US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High • Hacker News Board

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#211

Post by lz400 » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:21 AM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #192

lz400 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I studied you had to pass an exam. Certain subjects had a very high bar. For example civil engineering. Can't get it without top grades and top results in the exam. Apart from that, some degrees had very low acceptance scores and many people tended to study some humanities or economics degree that largely won't use afterwards, just for the social pressure of being an uni graduate. It's arguably how much you want…

All of which are worthy considerations in making a judgment on the "better" system. I was just making an important qualification: the U.S. system has wider opportunities for pretty much anyone to attend somewhere and study anything. Now I will be the first to say that the sheer numbers attending universities in the U.S. beggar belief that they many or all of the increased enrollment allow the schools to maintain the…

I don't think that's true. Can anyone become a doctor? Where I studied as long as you passed the entrance bar, you can. In big cities there are usually several public universities, some more prestigious perhaps, with a low score you can probably get into the less prestigious ones but you can be a doctor at close to 0 cost. I don't think you can become a doctor in the US without incurring serious debt for example?

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#212

Post by Shivetya » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:23 AM UTC

manacit wrote: post #10

I don't know if it's a "bubble" (I am not qualified to say that), but I can't imagine that the current trend with student loans will continue. Looking at the numbers for someone entering college in 2017, it feels nearly predatory what a good portion of private and out of state colleges are charging. Even with financial aid, $30-40k a year for 4-5 years is insane. I was fortunate enough to have parents who made saving…

Universities are betting on government picking up the whole tab. They already practically got the golden goose handed to them when the government put the brakes on many private founding sources for loans.

the next step is simply make it so onerous that politicians step in and relive the debt or pick up more of the tab under some kind of student bill of rights. of course we won't get more and better students but instead even richer colleges. the number of private and state colleges with billion dollar plus endowments is astounding and the costs we spend per student is rarely if ever equal to the education they receive.

this is marketing at its finest, or more dastardly.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#213

Post by tsunamifury » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:24 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #109

tsunamifury wrote: post #7

This appears to be an even worse situation than 2008 because housing debt has gone down not because homes are cheaper, but that people can't buy homes. And other forms of debt with far smaller effect on net-wealth and GDP as well far harsher discharge terms are eating up the difference. This makes for the same (or more) debt load in an even riskier, more individually onerous, combination.

I don't want to say that student loans aren't a big problem or that there isn't a bubble, but I think the panic of a potential repeat of 2008 is missing a big portion of the mortgage crisis. In 2008 there was a feedback loop that caused things to spiral out of control. Every house that was foreclosed on hit the market at a lower and lower price. This made it harder for people to refinance their existing mortgages. Th…

Uh, extended graduated loan repayment with Libor variable rate, sir.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#214

Post by lz400 » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:24 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #205

lz400 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I studied you had to pass an exam. Certain subjects had a very high bar. For example civil engineering. Can't get it without top grades and top results in the exam. Apart from that, some degrees had very low acceptance scores and many people tended to study some humanities or economics degree that largely won't use afterwards, just for the social pressure of being an uni graduate. It's arguably how much you want…

" When I studied you had to pass an exam. Certain subjects had a very high bar. For example civil engineering. Can't get it without top grades and top results in the exam. " That would be the other side of the coin: if you do poorly on the exam or have poor grades, your choices are limited, no? The upside of the American system is that anyone can get higher education. The downside is that many of the schools are tuit…

The most prestigious schools in the most difficult degrees might be difficult if you are a crappy student. That's probably for the best. If the US can you study in one of those "tuition mill" schools and become a doctor or an aviation engineer and work in your field?

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#215

Post by ylem » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:25 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #183

lr4444lr wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you because I think you've put your finger on something, and I think part of the answer is a collective unspoken belief that people who may not be meritorious on past academic achievement and/or very low on the income spectrum should have an avenue to determine their own educational destiny through hard work if they pledge a return on the investment to help them get there. And because of an impression that…

Except the taxpayers don't really lose out on student loans unless the borrower gets the loans discharged. They have immense power to levy bank accounts, garnish wages, seize tax refunds, and even garnish Social Security payments. Practically speaking, unless the borrower dies or becomes totally and permanently disabled, the government will get theirs. Bankruptcy discharges are very rare, and with all those ways of c…

I think that the government actually is making a profit at this point

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#216

Post by int_19h » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:29 AM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #189

int_19h wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the exact same story as with healthcare. If you try to implement welfare by throwing money at the private industry to make their product more affordable, the prices simply grow up (which is basic supply and demand stuff - more people with money = more demand). For this to actually work, you need to either regulate prices, or have a public-owned, government-run nonprofit with an explicit mandate to keep the price…

Or let it become a market again, like it was for our parents until these subsidies came along.

Letting healthcare become a truly free market literally means having people die on the streets from preventable diseases if they can't afford to treat them.

Most civilized nations have decided that they don't want that kind of thing a long time ago.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#217

Post by crdb » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #207

crdb wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not told to "just go to the best college no matter what" > majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving was not a great idea from a financial point of view I've met many people in places like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs (i.e. "elite" high paying jobs) with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge in Philosophy, English, Arch & Ant or Theology (in "decreasing usefulness"). Many more than, say, graduates in accounting or business adm…

This would be more convincing if McKinsey and GS were genuinely considered to be producing something of value. The reality is - more nuanced. Certainly there are many who consider both GS and McKinsey to be very bad things indeed, and not in any way a professional niche that high quality graduates should aspire to. Perhaps there may be more to "intrinsic quality" than an obsessive work ethic and social connections? M…

Ah, but I'm not saying that Ivy/Oxbridge grads make better employees all else being equal (in particular salary). I'm specifically saying that on a financial/job hunting basis, it makes more sense to pick a prestigious university and "useless" degree than a "useful" degree at a non-prestigious university, in aggregate.

When you are on the other side, other variables come into play. For example, elite grads might be generally overvalued and for the same money you can get a much better community college drop out (who is on the tail end of his own talent distribution), because the market undervalues his skills. This is something that comes up a lot in the Valley and the last team I've personally hired was about half no-degree and half not-famous-degree, so you can guess my position (we hired based on technical capability and more or less ignored CVs).

Whether or not I agree with you on Goldman and McKinsey's intrinsic value adding capability, I have observed that people doing a stint at either are basically guaranteed nice employment for life, fast track to the best management jobs, get a premium on hiring, and so on. Which is what the OP was concerned with.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#218

Post by pavement » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:34 AM UTC

manacit wrote: post #10

I don't know if it's a "bubble" (I am not qualified to say that), but I can't imagine that the current trend with student loans will continue. Looking at the numbers for someone entering college in 2017, it feels nearly predatory what a good portion of private and out of state colleges are charging. Even with financial aid, $30-40k a year for 4-5 years is insane. I was fortunate enough to have parents who made saving…

  $30-40k a year

Put another way, distilled to an abstraction, that's 30 students assembling in a room, to be lectured by one person, for maybe 6 or 9 hours, 4 or 5 days a week, for two 15 week semesters, at that price. [0]

So one full classroom is possibly a million dollars for 30 weeks of talking, plus textbooks, times the count of the course catalog and all scheduled blocks for the entire school.

Quite the budget, to share what is hardly the undivided attention of a supposedly nurturing instructor.

One could afford to be waited on hand and foot, for four (50 week-long, 40 hour/week) years, for the same price. I'd almost wonder if a private apprenticeship is more valuable, but then again, how to broker selection for who takes you on? Or do internships prove that this is all so much education theater after all?

And this says nothing about how little adjunct professors make (very often less than $30-40k a year), which further compounds any negative interpretation for these kinds of arrangements.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_credit

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#219

Post by mleonhard » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:35 AM UTC

The last paragraph makes the whole article seem like an advertisement:

"That made last month feel like an opportune time for Caitlin Farrell, 34, and her husband to buy their first home, a 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom house in Sacramento. Ms. Farrell, who works as an education policy researcher, got her home loan from SoFi, a start-up online lender that moved into the mortgage market last year."

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#220

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, May 18, 2017, 2:37 AM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #209

ceejayoz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great university's for sure, but the large majority of universities (particularly those accessible to anybody) reside in the United States. There are 4,140 in the US. https://www.infoplease.com/us/higher-education/number-us-col... There are about 4,000 in Europe. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV:c...

Europe has 750 million people and fewer universities.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make with that tidbit.

The US demonstrably does not have the "large majority" of universities as was claimed.