In the future, a student loan forgiveness program would likely incentivize students to borrow more if they know their student loan debt will be forgiven, causing the loss of money for the government to increase as this rate increases with it.
Student loan debt is a complex beast. It’s unfortunate that people are walking away from college with so much debt, but they are also walking away with degrees that the majority of people in the U.S. do not have. College is the first large financial investment many make in their lives. The government is not going to offer to pay your mortgage or car payment in the future. The government is not and should never be responsible for our personal financial decisions.
Mikayla Rochelle is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those ofThe Post. What are your thoughts? Tell Mikayla by tweeting her at @mikayla_roch.
