The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981) • Hacker News Board

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#61

Post by kileywm » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 6:45 PM UTC

crabasa wrote: post #56

slg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is much harder to get other forms of unsecured debt. An 18 year old with no job and no credit history is going to have a hard time getting a credit card with a $5k limit let alone a $100k loan. The lack of being able to discharge the loan in bankruptcy needs to go hand in hand with the guaranteed availability of the loan. Instead of changing one of those things, we are are better off coming up with a new syste…

> An 18 year old with no job and no credit history is going to have a hard time getting a credit card with a $5k limit Wow, citation please? Credit card companies set up pop-up stands and give away free t-shirts to students who apply for their credit cards. The VAST majority of the applications are happily approved. Update: excellent citation kileywm. I guess my perception was a bit dated.

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 [1] made it considerably more difficult for an 18 year old to get a credit card, but I should add that circumstances change when an 18 year old has a co-signer. At any rate, pop-up stands and such have been curtailed by this provision:

"(5) Eliminates excessive marketing to young people. Consumers under the age of 21 must prove that they have an independent income or get a co-signer before applying for a credit card. The Act also prevents credit card companies from mailing offers to consumers under 21 unless they "opt in," and prohibits companies from wooing students with T-shirts, free pizza and other free gifts at university-sponsored events."

As an anecdote, my experience (within the past decade) reflects the parent post's perception. My first credit card had a very low limit of [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#62

Post by rconti » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

crabasa wrote: post #56

slg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is much harder to get other forms of unsecured debt. An 18 year old with no job and no credit history is going to have a hard time getting a credit card with a $5k limit let alone a $100k loan. The lack of being able to discharge the loan in bankruptcy needs to go hand in hand with the guaranteed availability of the loan. Instead of changing one of those things, we are are better off coming up with a new syste…

> An 18 year old with no job and no credit history is going to have a hard time getting a credit card with a $5k limit Wow, citation please? Credit card companies set up pop-up stands and give away free t-shirts to students who apply for their credit cards. The VAST majority of the applications are happily approved. Update: excellent citation kileywm. I guess my perception was a bit dated.

Granted it was 15 years ago, but when I got my first credit card out of high school, the limit was $300.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#63

Post by rconti » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #15

jofer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the majority of public US institutions are similar in cost. The outlandish prices are either private schools or out-of-state tuition rates. It's been ten years, but my undergraduate tuition at a modestly well respected engineering-focused university was ~$2000-year. I think the rates at tech are now about $4000-year, but it's not too outrageous.

Honestly saying "just look at instate costs" is just as misleading. Restricting access to a quality education / future job options (depending on your field, etc) based on geography is one of the most telling failures of American Federalism. The sooner state schools are re-bundled into a federal program for affordable access to all Americans the better.

Saying it's a failure assumes/implies that we know which model is perfect, and that everyone can just agree to adopt it.

Which clearly isn't the case, or we wouldn't have such vastly different systems in different states.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#64

Post by dpark » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

wlucas wrote: post #37

What makes all the difference in the world now compared to the jaw-dropping prices in '81 is we have alternative education options. There were virtually no other paths to career success 30 years ago... heck... 15 years ago! A traditional path towards a degree was the only way to assure a positive career outlook. I don't think MOOCs are the panacea, but all types of learning resources (books, classes, organizations, e…

I feel like this is backwards. 30 years ago you could potentially work your way up the ladder without a degree. Now you need a degree to get a job working in a coffee shop, because college degrees are so ubiquitous that they've become a prerequisite for employment at many places.

Sure, you could do some learning on your own now, but you could also do that 30 years ago, and I'm not certain most employers are going to put much stock in self-directed education regardless, not when there are so many underemployed college grads available.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#65

Post by eanzenberg » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

crabasa wrote: post #10

cassieramen wrote: post #5

This article hints at schools inability to justify their ever increasing prices. Why is tuition continuing to rise so much faster than inflation? Is this simple supply and demand? Government backed loans create infinite supply to anyone who wants them? How can not for profit schools justify gauging their students?

1. Infinite supply of loans. Dept of Ed isn't even allowed to deny a loan to a person. 2. Culture since the Clinton era of "everyone should go to college". Massive cultural stigma for those who don't. 3. Colleges continue to justify costs based on lifetime earnings delta of people with degrees. Sadly, this data is backwards-looking and not indicative of what today's students should expect. The most heinous thing thou…

>> The gov't will give you a loan, without doing any diligence on your ability to repay, but make it impossible to discharge your debt if you go bankrupt.

No due diligence.. guaranteed loan.. cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Makes sense to me. If the gov't could discriminate on who it loans to for risk assessment then that's a different story.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#66

Post by Shivetya » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #65

crabasa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Infinite supply of loans. Dept of Ed isn't even allowed to deny a loan to a person. 2. Culture since the Clinton era of "everyone should go to college". Massive cultural stigma for those who don't. 3. Colleges continue to justify costs based on lifetime earnings delta of people with degrees. Sadly, this data is backwards-looking and not indicative of what today's students should expect. The most heinous thing thou…

>> The gov't will give you a loan, without doing any diligence on your ability to repay, but make it impossible to discharge your debt if you go bankrupt. No due diligence.. guaranteed loan.. cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Makes sense to me. If the gov't could discriminate on who it loans to for risk assessment then that's a different story.

that plus they don't necessarily restrict the loans with regards to the education you are receiving. it is one thing to go into a field that is experiencing good growth it is another to enter one that is saturated or quickly saturating.

It has always been my belief that if government is going to provide loans it should set limits on the cost of the education it is taking the risk for. It already sets limits on medical care through reimbursement rates, how hard would it be to limit course costs? The means test should be on what you are receiving, not necessarily who is receiving it.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#67

Post by S4M » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:28 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #63

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly saying "just look at instate costs" is just as misleading. Restricting access to a quality education / future job options (depending on your field, etc) based on geography is one of the most telling failures of American Federalism. The sooner state schools are re-bundled into a federal program for affordable access to all Americans the better.

Saying it's a failure assumes/implies that we know which model is perfect, and that everyone can just agree to adopt it. Which clearly isn't the case, or we wouldn't have such vastly different systems in different states.

We also have vastly different levels of social mobility in different states. Since access to quality education for the poorest and social mobility should be correlated, we could have some idea of what education model is the best, and my guess is that it will not be the one in the US.

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#68

Post by tzs » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

cassieramen wrote: post #5

This article hints at schools inability to justify their ever increasing prices. Why is tuition continuing to rise so much faster than inflation? Is this simple supply and demand? Government backed loans create infinite supply to anyone who wants them? How can not for profit schools justify gauging their students?

> Why is tuition continuing to rise so much faster than inflation? Is this simple supply and demand? Government backed loans create infinite supply to anyone who wants them?

I'm not convinced government backed loans have much to do with it. Here's a table comparing Stanford tuition growth to inflation over periods of 10 years.

Each row represents the 10 years ending in the year given in the first column. Second column is how much inflation multiplied prices over that 10 years. Third column is how much Stanford tuition multiplied over that 10 years. Final column is the ratio of the Stanford column and the inflation column.

   Year  Inflation Stanford    Ratio
   1930        0.8      2.5      3.0
   1940        0.8      1.2      1.4
   1950        1.7      1.9      1.1
   1960        1.2      1.5      1.2
   1970        1.3      2.4      1.8
   1980        2.1      2.6      1.2
   1990        1.6      2.3      1.4
   2000        1.3      1.7      1.3
   2010        1.3      1.6      1.3

Government backed student loans didn't really start taking off until the mid '60s, so maybe some of the Stanford spike in the 10 years ending in 1970 can be attributed to that, but after that it falls back to its "normal" faster-than-inflation rates.

It would be interesting to compare to other schools, in particular to other top private schools, top state schools, and other private and state schools, because it is quite possible that factors that can affect tuition affect it differently at different kinds of schools. My Googling only found sufficient historical tuition data for Stanford which is why that's the only one I was able to compare against inflation.

Inflation data: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in...

Stanford tuition data: http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#69

Post by ambicapter » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #46

moron4hire wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no, not exactly. If you're living at home, your parents are paying for your housing. It's money that is already getting spent. If you have to live in the dorms, your parents don't get a break on their mortgage or rent because you moved out. If your parents are helping you out, they now have their own rent to pay, plus a new rent for you, where before they essentially got "your" rent "for free". Similarly, addin…

The main point I was making, is it's unreasonable to complain about high student debt when majority of it is living expenses. People often complain about the high cost of attending university, but don't differentiate between tuition fees and living expenses, often lumping them together to reach a seemingly egregious yearly tab. It's not so egregious when you examine where the money is going... You would have spent ne…

So you're saying people who go to college shouldn't expect to have time to study?

Re: The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981)

#70

Post by trentbigelow » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 7:38 PM UTC

If you're looking for a legit degree for around or under $10,000 check out International Programmes at University of London. There's even some undergraduate degrees from the LSE you can take remotely. http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/search/?solrsor...