Poll: Should Congress should erase student loan debt?

I'm amazed at the difference in loans for same education. Some $80 grand, some $10 grand. There has to be some fairness because wiping both of those out is not fair in my eyes as the one that is $10K did a whole lot more work contributing to the cost of their education that the one with $80K

Absolutely not! I paid my student loan back myself. I see too many students that can’t find a job after college turn around and get a masters to defer having to make payments on their student loans. They dig themselves a deeper hole. My neighbor told me that if student loans weren’t so easy to get fewer people would be able to go to college which would drive college tuition down. I don’t disagree with that theory.

No, but I wouldn't be against lower interest rates for student loans.

I'm also against free college

Hell no.

I find a lot of things unfair, especially the fact that the middle class gets screwed on student loans. The poor get grants and the wealthy can pay their way, but the kids of the middle class end up saddled with enormous loans. It’s one of the things destroying the middle class in this country, to the detriment of our whole society and our economy.

I’d be for forgiving student loans in certain circumstances. I think limits should be placed on the cost of college if the college wants to have its students qualify for federal loans. I think loans should be forgiven only if the student maintains a good GPA and completes a full course load each semester. And I think that programs to forgive loans in exchange for service should be expanded - for example, doctors who work in areas where medical care is scarce, teachers who teach in hard to staff positions, people who serve in the military or even join some kind of domestic peace corps that hasn’t been invented yet.

I also think colleges should be required to bring down costs while simultaneously improving instruction. K-12 education has had to do this and now it’s time for higher ed to do the same if they want to keep getting tuition paid for by federal funds. No more underpaid TAs and adjuncts teaching survey courses. Stop forcing professors to publish and prioritize teaching ability - put them back in the lecture hall.

College tuition has far outpaced inflation and unskilled wages, so it’s much more difficult than it was even ten years ago for a student to “work his way through.” It’s time to stop thinking about what seems fair because of our own experience and look to the future. We need an educated population to fill certain jobs, period. Let’s make sure our brightest and most motivated can become our next generation of doctors, teachers, etc. without crippling loans that prevent them from contributing to the economy.

So while it may seem “unfair” to just wipe out debt, consider this...

How many folks near retirement age have money tied up in their house? At some point, they or their heirs will want to sell. If the bulk of college grads can’t afford to buy because of student loans, what will the retirees do? Who will they sell to?

There needs to be reform for sure. You can’t get out of student debt via bankruptcy. But the shady businessman can run multiple businesses into the ground, declare bankruptcy, and repeat. People with medical issues and credit card debt can declare bankruptcy. But student loans are forever.

Having a huge chunk of citizens working full time but not able to afford things due to student debt is going to have a major effect on our economy. What happens when the birth rate plummets because people can’t afford children? Who will pay for social security if the population shrinks?

Yesterday my friend told me she will encourage her niece and nephew to fund their college with student loans in the hopes the government will wipe them out.

see that isn't right. I also knew people during my undergrad time that used the left over from their loans to take a trip for spring break.

Although they may be more stingy in their loans now. Ds only qualified for the minimum which was about $5000. Apparently they think we should be able to afford $23,000 per year on our own. (Which we probably could have saved for had we not had $1000/month loan payments of our own)

I worked full time and went to college part time just to ensure I didn't need to take out student loans. It was hard and took me longer than 4 years, but I did it. I didn't have to go to the most prestigious college, I went to State college because I could afford it.

I also think high school guidance counselors should give students options other than college. Not everyone belongs in college. They need to bring trades people to high schools to talk to kids.

Our EFC is $60K/year. Can you even imagine? That's my entire salary before taxes and insurance - AND we have another kid starting college in two years. The problem with our FAFSA system is that it doesn't take into account if you spent the first fifteen years of your marriage busting your asses to pay off student loans instead of saving for your own kids' college. It seems to assume that what you make now, you've been making for decades, debt-free. And that's laughable in our case. We were Goodwill shopping only and eating beans and rice POOR when our kids were small, in large part due to student loan debt - and no, we didn't go to any fancy schools and we both worked multiple jobs during grad school, where the bulk of our loans came from.

So now my kid gets to go to the lower-cost state school we can actually afford, because I'll be damned if I let her take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans and mortgage her entire young adulthood to pay them off.  I know we are very lucky that we can pay for her to go even to local state U, as many can't, but I admit it's frustrating to see many of her friends swan off to fancy private school on a need-based aid package.

Something has to give. Not every person is suited for the trades, and hardworking kids who want to pursue professional careers should be able to make that happen without signing over their twenties and thirties (or longer) to pay off the government. This needs to be addressed. All the boomers screaming about how unfair it is should consider that you and I are working not only to pay our own kids' college but to make sure their social security checks keep coming long after they've run through their own contributions. Gen X is getting screwed from both ends these days.

No I don't think Congress should erase or forgive student loan debt. When you take out a loan you should pay it back-all of it. When DS went to college he spent the first 2 years at community college-it was much cheaper and we knew he'd get a wonderful education of the first 2 years-the basics. He then transferred all of his credits to an in state University that has the degree program he was looking for (film and video), had a great reputation and was very reasonable in cost. Would he have preferred to go to a California school for film? Absolutely. But it wasn't in our budget and we and my ex had planned to pay for his college education without loans if we could. By DS going to the in state school we were able to do that. 

It all turned out in the end. DS has a great job editing commercials now and he loves it. Is it his dream job? No, he'd rather be editing film. But he's young and he's just starting in his career. The best part is he doesn't have any student loans. Had he gone to an out of state school he would have. His in state school was around $10,000 a year, so it was 20,000 for the last 2 years. And much less than that for the first 2 years. 

We try. Trust me. We even have a technical school kids can opt to attend for partial days that focus on things like electrical work, autos, homeland security/law enforcement/fire protection, cosmetology, child care, nursing/healthcare, media production.

However, almost NO parents encourage their students to enter a trade, so it's an uphill battle. The college culture/expectation is extremely powerful.

I think it is a lot more complex than a yes or no answer would cover.

They need to do something(s) though.