Recently the US Supreme Court heard arguments and will decide the fate of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness.

In short, the objections are that it’s not fair because not everyone will get debt forgiveness. According to Studentaid.gov you can qualify for relief if your individual income is less than $125k or your combined household income is less than $250k. If your income falls below that line then you can get up to $20k of your student loans forgiven.

The average federal student loan debt is around $37k, so if you’ve got the average amount of debt you’ll get over half of your student loan debt forgiven. Since student loan debt has similar effect on the economy as a recession this is a great thing…right? People with student debt could free up some of their purchasing power to participate more in the economy. They might be able to purchase a house or make a job move to something better because they can take a bit of risk without crippling debt payments.

The problem is that if you’re rich this means that you may have more competition for your jobs. Now that a family might have some more freedom, they might go back to school and make your advanced degree less valuable as a signal that you’re a good employee1. That means you may have to spend more time in school to get an even better degree to show that you’re better and get a job.

Capitalism working right creates huge wealth gaps. If we start down the road of closing some of those gaps with debt forgiveness, how will rich (mostly white) people know that they’re better than everyone else? More letters behind their names may not be the signal it once was.

Student loans were supposed to help those that couldn’t afford post-secondary education get it. It was supposed to help them, but rich people just ran the signaling race further and buried others in debt that they don’t have to deal with due to generational wealth.

School doesn’t teach you how to think2, society just believes it’s special3 and businesses reinforce the fallacy that education means you’re a good worker4.

If it’s so important for society that people get an education, then I vote for abolishing all fees for education.

  • Education, especially after high school, is mostly about signalling that you’ll sit and do what you’re told so that employers see this and higher you. See The Case Against Education Loc 215 ↩

  • The Case Against Education LOC 1236 ↩

  • The Case Against Education LOC 511 ↩

  • The Case Against Education LOC 518 ↩