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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

#371

Post by davewritescode »

Bartweiss wrote: post #251
vec wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? One doesn't need a high school education to wait tables or stock shelves, and most apprenticeships and trade schools could probably be started several years earlier without issue. We used to have this Enlightenment ideal of a Liberal Arts Education. It served as job training, sure, but it also tried to make its recipients better citizens and…

> Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? Eh, 9-12 public school maybe. The dirty not-a-secret of K-8 is that it's effectively state-sponsored daycare as well as an educational system, so its role as a holding pen is a feature rather than a bug.

Maybe where you grew up but that’s not what you’ll find in states/districts that take education seriously. 8th graders in the northeast are generally able to read at an adult level and understand basic arithmetic including algebra and geometry.

I don’t know if you understand how difficult it is to teach 12 year olds but that’s a miracle not daycare.

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

#372

Post by vkou »

ultraluminous wrote: post #327
vkou wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I coasted through five years of college, graduating with a CS and Math joint-major, three internships, and 20 more credit-hours then I needed. I did the bare minimum of studying, and applied little to no time management skills (Unless you count the occasional half-assed assignment finished on Sunday night.) I spent more time worrying about World of Warcraft, then I did about the possibility of ending up on academic p…

I coasted through five years of college ... Compared to a 9-5 job, yeah, college was a five year vacation. If you went to college voluntarily and did not care about neither the monetary constraints nor the opportunity costs, then sure that's a vacation. I suspect pretty much anything can be framed as such under those circumstances. For most people, this is not actually a realistic option.

No monetary constraints, because I borrowed from the bank of middle-class parents.

No opportunity costs because my earning potential after college was much higher then before. Not everyone can become a college dropout who founds a unicorn.

My situation is not unusual.

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

#373

Post by anthmcc »

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…

> 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

That sounds horrendously expensive and unfair. Your major is in yarn and you don't make any money? oh well that's fine.

You CS major, pay through the nose.

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

#374

Post by ashayh »

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…

Plenty of European countries have cheap or almost free higher education.

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

#375

Post by Johnny555 »

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…

can imagine that that would stimulate a huge influx of people who do that simply as an excuse to take a 4-year vacation (of sorts)*

If you just subsidize school and not living expenses, then it removes the incentive to treat college as a free vacation. Since if you have no desire to learn, you're not going to waste time taking classes (even if free) and scraping by on a part time job when you could just work full time and have a lot more free time since you're not "wasting" time in school.

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

#376

Post by jswizzy »

With a little planing you can get a college education without putting yourself in debt. I did it. Sure you might have to go to community college for the first two years and eat a lot of ramen noddles but it's more than possible with all the grants, scholarships, and employer matching. Most people have no will power and just take the easy way out not thinking about the long term debt they will have.

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

#377

Post by tzahola »

harrumph wrote: post #333
tzahola wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>compensation was tied to value. It is the definition of value. Value is the compensation others are willing to give you in exchange for your goods/services.

>Value is the compensation others are willing to give you in exchange for your goods/services. Value includes far more than that. It includes all kinds of tangibles and intangibles, including compensation in exchange for absolutely nothing, such as in the case of nonworking shareholders being paid dividends, such dividends arising from the expropriation by owners of surplus value created by workers.

Nonworking shareholders are being paid for their investment risk. The company pays them for taking said risk instead of investing their capital somewhere else.

Workers are paid wages for creating said surplus value using the company’s capital. If the shareholders’ capital were indeed not necessary for producing said surplus value, then why wouldn’t the workers create it by themselves, thus avoiding the expropriation?

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

#378

Post by ReinholdNiebuhr »

Fomite wrote: post #370
ReinholdNiebuhr wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"people are going to get thrown under the bus", can include rich being over taxed to pay for free college for the masses. My statement was meant to be broad in that someone is going to get screwed, rich or poor.

The thing is the magnitudes are different. Calling them both "getting thrown under the bus" suggests they're equivalent. The rich (myself included in that statement) are doing just fine, and could shoulder a little more without major setbacks. The poor are already dealing with a system that is bringing social mobility to a halt.

Future is iffy to predict, one could include overbudernsome regulations and heavier than expected taxes. Sort of depends on which way the politics shifts. Generally the pendulum ends up in the center after swinging left to right etc. So who knows what'll be like in 2030-2040. Getting thrown under the bus is simplistic term sure, however if I recall if half the population wants more and more, and the population that is sought after to pay for it is the rich, the burden will continue to grow. Thus we get into the same debate that is all over the net and media these days of paying fair share etc.

I was poor, now I'm above average. I would say maybe upper middle class now due to my business ventures, but before school which I paid for out of pocket through jobs I worked + having to pay for life's other nonsense things, so I'm not totally sympathetic to others in the same situation. By poor, I mean I was living in a house I bought for cheap as it was a foreclosure in a poor neighborhood, working two full time jobs and going to school part time/half time (9 credits per semester). Had to pay for my own health insurance, car insurance (1988 beretta's aren't the most reliable of transportations), plus two children, one with medical conditions. So to me idk, like I said I don't have much sympathy and think plenty should be able to adapt.

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

#379

Post by s73ver_ »

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 mean, as long as they're learning, so what? And if their GPA reflects that they're not, after a probationary period, they get kicked out.

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

#380

Post by s73ver_ »

tzahola wrote: post #117
toomuchtodo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Social Security benefits, without any other retirement savings, puts you right around poverty level. I would not co…

>The world still needs plenty of professions where the pay sucks and college is required Quite a self-contradictory statement. I mean, if the world was in such a dire need of said professions in such quantities, then their pay wouldn’t suck in the first place.

That's assuming a perfect, infallible market.
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