Why are we even considering paying off student loans?

One in eight Americans have student loans. How can we summarily decide to give a huge sum of money ($1.6 trillion dollars, $5,000 for every man, woman, and child in America, $20,000 per family of four) to a select segment of the public. Families who have saved and sacrificed to pay college costs for their kids would be penalized for doing the right thing.

Some colleges have huge endowments, a few of them in the billions. The secret is out, schools could offer free tuition for 20 years and still not run out of money. Colleges and universities should not be making these funds available to unwitting accomplices. If universities had to live on what students and their families could pay without these guaranteed loans, they would!

Why should we pay for $10 million-a-year coaches and free-ride scholarships for thousands of athletes? Defaults amount to many billions per year. I would be in favor of stopping loan programs and offering this money as grants to qualified students using means to be sure it got to those most in need. Schools have charged what they think they can squeeze from the general population, with a complicit federal government footing the bill.

Time for another round of "the buck stops here."

Harold T. Moreash

Jensen Beach, Florida