So we should just validate poor financial planning decisions?

What about those who thought ahead and purposefully chose a school which was local, more affordable, and offered degrees with a high return on your investment?

Let's imagine someone who studied Computer Science at an affordable in-state public university. This person would graduate with a reasonable amount of debt. With such a degree this person could get a well paying job rather easily in the current job market and be expected to make far more than necessary to service their debt.

Then imagine another person who went to an expensive private University which was perhaps also located in a region with extremely high costs of living added in. Say this person graduated with a degree in Sociology. Not only are they going to be paid less than their counterpart who went to a cheaper school, but they will also be paid significantly less due to their choice of degree. This person will obviously have a much higher amount of debt.

Now if, like in Senator Warren's plan, up to $50,000 in debt is forgiven then this drastically benefits the latter person. The first person probably doesn't even have that much debt. And if they are a few years out of college they may be close to fully paying it off. While in the same amount of time our sociologist is exponentially behind by comparison due to a larger starting debt and lower starting salary.

Is it fair to reward someone who made poor financial decisions with a financial windfall while giving no benefit to those who did plan ahead? You can't just expect to solve the problem of systemic bad choices in financial planning by giving money to those who are the worst offenders.