何不全免美国大学生助学贷款？智库算了一笔经济账

承诺免除大学生学费成为近来政界的热门话题。可是，美国约有4500万人已经借了1.5万亿美元的贷款，要怎么处理？如果将过往债务一笔勾销，结果会怎样？

美国智库巴德学院列维经济研究所的一项研究估算，若免除所有学生债务，真实GDP每年的增加值最多可达1080亿美元，因为在数百万的负债家庭里，学生债务每月的平均成本为393美元，如果无需纳税，免除的债务可用作消费。

该研究假设里，若学生无需偿还助学贷款，美国联邦政府将全额补偿私营贷款机构。而实际上就是学生贷款最大的债权人就是政府，未清偿学生贷款有超过70%都是政府的应收帐款。这意味着，从预算的角度看，免除债务的成本非常低。算上损失的利息和补偿私营贷款机构的支出，政府一年的成本约为1450亿美元。这笔钱不算少，但如果国会希望给债务负担越发沉重的美国人送上一份1.5万亿美元的大礼，免去学生贷款是性价比最高的方式。（财富中文网)

本文刊发于2018年9月1日期《财富》杂志，原文标题为《大学免费》。

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

PROMISES of a debt-free college degree are all the rage among politicians these days, but what about the 45 million Americans who have already borrowed $1.5 trillion to finance their education? What would happen if we canceled that debt?

According to a study by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, canceling student debt would boost real GDP by upwards of $108 billion per year, as millions of indebted families would be able to spend the $393 a month that the average student debt costs (assuming the benefit is not taxed).

The study assumes that the federal government would fully compensate private lenders. But the largest holder of the student loan debt is the government itself, which owns more than 70% of outstanding obligations. That means that debt cancellation would be surprisingly cheap in budgetary terms—around $145 billion a year to the deficit from forgone interest payments and the cost of compensating private lenders. This isn’t chump change, but it’s one of the more cost-effective ways Congress could give a $1.5 trillion gift to the increasingly indebted American people.

A version of this article appears in the September 1, 2018 issue of Fortune with the headline “Free Degrees.”