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Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

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Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#91

Post by thaumasiotes »

slg wrote: post #88
CaptSpify wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane administrative salaries, ridiculous sports budgets, new buildings and amenities that no student needs ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/one-schools-f... )

Those things are easy scapegoats but they aren't the biggest cause of tuition increases. States simply aren't spending the money on colleges like they did in the past. [1] This is likely because of all the guaranteed loan money available so the states don't feel the same pressure to fund universities. For the specific case you linked above, $25m for athletic upgrades is really not that expensive for a school the size…

> Those things are easy scapegoats but they aren't the biggest cause of tuition increases. States simply aren't spending the money on colleges like they did in the past. [1] This is likely because of all the guaranteed loan money available so the states don't feel the same pressure to fund universities.

I have seen the model stated that there are two Official Views on why college prices are up:

1, the Democratic View: prices are up because states have cut spending on colleges.

2, the Republican View: prices are up because given the easy availability of student loans, colleges can charge higher prices.

It's surprising to me that these are considered acceptable rival opinions, because, if you assume that one is right and the other is wrong, it's very easy to determine which is which.

#1 says that prices have risen due to a fall in supply. #2 says prices have risen due to a rise in demand. Both of those things do in fact increase prices, but a fall in supply causes a rise in prices and a fall in quantity traded, while a rise in demand causes a rise in prices and a rise in quantity traded. If you think that one of these things is responsible for high prices, you can determine which simply by asking "compared to the good times when prices were low, have college enrollments increased or decreased?"

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#92

Post by [deleted] »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #91
slg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are easy scapegoats but they aren't the biggest cause of tuition increases. States simply aren't spending the money on colleges like they did in the past. [1] This is likely because of all the guaranteed loan money available so the states don't feel the same pressure to fund universities. For the specific case you linked above, $25m for athletic upgrades is really not that expensive for a school the size…

> Those things are easy scapegoats but they aren't the biggest cause of tuition increases. States simply aren't spending the money on colleges like they did in the past. [1] This is likely because of all the guaranteed loan money available so the states don't feel the same pressure to fund universities. I have seen the model stated that there are two Official Views on why college prices are up: 1, the Democratic View…

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#93

Post by techsupporter »

bogomipz wrote: post #80
DINKDINK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because debt is the same No, not all debts are the same: Debts That Cannot Be Discharged in Bankruptcy https://www.thebankruptcysite.org/nondischargeable-debts

Indeed and there even states in the US that are refusing to renew professional licenses for people who default on that debt. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/business/student-loans-li...

> refusing to renew professional licenses for people who default on that debt

The crapper of it is, it's not just professional licenses, such as nursing or cosmetic licensing, as if that wasn't bad enough. Some states, like Iowa, South Dakota, and Washington, have laws that permit the state to revoke or decline to issue any license issued by the state, including driving, hunting, fishing, and even camping permits.

Basically, those states say that not only will they wreck your ability to work in the field for which you achieved a degree or license (or maybe you didn't successfully complete whatever program and are now working to pay off that debt that resulted in no positive outcome at all), they'll ruin your ability to go places--outside of cities, public transit is a non-entity--or even just have a little recreation while you figure out how to get out of a hole that just keeps getting deeper.

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#94

Post by hindsightRegret »

djsumdog wrote: post #24
ggm wrote: post #7

Although 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 modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating." -Thomas Jefferson I know I mention this book a lot on here, but _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ is the most amazing book I've ever read on the history of debt, money and slavery. Debt relief has to come. Every great civilization throughout history has had to forgive debts. Curr…

A bit off topic, but that quote from Jefferson never sat well with me. Easy to say when you had over 600 slaves. You know what else drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating? ...slavery.

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#96

Post by anonymous5133 »

phil248 wrote: post #40
genzoman wrote: post #18

Before 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.

Easy solution: have two forms of college and let students pick when one they want to go to.

Have one system where it is primarily online and low cost.

Then have the traditional system where it is physical classes and high costs.

Let students decide where to go.

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#97

Post by [deleted] »

japhyr wrote: post #60

I'm a high school math teacher. As part of their high school math education, I encourage all of my students to do one of their projects on analyzing loans. I ask them to pick an item they might take a loan out for, such as a car, a boat (we live in a small fishing town in Alaska), a house, or a student loan. They pick a realistic loan amount, APR, and term length. Then they run the numbers on the loan. I demonstrate…

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#98

Post by gozur88 »

ternaryoperator wrote: post #87
djsumdog wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating." -Thomas Jefferson I know I mention this book a lot on here, but _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ is the most amazing book I've ever read on the history of debt, money and slavery. Debt relief has to come. Every great civilization throughout history has had to forgive debts. Curr…

> They put up with so much more that no previous generation would have even stood for. This is a rather ungenerous view of the great burdens faced by previous generations. When I grew up there was a draft. When you got out of high school, you faced the real live possibility of being forcibly inducted into the military and sent to an active combat zone--where many US soldiers died, including high-school friends of min…

I agree with this. A lot of what I see along these lines is simple ignorance - life is certainly no harder than it's ever been and probably easier for most young people in the US.

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#99

Post by gozur88 »

djsumdog wrote: post #24
ggm wrote: post #7

Although 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 modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating." -Thomas Jefferson I know I mention this book a lot on here, but _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ is the most amazing book I've ever read on the history of debt, money and slavery. Debt relief has to come. Every great civilization throughout history has had to forgive debts. Curr…

What's funny about that Jefferson quote is Jefferson was a man who couldn't control his spending and was in debt his entire life. It's not surprising he felt that way.

Re: Nearly 5M Americans in Default on Student Loans

#100

Post by Sacho »

slg wrote: post #88
CaptSpify wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane administrative salaries, ridiculous sports budgets, new buildings and amenities that no student needs ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/one-schools-f... )

Those things are easy scapegoats but they aren't the biggest cause of tuition increases. States simply aren't spending the money on colleges like they did in the past. [1] This is likely because of all the guaranteed loan money available so the states don't feel the same pressure to fund universities. For the specific case you linked above, $25m for athletic upgrades is really not that expensive for a school the size…

Link n1 presents some interesting information:

"The picture is a bit different at private schools, which do not receive state funding but have nonetheless seen substantial tuition increases. At private nonprofit colleges, the spending categories described above — student services and faculty and administrative salaries — together explain most of the tuition increase over the past two decades."

So perhaps this is a case of misattribution - you have people talking about the excesses of private schools in terms of administration and such, but the article is talking about public schools. Are people just talking past each other here? A good question to ask would be if we're looking at the same rate of student loans/defaults on loans. If students in private schools predominantly pay their loans, then this points to the reduction in state funding as the primary culprit, but it could be the other way around as well.

There's also this:

"Among for-profit institutions, it is much more difficult to pin down a reason for tuition increases, though recent research suggests that one big cause is the generosity of federal student aid: Some institutions may be raising tuition in order to capture as much government-backed money as possible."

Since federal money and state money comes from the pockets of the same people, is it not reasonable to suggest that this "generous federal aid" is siphoning off resources into for-profits, where most of the tuition increase is "administrative bloat", instead of going to state-funded public schools, at least to some extent?

One final thing - the article doesn't go into detail as to why state funding has decreased. Is it because the states have redirected education funding into other spheres, or perhaps that the states have to fund way more schools(per capita) than they used to? This is another missing piece of the puzzle.

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