Of course he had a contractual agreement. Whatever college provided education services to his daughter, he agreed on some form of payment for services, even if it was in cash so that the agreement was settled immediately (or more likely, at the beginning or end of each semester).
Because he voluntarily entered into it (as you recognize in the following paragraph), yes. My point is that this shouldn't be taken as a given. There are plenty of parents who offer little to no financial assistance to their children for their higher education, and it's actually not very common for students to graduate with low or no debt, precisely because the costs are so astronomically high compared to what they were when the father himself would've gone to college (assuming he did).
Now, I would agree that nobody forced him into entering this agreement. He obviously did this of his own accord. But if he had received services and then refused to pay, then he wouldn't be let off without cost or penalty. Or if he had paid and the school refused service, then they wouldn't be let out of the agreement without cost or penalty.
I would submit to you and the thread that there is a vast difference between being
unwilling to pay and being
unable to do so. Many pay over time, while others find themselves unable to for various reasons (most commonly that I've seen is that they are underemployed and the payments are too much relative to what they can actually afford to pay per month; this is where negotiation with the Department of Education comes in. via NelNet or some other loan servicer).
Likewise, people who enter into contractual agreements for finance college through debt also enter into agreements to pay creditors. Nobody forced them to do so, though most of them undoubtedly feel as if this is a necessity for a better life.
Of course, and I would add to this that many don't take the counseling that is a precondition for getting the loan (i.e., the various statements you need to read and agree to before you'll get anything) very seriously, which is of course a huge problem. My point isn't that students or parents are blameless, but rather that the way the entire enterprise of higher education is set up in the United States helps to create the current situation where millions can't realistically pay off their loans
maybe ever, and there is seemingly no alternative than to apply for as many scholarships as you can and then hope that you'll get them all (and you'll
still likely end up in a significant amount of debt; not to make it about me, but to show what I mean I can tell you that to try to minimize cost, I finished my B.A. in a mind-melting year and nine months, and I
still came out of the University of Oregon with about $20,000 worth of debt).
This guy, our "avatar" to use your term (I think a good description of what's happening too), was legally obligated to fulfill his contractual agreement. Had he received education services and not paid, then he would be liable for penalties and costs of various sorts.
Sure. That's the risk you take on when you underwrite someone's education. It's akin to cosigning for them on a bank loan or a housing lease or something. Good on his daughter for actually finishing and getting out of there so that he didn't do all that for nothing.
So at least one of his points seems to be that he had to legally abide by his contractual agreements while Warren's plan allows others to break their agreement.
Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that these are people who
cannot abide by their agreements, for various reasons. You can tell them they have to until the cows come home; that won't magically make them able to pay if they cannot. They are essentially having to default on their loans and go into bankruptcy, which is a lousy place from which to attempt to start your life (work, personal, whatever). That's at least part of the reason why there are all these articles out about how millennials are unable to get on the property latter, aren't getting married, aren't having kids (or are having them and having to get on government benefits to raise them, or a number of other sub-optimal situations), etc., etc. They're in horrible financial shape because they're starting off shackled to something they'll have to work into their 70s to ever have a realistic chance of paying off.
The law is not being applied equally. Some are required to abide by contracts while others are not. And it's not even clear that the demarcation is rich vs. poor.
Of course it's not being applied equally, because not everyone is in such dire straits in the first place. I do know people who paid off their loans. My brother (41 this year) recently did, and he went to school in his early 20s, and it was a technical school, so it doesn't even function like a regular university. Maybe that's what a lot of kids should be looking into instead of a four-year university, because the costs much more reasonable. Still, paying everything off in ~20 years is much better than
maybe paying everything off in 50+ (if you live that long and can actually work for all those years) because you went to a four-year university and are now swimming in unbelievable debt and came out of your education just to get a job you could've gotten straight out of high school (Starbucks, grocery store, whatever).
Personally, I would be more in favor of some public service option that involves volunteering or working for public service of some sort (in the same fashion that the V.A. pays for doctor's loans or the military pays for school) in order to cancel debt. I'm flexible on what exactly that would look like.
There are such programs already. There is one for those who go into teaching, though I can't remember what it is called because it didn't apply to my circumstances. There are also programs for those who go into the Peace Corps and similar volunteer organizations. I had a friend who did that, who ended up working and living someplace in Africa (I want to say Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana, but it doesn't matter) for a few years, helping install new agricultural equipment in various towns. It's a very good option, if you can get accepted into the program. (I don't know the requirements, but since the guy I knew was a fellow linguistics student, I'm assuming he probably looked better than those who would apply who have no second language skills.)
Maybe there are ways to tie college loan terms to expected future incomes as well - also seems to make sense.
It's been a while since I looked into the specifics, but I believe this also already happens. See
this description from studentaid.gov.
Look, I take your points and sympathize with them. I'm not pretending there's an easy answer here. People obviously see the statistics that college grads are better off in various ways than non-college grads and so people take whatever measures necessary to ensure a better life for themselves and their children. So part of the problem is that college education is seen as necessary,and so demand is enormous. Maybe there are better ways of conducting higher education - surely there are - so that supply can increase and drive down prices.
My own story is also anecdotal, but I would say, having been through the system fairly recently (BA 2009, MA 2015), there are various things that could be done, but also some fairly obvious reasons why they are not likely to be embraced by colleges themselves.
Related to what you are saying, I would definitely say that the message that everyone needs to go to college needs to be modified. I would say everyone who wants to pursue a degree in a specific field that requires a diploma as a key to entry needs to go to college. Everyone else -- those taking 'culture' type classes (e.g., _____ Studies) or other classes that are a matter of personal interest that could just as well be pursued not in a college environment -- needs to think very hard about what their degree allows them to do. What does a degree in Africana Studies or Gay/Queer Studies or whatever actually allow you to do? If the answer is "teach ____ Studies", you are wasting everyone's time and money (most importantly, your own). I do not mean this to come off as some 'anti-SJW' screed or whatever, because the same thing can be asked in a slightly different way about my own field (Linguistics), which nevertheless is so broad that it can be and is applied to a great many fields that are outside of the academy (e.g., national defense, computer systems/information and software development, social services, forensics and law, etc). A minority of my friends in the field teach. The rest are doing things like speech pathology, or working with companies to build information systems or develop software. Again, the point is not to brag or put others down for pursuing other things, but to say that as a general rule students who wish to pursue degrees that do not have a bright or at least high adaptive future in the economy should be either steered towards something else or discouraged from going to college (that is to say, steered towards another avenue for developing marketable skills). The world does not need more English BA's who can talk endlessly about Chaucer but can't advance beyond being baristas because nobody will pay someone for their knowledge of historical background of the Canterbury Tales.
That universities themselves would be reluctant to be so blunt is obviously in their self-interest, as the university system has been converted in the last several decades to be a kind of all-encompassing ecosystem, and hence many people's phony baloney jobs need to be protected, and of course professors and administrators and the like need to have places to go to so that they can do their own jobs and receive their own salaries.
There is also the depressing but likely possibility that changing the current system to one that is less bloated and filled with out of control costs might very well have the effect of barring poorer people from attending college at all. If you cannot go without taking out some loans (and that seems to be the case for most people, though I admittedly don't have the numbers on hand), and suddenly this is not an option due to changes in how they are dispersed, then obviously you won't go. Then what do you do?
