Student Loans

 

Sixteen Tons

You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Evangelicals and Republicans oppose student debt relief?

First, I’ve got no dog in this hunt. When I graduated from college in 1973, I had a grand total of $1,600 in student loans which were repaid long ago. My sons have grown and any debt that they incurred, or I incurred for them, has long been repaid. Thus I will not personally benefit from any student loan cancelation. But that does not mean that I do not support student loan relief.

Education is a common resource. Producers need an educated labor force, but they do not directly pay for this educated labor force. Producers may pay more for employees with a degree, but they do not care if that employee received a free education or how much that education cost the employee. Producers count on society to provide and regulate common resources such as education. So societal spending on education benefits both the producers and their employees.

Loans are a way that costs are repaid in the future. If we agree that there should be an income and asset test applied before public money is spent, you can be assured that both the student who paid with their own assets, and the student who paid with loans, already had this asset/income test. ( Like many parents, I spent hours filling out FAFSA forms. I can personally attest that  means tests were employed). If public money is used to repay student loans, then this is just time shifting public spending on education with an income test. In fact since individuals made their own choices on colleges, etc., this is virtually identical to a voucher program. Each student made their own choice on how that spending on education was used. (In fact since Boston College is a religious school, some of those loans were used to pay religious schools, I can also personally assure you)

Therefore if you support a voucher program as encouraging choice, and a means test to ensure that public money is only spent where and when it is needed, then supporting the cancelation of student debt is consistent with those positions.

The only reason for not supporting student debt relief is if you believe that government spending on an educated work force is wrong. I hope that it isn't  because the “wrong” kind of people incurred that debt and they are benefiting from the cancellation.

I would also think that evangelicals would want to encourage calls by St. Peter, not prevent them because those who are called owe too much. Debt cancellation is also very Biblical (e.g. Leviticus 25-26, Deuteronomy 15, Exodus 21:2,  Luke 7:36-50). The Lord’s Prayer is “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

There is a question of how canceling student loans can distort the decisions of those incurring new student debt, or how those who charge for education might raise prices today if they know that the debt will eventually be forgiven, but those are different questions.