>> life is better for each successive generation

> It's not clear that this actually happened.

i'll accept that, in the context of higher-ed. so the path forward? break this trend. address the structural issues which are causing higher education to become less affordable to each successive generation. of the (false or real) dichotomy in "why not both [decrease tuition and forgive outstanding loans]", escaping the cycle is the more substantial component.

so, "why not both"? treat the two propositions as perpendicular: reducing tuition benefits many future generations; forgiving loans -- if tuition is really being reduced -- benefits only the one generation.

assume tuition has been reduced. on what grounds should we then decide to forgive outstanding loans? i read you as presenting something of a justice, or outcome-based argument. like, "we should direct resources to the previous generation because they got a raw deal in comparison to the earlier generation and (if things go well) the future generation." if this comes at the expense of the surrounding generations, then i don't take this fore-granted. i take the view that investment between generations (loosely: the middle-aged investing in the youth, and the youth being indebted to that generation as they age) should remain more or less constant. i don't believe that any one generation having a bad outcome makes it right for them to place a debt on the following generation.

so this "debt" claim: if we "forgive" the previous generation's loans, what does that mean for the next generation? it's effectively socializing the debt: moving it off the individuals and onto the country. the country gets less revenue into the future, which means higher deficit and funds need to be raised elsewhere into the future (i.e. taxing future generations more).

then what approaches do we have to right things for the previous generation of graduates without indebting the future generation? we would need a wealth transfer either from (a) the generation who was in power during the tuition increases or (b) an intra-generational transfer strictly within the generation which got a raw deal. (a) is risky because it disrupts retirement details for that older generation. (b) misses the point that the bad tuition policies had widespread effects within this generation that's experienced them. John's federal loan increased Mary's out-of-pocket tuition cost. now you want Mary to compensate John for that? and you want those that didn't even attend school to shoulder this? how is that fair?

who, ultimately, benefited because of the increased tuition costs? where did that money go? much of the increased tuition that John and Mary both paid went into university endowments. if it's right to compensate John for the raw deal he got, the least-bad place to raise those funds is from the university endowments. these endowments are often rationalized as being the funding source for future students -- though in practice this is dubious. so, force these endowments to actually be used to decrease tuition for the future generations. having done that, i'll grant that whatever excess these endowments have beyond what's necessary to fund future generations could fairly be redirected to paying down the loans of previous students.

> Why not both? If it's admitted that tuition is too high — "pressure universities to fund tuition via their endowments" — then doesn't refusing to forgive loans entail refusing to help the students who suffered from tuition being too high?

alright, we can do both. but where the money comes from matters, as does the ordering. intra-generational transfers don't make sense because the harm was widespread. and we can't take more from the future generation to make up for mistakes of the past. if you want both, you have to thread this needle (i hope these endowments are large enough).

apologies for the long comment. you seem engaged in this issue (i appreciate that), so i hope it was worth the time to read.