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

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by Alupis »

moron4hire wrote: post #118
Alupis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly possible to work while attending university. I did it...

Good for you. I had to quit working in my second year to be able to have enough time to study as much as I needed.

I think I understand the point you're raising - students should focus on school-work and not have to worry about working to pay bills.

I would disagree, however.

> I had to quit working in my second year to be able to have enough time to study as much as I needed.

Wrong, you chose to prioritize school over working (and I presume the resulting outcome was more student debt to continue paying for your expenses).

You didn't have to quit working, you chose to. You could have easily reached an equilibrium between work and school by reducing your classload, and continuing to work. School would have taken longer, but you would have less debt (and I'd argue you'd be a better workforce candidate after graduating).

Getting back to the main point, if you decide not to work and pay your living expenses yourself, then you will need to either borrow that same money (in a loan for example), or get a relative to pay your way for you. It's the same dollars at the end, it just matters how you obtained them.

So when people complain about very high school fees, and it breaks down to 60-80%+ are normal living expenses, it's tough to find sympathy. The only real way to get rid of those fees entirely is to have the Tax Payer foot them for you (and now we're back to just moving numbers around to wind up with the same exact dollars spent on living expenses). Somebody's got to pay for it.

Further, I would argue students who work while attending university gain invaluable experiences that a normal "professional student" would not be exposed to. Working with others in a true team environment, typical interactions in an office, exposure to "real" work in industry, "real" consequences for missing an assignment or due date, etc. It matures the individual a great deal - where-as a typical "professional student" graduates with none of these experiences, then spends 1-3 years in industry having to learn them before becoming truly productive and valuable to their company.

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

#122

Post by zo1 »

jenshoop wrote: post #23
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…

Spot on. There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up cost. (Separately, let's not forget about the chaos of the educational publishing industry and the insane price points they command for modestly updated editions each year.) But I think items 1 and 2 above -- and a lack of education about what loans are and th…

>"There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up cost."

That was my impression of University/College. Having only experienced what was shown in movies and the media, I was under the impression that college meant getting your own "apartment with a roommate". Unfortunately, in the non-US university I attended, it meant "4x6" meter room, two beds, two cupboards, two desks, and two-roommates.

Then again, the entire year's tuition did only cost about $3500, about 9 years ago.

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

#124

Post by zo1 »

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.

>"If the gov't could discriminate on who it loans to for risk assessment then that's a different story. "

If they could, they wouldn't be allowed to. As soon as a hint of racial/sexual/anything disparity is shown in who is getting the loans, there would be a massive uproar to "incentivise" the non-proportionately-represented class with loans. Then you're back to square one, as the loan process is then "not" to be used as a corrective measure for society's ills.

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

#125

Post by 1812Overture »

Classic case of Baumol's Cost Disease. The core of a university education is still sitting in a room writing down what a professor says. This hasn't changed in more than a thousand years. It hasn't gotten more efficient while just about everything else has, increasing its relative cost. Unlimited easy loans have allowed the problem to spiral out of control by preventing economic forces from forcing innovation and increases in efficiency.

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

#126

Post by kuschku »

jimbokun wrote: post #115
kuschku wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, it’s simple: 1. If your parents earn enough to finance you studying, you won’t get a loan 2. The loan is limited to 800$ a month 3. If you fail too many courses, the loan is cancelled. But: 4. You only have to pay back in months in which you earn over 30k€ per year This allows the loans to be a lot less risky. I’d argue this is a much better system than what I read about the US tuition system, especially…

"I’d argue this is a much better system than what I read about the US tuition system, especially for the students." As an American, it would be difficult to engineer a worse tuition system than ours.

That’s not really true. You have student loans and state colleges – two very useful tools which make a college education possible for many poor people, too.

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

#127

Post by thedufer »

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.

When I was 21 I was only able to get a secured credit card. That didn't change until I got a full time job. I would've loved to know where I could get something better; I just wanted something low limit to build my credit score without tying up $1k (a lot for a college student).

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

#128

Post by nommm-nommm »

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.

Thats not legal anymore. Its no longer legal to advertise credit cards on college campuses.

My first credit card as a student came with a $500 credit limit for what its worth. I wasn't able to get a $5k limit until I was out of school and working in my field and made a dent into my student loans.

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

#129

Post by morgante »

jenshoop wrote: post #23
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…

Spot on. There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up cost. (Separately, let's not forget about the chaos of the educational publishing industry and the insane price points they command for modestly updated editions each year.) But I think items 1 and 2 above -- and a lack of education about what loans are and th…

> so few know that they're expected to repay loans

What?

Literally every student I talk to knows full well that loans are meant to be repaid.

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

#130

Post by meric »

zo1 wrote: post #122
jenshoop wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up cost. (Separately, let's not forget about the chaos of the educational publishing industry and the insane price points they command for modestly updated editions each year.) But I think items 1 and 2 above -- and a lack of education about what loans are and th…

>" There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up cost. " That was my impression of University/College. Having only experienced what was shown in movies and the media, I was under the impression that college meant getting your own "apartment with a roommate". Unfortunately, in the non-US university I attended, it m…

I thought the same too. I didn't even have a room, and travelled to class by train from home.
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