Thursday, August 11, 2016

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issues a feel good report on federal student loans: Ignoring reality

President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers reminds me of the French Army during the spring of 1940 as German panzer columns were streaming toward Paris. Although  the Germans had crossed the Meuse River and French troops were fleeing everywhere, General Alphonse Georges sent a message to General Maurice Gamelin that his soldiers were holding firm and fighting in the Marfée Woods. "We are calm here," Georges assured Gamelin.

In fact, French troops were not fighting in the Marfée Woods. They were south of the Woods in full retreat.

The Council of Economic Advisers report: Don't worry about debt--college is a good investment

Let's now take a look at a report issued last month by President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Titled Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and the State of Student Debt, the report basically repeats the old bromide that college is a good investment and that long-term income-based repayment plans are the smart way to deal with rising levels of student indebtedness.

Of course it is true that college graduates earn more over their lifetimes than people who only have a high school degree. But that does not mean that college is always a good investment. People who graduate from college may simply have more initiative and resources than people who do not graduate. As the CEA report admitted, "students who attend college may have been more skilled or more connected and thus would have earned more [than non-college completers] regardless."

At the very least, college graduates have the self-discipline necessary to sit through four years of boring college classes and listen to a lot of postmodernist bullshit. And that's the kind of self-discipline that can help a person obtain a relatively well paying job--whether or not that person has a college degree.

In my view, the CEA report's breezy reassurances about the value of a college degree glosses over a bleak reality, which is this:  Millions of Americans are suffering because they took out student loans to go to college and can't pay them back.

CEA report:  Cheerleader for long-term income-based repayment plans

Part of the CEA's 78-page report was devoted to singing the praises of long-term income-based repayment plans (IBRPs). About 5 million people are in these programs now, and CEA Chairman Jason Furman wants to shove more people into "these smarter repayment plans."

In my opinion, the CEA's discussion of IBRPs was utterly deceptive. First of all, the report described these plans based on the unstated assumption that most people who enter IBRPs will pay back the principal on their loans. But I don't think they will.

The report provided this unrealistic example of how the IBRP program works:  A 2008 college graduate who leaves college with $31,000 in debt and earns an income of $31,000 a year (the median income for a 2008 college graduate) will pay off the debt in 17 years, assuming typical income growth and a 2 percent inflation rate. (The COA's illustration appears in Figure 41 on page 63 of its report.)

But of course, a great many people signing up for IBRPs are not college completers who go into jobs that pay the median income for new college graduates. A lot of people in these plans are people who didn't complete college, weren't able to find well-paying jobs, or who entered IBRPs after struggling for many years to pay off their loans under standard 10-year plans. Brenda Butler, for example, whose bankruptcy case was decided this year, entered into an IBRP after trying unsuccessfully to pay off her loans for 20 years. As the court noted, she won't finish paying off her student loans until 2037--42 years after she graduated from college!

And although the CEA report touts the fact that people in IBRPS who are unemployed won't have to make any payments on their student loans during their period of unemployment, the report failed to mention that interest accrues during the time borrowers are not making payments.

In fact, the report made no mention of accruing interest for IBRP participants and no mention of the fact that many people who enter IBRPs after defaulting on their loans have loan balances far larger than the amount they borrowed due to accruing interest, penalties, and collection fees.

And the report made no mention of the tax consequences for people who complete IBRPs but fail to pay off their loan balances. The government forgives the unpaid debt for these people, but the amount of the forgiven debt is considered taxable income by the IRS.

Conclusion: The CEA says "We are calm here" while millions of student-loan debtors are suffering

It is now clear that the Obama administration's central strategy for dealing with the student-loan crisis is to push millions of people into PAYE, REPAYE and other long-term income-based repayment plans that stretch out people's loan payments over 20, 25 and even 30 years. The CEA's example for how such plans work does not portray a typical IBRP participant. Most people do not enter these plans immediately after graduating from college, they do not earn the median income for new college graduates, and their income trajectories are not typical.

Many IBRP participants are people who did not graduate from college, or who graduated from college but did not find a job that paid well enough to service their student loans. Many have defaulted and have seen their loan balances go up due to accruing interest and the fees and penalties that creditors stuck on to their loan balances.

In fact, I believe most people in IBRPs will never pay off their loan balances because their income-based payments are not large enough to cover accruing interest. Thus most people in these plans will be faced with big tax bills when they finish their payment terms because the amount of their forgiven debt is considered taxable income by the IRS.

Now I fully expect that tax regulations will eventually be amended so that forgiven loans will not be considered taxable income, but that doesn't change the fact that most people in IBRPs will never pay off their loans.

In short, the CEA, like General Georges during the Battle of France, is saying "We are calm here" while in fact the student loan program is collapsing.

French troops retreeating during the Battle of France:
"We are calm here."


References

Jason Furman. The Truth About Higher Education And Student LoansHuffingon Post, Jul 19, 2016. Accessible at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-furman/the-truth-about-higher-ed_b_11060192.html

Council on Economic Advisors. Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and The State of Student Debt. July 2016. accessible at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160718_cea_student_debt.pdf

Note: References to the Battle of France come from The Collaps of the Third Republic by William L. Shirer. The quotation from the message by General Alphonse Georges can be found on page 650.

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