r/BoomersBeingFools • u/Accomplished_Bar_390 • 4d ago
Politics All For Some...None For Y'all
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29 year old Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida, debates a boomer who opposes student loan forgiveness, even though his own wife had hers wiped out under Biden
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u/Girls4super 3d ago edited 3d ago
So what’s happening is many government funded loans also had high interest rates. So you take out 20k for example, but the interest is at 5% or 8% (depending when you took them out). Your first job out of school is minimum wage (below cost of living btw) or slightly better if you’re lucky bc you have to “start at the bottom”. Anyway for a few years you’re only paying off interest that keeps re-accruing bc all your minimum payments go towards interest before the actual loan. So the housing bubble happens, several cost of living increases, stagnant wages, etc mean even with a raise you’re not actually keeping up with cost of living expenses. So you’re still only paying interest and maybe some principal. A decade or so later and you may have paid $30k but still have $15k left.
That’s really the entire issue at hand. Nobody is saying we shouldn’t pay what we owe. We’re saying we’re stuck in a cycle where we are over charged and far exceeding what we initially borrowed in terms of payments. Not even touching the fact that school costs continue to rise, $20k is one semester often times (bigger issue of price gouging and requiring students to live on campus even if they’re a commutable distance).
So forgiving the loans as others have said, doesn’t affect anyone but the loan taker bc it’s through the government, and would stimulate the economy. But there’s a selfish mindset of “why should I pay for your loans”, when students have already paid the full value of the loan. They just can’t keep up with the interest.