The greatest challenge we face at this moment, however, has less to do with the price of new student loans than it does the $1.1 trillion that has already been drawn down. And while the government has made a decent effort to address this problem, too many borrowers remain unaided because their loans have been deemed ineligible for one reason or another.
The government should expand its relief programs to include all student loans – without regard for origination source (government versus private), payment status (current versus past due) or any previous action (consolidation, forbearance) – so that they can be restructured in a way that makes it possible for all borrowers to repay all their debts in full.
This compendium of measures – revising the tax and bankruptcy codes, holding schools financially responsible for their outcomes, fairly pricing and structuring student loans, setting sensible loan limits and, most important, forthrightly addressing the existing debt – make sense for the benefit of the borrowers, their benefactors (the taxpayers) and the economy as a whole.