Student-Loan Stupidity
TikTokers’ smug, foolish brags of not repaying
IN yet more bad news for taxpayers, President Biden just announced another $5 billion giveaway of our money in studentloan handouts. But the president’s continued efforts to let affluent college graduates off the hook for their student loans — despite his massive Supreme Court slapdown — might actually be unnecessary, because many borrowers are simply refusing to pay their loans back anyway.
Almost all of the nation’s $1.75 trillion in student loans is owed to the federal government, not private lenders.
When the pandemic struck, the feds, under Trump, “paused” federal student-loan payments so people struggling during the disaster weren’t also hampered by their debt.
But Biden extended the pause — which was supposed to be temporary — again and again, only finally allowing debt collection to resume in October.
Yet even after a 3½-year vacation from their loan obligations, nearly 9 million Americans failed to make their first payment after the resumption.
For roughly 10%, about 900,000 of these individuals, it’s not that they can’t make the payments; they simply refuse to do so, supposedly to make a point, per a survey from Intelligent.com.
They’re “protesting” the supposed injustice of having to pay their own bills as adults, and they’re not being all that shy about it.
Imagine: The government lent them money and they happily agreed to repay it, yet now they’re expected to keep that promise rather than have taxpayers foot the bill. What nerve, right?
Actually, you’d think young people would be embarrassed to admit ripping off taxpayers and shirking their responsibilities, yet in the era of Tiktok you’d be wrong.
“When I’ve been saying I wasn’t paying mine back, I was serious,” one TikToker bragged to an audience of 1.4 million viewers. “I haven’t even logged in to the place where the loans are located. I’m glad I’m not alone . . . because what are they going to do if we all don’t pay?”
“Why would I pay my loans when I could be spending my money on glittery nails for the holidays?” she concluded.
“Am I paying them back?” another viral TikTok offers, “No. God’s gonna pay them back before I pay it back, just a PSA. I just think it’s amazing that college students are in solidarity when it comes to not paying back our student loans.”
“Amazing” isn’t the word I would use. It’s actually immoral, selfish and short-sighted.
Remember, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and there’s no such thing as a free college degree.
Taxpayer money was used to fund these peoples’ education — which will earn them $1 million more over their lifetimes on average — so, if they don’t pay it back, taxpayers have to pick up the slack.
We’ll either have more crushing debt piled on us, which will drag down economic growth and require more taxes to cover the interest payments, or we’ll have to pony up more in taxes to pay for it.
Either way, hardworking Americans — notably, including all those who never went to college, scrimped and saved to pay off their loans or never borrowed in the first place — get stuck with the bill for Samantha’s genderstudies degree.
That’s just wrong.
It’s also unlikely to work out well for these stubborn young people in the long run.
Refusing to pay back their loans to the point of default will destroy their credit score, potentially compromising their ability to own a home one day.
The government can garnish their wages and even dip into their tax refunds.
Does that still sound “amazing,” TikTok?
Young people love to complain about the student-loan “crisis,” even though the numbers don’t really show that any such crisis really exists.
But if you ask me, what we’re really witnessing is a crisis of personal responsibility.