Preston Xanthopoulos: We are all paying for Biden's student loan debt forgiveness

President Joe Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program isn’t just bad policy, it’s bad politics, which I guess is good for my side of the aisle.

Biden, all on his own, has “forgiven” $10,000 in federal student loan debt and $20,000 for students who received Pell Grants, for any person making less than $125,000. That sounds nice and generous now doesn’t it?  It’s not. It’s both highly unfair to the majority of Americans and probably not legal.

It seems President Biden has adopted his former boss’s theory that, “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation … I've got a pen, and I've got a phone.” — Barack Obama, 2014

Sorry, guys, you’re supposed to “be waiting for legislation.” That’s how the U.S. government is intended to work. Congress is supposed to impede your actions if they don't like your ideas. This little thing called the Constitution is riddled with rules that the three branches of government keep a check and balance on each other, so none get too powerful. It seems over the past two decades that concept has been kicked out the door with a too often used stroke of a pen. Yes, Trump overused his pen, too. They all have of late.

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In addition, the debt is not “forgiven," the person not paying it back has just shifted it to taxpayers. This is the unfair part. Imagine being a family who saved and sacrificed for 18 years to put their kid through college, and now you have to pay for someone’s else’s kid’s education? Twenty million of them? What about the student who worked a full-time job during the day and went to night school, paying his or her own way the whole time? Now, that person has to pay for the student who partied every night and took spring breaks in Cancun? Imagine being a hard-working plumber, making $65,000 per year, being told you have to pay for the advanced degree of a lawyer making $124,000 per year?

How about those that went to college on the GI Bill? Those students had to pay back for their education by doing things like serving in combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Many sacrificed their bodies and minds. Some their lives. That’s how they paid their debt for a college degree. Now they and the families of those who gave the greatest sacrifice, have to scoop up the financial responsibility of a 22-year-old with a degree in “Memeology” from the University of Texas in Austin (real degree), while they still suffer the consequences of war? That’s not unfair, that's outrageous.

All this is what Biden’s “stroke of a pen," just did.

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We absolutely have a higher education problem in this country. For starters, it costs way too much. On average, in the past 30 years, the cost of tuition outpaced inflation by nearly double. That’s nearly 200% over inflation. That's obscene. Why? Probably because colleges and universities caught on to the fact that if anyone can get a student loan, backed by the federal government, they can charge what they want and do things like buy one table for the dining hall that costs $17,000, like UNH did a few years back. They can just pass it on through tuition, because everyone’s got a student loan.

Why are they allowed to get away with that? Because the students and their parents weren’t paying attention when they enrolled them in school and in a student loan program.  Knowing they could get tuition paid for, people stopped paying attention to what they could actually afford, even through loans, and didn’t take tuition costs into consideration when choosing a school. For too many, it’s just free money they’ll worry about later. Then, later comes and they realized a 1st Century Venetian Art degree isn't going to get you a job that will allow you to ever pay back that loan you took responsibility for.

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That’s the other thing, why are degrees like “leisure studies” (University of Southern Illinois) and “popular culture” (Bowling Green University) even offered, let alone enrolled in? Because for four decades we’ve told high school students, you need a four-year degree. Everyone does not. How many of us have had a hard time getting a plumber, or an electrician or any other skilled trade worker, when we need one? There is a known shortage in New Hampshire of people working in trades. For reasons I do not understand, we minimized the value of trade jobs and ignored the very good income you can make working in them. There are 25-year-old plumbers who own their own homes, have no school debt and are making more than the 32-year-old with a degree in “puppet arts” (University of Connecticut), but that guy’s got to pay back her student loan?

Of course, there is the problem with predatory lending as well. Student loan rates can go as high as 13.95%. That should be illegal.

So, as someone with a senior in high school, I agree, we have a cost of higher education problem. The answer is certainly not to perpetuate the problem, by wiping out a chunk of debt. It tells universities to keep buying $17,000 dining tables, a $40,000 eSports arena for video gaming and numerous other ways colleges and universities are wasting your money … now, thanks to Joe Biden, your tax money. It tells the people who worked hard to get a trade or pay off their education, your efforts don’t count, why did you bother?  It tells students to keep taking out loans, they can't afford to pay back, because they are getting degrees in a field only 46% of them will actually work in, because some money fairy will forgive it one day.

As for why it’s politically a problem, as I mentioned at the beginning? Less than half the country agrees with this “forgiveness program." Why? Just read above.

Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos is a former political consultant and member of the media. She’s a native of Hampton Beach where she lives with her family and three poodles. Write to her at PrestonPerspective@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Preston Xanthopoulos: Biden student loan debt forgiveness outrageous