Student Loan Forgiveness

 

Busted.

I went to my brother to ask for a loan I was busted
I hate to beg like a dog for a bone but I'm busted
My brother said there ain't a thing I can do
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu
And I was just thinking of calling on you I'm busted!

Are you too busted to make or forgive a loan?

I received a Pell Grant to attend college and my household income is below the White House's threshold so I should be eligible for student debt relief.  But I have no dog in this hunt. My own student loans have long ago been repaid, which is hardly surprising because back in the 1970s, tuition at the Ivy League college I attended was only $1600 per semester, not the current over $25,000 per semester. However my children’s student loans have also been repaid.

An educated work force is an unpriced raw material that is required by most producers in a society. Public education has long been considered a public, government, function. Exceptions have been when religious or racial discrimination made public education not available to all members of society. This is why there are the parochial schools I attended before college or Historically Black Colleges and Universities. But, in general, public education has long been considered a proper government function. The fact that any of this education occurred after high school, does not make it any less a public unpriced  good. If it is an unpriced public good, there is no reason why there should have ever been any debt incurred by individuals to acquire this public good.

To those, including Evangelicals, who are disputing the wisdom of forgiving a mere portion of this debt, remember Jesus’s teachings

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

I am planning on asking to be last myself. How about you?

 

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