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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Income Based Debt Forgiveness: The Least the Government Can Do

Frank Pasquale

In our era of austerity, many want to see government support for university budgets on the chopping block. It doesn't matter to them that state support has already been cut dramatically (click to enlarge):


Why? There's always ideological opposition to higher education. That's hard to reason with. But there is also a persistent meme that student loans are some massive drain on the treasury. That view is getting harder and harder to square with reality:

"The federal government is due to book $51 billion in profit this year off new and existing federal student loans, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The record amount brings the government’s profit haul to nearly $120 billion over the past five years, according to CBO forecasts and Department of Education budget documents. The CBO estimates that the government will generate $184 billion in profit for new loans made this fiscal year through 2023."

Given these enormous profits, it would seem that income based debt forgiveness would be the least the government could do for the students it is now profiting from. Of course, the government can't be too generous to students---banks have to come first:


But let's just be clear on exactly who is a drain on the federal budget, and who is a source of gains. Income-based repayment and some forms of income-based debt forgiveness are the least that the government (and more specifically, the elite whose declining taxes are the main reason for austerity) can do for Generation Debt.

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