There is a simple and equitable solution, which is to transfer the debt to the universities where they studied.
Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
31–40 of 146 posts
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#32In the US people can’t clear student loans in bankruptcy. It’s a shame, I think, given the constant upward tick in tuition and lack of resulting careers. They can even go after the students parents.
> In the US people can’t clear student loans in bankruptcy. It’s a shame... Maybe you could explain this to me, because I really don't understand. Why do you think that it's a shame that people can't just discharge substantial, otherwise unsecured government loans? To me, the real shame is high school employees pushing college on marginal students. One of the few things worse than spending too much money on a not-par…
Our rich entrepreneur friends get to take advantage of corporate bankruptcy, giving them second chances when their ideas don't work out. This is just an example of blatant hypocrisy and favoritism advantaging the rich.
If at first you don't succeed... damn well better be an entrepreneur so you get second chances. If you work for a living, no second chances for you!
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#33Before the internet, centralized places of knowledge were needed, and you'd need to attend that place to find said knowledge. Think about how access to music caused the price of albums to drop. Education had not seen a similar dip in cost even though the supply is 100 percent saturated. There's a dying class of professors who got in while tenure was still a thing that paid probably 1/10 of the cost for education kids…
Nope, liberal arts majors earn as much as professional and pre-professional majors.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fa...
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#34In the US people can’t clear student loans in bankruptcy. It’s a shame, I think, given the constant upward tick in tuition and lack of resulting careers. They can even go after the students parents.
Academia is a great example of what happens when you try to create a "market-free" zone: things get abused in unexpected ways while clever rent-seekers embed themselves in incredibly lucrative positions that you never knew you were creating. See: student loans/tuitions, pay-to-read journals (another front page HN topic). The student loan problem is a result of the generalized "prestige economy" that's driving the pro…
This all doesn't explain why so many people pile up massive debt for a degree that doesn't pay well, if at all, in the current (and foreseeable future) job market - and they'd have to be very clueless to not know it in advance.
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#35Before the internet, centralized places of knowledge were needed, and you'd need to attend that place to find said knowledge. Think about how access to music caused the price of albums to drop. Education had not seen a similar dip in cost even though the supply is 100 percent saturated. There's a dying class of professors who got in while tenure was still a thing that paid probably 1/10 of the cost for education kids…
Do you hate the liberal arts?
Their importance in college was really emphasized after World War II, as many of the leading Nazis were seen as non-intellectuals without moral restraints developed by the study of history, philosophy, theology, etc.
Liberal Arts should be cheap you’re right, but it also should be required.
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#36Tuition, especially at private colleges, is totally out of control. But class sizes are up, not down. And the number of full professors is not growing. So where is the money going?
To an explosive growth of administrative staff. My alma mater has almost one employee per student. There are many dozens of administrative departments, each with multiple deans and assistant deans and staff, and sometimes subdivisions each with their own layer of bureaucracy. OPAL, for example, has a subdivision for each kind of minority on campus, each with its own assistant dean and staff. You can look at the list of departments: http://home.dartmouth.edu/administrative-offices . Keep in mind that this is a very small college, with about 4000 undergrads and 2000 grad students.
This monstrous growth is entirely a product of the last 30 to 40 years and is almost entirely responsible for the astronomic increases in tuition, currently $60,000. Even worse, the college claims that its actual cost per student is double that, with the shortfall made up from the endowment. There is NO legitimate reason that a college education should cost over $100,000 per year.
The government needs to stop writing a blank check to these colleges in the form of unlimited loans for their students. The government needs to set a much lower cap on the number of loans it will give to each student per year. The colleges will accuse the party in power of trying to deny students the right to an education, but they will eventually surrender and start cutting the bloat.
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#37Although by inclination what I want to do is rant about the iniquity of this kind of robo-debt in education, instead what I am thinking right now, is this: how does this compare overall to the rate of default in debt for other purposes? how does it compare to car loan debt? mortgage debt? I ask, because debt is the same, except in as much as student debt is in principle seeking a path to be able to repay it. The asse…
The overwhelming majority of student loan debt is government backed and eligible for some kind of income based repayment plan. There are four different kinds, but the most common two use a formula of 10% of income after 150% of the poverty level for the relevant household size. It is entirely possible to have a required payment of $0, before even getting into forbearance or deferral. Car loans and mortgage loans are…
But schools realize how flexible the terms are and increase the price of tuition to max out the level of debt students can tolerate even with income based repayment
Dental students in high cost of living areas routinely graduate with half a million in debt
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#38It's unfortunate that kids aren't taught this during high-school years, and the lie that you must go to college to "make something of yourself" is still perpetuated.
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#39In the US people can’t clear student loans in bankruptcy. It’s a shame, I think, given the constant upward tick in tuition and lack of resulting careers. They can even go after the students parents.
USA checking in. I declared chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010. Chapter 7 bankruptcy eliminates 100% of your dischargable debt. When the bankruptcy process had completed, I still owed ~200,000 USD, which was 140,000 USD in student loans and 60,000 USD in back taxes that were less than 3 years old, neither of which were dischargable.
Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans
#40Before the internet, centralized places of knowledge were needed, and you'd need to attend that place to find said knowledge. Think about how access to music caused the price of albums to drop. Education had not seen a similar dip in cost even though the supply is 100 percent saturated. There's a dying class of professors who got in while tenure was still a thing that paid probably 1/10 of the cost for education kids…
I thought college was an outstanding and irreplaceable experience. I still have student debt (pushing 40) and if that debt were tripled today I'd still think it was the deal of a lifetime.
Other than some international trips, going to a university was probably the best money I've ever spent.