Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by vamsinator » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

chriskanan wrote: post #100

umbrellathorn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

While I agree that one can gain a great deal of enrichment from studying non-lucrative majors, I think people should highly consider double majoring in this case. I majored in computer science AND philosophy as an undergraduate. Doing both took under 5 years. I think a lot of people don't realize how little they will earn with their degrees compared to how high their debt load will be. That's not including people who…

In Australia we have the ability to do a double degree not just a double major.

It usually saves 2 years compared to doing them separately and you get 2 degrees on the final piece of testament.

I found it tremendously useful as my "humanity" was my Physics degree to complement the Comp Sci. Plenty of philosophy in the hard sciences when you learn the history and where we are going.

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

#182

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

zjaffee wrote: post #15

duncan-donuts wrote: post #7

I wonder how educators are handling this. When I was set to graduate high school a decade ago we spent a portion of our home room hour planning our collegiate futures. I think I may have been the exception -- where my advisor stressed that we had to do something. Too often I hear that, "college is the only option." I personally never experienced that, but I wonder if educators are stressing that 4 year universities a…

People neglect to realize that a master plumber can make just as much as a software engineer should they have the skillset to be on the right kind of projects.

But quality of life is much higher for the software engineer, so assuming it's just as easy to be both, pay would need to be much higher for the plumber to incentivize people to do it.

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

#183

Post by mulmen » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #170

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income tax covers way more than education.

Exactly, which is why this would be a special additional tax that is just for college graduates and just goes back to the colleges.

That’s just slightly more transparent income tax.

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

#184

Post by softawre » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #173

joshgachnang wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. My sister was looking at a $40k/yr private school photography degree. I sat her down and we discussed how much that was going to cost her when she graduated, what kind of job she'd need to pay it back in a reasonable time, etc. In the end, she started her own wedding photography company instead.

> In the end, she started her own wedding photography company instead. That's awesome! I wish more people had smart person to sit down and explain these things to them.

What about some sort of state-funded guidance counselor that is required before you sign the paperwork to go to college? Or heck maybe force the colleges to pay for it.

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

#185

Post by bloudermilk » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:16 PM UTC

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #155

jackweirdy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another solution is to let you go to school for free and then pay a percent of all your future earnings back to your college, or at least into a pool that pays for the next generation's college. We could call it income tax :)

The problem with subsidizing college in any way, including the current student loan system is that it encourages people to go to college whether it makes sense or not, and as several people have mentioned in this discussion, in a lot of cases, it doesn't make sense. Anyone who is properly motivated should be able to go to college, but when I hear cries for a free college education, I can imagine that that would stimu…

> I can imagine that that would stimulate a huge influx of people who do that simply as an excuse to take a 4-year vacation

In practice this isn't a problem, at least not in France where my partner studied. Students that qualify for free public education are in the top of their class for the year. In order to keep qualifying for free education they must keep their grades up. So this idea of students graduating high school, waltzing into a university, then screwing off for four years is pure fiction.

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

#186

Post by ahoka » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #170

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income tax covers way more than education.

Exactly, which is why this would be a special additional tax that is just for college graduates and just goes back to the colleges.

Also a special tax for sick people?

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

#187

Post by RyanZAG » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #176

RyanZAG wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN isn't all that different, so it's probably about more than just reddit. For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. You can try the experiment yourself to verify it. This applies to companies as well - you will be upvoted for pro-Microsoft or anti-Google posts in a news topic…

> For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. It's simply unreasonsble to think that the value of a comment is independent of its context.

Certainly, although it's clear that the largest part of the context would be the audience that the comment is exposed to. And it also shows that the upvote and downvote feature is not used correctly here either - it's used to promote or hide comments that the viewer agrees or disagrees with.

Just the same as Reddit. It's a deeper issue than just being 'reddit', and it's more about online discussion in general.

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

#188

Post by emptyfile » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #155

jackweirdy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another solution is to let you go to school for free and then pay a percent of all your future earnings back to your college, or at least into a pool that pays for the next generation's college. We could call it income tax :)

The problem with subsidizing college in any way, including the current student loan system is that it encourages people to go to college whether it makes sense or not, and as several people have mentioned in this discussion, in a lot of cases, it doesn't make sense. Anyone who is properly motivated should be able to go to college, but when I hear cries for a free college education, I can imagine that that would stimu…

As another comment pointed out, in most of Europe your government funded "vacation" can last at most 1 year if you don't manage to pass a minimum number of exams, or rather collect a minimum number of ECTS points.

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

#189

Post by etr-strike » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

fnovd wrote: post #165

etr-strike wrote: post #99

When the next recession strikes, interest rates have no place to go but into negative territory. The rates will be either explicitly negative, or effectively negative (inflation higher than interest rates). When that happens, bitcoin will be the only safe haven in the world to protect your wealth. The bubble people will be changing their tune very quick.

When the next recession strikes, people will attempt to liquidate their Bitcoin to pay their bills and find out that no one really wants to buy them.

There's two unknowns in this statement. 1) How does bitcoin behave during a recession and 2) What will the next recession look like?

If the next recession takes the form of significant inflation -- resulting in effectively negative interest rates -- you will see flow into bitcoin.

If the next recession is caused by significant defaults on debt, well, bitcoin is also the safe haven asset there.

Bitcoin came into existence as a response to 2008. It's primary purpose is to protect peoples savings from central banks foolishness.

I agree no one knows for sure what will happen. IMO, bitcoin is a reasonable hedge against the monetary policy we have today.

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

#190

Post by etr-strike » Tue, Dec 05, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

raphaelj wrote: post #143

etr-strike wrote: post #99

When the next recession strikes, interest rates have no place to go but into negative territory. The rates will be either explicitly negative, or effectively negative (inflation higher than interest rates). When that happens, bitcoin will be the only safe haven in the world to protect your wealth. The bubble people will be changing their tune very quick.

What a wonderful idea, putting your savings in an highly volatile currency! Have you ever heard about people buying gold to store value?

The gold market can be manipulated as most people never take physical delivery of gold. There's no mechanism to audit everyone's holdings. Additionally, I'm of the opinion volatility will decrease as bitcoin matures. Do you really expect a currency bootstrapped from the ground up to not be volatile in its uptake?

We'll see if you're singing the same tune when you're finally confronted with the certain depreciation of your USD holdings. (Will you still reject bitcoin when USD is depreciating at a rate of 5% per year?)