Ask Amy: Retired teachers not fans of loan forgiveness
Dear Upset: This episode has revealed the unfortunate dynamic created for some people when they learn about someone else’s windfall.
It’s not pretty.
Respect, love and support are sometimes much more easily offered toward someone who is hurting.
You’ve also stumbled into first-hand knowledge of how some people are responding to this life-changing debt forgiveness program.
People enjoying their own retirement did not experience the crushing debt that many younger people have landed in, in order to fund their education.
(My own college debt, which took 10 years to pay off, was low-interest chicken scratch compared to what more recent graduates have had to tackle.)
Furthermore, relieving these younger people of debt enables them to invest in their kids’ educations, as well as their own retirements.
Younger generations will likely not have company pension plans and cannot necessarily count on Social Security as their retirement safety net.
You can heal from this by accepting the limitations of the people in your group. You’ve uncovered an indelicate side to them, but this reaction was not personal – to you or your daughter. They likely would have expressed the same to a stranger at the supermarket.
Dear Amy: I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
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