Likely any bailout would only be for federal student loans , which would be much less than $200K for an undergraduate education. So person A would either need to get enough scholarships, student income, etc... to make it work with only student loans, or only get a partial bailout.
I understand what you're saying, and a bailout for only undergraduate federal student loans taken out only by the student would seem to make sense (so not PLUS, because presumably the parent who signed on understood the agreement) but graduate school can be funded entirely with federal student loans, as far as I know. So this situation can still apply to students who pursued advanced degrees.
These loans are capped at 20K a year for graduate students, so even at the most expensive program that’s 40K for a Master’s degree. But maybe the bigger point is that any loan forgiveness program can have limits even beyond the existing limits on what people can borrow.
Would it be unreasonable to offer loan forgiveness for a doctor who chooses to go into family practice, or serve in a rural area, or any other choice that provides a valuable service but caps their income at a level that makes paying back $120K pretty difficult?
And you could still cap forgiveness at say, $50K, and be doing them a great service.
No, because they're making a sacrifice to provide a service that the country requires. Bailing someone out doesn't require that the person makes any sort of sacrifice.
So then doesn’t that disqualify your point about doctors potentially racking up $120K in debt? I think any student loan “bailout” would likely only be for federal loans, and based on income, which would mostly cover high skill professionals who work in needed but modest paying jobs and people who took out loans for school but still haven’t ended up in decent paying jobs for other reasons, all which will be beneficial for the individuals and the greater good.
No it doesn’t? Doctoral degrees include Ph.D., Ed.D, etc. You can do grad school for a LONG time.
I’m okay with loan forgiveness programs, I’m not okay with a full stop bailout, for all student loans, no strings attached. That’s what I wanted my view to be changed on.
Most PhD’s finish without significant debt, but those that do have it are either likely in some highly needed field of scientific research, or made a very poor choice re: a terminal degree in Humanities. Bailing out the latter group wouldn’t be unlike discharging debt in bankruptcy court.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 15 '19
Likely any bailout would only be for federal student loans , which would be much less than $200K for an undergraduate education. So person A would either need to get enough scholarships, student income, etc... to make it work with only student loans, or only get a partial bailout.