71–80 of 107 posts
Whatever happened to studying for the sake of it? You know, like learning new things & stuff. When did that shift from studying as exercise for the spirit to studying as a way of fattening your wallet come about?
people have always wanted to fatten their wallet. always will.
they just noticed 50-70 years ago that people who know more have fatter wallets.
One thing no one talks about, why do all degrees virtually cost the same in most universities. Why would a engineer pay the same as a liberal arts student. The reason I saying this is maybe the cost should be proportional to the expected earnings?
recall, though, that we're dealing with a market. the schools will charge what they can get away with for a liberal arts degree. if folks purchasing liberal arts degrees could do the math to realize they're getting a bad deal, they'd stop paying so much for them and the prices would drop. conveniently for universities, prospective psych majors don't spend a lot of time thinking about their expected lifetime earnings and how much their degree will change those earnings.
Whatever happened to studying for the sake of it? You know, like learning new things & stuff. When did that shift from studying as exercise for the spirit to studying as a way of fattening your wallet come about?
My past experiences felt so accelerated and like the goal is to cram material in the smallest available time frame - thus making enjoying the material difficult.
I don't want to discharge my student loans. I just want to be able to refinance them again based on current market rates.
Interesting article. 2-year Universities: Who made up the rule that we have to attend college for 4 years? Tertiary education does take a hell of a long time in the US. In my field, and in my generation, most UK students got their PhDs around 24-25 years of age; for the US students it was more like 27-28. Yes, if that is a real effect that would definitely be a problem. I can think of two factors that may be affectin…
> in my generation, most UK students got their PhDs around 24-25 years of age; for the US students it was more like 27-28 The programs were not quite equivalent. US Ph.D. programs have traditionally included more courses and include a comprehensive examination in addition to a dissertation. A US Ph.D. candidate must demonstrate a broader understanding of the field and cannot just jump into thesis work upon starting t…
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Well, what is the university charging students for - the services that they produce to give you your education, or the expected value of your salary after graduation? In theory, universities are not for-profit. Is there something about an engineering school education that is inherently more expensive than a liberal arts education?
Yes in fact it cost more in equipment, facilities, salaries of professors to educate an engineering student compared to a mathematics student or English student.
"3. College Loan Repayment Reform: If anyone files for bankruptcy, the student loan should go along with it." No, no, no, no. This penalizes the people who pay back their loans far too much. Who wouldn't just go into bankruptcy if they couldn't pay back the loan? Unlike other loans, the bank can't take your degree back. Interest rates will go up for everyone as it becomes a riskier loan. Suddenly people who had fully…
Aren't the rates set by the government? At the very least, there should be ways for some of it to be forgiven for specific reasons, health reason would be on top. Also, there are some programs where people who work for the government can get loans forgiven after a set amount a years. Maybe a similar thing (through tax breaks) could be implemented to help employers pay student loans with the student. But the best solu…
There are for at least some reasons. There are both student loan forbearance, deferrment, and forgiveness programs available. Deferrments seem relatively easy to get (I have one currently while I attend grad school).
Forgiveness programs seem very stringent and limited, but they do exist for certain forms of public service and for extreme hardship. There are deferrment and forbearance programs for temporary hardship though and income based repayment plans.
http://www.finaid.org/loans/ has more details.
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Whoa, there! What discount rate are you using? For the median degree, I get an NPV less cost of $47K. Here are my assumptions: * Discount rate of 6% (we're talking about an asset with a 40-year lifespan and zero terminal value). * $25K in annual school costs. * $25K in annual opportunity costs. (May be conservative for people who are college material but didn't get a degree.) * Four years to complete the degree. Whic…
I think you're overestimating the annual cost of school. I know it doesn't cost $25k/yr for me to go. I pay around $6k/yr for tuition, plus another $1k or so for books. According to College Board [1], that's about $1k less than the average for a student going to a public school, in-state. Your figure matches about what it costs to go to a private school, but, from my experience, public schools are also more likely to…
The public schools I applied to that weren't rolling-admission 5th year of highschool types ended up costing the same in the end, because they didn't give need-based aid, and their merit scholarships were not large for people who don't play sports.
This crisis won't be the same at all, because you can't discharge student loan debt. There is currently no reason for a lender to bother examining the loan because repayment is virtually guaranteed. Having the federal government take over the loans will only make the problem worse. Educational institutions are able to raise their prices precisely because they know that with a combination of federal and state grants a…
Three years ago they thought people wouldn't walk away from underwater mortgages either.
"3. College Loan Repayment Reform: If anyone files for bankruptcy, the student loan should go along with it." No, no, no, no. This penalizes the people who pay back their loans far too much. Who wouldn't just go into bankruptcy if they couldn't pay back the loan? Unlike other loans, the bank can't take your degree back. Interest rates will go up for everyone as it becomes a riskier loan. Suddenly people who had fully…
Exactly. The ONLY plan worth taking would be graduate high school with no assets, take out a big student loan and live off that, graduate college, and file for bankruptcy. Tada, 4 years of your life absolutely free, and a degree they can't take away to boot.
If your theory is true, it should apply to all unsecured creditors---especially credit cards. Why isn't it common practice to incur tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt during college and then declare bankruptcy the day after graduation? Credit cards aren't secured debt---Chase has no legal right to repossess your Xbox. The answer is because this is the real world and that's not how the bankruptcy code works.