Discussion Should Student Loan Forgiveness Apply to Everyone?

The debate over student loan forgiveness often gets simplified into a moral binary: either you support struggling borrowers, or you oppose fairness for taxpayers. But the issue is more layered than that.

According to reporting from The New York Times, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s broad student loan forgiveness plan in 2023, ruling that the executive branch lacked authority for sweeping cancellation. Since then, relief efforts have shifted toward income-driven repayment adjustments and targeted forgiveness programs.

Supporters of universal forgiveness argue that student debt suppresses economic mobility, delays home ownership, and contributes to declining birth rates among younger generations. Critics counter that blanket cancellation disproportionately benefits college graduates (who statistically earn more over their lifetimes) while doing little for those who never attended university.

There’s also the inflation question. Some economists have suggested that large-scale cancellation could stimulate consumer spending, potentially complicating inflation management.

Perhaps the deeper issue is structural: Why has higher education become so expensive in the first place? And is universal forgiveness equitable, or should reform focus on lowering tuition and restructuring lending systems instead?

This is an interesting issue because it does come down to fairness, at the end of the day post secondary education is a choice. Now on average the people who do go into post secondary make more money and end up having gjobs with better job security. That said they do go into debt and post secondary is not an option for everyone due to their economic status.

Now for those who choose not to go they save themselves the money of post secondary and can get a step ahead in the work force, but they can forfeit their ability to get those higher paying and more secure jobs. So because they chose not to go to post secondary they are basically being punished if all loans are forgiven because essentially it is free money to the people who have the loans. It would put those who are already disadvantaged at an even bigger disadvantage and as should would just increase the gap between the top and bottom 50% of people.