<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>julienchastang</author><text>&amp;gt; end federally backed student loans&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, higher education will be completely opposed to this plan, because they get paid upfront, take on zero risk, and can charge whatever they want. (Yet another example of moral hazard. When the loan cannot be repaid the taxpayers foot the bill. Remember, “gains are privatized and losses are nationalized.”) Also as incredibly flawed as the present system is, I wonder if it provides an avenue to higher education to students that would otherwise have no such path. I propose that the universities should be financially responsible (instead of the federal government) when the student cannot repay the loan. That would provide a strong incentive for universities to have A. the student graduate B. have a manageable amount of debt with respect to future income.</text><parent_chain><item><author>paxys</author><text>The only solution to fixing the student loan crisis is the one no one wants to hear – end federally backed student loans, and make the loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The economic brunt of a bad loan needs to be felt by the issuing bank, not be distributed among taxpayers.&lt;p&gt;When lenders get more stringent about handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to teenagers, colleges will automatically have to scale back fees in order to get people to apply. No more 5-star hotel rates for shoebox dorms and cafeteria food. No more multi-million dollar pay packages for administrators and sports coaches. No more textbooks which cost $300 per class and need to be &amp;quot;refreshed&amp;quot; every year to prevent reuse. Prioritize lending for degrees which have a higher earning potential and so a higher chance of paying back. Favor students with a better academic record. Enforce a minimum GPA in order to keep getting funded. Issuing loans is a business, so treat it like a business rather than a social service with privatized gains and public losses.&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the worst thing you can do for the problem is forgive existing loans. What do you then do when universities jack up tuition even more and students run up a tab of another trillion dollars over the next decade and refuse to pay, knowing that the government will bail them out anyways?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>NYU is top-ranked in loans that alumni and parents struggle to repay</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyu-college-graduate-parent-student-loans-11639618241</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>caymanjim</author><text>The biggest problem I have with the idea of student loan forgiveness is that it punishes people who worked hard and paid their loans back and rewards people who didn&amp;#x27;t. If we&amp;#x27;re going to do a massive wealth distribution and cancel student loans, we should first pay back the people who actually paid off their loans. If that sounds ridiculous to people, then so should forgiving the outstanding loans.</text><parent_chain><item><author>paxys</author><text>The only solution to fixing the student loan crisis is the one no one wants to hear – end federally backed student loans, and make the loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The economic brunt of a bad loan needs to be felt by the issuing bank, not be distributed among taxpayers.&lt;p&gt;When lenders get more stringent about handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to teenagers, colleges will automatically have to scale back fees in order to get people to apply. No more 5-star hotel rates for shoebox dorms and cafeteria food. No more multi-million dollar pay packages for administrators and sports coaches. No more textbooks which cost $300 per class and need to be &amp;quot;refreshed&amp;quot; every year to prevent reuse. Prioritize lending for degrees which have a higher earning potential and so a higher chance of paying back. Favor students with a better academic record. Enforce a minimum GPA in order to keep getting funded. Issuing loans is a business, so treat it like a business rather than a social service with privatized gains and public losses.&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the worst thing you can do for the problem is forgive existing loans. What do you then do when universities jack up tuition even more and students run up a tab of another trillion dollars over the next decade and refuse to pay, knowing that the government will bail them out anyways?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>NYU is top-ranked in loans that alumni and parents struggle to repay</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyu-college-graduate-parent-student-loans-11639618241</url></story>