Oh I'm very aware.

>We know it's a manipulated platform, but to what degree...?

When you can instantly take a -~50 point hit just for calling out a tshirt bot in a niche sub, the answer is "to an extreme degree, almost certainly."

I think a lot of it boils down to a few things (these are viewpoints I've run across several times):

• People not understanding just how predatory the rates are on student loans compared to, say, your mortgage or car payment. This leads to false comparisons and low hanging fruit talking points. My car payment was never going to balloon up into something insane. My home loan is linked to a tangible asset used literally every moment of my life for the next X years and I was fully aware of the "end price" I'd be paying when I signed the mortgage.

• People who did not attend college who have felt or experienced being looked down on by the college educated. This is either them seeing people who have more privileged lives than themselves getting even MORE help OR this is them sticking it too the college grads (because we are cruel beings).

• People who took out loans for college and were able to pay them off or recently paid them off lashing out in envy. "I had to sacrifice and do this, why not them? Their life should be as difficult as mine was."

• People who don't get how taxes or govt budgets work and think they will see a line item on their tax bill that says "-Free Money for Pink Haired Girl With Art Degree"

Most of them don't realize that the loan forgiveness (and also reworking a broken tuition system) will benefit the economy itself, and thus themselves as well. They don't see that there are people who have it just as bad as them with this debt who are being crushed by it and can never discharge it. They just view them as competitors.

Those people would be paying for that blessing though, either through taxes or inflation. You don't understand how that might piss off someone who couldn't afford to go college or borrowed/paid back their loans responsibly?

Obviously the higher education system sucks and needs an overhaul. But the median balance is only around $20k. With 3+ years of no interest that should be more than manageable for most, if they actually prioritized it. Now I do support relief for those that fucked up royally and are drowning in 200k of loans for an art degree and a 40k income. They need a way out while our idiot government fixes this mess. But it should be based on DTI ratio- if you owe 30k and are an engineer making 90k, suck it up buttercup. We have a severe personal accountability crisis in this culture and this would exacerbate it even further.

College educated workers make more as a whole so you're basically asking poorer people to pay off a loan they didn't sign for so that someone else can have a higher income on the cheap.

I'm against blanket forgiveness because it would be a continuation of poorly thought out policies that got us here in the first place.

If the problem is fixed for future students first I’ll consider changing my stance. For now it appears to be nothing more than a carrot for political leverage.