You are right about my age! But I as a teacher I am aware of the ballooning student debt and the unholy laws that preclude debt elimination. However, that does not lead me to the idea that the government should pay off the loans. Loans are contracts entered into freely. You obligate yourself when you sign.
It is unfair to young people that so many of our systems and policies have an utter disregard for the future. But that is the world we all have to live in now. If you are like me and dislike this reality then let's change the world. That's a much better option than asking for a bailout without changing the conditions that led to the problem.
I don't know about them paying it off...But they need to be looked at. I know my brother and his wife have well over $130,000 dollars in student debt. Some have even more than that. Basically you need a full time job just to pay for your student loans.
My biggest problem is the way the government pays for students from different countries to fly out here, provides them money to live, free housing, and free college. Yet the rest of us are paying 8% loans for the next 20 years of our life...trying to get by.
Interest rates need to be reduced and so does the overall cost of tuition. Schools don't need to make as much money as they do.
What they should do is reduce the interest rate for the entire loans you receive to 0% for the duration and 12 months after you get out of college(either graduate or not) This will at least give people a chance to pay some on the principal as they can. They also need to reduce the rate, would be nice to get about a 4% loan instead of the whopping 8 the government gives out.
This along with say, $10,000 dollar deduction for a 4 year degree(so roughly $2,500 a year) would help out tons.
But they also need to help the people that are currently in debt as well, as to that the only solution is to either change the interest rate by a lot, or have the government pay off a certain % of loans...
I would love to get this changed.