Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall.
NYU is spending $1 million to combat student hunger.
This is a school that is often cited by CC posters as a school that doesn’t provide adequate financial aid. Until families choose more affordable schools instead of borrowing to attend, their board of governors will see no need to increase financial aid. People need to learn to say, “No, thank you.”
See if this works.
It’s a recurring theme. It’s disappointing that both the universities and the individual industries seem to be contributing to this unfortunate situation. Does one really need to spend close to $200,000 on a masters in film? What job required that degree and how was the expected salary an unknown?
Seems similar to the criticism mentioned in Criticism against many professional master's degree programs
Yes, both discussing grad students and both in NYC. Not much progress being made it seems. Easy money is hard to pass up.
The article discussing the history and regulation/deregulation of online degrees was both enlightening and disheartening.
Should be a non-paywall link.
Pretty damning article, by the way.
Indicts NYUs treatment of undergrads as well - not just grad students.
I can’t give you a $300 credit limit on a credit card without showing that you have the ability to repay it. This is a lender/borrower problem not a university problem.
Many to blame, but certainly universities feel empowered to raise prices as much as they want, secure in the knowledge that borrowers are given ample rope by lenders to hang themselves with, with no hope of getting out from under it.
Parents need to be adults and tell their kids no. There are lots of people who can afford to attend - I know a billionaire whose kid is there. The school can charge all it wants. The problem is that people who can’t afford it still sign on. If they stop, the school will either have a pretty homogeneous population of students or they will realize that they have to provide financial assistance to those who can’t afford it in order to have a more diverse class. If their hand isn’t forced, we’ll never know whether or not they will decide to provide more assistance. But saying no is something that adults must help their children do. We shouldn’t allow our children to do things that will hurt them - including borrowing ridiculous amounts of money when it’s possible to get a college education for less.
The thing is, the children aren’t the ones borrowing ridiculous amounts of money - it’s the parents, via Parent Plus loans. Should grown adults know better, of course they should.
But there are all kinds of guardrails out there to prevent us, the adults, from doing stupid things elsewhere. Nobody lets us borrow a million dollars for a mortgage when our salary is $40k. Nobody at Visa gives us a $50k credit limit with a $20k income and late payments on our credit report.
But schools are complicit in encouraging this behavior – y’all must have seen these college invoices, where a Parent Plus loan of $35k is down there in the “financial aid” section, a line item right under Pell Grant.
There are so many adults who are ignorant of these sleazy tactics. And lenders are happy to facilitate it because they know there’s no risk to them.
I will try not to get political here – I blame both parties, but especially Biden when he was a senator - he stood with Republicans in 2005 who removed bankruptcy as an option for discharging student loan debt. That’s when student loan debt ballooned by $100 billion in 10 years, when lenders happily opened up the money pool to people who had no business getting qualified for loans, and to people that they would not give money under other circumstances. “Oh, you want a mortgage for your house? No, sorry, you don’t qualify. But here, take this $200,000 check for your kid’s degree in underwater basketweaving. It’s fine, we don’t care.”
Ugh, I see red every time I talk about it.
The problem is you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Ordinarily unsecured loans have much higher interest rates because they are significantly more risky for the lender. Borrowers/credit card holders CAN discharge that debt via bankruptcy. Banks end up holding the bag with no collateral.
Student loan interest rates are very low for unsecured debt. However, you want cheap money that is easily lent to everyone AND to allow those same borrowers to discharge the loans in bankruptcy. Why would lenders participate at that point. Zero upside for them.
If lenders even agree to continue lending to students/parents the result will be higher interest rates with more stringent borrower requirements. Then people will complain that students are being kept from attaining a college education because they can’t borrower the money.
The government needs to turn off the spigot.
Are we talking about the same thing? Yes, federal student loan rates are low. Students’ ability to borrow is capped at $27k for undergrad. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m fine with the way that is set up. There is no spigot. Students need to repay that debt. We’re on the same page here, I think.
But for Parent Plus loans, I do think lenders need to tighten their restrictions. One way to do that is for govt. to reinstate the ability to discharge the debt in bankruptcy. That would force lenders to do their fiduciary duty and only lend to folks who could repay. Like they do with every other financial product they offer.
Then the student loan gravy train would end and colleges would have to reassess their financial expectations and strategies. This would not be a bad thing.
Many adults borrow Plus loans responsibly, and for so many, they are the only way the parents can afford to send their child to school. To remove this option will remove one of the very few ways poor people have of paying for school. I worked at an urban public university, and families had to borrow Plus loans to afford tuition (just tuition - and maybe a bus pass & books). I don’t believe in making it even harder for these families to pay for their child’s schooling. I do, however, have an issue with anyone encouraging more borrowing than necessary. That includes school personnel, high school counselors, friends, people on college forums. It’s hard to figure out how to provide access to quality education at an affordable price, and we have a long way to go. But loans are a necessary component of financial aid for many.
Online courses and degrees should be much more cost efficient than on-campus residential courses & degrees, therefore, the need to borrow should be greatly reduced.