On Student Loan Forgiveness

There are a few democratic presidential candidates these days talking about a number of important policies.  One that is gaining spurts of attention is the whole idea of student loan forgiveness.  Immediately, that will provoke a visceral reaction out of most any reader, whether it's an immediate, "Yes, that would absolutely change my life!" or "eNTitLeD MilLenNIAiS jUSt WanT fREe sTUff."  You can find a large volume of articles about how Millennials are killing x industry or y industry, as though paper napkins and Applebee's were sacred traditions that were in desperate need of protection. Ignoring the whole tenant of capitalism that industries that are no longer viable deserve to fail (there's no demand, so supply doesn't have value anymore) and that shaming people for not wanting what the prior generation wanted rather than doing fresh research is just lazy/bad marketing, I tell you truly that there are more articles steadily coming out explaining that the Millennials aren't actively destroying anything:  we're just poor.

Then the next common slew of reactions spills in, implying that the spending habits of Millennials is the source of their problem, that they have brought this on themselves by not spending their money wisely.  This is the same kind of logic that people use for any person caught in the cycle of poverty, that clearly they must have done it to themselves, rather than addressing the cyclical and systemic pieces that enforce this in our society.  Here's the short of it:  assuming that someone had the exact same circumstances that you did and just failed to capitalize on them is a real dick move.

Millennials have an absurd volume of student debt, collectively.  We were told in high school that we had to go to college to get a good job, told that we didn't want to "just flip burgers" for the rest of our lives, which simultaneously devalues this industry in society that we actively rely on and also drove a lot of students to seek higher education, as this steadily became a standard requirement in areas it had not been previously.  This doesn't seem so bad until one factors in that these persons are not gaining work experience during that time (another important job requirement) and tuition rates have SKYROCKETED.  I have been told several times how my parents and their family members worked in the summers to pay for college - all of it.  This is not humanly possible in the United States today, unless you have one hell of a family connection or have a very generous scholarship and/or military service.  For the latter, literally risking your life could be a prerequisite for paying for college.  Add to that significantly higher housing prices, the absurdly high price of healthcare in this country, and that minimum wage has not moved to adjust with either of those, yeah, there's not much left to put toward buying a house, let alone save the poor, suffering diamond industry (~sarcasm flag).

That's the in-a-nutshell version of things, that Millennials simply do not have the same circumstances that prior generations had and trying to judge them off of the metric of what another generation was able to do with vastly different resources is patently unfair and leads to a lot of inaccurate conclusions.  We make different choices because we have different factors that we're weighing in to the situation.  It's not our responsibility to show you the math of every situation, but it feels like there are a lot of assumptions made against us.  As an analogy, when I blew my colostomy bag on an airplane and was rushing past people to get off of the plane first so I could contain the mess, I got looks from other passengers who probably thought I was very rude and should just wait my turn.  Had I explained this to people that I had a unique emergency that required this action, the optics probably change immediately and some might even offer to help me outside of staying out of the way.  No one could actively see the situation--it was still hidden under my shirt at that time--but what assumptions were made were probably not charitable ones.  As a generation, we're facing our own emergency.  While it looks like we're being rude or doing something incorrectly, there are reasons for that course of action.  We have our own unique challenges that we are facing.  It feels that though we've tried to explain the emergency that people aren't feeling any sympathy, like if someone had deliberately stood in front of me to let everyone else pass first, even after explaining the urgency I had in safely containing the contents of my colostomy bag from making a larger problem.

It is possible and genuinely appreciated if you ask how you can help or what circumstances we're actually facing.  Not the sarcastic "why did you do it THAT way?" seeking clarification, that is working toward the implied shame rather than actually seeking an answer.  More on the "I want to understand," kind of compassion, that indicates that there are factors that led to this decision and some base empathy even if the specifics of it are unknown.  I'm not saying that there isn't some kind of unnecessary spending happening in certain cases, but there is probably more to it than the individual feels they are entitled to one thing or another.

But, even with that wall of text, I'm not here to convince you of that today--there are many others who have made the case economically, socially, and otherwise better than I have.

So about this loan forgiveness thing.  If I had the $705 I spend monthly on student loans extra to spend per month (not even including the extra that we try to throw at it whenever there is room in the budget to do so), we would have bought a house much sooner, for starters.  We would be saving more, and you can bet we would be stimulating that local economy in some different ways, too.  But the greater, intangible piece is the sheer relief it would give us to have that debt cleared away; I can't even fathom that relief.  Now I know other households where their bill is more toward $200-$300 per month, they might only be paying about fifteen bucks toward their principal each month which is four shades of disheartening.  In fact, they might have given up the idea of ever paying it off, trying to put out a forest fire one mouthful of water at a time.  The kind of relief that would be for them, even having that extra $200 a month would make a huge difference in their quality of life.  In other cases, the student loan payment is about as much as rent, the person in question realizes that they cannot afford both rent and these payments and thus moves home to try to save money somewhere.  Hell, even those without egregious student debt might move back home because of a lack of living wage jobs and inflated housing costs.  I know so many Millennials that have said something to the effect of "I should go to the dentist, but I really can't afford it," or "yeah, I get headaches because I need new glasses but I can't afford it."  Our collective physical and mental health is suffering from the weight of this debt.  This ultimately takes a drain on our country, too, when none of these persons can volunteer, start a business, or participate in public office because they have to find another job to work to make ends meet.  It's a mortgage worth of debt without a house to show for it.  It is very difficult to frame how soul-crushing that is.

Now, Andy and I are fortunate to have both found jobs that pay more than a living wage and to have had a lot of help along the way.  Pairing these pieces with some good financial decisions, we were able to buy our first house.  #MillennialAchievementUnlocked.  We started with approximately 65K of student debt.  We are now under 15K.  We are not a typical case.  We are hammering hard at that remaining debt, and we're hoping to have it done before the end of 2020, earlier if we can push hard enough.  It feels almost possible now.  We are an exception and not the rule.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked an important question regarding this success we've managed to have.  This individual was aware of our frustrations, that my generation has these additional concerns regarding student debt and the question she asked was something along the lines of this:  "If you pay off all of your debt, will you feel it's fair that someone else gets theirs wiped out, after you've put in all of that hard work?"  Would I think it's fair that they got the help when I had to suffer through it?  I put in all this hard work to pay it off--why should someone else get a free ride after we had trudged uphill to pay it off?

I replied:  "I definitely had that knee-jerk response, too, but then I thought about it a different way.  Thousands of people have died from pertussis.  Just because a cure is available for it now doesn't mean I don't want people who are sick with it to suffer because other people died from it."  I probably could have picked a snappier disease or a cleaner wording, but the idea carries.  If I could cure someone else's Crohn's Disease, I would absolutely want them to have it, even if mine was too advanced for the cure to be effective.  Just because we had managed to pay our student debt off (again, we are NOT the typical case) does not mean I want someone else to suffer the same disease if they don't have to.  Yes, I will have been very sad not have gotten that boon, but I can guess how much it would have meant to me to have it--I could not deny that relief to someone suffering from that same position.  I cannot advocate for someone's continued suffering.  Just because I may have suffered the symptoms is not a good enough reason to allow suffering to continue if we have a way to alleviate it.  In addition to giving the cure to people sick with the disease, I would also advocate the vaccine to keep people from getting it in the future. 

So, yes, we've paid off a huge portion of our collective student debt--barring unforeseen disasters, we're on track to eradicate it in the next year.  While it would be nice to have that money back and/or put into our shiny, new mortgage, I want others to have what I couldn't, to have the peace of mind I crave, to be able to participate in this world more fully.  Anyone that was lucky enough to receive a full scholarship, I hope you would wish the same.  For anyone that was able to get a degree through their time served in the armed services, why would you want someone to have to risk their life to receive the same?  And what about the persons who cannot/could not serve because of their health?  Making college accessible to EVERYONE is the only fair option.

For the time being, though, my real push in all of this is to encourage the idea that generations and persons make decisions for reasons that you may not be privy to and to assume that someone had all of the resources that you might have had and somehow squandered that to end up in their situation is a vast disservice.  I want to push a pause for empathy, to allow for those other circumstances and situations to be part of those moments.

I've heard somewhere that our knee-jerk response is what we've been conditioned to think, but our second thoughts are more about who we are.  I want to grow those second thoughts, the part that allows people to be human and their circumstances to be broader, until that kind of empathy is my knee-jerk response.

So, yes, there are a lot of thoughts about student loan forgiveness and a lot of analyses regarding those.  There are selfish and good reasons to be in favor of student loan forgiveness and affordable college for all, but I want to push that the human quotient of that data is vast and impactful and kind.

We are not our parents.  We shouldn't try to be.  We live in a different world.  There are different obstacles and challenges that we're facing--I firmly support the removal of this one.