What the Bible tells us about student debt forgiveness

Why the bitterness?

Social media exploded with objections when news broke that the Biden administration planned to forgive student loan debt for many Americans. The complaints ranged from anger that people were getting a "break" not afforded to them in life, while others blamed students for taking out loans at all. Whatever the nature of the bitterness toward student loan forgiveness, it surely isn't supported by scripture related to who is deserving of compensation or forgiveness.

Matthew 20:1-16 tells the story of people hired to work in a vineyard. Most were grateful to get work. When others showed up late in the day and were offered the same pay as those who started early in the morning, many began to gripe. Here's the full parable:

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

20?“For the kingdom of heaven is like?a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.?2?He agreed to pay them a denarius[a]?for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3?“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.?4?He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’?5?So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.?6?About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7?“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8?“When evening came,?the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9?“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.?10?So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.?11?When they received it, they began to grumble?against the landowner.?12?‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat?of the day.’

13?“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend.?Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius??14?Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.?15?Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16?“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

This story is meant to convey a spiritual message about being welcomed into the Kingdom of God. It tells us that even those who arrive at repentance late in life will receive forgiveness (their one denarius in the story...) That's why the latecomers are paid the same as those who worked all day. But the griping is frowned upon by the landowner that hired them all. It proves that we can't see the circumstance of others so it's not our place to judge them or project our own values or concerns upon them.

Hard Lessons and Dark Hearts

That's a hard lesson to learn, especially when it is fused with jealousy or hearts grow darkened by perceived slights. In modern parlance, those vineyard workers hired later in the day represent portions of our society whose circumstances are often invisible to those griping about student loan forgiveness.

The behavior of people shaming people with student loans is in many ways egregious. The ugliest characterizations include those made by Senator Ted Cruz, whose stereotyping of student loan recipients as "lazy" or "useless" members of society demonstrated the complete lack of conscience for which he's well-known.

Others barked on social media that it would be better for people to get a job in the trades than go to college. It's true that not everyone can or should go to college, but it is also true that the trades are not a good fit for everyone. Fortunately, the overall jobs market is still strong. That has meant better and more opportunities, which is decent news for millennials.

Costs of college

A key fact remains: The costs of going to college have skyrocketed the last twenty years. That's also the case with the costs of healthcare in America, where premium prices rose by 96% during the eight years of the Bush administration (Source: Crain's Chicago). That's why President Obama initiated the Affordable Care Act, offering people priced out (or left out) of the healthcare insurance system a way back in. The ACA amounted to a healthcare insurance forgiveness program by eliminating limitations such as pre-existing conditions. The corporatization of healthcare insurance was actually somewhat of a mistake (see #4 in this Vox article on the state of American Health Care) and the ACA was an attempt to set right some of the most egregious aspects of corporatized healthcare.

And yet a selfishly embittered portion of the populace tried to undermine the ACA with an "I've got mine" attitude as if people left outside the corporate world of subsidized health insurance didn't deserve coverage. And after the ACA kicked in, some insurance companies created and then ditched plans that benefited patients in terms of cost, care and convenience. Their profit margins average just about 3.5% so one can hardly blame them on dollars and cents alone. So while those plans met many needs, the insurance industry deemed them not profitable enough to satisfy their shareholders or board members. Even insurance subsidies couldn't cover some of the gap. And yet with Pharma driving a 20% profit rate, the healthcare industry as a whole is making billions off the life and death of everyday Americans. What President Barack Obama did with the ACA was issue an apology of sorts to millions of Americans left out or victimized by the healthcare insurance loop.

An apology for crushing student debt loads

That brings us back to what President Joe Biden promised about student debt loans. Essentially what he did was make an apology of sorts to students caught in an economic maelstrom that was not of their own making. Competition for students between colleges and universities has not had the ameliorating effect on costs that traditional market competition produces in other sectors. As a result, college costs have risen for decades, driven in part by a student loan "industry" eager to capitalize on high interest rates while placing millions of people in cycles of unforgiving debt. Evidence emerged that in some cases, student loan lenders colluded with colleges along the way. Those lenders actually offered "kickbacks" to institutions as a reward for sending student loan business their way. Overall, these college financing programs left parents and students in untenable situations, forced to negotiate with three separate entities; colleges/universities, lenders, and the government. Everyone applying for financial aid is required to fill out the FAFSA that determines each family's financial obligation based on their household and student income.

Then (and only then) a financial aid package is prescribed by the given institution. The "big hope" in the formula is scholarship money. That amount of money is determined by an opaque system of student grades, ACT or SAT scores (a practice now being abandoned) along with student activities and other qualifications. After these assessments, the proscribed financial aid package is mapped out. These include grants, scholarships and other potentially "free money." Many colleges and universities do give scholarships based on need. Yet for students with larger financial need, the loan portion might include a Pell Grant. That is one of the categories targeted by Biden for loan forgiveness. Behind all that math are the predictive tables telling schools what it takes to remain profitable.

The Vineyard parable

All this math brings us back to the landowner featured in the Bible story. Certainly he kept profits in mind while hiring workers that day. Few businesses survive by handing out money like a charity. The vineyard was no exception. What we need to recall about that parable of the vineyard is that it meant to be symbolic. It was never intended as a literal tale about how to pay people for their time, or how to forgive their debts. The real meaning of the parable is that people welcomed into the "kingdom of God" get the same reward no matter how soon or late they show up in the process. In other words, God forgives the debt of all who repent and accept that grace.

Yet the vineyard owner wasn't perfect in his treatment of workers. Paying a fair wage for the same work in the real work is a fundamental right in the modern workplace. Establishing equitable pay scales is one of the reasons why unions were originally formed and still exist today. They help to govern and protect workers from exploitation. This brand of secular progress shows that some age-old labor practices need updating to guarantee equity for all. That's particularly true in a democratic society. Back when the Bible was written, kings and landowners weren't questioned about their decisions. Their word alone was often law. Their decisions could even mean life and death to those that ran afoul of dictums or mandates.

That explains why we shouldn't take Bible stories as literal, immutable fact, or try to apply them as laws in modern society. These stories do teach us principles, but are not necessarily functional as foundations for the governance of society. The Bible holds too many anachronisms to be trusted as a guidebook for modern law. It contains texts that condone slavery, promote various prejudices against women, and specifically condemns gay people, to name a few of the most outdated traditions. We've come too far as a world culture to go back thousands of years and call it a day.

Forgive us our debts...as we forgive our debtors

Deuteronomy 15:1

“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.

The tradition of cancelling debt in the old world was quite clear. Debt was just as harrowing a problem two thousand years ago as it is today. People unable or refusing to pay their debts were imprisoned. Yet even age-old societies recognized that imposing perpetual debt on people was ridiculously harsh. These days, credit card companies charge 29% interest rates and somehow society goes along with that insanity. People with student loans to this point in time had no recourse but to pay the interest and hope someday to pay off some principal in the future.

All that student loan forgiveness tries to do is level the playing field somewhat. It is the closest thing to the "golden rule" we have in the financial world. It's the "do unto others as you would have people do unto you" moment that some people seem to find so offensive. Yet some of them are the biggest hypocrites of all. For example, Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene had an $180,000 PPP loan forgiven yet she's still mocking the idea that Americans with college loan debt should receive $10-$20,000 debt forgiveness.

Her attitude exemplifies the exact kind of selfishness and embitterment that Jesus most despised. His counsel to those with resentment in their hearts was always to forgive first. We need more leadership based on forgiveness in the United States of America. Instead we experience so many acts of retribution based on lies and tribal instincts that acts of forgiveness or compassion are buried under an avalanche of hateful language and cognitive dissonance. Forgiveness is the most honest action people can take because it requires a confession of one's own faults to acknowledge the legitimacy of faults in others. The people that whined and criticized the vineyard owner's judgment in paying the latecomers the same denarius for an hour's work is evidence of the self-inflicted disenfranchisement vexing Americans to this day. That is now how we Make America Great Again. It is how democracy gets dragged into the gutter and beaten to death.

When that happens, even a Good Samaritan may not be able to fix it all. That's what President Joe Biden is trying to do, but the priests of conservative propriety keep marching past on their way to the temple of self-aggrandizement.

Christopher Cudworth is the author of the new book Honest-To-Goodness: Why Christianity Needs A Reality Check and How to Make It Happen. It is now available on Amazon.com. https://tinyurl.com/2ydrvyrx