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Comment by xvedejas | Hacker News Reader

I held a similar level of student loan debt, and it was worth it. My earnings are much larger thanks to the degree it enabled me to pursue, and I was able to pay it off early. While I don't think the system is ideal, just the existence of student debt isn't indicative of an issue, we'd need to look at statistics around what proportion of borrowers have undue hardship as a result.

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Personally I don’t think it’s ideal that people who are going into less lucrative but still incredibly important societal roles should have to give up the ability to have basic needs like stable housing met because the cost of getting into those roles preclude the ability to meet basic needs.

I am not sure if you're in agreement or not, but yes, loans help access things that cost money (like basic needs) in the case that earnings are deferred due to education. Student loans generally require no payments until 6 months after education ends.

Right but it’s also debt that doesn’t need to be incurred, which puts people way behind the starting line, especially when the student loans come due and people can’t afford to pay for a house

Doing things like making it so student debt isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy effectively creates a market for more credit than would exist otherwise. Student debt should at least be held to the same standards as regular debt.

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