<p>Odd that Ashland can afford to do that since they are among the institutions awarded a ‘D’ for financial health in the study referenced in Forbes.</p>
<p>"(Actually, some undergrad business majors would be better off financially training to be a plumber or electrician.)’</p>
<p>One of my neighbours is a Business major from a good college. After about 10 years of working for others, he went to CC and got certified in Plumbing and heating. Now he rakes it in owning his own AC installation and repair business with about 60 employees.</p>
<p>snapdragon wrote</p>
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<p>I’m sorry but you’re woefully ignorant on this. The way a loan works, you lend out money now, and get it back later. The money is already GONE. When you give the accounts off to debt collectors, you typically sell the accounts for ~30% of the amount owed. A default event (includes deferments and delays in payments) is always a credit negative.</p>
<p>The government accounting counts the ‘fees’ it charges that it rolls into the loan as income immediately. No other company in the world is allowed to do this on any other loan on the planet (FAS 91 if you’re interested). This is because the ‘income’ has not and may not ever materialize.</p>
<p>Second, the govt puts away ZERO for ‘allowance for loan losses’ when it has SEISMIC losses on this portfolio especially considering the losses. I don’t think they even have to take off the (MASSIVE) % they lose when the accounts are sent to debt collectors.</p>
<p>Third, they dont net out overhead costs at administrating these loans nor net out a cost of funds.</p>
<p>Basically their ‘profit’ that they report is just flat REVENUE, and even thats overstated. It’s the same ignorance of accounting that makes people complain about ‘companies making billions of dollars’ when they dont understand theres a minus column.</p>
<p>It is 100% false from any rationale accounting view. All of the GSE’s collapsed like a house of cards at the first downturn for a reason.</p>
<p>Rexximus is correct that the government is losing money on student loans.</p>
<p>[Review</a> & Outlook: The Rolling Student Loan Bailout
Wall Street Journal
August 10, 2013](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323968704578652291680883634.html]Review”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323968704578652291680883634.html)
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<p>I wonder if the marriage market partially explains this. Other things being equal, men would like to marry women who earn more than less, but do male college graduates prefer higher-earning blue-collar non-college women to lower-earning college graduate women?</p>
<p>I think educated, high-earning men may prefer the college graduates, because they
(1) are smarter on average and will tend to have smarter children
(2) are better qualified to be Tiger Mothers
(3) are more presentable to colleagues
(4) have more interests in common with them.</p>
<p>Having your daughter get a BA will increase her chances of marrying well (or at all).</p>
<p>Why would you assume well educated men are looking to marry women who will make good Tiger Mothers? Your personal taste preferences for Mrs B are not universal.</p>
<p>And Tiger Mothers don’t “present well” to fellow executive / professional colleagues, at all. If anything, they’d be secretly snickered at.</p>
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<p>True, but they are not unique, either. The Tiger Mother herself noted in her book that in her circle of academics, there was a pattern of Jewish men marrying Asian women. Maybe the men were applying my logic, even if they never articulated it.</p>
<p>Given that there are more females than males in college, one could argue that “having your son get a BA will increase his chances of marrying well (or at all).” </p>
<p>One of my relatives, an accomplished woodworker, taught middle school wood shop for many, many years. He would complain about how some of his best, most talented students–male and female–wouldn’t continue with shop classes because they were headed to college. All of my relative’s children went to college, were encouraged to go to college by their parents…but I think he’d have been delighted to see any of them in skilled trades.</p>
<p>Humm, the cost of bread is rising because people now tend to pay for their groceries with a credit card. Since some ultimately default on their payments, the increase of the cost of bread can be traced to the “subsidy” and the availability of debt. </p>
<p>While that might be intellectually convenient, there is a very different and … inconvenient truth. Education costs so much because few sectors are more prone to waste and inefficient use of resources to be combined with plenty of sinecures and low demands on production. The only sector that might have a worse record is the government itself. </p>
<p>After allowing the rampant inflation in expenses AND benefits go unfettered for generations, we are NOW hitting the alarm bell. Trying to undo the vested benefits given to educators and education adminstrators is beyond hope. We will have to keep paying them more and for less and less work. And that is because the service providers do control the education system by corruption and cronyism. </p>
<p>And it will get worse until a total collapse of the funding of our education system becomes inevitable.</p>
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<p>There has been change, if not net progress. Administrators are replacing tenured faculty positions with contingent ones by not filling tenured positions as they become vacant, but the cost savings of doing this have been absorbed by the growing number of administrators.</p>
<p>xiggi, while I agree with your sentiment, I did want to address one inaccuracy in your post</p>
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<p>The grocer does not assume any of the credit risk associated with the payment from the credit card, so this is not a reason for rising food prices. And if they did, in a functioning credit portfolio, this would actually <em>lower</em> the cost of the bread as they’d be making money on their financing arm. Credit cards ultimately cost a little less than cash to process as a % of sales so these aren’t a real reason for the recent food inflation.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I think I forgot a few words after my example. I mention it was intellectually convenient but forgot the most important part … it is intellectually bankrupt. To be clear, I wanted to show how silly it was to blame the availability of “free money” and the willingness of people to borrow for the … cost increases.</p>
<p>Understandable. The caveat is that credit cards are a form of credit that’s actually done correctly- Lenders take losses and borrowers pay market set interest rate fees and bankruptcy wipes the slate clean.</p>
<p>However, like student loans, credit cards give someone the ability to get themselves in a pickle. But that’s on the lender when they ultimately default instead of the taxpayer like now with student loans and mortgages.</p>