February 16th, 2021 
THIS IS THE FIRST GRADED THOUGHT ESSAY
-Make sure you use peer-reviewed sources.
-Include a Word count at the end of the Essay (Maximum 500 words. Acceptable range 475-525).
-Write and revise at least once before you post here.
-Use Criterion for draft revisions.
-Make sure you look at the attached Grading Rubric before you start writing your response.
Everyone seems to be talking about the enormous burden of student-loan debt. Read the articles linked below, and use economics to analyze the student loan forgiveness program.
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=900
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cub.asp
Prompt: What are the economic reasons to forgive (or not forgive) student loans?
Here is a list of questions to help you critically think through this topic:
Who benefits from loan forgiveness? Who loses from loan forgiveness?
What are the incentives? Who faces them? Are there any perverse incentives (moral hazard)?
What are the intended consequences of this policy?
What are some unintended consequences of this policy?
What are the short-term and long-term impacts of this policy?
You may find and cite some statistics on student-loans from reputable* sources. You can include data on an average loan (mean and median), demographic information or educational or employment status of debtors, type of education the loan was for (public school, private school, trade school, for-profit, STEM, Medical, undergraduate, graduate etc.)
You can use the statistics to bolster your argument or just as descriptive data.
*Newspaper reports, Online blogs etc. are NOT reputable sources.
You will get negative points if you use any of the following as references.
wikipedia.com, investopedia.com, thebalance.com, theconversation.com,
any newspaper website, any advice column
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