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For those reading the debates over student loans, here are 3 tells I use to see if the writer is conveying the problem. 1st is whether they are clear that, as a % of income, lower-income people have higher debt burdens and it's gotten worse. From Fed: federalreserve.gov/newsevents/spe… /1 
You see a lot about how the absolute dollars of debt are higher further up the income chain, but we think of burdens as in percent of incomes, and the burden is real and severe for those at the bottom, particularly people of color. This drives the call for debt cancellation. /2
2nd tell concerns empirical point that monthly student loan payments for those paying, as a % of budgets (so payments/income), have been flat and low in past decade. A tell is whether this is seen as encouraging, as many see it, or as the absolute societal disaster that it is. /3
It is a disaster because the monthly student loan payments over income isn't stable because incomes are increasing, but because people are just taking far longer to pay off their loans. This is a brand new and massive, people with student loans in their late 30s and beyond. /4
The 3rd tell derives from the 2nd, and that is whether or not there's an acknowledgement that student debt is distorting the lives of an entire generation. A recent summary of evidence from @Econ_Marshall @StephanieKelton et al; there's more each month. levyinstitute.org/publications/t… /5
If we are wondering why family formations is down, fewer births, nobody can buy all the boomers' homes, collapsing business start-up rates, etc. this massive, new social experiment in running up debts on young people plays a role. The experiment failed, it's time to move on. /fin
