Restorative Justice For Student Debt

For many people, college is a scam

Restorative Justice is the idea that when someone was harmed by the illegal or immoral action of others, those who caused the harm should reverse that harm as much as possible. To do what they can to restore their victims to as close to their pre-harm state as possible. When it’s not possible, to make restitution of some kind.

When appealing to centrists and conservative, there’s a case to be made for student debt forgiveness that hinges on restorative justice.

The College Scam

This “student loan forgiveness is unfair” argument rests on two premises.

1 - College degrees are worth a damn

2 - People knew what they were signing up for

#1: There are many people who have worthless degrees. They don’t give people any skills or knowledge that others want to pay them for. They do actually give access to a wide variety of jobs that just require “a college degree.” Any degree, it doesn’t matter what in, because you won’t use anything you learned there anyway. Just proof of effort.

When many jobs don’t care about your education, and you can’t get a job in what you studied, you begin to realize you were sold a bill of goods with very little substance behind it.

#2: Students are generally 17-18 when they make the decision of which college to go to and how much debt to take on. They often don’t realize the impact that this debt will have on their lives. They don’t have a way to understand what $35,000 feels like. They don’t read the details of the student loan contract, which can be written to really screw them over.

The Betrayal of the Young

The fact that most high school students can’t make an informed decision is the crux of the counter-argument. College-hopeful High Schoolers are intentionally kept on a murderously intense work regimen. They are overloaded with make-work homework and extracurriculars. They often live with chronic sleep deprivation to get everything done. Even if they have the ability to research the costs of colleges and the details of their student loans, they probably don’t have the time/energy to do so.

But why would they bother? They were told by their friends, their family, their clergy, their internet, their government — go to college! It’s the only way to prevent a life of grinding misery! Over and over this message is repeated. College has innumerable upsides, and no real downside! You’d be stupid not to do it.

Can you really blame someone who’s been sheltered their whole life for trusting the people they’ve relied on since birth?

The people who guide them have only the best intentions. They believe a college degree is vital. They acknowledge student loans are a good way to pay for one. Society in general prefers more educated people as well. Everything is aligned to highlight all the benefits of getting a college degree.

It isn’t until much later that an art history major is looking at $40,000 in debt, no way to get a job that pays the median wage, and realizing that their student loan front-loads all interest so there’s no way to pay off the loan early anyway, that the graduate realizes they got screwed. This degree isn’t worth much. It wasn’t worth four years of their life and this level of debt, at least.

Every single person they trusted told them the opposite. No one stopped to say “Hold on, here’s some cons, you may want to reconsider this. Look, here’s some other options.” No one even hinted that there might be some downside to this course of action.

Restitution?

It’s very easy to understand the bitterness that such a betrayal would cause. Especially combined with a realization that extremely privileged people profited handsomely for saddling them with this burden. Of course they're going to be angry. Of course they'll demand the government do something to rectify this. Wouldn’t you?

So who should make such restitution? The colleges were providing what people wanted. The government was giving out the loans people demanded. The parents and friends were repeating what they’d been told all their lives. The responsibility is so diffuse, it’s hard to point at any single actor and say “This is your fault.”

Maybe it really should be all of us. Maybe all of society, by perpetuating this fairy tale, or looking away when others repeated it, are all to blame. How many of us told our nephews, or the children of our friends or neighbors, that actually this is all a giant social Ponzi scheme and you should strongly consider getting off before it collapses? How many told them to take the loan to a knowledgeable relative or lawyer, and negotiate or search for better terms? How many said “Liberal arts degrees are mostly bullshit. Go STEM, or find a place you can get a lib arts for rock-bottom prices and the minimum work possible,”? If it wasn’t you (and I know it wasn’t me), then perhaps we deserve to pay for it now.