Ever since Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) revealed her plan to forgive student debt and make public universities free on Monday morning, the internet has been a carnival of bad faith, magical thinking and misinformation about the nature of college costs in the United States. “I don’t know if people are aware of this but you could just not attend a college you can’t afford,” said GQ staffer Joel Pavelski in a widely dunked-upon tweet. “I made sacrifices to graduate with no debt and that it is 100% possible if you make some compromises,” he added later in a non-correction correction. Others made the baffling argument that forgiving America’s current $1.5 trillion in student debt would diminish the achievement of people who already paid theirs off. Before we get to work dispensing these arguments, it’s important to acknowledge that they are, on some level, understandable. A lot of Americans, especially those who got their bachelor’s degree before the early 2000s, find it baffling that younger generations can’t work their way through college. If the costs are so immense and the debt is so burdensome, why can’t young people simply choose not to attend college at all? The answer is that for young Americans, skipping college or working your way through it are both much less viable options than they used to be. Over the last 20 years, getting a bachelor’s degree has become more essential than ever. College-educated workers earn more than twice as much as high school graduates. Last year, nine out of 10 new jobs went to workers with university diplomas. From unemployment to job security to workplace benefits, the gap between college-educated and non-college-educated workers is wide and growing.

ASSOCIATED PRESS On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposed a plan to cancel current student debt and make public college free.