Forgiveness Is Divine, Unless It’s Student Loans

The outrage over student loan forgiveness is as deep as a Real Housewives episode. From pundits to politicians to everyday Joes and Janes, it's all about basket weavers and paying other people’s bills and this isn't fair for those who did life the right way. 

First, let's talk about the right way. There isn't one. 

Some students paid their loans off in a relatively short timeframe. Some didn't. Both of these paths are okay. 

There is no Student Loan Moral Code. Unless I missed the last copy on the shelf at the WVU book store that day in 1994 when I blew my budget on a biker jacket instead of requisite materials for Geology 101 and Being a Good American. Even my father — who believes preparedness is next to Godliness — did not tell me it was imperative to pay off my loans as soon as humanly possible, not only as a sound financial decision but also to claim my prize for doing things the right way. Full disclosure: Since around high school, I’ve been doing things the wrong way. My way. Given this path has been bumpier than the genitals of 100 Phi Kappa Psi bros hard-partying on WVU’s Fraternity Row, I’m certain that certain friends and family would have a heart attack if their child turned out like me. There’s a corollary lesson for their coronary condition: Life has enriching experiences that have nothing to do with a savings account. It requires taking chances. 

The Pragmatics vehemently resent non-calculated risks, unless it’s in the stock market. Because when you have money and behave like an asshole, it’s okay, because you have money. Don’t get me wrong: Money is a fantastic thing to have. I went without it most of my adult life, and now I have enough to get by, which feels good. Last year, I made 10 grand on one project and felt like Warren Buffet. That's not a regular occurrence in my world (just yet; I believe this little life of mine has yet to fully shine), but it’s not so bad for a girl who did things the wrong way. 

Balance is key. If everyone’s children did everything on the straight and narrow, we’d have a world without art and music and books and films. A world without sound and color. 

On student loan debt forgiveness, The Pragmatics are not out in left field but rather at home plate (where winners like them belong, natch) throwing a tantrum. They’re mad because this is clearly a zero-sum game, and that’s not fair because these beneficiaries chose the wrong way! 

Did they? I don’t recall having a choice. 

My parents wanted me to go to college. So I did. My first year at WVU, I got no instruction regarding my loans. What I got was a brown faux-leather checkbook in which my parents deposited $80 per month for groceries, a bed and dresser set plucked from the bedroom of a freshly departed elderly woman I’d never met, and an apartment shared with two high school friends (which our parents had to lie to get us in because freshman were supposed to live in the dorm; my dad doesn’t lie anymore because Jesus, but back then he was still a rebel Italian Stallion complete with gold chains, a ribbed white tank, and a killer tan). Along with the Student Loan Moral Code, another thing I didn’t get while in college: the infamous liberal indoctrination! The truth is, it is not Professor Evil who most influences your fragile darlings. It’s their new physical and social landscape. Besides, if your child is susceptible to indoctrination, then you should've provided them with the appropriate biological bootstraps: stronger genes. 

My parents were working class — dad a high school English teacher and mom an office manager for a home oxygen company. We didn’t have frills, but I would still consider myself spoiled —with affection and attention and plentiful examples of serving others. I wonder if the loan-forgiveness outrage crowd is being triggered. Maybe for some of them, childhood wasn’t so easy. Maybe their parents didn’t encourage them to go to college and offer to help with expenses. For that, I’m sympathetic. However, they can’t stay in that moment anymore than I can stay in the one where I want to drop-kick my accountant because she closed up shop without warning and wouldn’t answer my calls. Paying off loans quickly isn’t imperative but moving past anger is. 

During my first year of college, I smoked weed at what would be the very last West Virginia University unofficial block party in the hippified Sunnyside neighborhood yet ended up neither a pothead nor a crackhead. I must’ve missed the Gateway to Drug Addiction the same way I missed the Student Loan Moral Code. My first year, I cried to my dad about my dire need for $300 to join the Delta Gamma sisters, a group I quit post haste when I discovered that sorority girls are required to go to meetings and follow rules. Had I stayed, I might’ve graduated on time and married a Phi Kappa Psi, genital warts and all. We’d buy our first home with a downpayment from his folks back in Jersey and pay off our student loans together, and today we’d be giving a big middle finger to anyone who didn’t do it our way because it is unreal that someday soon, we’ll receive a bill for someone else’s basket-weaving degree.  

Truth be told, I’m not totally sold on this forgiveness deal. When individual outstanding balances number in the high tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, a 10k-20k reduction is negligible and isn’t worth a tax hike. However, it also isn’t worth the histrionics I encounter on the daily. Plus we don’t know how Uncle Sam plans to pay for this. All I’m asking is for Reason to enter the building. 

 

Less on the #bekind side: I’m tired of hearing how hard you worked for what you have. Do you understand that people can work hard and still not have much to show for it? Ask a single mom how that works. Or someone with a full-time low-wage job — you know, the kind of job that you have clearly explained is only meant for students and stepping stones, facts some of us must have missed in the smash-hit follow up to the Student Loan Moral Code, titled Jobs for Patriots. I understand that all you're asking is for fairness to prevail. A just world where people who try their best get their due. Alas, there's no way to standardize "trying your best." In lieu, try poking a hole in your bubble to see how trying looks for others. If you don’t regularly associate with people who buy furniture made with particle board, I’ll gladly hook you up with one, if you dare.