They Aren't Wrong

 The Post editorial board makes a solid point about student debt relief. They admit that the standing issue was bullshit; as I noted previously the Court is simply making shit up to reach decisions they would reach regardless of the statutes involved.

However, we need structural reform to student loans and the debt jubilee was not that reform. There is a societal good in sending more people to college. There is arguably a greater good in sending people whose families could not otherwise afford to send them to college. This could be a race neutral way to elevate historically disadvantaged communities. More Pell Grants, please, many more Pell Grants.

The skyrocketing cost of education is something we generally need to address. I know our private boarding school's costs have grown so high I'm frankly embarrassed by them. We do not have the massive endowment necessary to reduce tuition they way a handful of schools like Philips Andover has, and we do extend a significant amount of financial aid. I know that I am fairly well compensated, but not outrageously so. Certainly not in comparison to tuition.

Education is one sector that has been immune to productivity gains, because human-to-human interaction is the soul of education and has been since Socrates annoyed everyone in the agora. However, we have asked schools - even or perhaps especially tony private schools - to be more than classrooms. We have four psychological counselors on staff; our Admissions department is the second largest department in the school; we have four college counselors; we have a seven person IT department; our grounds are immaculate. We spend a ton of money on stuff that makes everything easier, I guess, but it's still a ton of money. 

During my time as a student generations ago, we had one college counselor...and that's about it. This is better! However, there has to be an end to the arms race of making our schools so lavish and amazing that we can justify $60,000 a year in tuition. Colleges are in the same situation, obviously.

So, we need to bring down both the cost of education in general and the cost to individual students of accessing that education. Biden's debt relief plan wasn't going to do that. Once again, the path to a better world runs through President Biden, Speaker Jeffries and 55 or more seats in the Senate.