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Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

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Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#51

Post by umbrellathorn »

jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

> for a useless degree they'll never use

I went to school for such a degree. While I don't use it in my day to day now, I still consider it priceless. There's some inherent value added to a person who pursues to study a bit of humanities, history, philosophy and art in college apart from their major. Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better.

Part of this is that you really understand why you need to trust academic work for general human advancement. We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#52

Post by yegle »

jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

I thought the point of student loan is to grant it to anyone regardless of if they can repay? If the loan is granted by looking at the student's future potential to repay, students would prefer majors/colleges with higher chance of getting a student loan.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#53

Post by JonFish85 »

murph-almighty wrote: post #38
jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

> you'd probably see a lot more STEM degrees and a lot fewer of everything else I honestly think art schools are going to start running into problems convincing people it's a good idea to pay 60k a year for minimal ROI. My cousin wants to go into stage drama, and I don't want to tell her to not pursue her dream, but I think it's a lot to ask her to put herself in debt for years for a piece of paper that says she can…

> People who came from my alma mater who majored in drama can't say the same.

Don't worry, your salary gives them a way out too. And I'm not just saying that to be snarky, I think it's very likely what will end up happening: you'll end up paying for their poor choices one way or another. If it's not directly via taxes to pay off their student loans, it'll fund their retirement.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#54

Post by InitialLastName »

anonemouse145 wrote: post #32
aloukissas wrote: post #18

One statistic that's commonly left out of these discussions & articles is how late parents save for college. According to Sallie Mae ( http://news.salliemae.com/publication/how-america-saves-coll... ), most families don't start saving before their oldest child reaches 7 years old. This effectively robs 1/3 of the investment period's growth potential. Another one (as perhaps a consequence of the previous fact) is that…

You sound like a cigarette executive. "The real problem is we don't start em smoking before they leave the hospital. We could increase our profits 33% if every baby was exposed to nicotine before they leave the hospital." Maybe not all people in society should be socially required to purchase an expensive good, thus causing demand to be infinite, meaning price can only skyrocket. Given the number of Masters degrees w…

Ok. Let's replace "saving for college" with "saving for the child's introduction to adult life". If you bring children into the world, it's your responsibility to do whatever possible to plan for their future as early as possible. If we've decided that people can't contribute to society until they're 23, they're going to need some investment for their early adulthood, whether it's college, vocational school, doing art and working minimum wage in a big city.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#56

Post by kpdxxx »

latencyloser wrote: post #46
lawlessone wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as well as military service are all great options for young adults Getting shot at for an education doesn't seem that great. Better off just moving to a better country.

Anecdotal, but my mother was a mechanic, my uncle a cryptographer, another uncle was some type of police on base, my cousin is a drone pilot and just sits in an office like building despite technically being involved in combat I suppose. Several former colleagues mostly did admin-type work while enlisted. The last person I know to have actually seen combat was my grandfather in Korea--but he knew what he signed up fo…

> don't involve violence

Yeah since it's violence against brown people far away from the homeland it's justified and a totally safe job.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#58

Post by nsporillo »

As a current student and one who will graduate with roughly $60k in student debt, after scholarships and grants - I often question the legitimacy of the driving factors in increased tuition.

Most would say the volume of administrators has ballooned due to the increasing number of services universities now provide for the students. Better and more services offered to students should benefit quality of life.

Does the economic impact of modern universities serve as a net positive for society? When we have more and more university staff using their salary to support their families they're contributing to the economy in a positive way. When we have students graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, they're bound to repaying their loans. In order to do this, they must find a career and become "productive" members of society.

This of course ignores the ethical and societal implications of expensive tuition...

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#60

Post by jartelt »

yegle wrote: post #52
jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

I thought the point of student loan is to grant it to anyone regardless of if they can repay? If the loan is granted by looking at the student's future potential to repay, students would prefer majors/colleges with higher chance of getting a student loan.

If the word "loan" is in the name of the financial product, you are expected to repay. At some point we need to be upfront with high school graduate and tell them it is a bad idea to go study art history at a $40k a year no-name private college.
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