Much has been said in the past few of weeks about Biden's recent student loan forgiveness plan. The new policy cancels up to $20k of student debt for individuals who earn $120,000 per year and households earning $250,000 per year. Recent polling has shown the debt cancellation to be mostly well received, with about 60% of respondents in the poll saying they approve of cancelling some or all of student debt. Supporters of the bill see it as a much needed relief for Americans who are financially overburdened with loans and struggling to get by. Still, it is a polarizing issue with many people on the right of the political spectrum criticizing it as outrageous and irresponsible. Charles Stallworth wrote an article for Newsweek that echoes many of these sentiments saying:
"Unlike progressives, we don't see student debt cancelation as an avenue out of poverty. We see it as a tax on those of us who chose not to go to college, who now have to pay for those who already got a big advantage in the labor market by way of their degree. Maybe the college degree didn't give them the job they wanted. But when it all comes down to it, before taking out a big loan, it's on you to know what you're getting into. It's on you to do your due diligence. Big decisions like taking on thousands of dollars in debt have consequences. Why should that burden fall to taxpayers?"
There are legitimate questions to be answered in the wake of this largely unprecedented policy: what will the economic impacts be? What can be done to address the underlying problem of astronomical tuition for higher education? What value does higher education provide to the country and its citizens? However many of the critics of student loan cancellation seem less interested in seriously engaging those questions and more interested in pushing a divisive political narrative that pits "the elites" against "the average working stiff". In response, here is a reality check: Biden's policy did not target financial relief for the ruling elites: capping the student loan forgiveness at $10,000 for most people who make $120,000 means that the majority of people who will benefit from this plan are the very definition of hardworking Americans. Additionally, studies show that as many as millions of Americans with student loans never finished their higher education and thus reap no benefits from attending college. In other words: those who will stand to gain the most from this policy are blue collar workers just like Stallworth.
Ah, but what about personal responsibility? Who cares if debt forgiveness will be life-changing for these people whether they are blue collar workers or not? Stallworth's article was very clear about that point: large financial decisions have consequences and one must reap what one sows, right? Well, not quite. In fact, this framing of student loan forgiveness as an abdication of personal responsibility is just the next installment of the ever-popular bootstrap narrative that pits individual Americans against each other while refusing to see the larger systemic factors at play. Many Americans who take out student loans are barely 18 years old who have been told over and over by people with institutional authority that going to college is the best and sometimes only option. In American society, kids are taught that if they listen to authority figures they will succeed. This lesson is engrained in school from a young age through positive reinforcement with grades, scholastic programs, awards and through negative reinforcement with public shaming, detention and expulsion. With that in mined, it seems unreasonable to hold students accountable for trusting the prevailing narrative that taking out student loans is both necessary and beneficial in the long run. The true blame lies with a system that offers these false promises, not the impressionable 18 year olds who believe them.
Clearly, the common talking points against student loan debt cancellation do not hold up under scrutiny, yet there is something viscerally painful about Stallworth's article and the cries of "no fair" coming from the right wing when discussing this topic. The blame is misplaced, but the struggle is real. Indeed, it is easy to empathize with the difficulty of someone like Stallworth, a Railroad worker, who performs manual labor that the society relies upon in order to function and then is looked down upon for not having a college degree and working an undesirable profession. It speaks to the deep seated Classism in American society and the ways in which many hard working Americans have been wronged by the system. From the 2008 housing crisis, to the pandemic, all the way to climate change, it is has become the norm to expect the average person to pay for situations beyond the control or even comprehension of the individual. But the answer to that struggle is not to enforce it onto others in the interest of fairness. Instead, our institutions must take responsibility to ensure that generations to come have access to fundamental human rights. Student loan forgiveness is just a tiny drop in that bucket... and I say let's keep it coming.
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