And not everyone has been paying attention to how many working-class Americans are now saying college isn't worth the price. https://twitter.com/williamrblack/status/1328518211202142208

This is the key thing, actually, and it's why I've tried not to get drawn into the conversation until I'm ready: Any debt forgiveness *must* be linked with measures to reduce the price of college in the future as well.

To talk about debt forgiveness in isolation is to aid the political cynics in making their bad-faith arguments ginning up resentment.

But as I've said before: The skyrocketing cost of college in America is an existential threat to higher education as we've known it since World War II. Not only because it's less affordable but also because it's turning the public against college as a matter of principle.

A lot of upper-middle-class Americans don't realize how hard this turn against higher education has been. They're about to be blindsided by a major cultural shift if nothing about the pricing structure of higher education changes.

By the way, when I've had this conversation with college-educated centrists, they typically respond with either "but nobody pays the sticker price" or "but free college would ruin my expensive private college." In contrast, the right and the left both understand what's at stake.

(Obviously, other people may have had other experiences in their conversations.)

This shift is also happening for some richer Americans who identify with the working class, by the way. In my local school board elections this year, a slate of candidates ran on the platform that public schools in this rich white suburb are too college-preparatory.

I'm now getting a number of "but how can Biden anything about the cost of college through executive action?" replies.

For the purposes of this thread, I don't care. Specific policies are not the point. The point here is about how the public conversation must be framed.

(Also, if you've followed this account for a long time, you know that unilateral presidential action is almost never the way to win my affection.)