Lately, my news feed has been overrun by articles stating that canceling student loan debt is an issue of “college graduates’ agenda-settting power.” It’s a trap, they say! Some pundits are currently saying that it will have dire consequences for the Biden administration, and only benefit those who are well-off, and do nothing to erase the racial wealth gap.

What a lie.

School is So Much More Expensive

• In 1971, Harvard tuition was $2,600 a year. ($18,500 in 2022 dollars)
• In 2022, it was $52,659—nearly three times the price, when adjusted for inflation.

Inflation can make it easy to dismiss generational price differences (minimum wage was only $1.60 in 1971!”), so here we go:

• In 1971, minimum wage was $1.60. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $10 in today’s dollars.
• In 2022, federal minimum wage is $7.25 (and has been since 2009).

Translate this to a universal measurement: time.

In Making Numbers Count, I learned that one of the best ways to help other people look at differences between numbers is to use time—it’s a measurement we all use everyday.

• In 1971, paying for a year at Harvard would take 1,625 hours of minimum wage work—40 weeks. (Less than a year)
• In 2022, that same year at Harvard would take 7,263 hours of work to pay for—181 weeks, or over four and a half times longer to pay off.

I tried to put this statistic in the book, but my coauthor voted against it (and had the final say). One of his arguments was that “Harvard graduates don’t make minimum wage.” I did the math for attending a public college:

Public College Costs:

• In 1971, public tuition, fees, room and board per year: $1,410. ($10,009, when adjusted for inflation.)
• In 2022, public tuition, fees, room and board per year: $24,500.

That’s 2.5 times more expensive. And how to pay that off? 22 weeks vs. 84 weeks—almost four times longer to pay off.

The real issue is that student debt follows you around for the rest of your life.

I’m tired of reading articles where people use random statistics in an attempt to show that Millennials don’t need help with student loans because they earn lots of money. We need the money to pay off student loans, because school is so much more expensive today, even when adjusting for inflation.

Let’s say both Fred and I worked part-time during the school year, then full-time during the summer. Afterwards, we were both able to put away 15% of our income towards student loans.

Boomers would be able to pay off four years of college in less than a year—with a minimum wage job. Millennials would need 743 weeks — 14 years — without interest. Because student loans have interest, it would take about 20 years to pay off. Imagine saving 15% of your income for 20 years. That’s a house, right there.

Because of the increased cost of college, it takes us longer to pay off and longer to start saving money for the big things like a house and retirement.

Who Would Benefit From Erasing Student Loan Debt?

That’s the big question. The answer? SO MANY PEOPLE. All of these data points are obscuring the real lives and futures at stake.

Don’t want to eliminate student loans because it would only benefit the rich? It would also benefit people on the edge of bankruptcy. “We don’t want to give everyone money, because some of those people might not need it as much.”

You don’t want to do something that’s politically risky because only 13% of people have student loans? That’s like saying “we don’t want to cure cancer because, you know, it’s not that common.”

Don’t want to cancel student loan debt because those people agreed to go to college and knew what they were getting into? “Granted, your generation has had multiple, unpredictable ‘once-in-a-lifetime economic meltdowns,’ but why would we possibly want to make things any easier for you?”

Would it cost anybody anything? Are we asking for Boomers to give us their own money? And isn’t that the moral imperative of elders—to make the lives of younger generations better?

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