Some disconnected Saturday thoughts about student loan relief, in a long rambling thread. TLDR: I’m in favor, but our higher ed finance system is really and truly broken, and until we pony up for much more funding for public higher ed, bandaids are better than nothing. I drafted this thread before I read @TimothyNoah1's excellent piece, but we came to basically the same place, and he said it better.
newrepublic.com/article/167531…

This just isn’t right. In fact people get approximately the same earnings return per year of school whether or not they graduate. I’d rather get someone to graduate than not, but I’d rather send them to one or two years of college than none at all. (Exception: For profits.)

https://twitter.com/KayHymowitz/status/1462077384123953152

The stable return to education is something close to an iron law of labor economics: People’s earnings go up 7-12%/year of education, almost no matter what. We puzzled over it for many years because it *shouldn’t* be true, but it holds up remarkably well.

I’m hesitant to disagree with @mattyglesias after he says such nice things about my work. But I think he gets the headline wrong. That’s especially strange because he gets the key points right. A thread. (1/17)

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1395685527467266055

Right #1: The best thing we could do to promote equity within higher education is to better fund the less selective schools, especially community colleges, where most students from lower-income and Black/Brown families go. (2/17)