It could cause long-term damage to your credit
Debt forgiveness programs almost always come with a significant impact on your credit score. When you stop making payments to your creditors while the settlement process is ongoing, your accounts will become delinquent, which will be reported to credit bureaus.
Some who oppose student loan forgiveness view education as a private commodity that benefits the person who purchases it."
When the government forgives loans, it's not erasing debt but shifting it from individuals to taxpayers. This increases government debt, which can have long-term economic consequences. Poor people might seem to benefit initially, but everyone pays the price later through potential inflation or higher taxes.
Student loan debt slows new business growth and limits consumer spending. Broad student loan debt forgiveness may help boost the national economy by making it more affordable for borrowers to participate in it.
"And if you assume there's a likelihood it's canceled, you're going to be more likely to take out more debt up front. That's going to give colleges more pricing power to raise tuition without pressure and to offer more low-value degrees."
1 Forgiveness is fundamentally unfair because it will ultimately be paid by taxpayers—many who have faithfully paid off their student loans, worked hard to pay for college, or chose not to go to college at all.
Pros and Cons at a Glance
Pro 1: Student loan debt is slowing the national economy. Forgiveness would boost the economy, benefiting everyone. Read More. Con 1: Student loan forgiveness is an abuse of the loan system.
In February 2022, CRFB argued that “cancellation of all outstanding student debt would boost . . . inflation by 37 to 50 basis points.” Given that canceling all student debt is more than six times the cost of canceling $10,000, it's hard to see how these two numbers square.
Cancelling student loan debt may reduce unemployment by adding up to 1.5 million new jobs. Federal student loans represent 90.8% of all student loan debt, public and privately held ($1.77 trillion total).
When debt burdens are lifted, student borrowers can start new businesses and in turn, create job opportunities for others. They can buy homes for the first time in their lives, pay down other debts such as their credit card bills, and have less reliance on social safety net programs.
Key Takeaways. Carrying student debt can affect your ability to buy a home if your debt-to-income ratio is too high. If you have too much student loan debt, you won't be able to save as much for retirement. Student loan debt can lower your credit score, especially if you fail to make on-time payments.
In particular, the tendency to express forgiveness may lead offenders to feel free to offend again by removing unwanted consequences for their behavior (e.g., anger, criticism, rejection, loneliness) that would otherwise discourage reoffending.
The short answer is yes, credit card debt forgiveness can negatively affect your credit score. However, the impact depends on various factors, including your current credit score and the specifics of your debt settlement agreement.
If the debt forgiveness program is permitted to move forward, at a time when consumer spending already is high, it could lead to more inflation, Jones said. “We certainly don't have a consumer spending problem right now,” he said.
The burden of student debt does not exist in a vacuum. Debt has multigenerational consequences and impacts the mental health and retirement plans of borrowers. Cancellation followed by intentional investments to make higher education affordable is good for the overall education and wealth of the nation.
Student loan forgiveness is, in effect, a large stimulus package. That's likely to, in turn, bolster banks' liquidity like other waves of relief to consumers did throughout the pandemic. In the last few years, pandemic-era stimulus checks helped fuel a rise in deposits at banks.
We know that canceling student-loan debt takes money from the broader tax base—mostly made up of workers who did not go to college—to subsidize the education debt of people with “valuable” degrees. We know that higher-income families tend to borrow the largest amounts.
Myth: Student loan forgiveness is the fair way to help Americans escape massive amounts of debt. Fact: Borrowers signed on the dotted line for their loans. Erasing these loans does not teach borrowers to manage their debts. Moreover, the cancelation is an insult to those who diligently paid off their loans.
The longer you have debt, the more money you pay—money that you could've saved for your financial goals. Paying of student loans early can save you hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars in interest.
Another concern of forgiving student debt is “moral hazard,” the idea that students might make riskier choices if they think their debt will end up being forgiven, Jones said.
Student loan balances may seem stagnant due to the significant portion of payments going towards interest rather than the principal. Initially, a larger share of a student loan payment is allocated to interest, with a smaller amount reducing the principal.
As of mid-July 2023, approximately 662,000 borrowers have qualified for forgiveness under the limited PSLF waiver.