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Comment by infamouscow | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the people that took out degrees leading into medicine, law, accounting, or tech are the ones struggling to repay their loans.

The people struggling to repay their loans are those that have degrees with little or no economic value.

The main criticism from blue-collared voters on student loan forgiveness is the moral hazard of allowing students to take out loans for degrees with virtually no economic value. Of course, this criticism was completely ignored by the college educated elite whom refuse to entertain the idea a degree needs to have a measurable ROI. There are many other factors that play into this, but this is the crux of the matter.

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Interesting that the top major of student loan holders is Nursing https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-major Also student loans and the funding of education and the artificial scarcity and perverse incentives that it produces is one of the direct causes of the shortage of medical professionals of all stripes in the US. https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/lawmakers-fixes-healthca... As the OP that I responded to argued, the risk of loans prevented him from pursuing a degree. That risk most definitely plays apart in prospective medical students deciding to enter the field because if they fail at any point in that journey they are directly responsible for a ungodly huge sum of money.

Also the moral hazard argument is a red herring to rage bait the blue collar segment of the population and disregards the breadth of actual majors of student loan holders. And secondly it still does nothing to address the actual government policy decision that gave rise to this problem. The policy of student loan (public and individual student risk) vs direct public funding (public and institutional risk).

How many nurses are struggling to find work and repay their loans?

The number of students enrolling in a program and the amount of debt taken out by those students doesn't matter if there is a positive return on investment and the debt is repaid.

The blue-collared voter views the moral hazard as the end of the conversation. Attempting to diminish or dismiss this as a red herring is counterproductive and doesn't accomplish what you want.

It's akin to trying to convince a friend to rob a bank with you. The friend doesn't need to hear the hifalutin plan to know it's stupid and wrong, but you're getting upset that your friend doesn't want to sit down and hear it for three hours.

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