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The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

nytimes.com

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Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#111

Post by citrablue »

stormbrew wrote: post #69
drcode wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somebody getting a break doesn’t bring you down, it just brings them up. Well, the assumption here is that the money to "bring them up" can just be materialized out of thin air and doesn't have to be taken from other people, in turn.

The converse of this being the assumption that having a huge number of people stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt is not itself a drag on society that eventually comes out of other people's pockets one way or another anyways. "I survived a bad system" is not justification for the perpetuation of that system.

Similarly, people who survived the system should have just as much access to remedies as people currently in their own difficulties.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#112

Post by rossjudson »

Kephael wrote: post #4
wpdev_63 wrote: post #2

Reminder: Your future employers care more about side projects and experience than some writing on a piece of paper. You don't need to go to college to be a kick ass programmer.

It's very difficult to start your career at leading companies such as Google, Facebook, etc without going to a reputable school.

Nope. Get in the pipeline at Google and ace your interviews. There's no checkbox in our hiring process labelled "went to a famous school so I'm impressed and we should hire".

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#113

Post by gamechangr »

I co-signed a loan for a friend who worked in as a Chemical Engineer for GE. Long story short, he had his Visa revoked, so I ended up on the hook for $16k of his student loans.

I took a look at some of the financing terms and they are completely ridiculous. He paid $130 a month and at the end of the year he had only paid down $70 in principal.

These terms should be criminal.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#114

Post by rayiner »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #18

It's a damn shame we've let this crisis reach this scale. Along with healthcare, climate change, the debt, our inauguration, and so on, we've been essentially frozen for most of my life as politicians concern themselves more so with existential power struggle. The right wants to bring us back to the gilded age, the left makes headlines but is barely relevant, and the center is trying to squeeze bandaid solutions whil…

Making unsupported assertions can’t make them come true. College should controversial. College, as it exists today, entails large expense and opportunity cost. We became a very advanced society sending only a small percentage of people to college. There is little reason to think tripling the proportion of people who go to college will improve the fundamentals of the economy.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#115

Post by thrownblown »

drcode wrote: post #107
ryfia wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you on this. Despite getting accepted to many top-tier universities (Berkeley, Yale, Rice), I chose to go to an in-state school with a generous scholarship so I could come out of school with very little loans. I sacrificed going to a really great school like Berkeley (and living in California!) so I would save money and not end up in so much debt. While I fully think that debt is a nondesirable…

Thanks, nice to have a single person agree with me. That said, I also agree that my personal situation (be it through luck or responsible behavior) now makes it possible for me to be generous to others, and I'm certainly happy to pay extra in taxes, to an extent. I guess what bothers me is just this sense of entitlement of people that originated from my same social stratum who now argue "the game was rigged" when I n…

i'm ok with student debt amnesty as long as it comes with compulsory civil or military service.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#116

Post by bluto »

thatjsguy wrote: post #47
drcode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must say, as someone who made quite a few sacrifices to pay off my school debt, I'll be pretty miffed if less responsible people from my same generation get a break on their loans.

Somebody getting a break doesn’t bring you down, it just brings them up. I’m sorry you had to pay off your loans. I’m paying about $100,000 myself. But even if I didn’t get amnesty, I’d rather not have one more graduate who, like me, has sincerely considered whether simply being dead would be easier to deal with. And there are a lot of people like that. I’d rather be in debt forever if it means that subsequent multit…

Own your choices. You decided to go to college as opposed to not going. You decided to go to the college that you did in favors of others. You knew the cost of tuition and room and board. You knew how much you would have to borrow to afford the college you chose. You voluntarily borrowed the money that you did. You knew the amount of $ that you would owe. You knew the payment schedule. You had a reasonable idea of how much you wold earn given the degree and college that you chose. I feel a little sorry that you now have to make sacrifices to pay back the money you chose to borrow. Maybe you have to do without for some period of time while others you know don't.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#117

Post by jquery »

Latty wrote: post #60
drcode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must say, as someone who made quite a few sacrifices to pay off my school debt, I'll be pretty miffed if less responsible people from my same generation get a break on their loans.

The attitude of 'I suffered so others should have to' is really damaging. I get why that's the instinctive response, but it's also going to lead to a worse society. By all means argue for a solution that also helps people who made sacrifice in the past, but people who didn't or couldn't being left to suffer is not a solution. To be clear - I get you are not saying you don't want to solve this because of that, but unf…

We'd be better off burning the money than our current system. The attitude that "college is an unalloyed good" is far more damaging than some people thinking "hey you should pay back loans you take out."

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#118

Post by s3m4j »

rayiner wrote: post #114
acjohnson55 wrote: post #18

It's a damn shame we've let this crisis reach this scale. Along with healthcare, climate change, the debt, our inauguration, and so on, we've been essentially frozen for most of my life as politicians concern themselves more so with existential power struggle. The right wants to bring us back to the gilded age, the left makes headlines but is barely relevant, and the center is trying to squeeze bandaid solutions whil…

Making unsupported assertions can’t make them come true. College should controversial. College, as it exists today, entails large expense and opportunity cost. We became a very advanced society sending only a small percentage of people to college. There is little reason to think tripling the proportion of people who go to college will improve the fundamentals of the economy.

Every piece of historic evidence tends to prove that higher education for an ever growing part of the population seem to correlate with better living standards.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#119

Post by Retric »

citrablue wrote: post #109
stouset wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a defensible reason to allow the whole system to come crashing down.

3 questions 1/ Are there solutions on the table where the cure isn't worse than the disease? That money has been spent, it came from somewhere. Can it just be vanquished without repercussions? 2/ Objectively, what is the likelihood that continuing the status quo crashes the system? 3/ What are the long term consequences from potential solutions? E.g., if current debts are forgiven/cancelled, would lenders refuse to l…

Much of this debt was never spent it was created from thin air due to interest. Saying someone does not get profit is very different from saying they don’t get principal.

But more directly these people and institutions made a bet, the fact not all bets win is a basic fact of life.

PS: I have negligible student debt at sub inflation interest rates remaining. But, for people with 8+% interest rate loans that interest should very much should be on the table at a minimum.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#120

Post by ChuckMcM »

The 'for profit' chart there is the whole story. If your business model is that you can give someone money and then force them to pay it back without any ability to discharge it, you have essentially re-invented indentured servitude. And it attracts scumbags more strongly than a half dead bleeding seal attracts sharks.

We have gone through a couple of very public shutdowns as some of these for profit schools lose their accreditation (and thus their ability to sucker students into student loans). It hurts people who are trying to do the right thing (get an education so that they can improve their job prospects) and it fails to punish the real problem which are people who sell these worthless degrees for over inflated prices.

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