On Student Loan Debt

My father attended SUNY Fredonia starting in 1980, at the dawn of a new decade, as well as a new recession. He paid off his relatively small student loan by working year-round as a carpenter and mason’s helper, and with a little help from my grandparents. My uncle, his brother, who is 8 years his senior, attended SUNY Stony Brook starting in the late 1960’s and paid his tuition by working at an ice cream store. Years later, they both contend with their respective adversities, but none of them involve student loan debt.

Enter me, arguably the most intelligent, charismatic, and handsome of my family. Also the most modest. And did I mention the most indebted?

I attended Long Island University starting in 2008, where I, as so many college students do, blossomed. Between my sophomore and junior years, in the midst of attending a weekends’ long RA training, I decided to come out as gay. I learned so much about myself, and so much about the world in those four years. My education was, in a few words, invaluable and transformative.

But my education did have value, very significant value, which I discovered during what was supposed to be a financial aid “exit interview” the month prior to my commencement ceremony. I should have been counseled about paying back the massive debt I’d incurred, which at that point had amounted to nearly $90,000. Instead, I was told that, months earlier, my application for a student loan had been denied, and instead of anticipating graduating with the rest of my class, I could expect to be required to produce that semester’s tuition, some $17,000, in order to be conferred the degree that I worked so hard to earn.

For all of my incredible privilege in life, having access to $17,000 in cash that no one would miss if it was gone was not among my blessings. In fact, I’d made every effort to minimize the costs associated with my private school education. I worked at a clothing store, I earned a scholarship, I was an RA, providing me not only free room and board, but a monthly stipend as well; I worked for a professor as an assistant editor of an academic journal, and I had the support of my family to offset my other living expenses.

But that simply was not enough. I moved out of my dorm room while my cohorts walked across the commencement stage and entered the job market during the most profoundly contracted economy in nearly a century.

While it was of no comfort to me then, I find some comfort now in recognizing that I am hardly alone. According to Forbes, “As of Q2 of the 2019 fiscal year, for borrowers ages 25 to 34 — a significant share of the Millennial population — there was $497.6 billion in outstanding student loan debt for about 15.1 million borrowers. This translates to an average student debt of around $33,000 dollars for each borrower.” And it’s not just the amount of debt that has increased in recent years, it is the cost of attending college. The article goes on to state that “During [Millennials’] lifetimes, college costs have risen significantly, with the net price of tuition, fees, and room and board at a public, four-year college increasing 68% since the 1999–2000 academic year.”

For their valor during World War II, the Silent Generation (at least those who were White) were rewarded with the GI Bill, the creation of the suburbs, and with them, attractive and affordable housing opportunities. Baby Boomers were and continue to be well-positioned for success based on that of their parents. But we anticipate that Millennials, many of us who are products of Baby Boomers, can expect to be less well-off than our parents despite our record educational attainment. Much of this prosperity gap can be attributed to student loan debt, for which there is a simple yet inconvenient answer.

I studied with the economist Stephanie Kelton, who is part of a cohort of academics who promote Modern Monetary Theory. MMT empowers us to balance the economy, not the federal budget. It asserts that deficit spending is not inherently bad, that the value of budget surpluses is very much overstated and, most importantly, that the United States of America is not revenue-constrained by virtue of its fiat currency, the United States Dollar.

Dr. Kelton co-authored “The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Loan Debt Cancellation,” a report which, coupled with her position as economic advisor to then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, can be credited for spurring much of our recent discourse on the movement to cancel student loan debt.

Publicly held student loan debt, which is guaranteed by the United States government, can be canceled by performing something akin to a balance sheet revision. So why, knowing what we do about our ability to deficit spend and to simply transfer the balances held by the public to that of the liabilities incurred by the government, are we so indebted?

Much of Washington’s general unwillingness to cancel student loan debt can be attributed to its attitudes toward fiscal responsibility, both personal and governmental. Admitting that deficit spending is not only possible, but often necessary, may require elected representatives to voice their true objections to policy proposals that require funding, given that our ability to “afford” them is less of a consideration. And ultimately, a constituency of people whose motivation is to cancel student loan debt has not yet organized in an efficient manner to demand change.

If this year has shown us anything, it’s that change is both inevitable and unpredictable. The movement to cancel student loan debt is growing and becoming more vocal, and, sooner or later, Washington will be forced to respond to the chorus of voices comprised by indebted Millennials, who are sure to wield significant political power in the coming years.

Author’s note: As a result of legal action that I took, I was able to absolve myself of the debt I owed to Long Island University and went on to finish my Bachelor of Arts at Empire State College. I also hold a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Stony Brook University, am pursuing a Master of Education in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Pennsylvania, and I’m still in debt.

This blog post was originally published in 2022 on Medium.