“Shark” Mark Cuban Schools AOC Over Student Loan Forgiveness

In what’s an insult to everyone that’s ever worked their way through college, commuted to avoid paying for room and board, or went to community college for two years to save money, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez would like to reward those who’ve racked up massive amounts of student loan debt by eliminating it entirely. If only she were willing to offer the same deal for my mortgage.

There’s roughly 1.5 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, which would create a massive expense for taxpayers. Ironically, most of this debt is concentrated among the upper-class, so student loan forgiveness would be an upper-class entitlement. Under AOC’s scenario, a taxpayer who only graduated college and earns $25,000 a year would be paying taxes towards forgiving the debt of a recent medical school graduate with $200k in debt. Does that sound fair?

I don’t think so, and neither does Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban. As Fox News reported, Cuban also pointed out that AOC’s proposal creates incentives for collleges to just endlessly jack up the price of tuition, knowing that the government will bail out borrowers.

Cuban cried foul on the claim Thursday, saying Ocasio-Cortez hadn’t taken into account one key factor.

“Unfortunately, if you just forgive loans without resolving why tuition is high in the first place, you have given schools carte blanche to raise tuition. Why wouldn’t they raise tuition if future loans will be forgiven too?” he tweeted.

“The better solution is to offer means-tested student loan repayments across the board and cap future loans per family, eliminating the easy money that leads to tuition increases.”

In what could be considered a rebuttal to Cuban, AOC also supports making public universities tuition free as a way to eliminate the student debt crisis. However, many countries that offer free tuition still see their students rack up massive debt burdens as they alter their behavior and spend more money on other things (such as choosing to pay to live on campus, when a student would’ve otherwise commuted if he had to pay their own tuition). To give just a few examples:

• In 2015 Swedes who borrowed to attend college had an average $17,266 in debt.
• In Norway, the average student graduated with 280,000 NOK in debt in 2016. That amounts to roughly $32,000.
• For contrast, the average student debt for someone graduating in America’s class of 2015 was approximately $30,100.

In 2004, 85% of Swedish students graduated with debt, compared to 50% of U.S. students. While Swedes have less debt per-capita, the reduced ROI on a Scandinavian college education relative to an American one means that American students graduate with average debt-to-income ratios of 57%, compared to 79% in Sweden.

The student debt crisis is a massively complex issue – and the chance that it’ll be solved by a 29-year-old former bartender is about the same proability that I was paying attention in my mandatory Gender Studies class freshman year.

• In 2015 Swedes who borrowed to attend college had an average $17,266 in debt.
• In Norway, the average student graduated with 280,000 NOK in debt in 2016. That amounts to roughly $32,000.
• For contrast, the average student debt for someone graduating in America’s class of 2015 was approximately $30,100.

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