<why fix="" anything="" when="" instead="" we="" can="" just="" let="" people="" learn="" they’re="" screwed?="">
You can’t fix everyone’s stupidity. Unless you want to live an overregulated society without free will.
@californiaaa: Our only two options are a complete reformation of human nature or a complete automation of human society. Warning to all other countries with subsidized higher education: prepare to welcome your machine overlords!
@ Demosthenes49
All other countries with subsidized higher education have:
- Merit-based admission (college is not for everyone, but for the intellectual elite)
- Little amenities, poor dorms, no campus life (in the American sense of it)
- No sport teams / sport events /professional-level college football / large athletic facilities
- Little counseling / administration / cultural awareness training / mental health counseling / campus police / liability insurances, etc.
- No liberal arts colleges. No women colleges. No degrees in Ethnic/Gender studies.
As a result, high education in Europe is 5 times cheaper than in US. In Eastern Europe and China, it is, probably, 20 times cheaper than in US. College education around the world costs significantly cheaper than K-12 education in USA, per student, per year.
It is not sustainable to have American education for free.
@ Demosthenes49
American college is like a super-exclusive, 10-star, all-you-can-eat-and-drink resort. Why should working adults pay taxes to make sure that young adults have fun, fun, fun, at someone else’s expense? These spoiled millennial generation shall work, work, work - to learn the value of money.
@californiaaa: “How could you think going to college was worth it?!”
I went to college for free. My parents paid something, but very little. I lived in home to save money. Commuted by public transportation. Never had a car. Never though that I am entitled to have a car, dorm life, and expensive parties.
Cali-thanks for giving us a textbook case of schadenfreude. Who says we Americans are incapable of learning-just visit CC!
Schadenfreude? Wow! I had to google this word.
Some people learn from their mistakes, some people learn from mistakes of the others. Some people make a business on people’s mistakes (Wall Street, Trump University, subprime mortgage industry, title lenders, etc.) I think that it is useful to 1)learn math 2)have some common sense, and 3)remember that free cheese is in the mousetrap.
As Demo has pointed out, there is an inordinate societal push for all students to go to college, which is just a terrible idea. Some kids just aren’t suited for college and have the skills and interest to succeed in other areas, if given the support. But the support just isn’t there-perhaps your experience is different from mine, but I can’t remember the last time someone told me their kid was going to be an electrician.
More specifically, here are some areas of study-law is one-that for years students took out loans because they were given false numbers regarding employment prospects. If you’re going to make big $$$ upon graduation, it makes sense to borrow money. But if people in positions of authority provide fake statistics, then who is to blame?
And don’t get too smug about the free cheese-who do you think is funding this whole mess? Here’s a big clue-you are. This is a perfect example of your tax dollars at work.
<and don’t="" get="" too="" smug="" about="" the="" free="" cheese-who="" do="" you="" think="" is="" funding="" this="" whole="" mess?="" here’s="" a="" big="" clue-you="" are.="" perfect="" example="" of="" your="" tax="" dollars="" at="" work.="">
I agree. And some people are making lots of money on this bubble. Lots of $$$$$. It is a bubble.
<more specifically,="" here="" are="" some="" areas="" of="" study-law="" is="" one-that="" for="" years="" students="" took="" out="" loans="" because="" they="" were="" given="" false="" numbers="" regarding="" employment="" prospects.="" if="" you’re="" going="" to="" make="" big="" $$$="" upon="" graduation,="" it="" makes="" sense="" borrow="" money.="" but="" people="" in="" positions="" authority="" provide="" fake="" statistics,="" then="" who="" blame?="">
Again, agree. It is an oversupply of recent law school graduates now. Our new secretary is a graduate from a third-tier local law school (not accredited by ABA!). Hopefully, this madness would be resolved soon.
Work at a nonprofit hospital for 10 years and the balance will be forgiven.
^ Or take an HPSP scholarship, do 4 years of payback (as a physicisn) either post med school or post residency with the military, and walk away debt free.
I think the federal student loan program should just be the Stafford loan. No Perkins, no private loans guaranteed by the government, no way to get to $50k or $100k or $180k. Will that mean that some students will not get to go to sleep away college, to a private school, to OOS publics? Yes it will. Martin O’Malley’s (governor of Maryland) children would not have suffered if they had had to go to college in Maryland and he wasn’t able to borrow $350k to send the to OOS and private schools. Almost every state has a college or program that a student can attend by taking the Stafford loans (maybe raised to $10k per year). If the student needs to go part time or do college like a co-op program with a semester on/a semester off, so be it. It’s not like when we were young and you could work your way through college, but it can be done if you take longer to get through, if you pick cheaper schools, if your parents have saved some.
Yep, Nanny State. We’ve proven that not all can be trusted to borrow reasonably or responsibly, so why should tax payer supported programs continue? Rich people or those who have saved will have more choices than others, just like those same people can choose to live in better school districts or nicer houses, drive better cars, take better vacations.
@californiaaa: I’m getting bored making fun of your arguments so here’s a real post: Why should taxpayers subsidize college? Because it’s in their best interests.
College-educated students make more money and compete more effectively internationally. That’s even with the increase in supply of grads. Making more money means more tax revenues. College grads are also safer to be around, because just graduating from college makes one less likely to engage in violent crime. Worried about retirement? Well that disposable income those new college grads have (and that they’ll still have in their prime working years) will not only fund their own retirements but also prop up social security for a few more years. Extra dollars means more home purchases. That keeps values high, and since home values are still the #1 way Americans build wealth that’s kind of a big deal. Sounds pretty good to me.
^Yeah, I was coming to say this.
Even if a person has no level of personal sympathy for a person who has borrowed too much for college - or for a generation of college-educated people who are saddled with debt - a sense of self-preservation should be activated when thinking about the practical aspects of…well, an entire generation of college-educated people saddled with debt.
Sure, the average loan debt of a college graduate is closer to $28,000, and those with big debt are actually outliers (particularly if they only have a BA). Still, a debt burden of $28,000 over 10 years is still payment of $322 a month, which is not an insignificant sum. A college graduate making less than $40K a year is going to struggle to make those payments. They may get income-based repayment, but that’s only going to extend the years they spend paying off their student loans.
And college graduates with debt make other economic decisions based on their debt repayments - how much house to buy, whether to own two cars, what appliances to buy, whether to eat out or not, etc. I’m in that generation that owes a lot of money; my friends are mostly graduate-educated folks but they owe a lot. (Case in point, I owe about $35,000 total and my loan debt is considered a drop in the bucket to my friends, to the point that I don’t even join in loan debt conversations.) Home-buying is delayed; having children is delayed; people save less for retirement; I have friends who chose public service jobs and refuse to leave the sector so they can get the loan forgiveness, etc.
That impacts the WHOLE economy. We already have auto companies wringing their hands because millennials don’t buy cars and construction companies wondering why millennials don’t buy homes. The average age of home-buying is already between 32 and 34, higher in some areas. (Interesting Atlantic article about this: [here](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/what-will-it-take-for-millennials-to-become-homeowners/381730/)).
Insisting that high school students just ‘learn about compound interests’ and make better choices doesn’t help; a HS student doesn’t know that they need to know about these things unless someone tells them they do. I only knew about it because my calculus teacher decided to spend a day on compound interest instead of what he originally had planned - I think because he overheard one of us talking nonsense about student loans or investments or something (or maybe someone asked him a clueless question). So many public schools are struggling just to teach students the basics with the barebones funding, high-stakes testing and political backbiting they already have to deal with.
Like it or not, the USA is now a consumer driven economy, so it’s in all our collective interest to keep people out of massive debt so they can spend spend spend. With debt like this, they can’t do the spending that is the vehicle for economic growth.
That said, how did this mess occur? Yes, the borrowers need to take more responsibility for understanding exactly what a loan is-in other words, you are obligated to pay it back.
But there also needs to be a shift from the pervasive thinking that everyone needs to go to college. Fair or not, many attend college because they’ve been told that’s what everyone does-almost equivalent to getting a driver license. But a college degree, in and of itself, isn’t a license for anything. The economy no longer offers jobs to applicants just because they have a degree. That may not be fair, but that’s the reality. Many of the debtors are now highly educated individuals with skills applicable to only a small number of jobs.
Moral hazard. The feds guaranteeing (+no bk) for loans to teenagers, some of whom have never had a paycheck in their lives.
So, the government made easy money available. The easy money drove up the number of interested customers (a portion of which should not have qualified for the product to begin with), the influx of customers drove up the cost of the product. And the originator of the problem is making 20% on their investment. Not a bad deal if you can get on that band wagon.
TBF, that is planned since the ‘profit’ from the loan program goes to offset the costs of Pell. (Not saying that is the correct public policy, but just to clarify that the ‘astonishing’ profit is: a) planned; b) not astonishing.)
The level of money owed by the non-outliers is not that different from when I was a student, as a proportion of salary. I graduated with 5000 in debt, and took an 8000/yr job. In 1980. 7% interest.
I disagree mightily with med students needing repayment done for them. My S’s friend graduated med school with an enormous debt. His first year salary is the same enormous amount. He figures if he lives frugally for a couple years, he’ll have it paid off.
By the time my H finished residency about 25 years ago, we had a six-figure debt. Interest rates ranging from 7% to 14%, depending on the loans. We paid them off, finished shortly before the kids started college. I can’t imagine why it would be someone else’s job to do that. He did, by the way, work in non-profit medicine, but that was before loan forgiveness for it. Which was fine–that’s not why he worked there.
Overall, I’m not saying there isn’t a loan problem, but the parameters are distorted by the media, and the idea that loans are a new thing is just wrong.