On bad solutions and student debt
Reading about the state of US higher education system is not always a merry way to spend time. There are some problems. The main of which is probably the price and conversely the debt. Both of which are increasing.
At the time of writing there is a proposal to solve the problem of student debt by canceling it (or a part of it). Basically forgiving a part or all of the debt. In this article I will defend a stance this is a bad idea and that you should support it.
For the purposes of this article let’s consider the proposal to cancel all of the debt. (I want to show a tangential principle, which is easier to show on a more apparently bad idea. Canceling part of a debt (like with a cap) is not necessarily a bad idea.)
There are many counterarguments to cancelling all of student debt. But the most persuasive in my opinion is that it does not solve the problem. If you cancel all the current debt, we will have the same amount of debt in 10 years. Without addressing the core problem, canceling all the debt is unwise.
But you should still support it.
When a problem exists for a long time, the only available solution becomes “the” solution regardless of how bad it is. The time it takes for the only solution to get popular support is probably correlated with probability of success of the solution. But regardless of how small the perceived success might be, with enough time, everything is on the table.
The problem of high college prices and of student debt is long standing problem. There has been ample time to fix the incentives, and do something. But there has been little progress (the problem seem to be even accelerating). So the time has come to do something - anything. Event if it’s wrong, at least it would send a strong signal that this problem has to be solved or we will be wasting a lot of money every 10 years.
The whole argument underlines a general principle: after a certain time, the criticism of a proposed solution become invalid if it does not present a counter-solution.
This is true across many issues. When people have a problem which is unsolved for a long time, the necessity for a solution becomes more important that the quality or chance of success of the said solution.