Page 10 - BusinessWest September 5, 2022

Editorial
Canceling Loans Isn’t the Answer
BusinessWest
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It’s easy to find reason behind the Biden administration’s decision to cancel up to $20,000 in federal stu-
dent loan debt for tens of millions of bor- rowers.
Indeed, the amount of overall student debt has skyrocketed in recent years, and many individuals and families are pay- ing off amounts of $40,000 or more — and struggling, often mightily — to do so.
Student loan debt has been cited as a reason why many young professionals are unable to buy homes and achieve the life- style they had envisioned when they went to college and pursued a career.
But the administration’s plan to sim- ply cancel large swaths of this debt is not the answer to this growing problem. It is costly (we don’t even know how much this is going to cost the taxpayers), arbitrary, and, yes, inherently unfair to those who have already paid off college loans, worked
Opinion
two or three jobs so they wouldn’t have to take on debt, or opted not to go to college because they couldn’t afford it.
But beyond that, this plan to simply take debt off the books is a simplistic approach to a problem that you can equate, in some respects, to a backyard weed. You can cut
it down, like the Biden administration is doing by erasing some of this debt, but to really address the problem, you need to get at the roots.
And this will require a solution that is far more complicated than simply forgiving $10,000 or $20,000 in college-loan debt.
The cost of a college education has skyrocketed over the past few decades, far accelerating the pace of inflation. It is these spiraling costs that need to be brought under control.
Increasingly, a college education is nec- essary to thrive in today’s technology-driv- en economy. But the cost of that education
— at most all institutions, but especially private, four-year colleges and universities — is now more than most individuals and families can handle — unless they assume large amounts of debt to close the gap between the cost and what they can afford.
The challenge for the Biden administra- tion is to tackle this problem at the roots, to somehow control and perhaps even bring down the cost of a college education so that individuals and families don’t have to take on debt. That’s a big challenge and there are no easy answers.
But that answer will be a better, more meaningful solution than waving one’s hand and simply eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars in loan payments at tax- payers’ expense.
That’s because the weed is going to grow back. v
TReflecting on the Big Picture
he scaffolding has come down from the five-story wall on Worthington Street facing Stearns Square after a lengthy process of res-
toration and completion of a new mural undertaken by artist John Simpson.
So now, people can see what they have. And what have is much more than art, although it is certainly that.
It is bridge from the past to the present — and the future — as a well as a conversation piece and another important effort to ‘activate’ property in the City of Homes, and especially in its downtown.
We’re seeing that word ‘activate’ quite a bit lately in reference to downtown properties — everything from
the old Court Square Hotel, now being renovated into apartments, to the parking lot adjacent to the soon- to-be-demolished and replaced Civic Center Parking
Garage (that property will become an extension of the MassMutual Center and used for various gatherings).
It’s also been used to describe restoration work at Stea-
rns Square, Pynchon Park, the riverfront, and other landmarks.
Overall, it is used to describe efforts to take something that was once dormant, or underutilized, and bring it back to useful life.
It’s understandable that the phrase would be used in refer- ence to buildings or parks or even vacant lots. But a wall — in this case, the east wall of the Driscoll Building, built in 1894 and on the National Register of Historic Places?
Yes, a wall.
The wall has been there for 125 years or so, and the advertise- ments for cameras and related equipment that adorned the wall and sold by the company, Bloom’s, which occupied the structure, have been there for nearly 70 years. But they had become faded and easy to overlook.
Now, the wall is impossible to overlook. It features those same
ads, carefully restored to what they were in the 1950s, as well as other images depicting people, businesses, products, and culture that help tell the story of Springfield — everything from a Dr. Seuss book to an Indian motocycle to a depiction of Milton Bradley.
In short, the wall is no longer a wall. It’s a piece of art, but it’s more than that. It’s a window to the past and a vibrant, colorful part of the present and future of the city. It’s also an attraction. People stop, they look, they take pictures, and they marvel at what once was — and still is. You don’t often see 50-foot-high ads for camera equipment.
Even more importantly, this wall is another piece of the city that has been activated, or given a new life. With each triumph like this — and it is a triumph — Springfield takes another important step forward in its efforts to become more vibrant and more livable. v
10 SEPTEMBER 5, 2022
OPINION
BusinessWest