Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

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One campaign promise that President-elect Biden made, to waive all student debt, seems fraught with divisiveness and full of holes. Many Trump voters are resentful of those who went off to college in the 60s and 70s while they toiled in factories that are now closed because the college educated elites outsourced their jobs in the name of efficiency. Many of those who voted for Trump also know of recent college students who never graduated from college because they never applied themselves and have behaved irresponsibly since and they question the government forgiving their loans. Any effort has to address these visceral issues and also issues of equity in cases where some affluent loan holders can readily afford to pay their loans while others cannot.

It strikes me that there are two classes of loans that are easy to forgive: loans given to those who have sacrificed wages that they would earn in the private sector by working in public service jobs; and those who were bilked by con artist who operated fly-by-night post secondary institutions.

There are tens of thousands of individuals who were promised loan forgiveness if they entered work in the public sector, a promise that was embedded in legislation but never widely promulgated. Once President Trump took office, the waiving of these debts became a virtual impossibility and the distribution of the funds was more a function of debtor awareness than legislative intent. President Elect Biden has pledged to waive $10,000 per year for every year of community serve for up to five years— jobs that include teaching in public school, working directly for the government, or working for a non-profit.

There are even more debtors who were bilked by fly-by-night profiteers, individuals whose debts were supposed to be forgiven, debts that, in fact, have been forgiven at a 1% rate under the Trump-DeVos regime.

By forgiving these debts President elect Biden will be sending a powerful message to prospective students: commit to public service for five years and $50,000 of your college debt will be forgiven… and if you operate a for-profit post-secondary institution you better get results or you will lose your revenue.  I see both of these messages as difficult to distort… and powerful.