In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing for the state to offer debt forgiveness to college graduates who stay in the state.
The initiative was announced in January as part of Governor Cuomo’s Opportunity Agenda to “restore economic opportunity” to the state, but graduates can’t apply for debt relief until December 31, according to the Hudson Valley News Network.
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The push to restore economic opportunity is part of a goal to retain not only graduates, but state residents of all sorts. Immigration has kept up New York’s population, but the state has had domestic migration losses, according to The Washington Post. In general, the Northeast has had the highest population losses in the country over the past year. Student debt relief is an attempt to curtail the state’s hemorrhaging of its young population.
The relief program, called the Get on Your Feet Loan Forgiveness Program, will let students pay nothing on loans for two years upon graduation and will supplement federal income-based loan repayment programs, which reduce payments based on income limits.
“By alleviating the weight of student loan debt, we can give our recent graduates a better shot at establishing themselves right here in the Empire State,” Cuomo said.
A student qualifies if they went to college in New York, live in-state after graduation, participate in the federal income-based repayment program, and earn less than $50,000. The, the state pays the difference between the federal program and the total loan payment. The state expects more than 24,000 graduates to enroll in the program by 2020.
Those costs will be transferred to New York taxpayers, including college dropouts and millennials who didn’t go to college. While student loan debt can force graduates to delay marriage or buying a home, they are also in the best position among their peers, relatively speaking. Students who accumulated debt but failed to graduate, and high-school graduates who entered the workforce instead of college, foot the bill for the program, but receive no assistance.
As college becomes a middle-class entitlement, its consequences are overlooked. College graduates have the best job prospects and wealth levels among their peers. They also have political influence. As more tax revenue goes toward addressing debt burdens, inequality rises. Low-income students who failed to graduate, and millennials with weak job prospects, struggle to gain an economic foothold as they watch their tax dollars pay for someone else’s college burden.