The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined • Hacker News Board

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#291

Post by raesene9 » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 1:47 PM UTC

magnusss wrote: post #185

It seems like the majority of the commenters here are missing the point. The huge overhang of student loan debt is not a result of kids who go to a four year college, graduate with an unmarketable degree in philosophy, fall on hard times and then default. It's kids who go to barber school (and the like) taking on $30k of debt, then realizing they don't make enough money cutting hair to support themselves, much less p…

Just in case this is useful to anyone else. I had no idea that there was such a thing as "barber college" where the expected cost of the programme was $42k (including living expenses) but https://larrysbarbercollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/C... there you go. And it's noticable how heavily they push federal financial aid for students https://larrysbarbercollege.com/financial-aid/

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#292

Post by thatjsguy » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

bluto wrote: post #116

thatjsguy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

Wow. Fuck you, tbh. Just fuck right off.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#293

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #257

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for a debt jubilee.

So people who do everything right and delayed purchasing a house/etc to pay student loans just get screwed? If I can make my loan payments, they can too. Student loan forgiveness is a solution that only helps a narrow slice of those affected by the student loan problem. It's not something that just affects those making payments, it affects literally everyone who ever had a loan. Jubilees are only going to decrease re…

Funny that you recognize the externalities of loan forgiveness but not defaults.

It isn’t just the defaulter’s problem when they default. That loan was securitized and exists in our retirement accounts. That default increase the cost of credit in that market, so loans cost more for the rest of us.

Anyway, not arguing we should erase all student debt. It, we have to acknowledge the problem is bigger than a few people’s bad financial choices.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#294

Post by PretzelFisch » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

nafey wrote: post #280

user5994461 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I've never known anyone who couldn't get a loan, no matter how bad their grades or weak their employment after college looks. Student loans are risk free for the lender and very profitable. They will always be granted.

What are the consequences of non payment? Debtor's prison?

They will garnish your wages. if you default and destroy your credit rating.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#295

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

anjc wrote: post #243

magnusss wrote: post #185

It seems like the majority of the commenters here are missing the point. The huge overhang of student loan debt is not a result of kids who go to a four year college, graduate with an unmarketable degree in philosophy, fall on hard times and then default. It's kids who go to barber school (and the like) taking on $30k of debt, then realizing they don't make enough money cutting hair to support themselves, much less p…

> There's a huge population of people like that. The problem is the lender, surely

The problem is that the lender exists in the first place. Becoming a barber shouldn’t require a five-figure investment. At most, it should be a few weeks of classroom and “lab” training, followed by a short apprenticeship.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#296

Post by toast_coder » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

s3m4j wrote: post #118

rayiner wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except for the last 30 years...

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#297

Post by jackvalentine » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #268

dillondoyle wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a good politician I think has two meanings which kind of drives this divide in opinion: 1) being good at getting elected 2) being good at getting things done It really does take experience, connections, networks, and skill to accomplish things in legislatures. Same with getting elected. The problem is in order to become #2, you have to become #1. Unless we as voters become far more informed and drastically chan…

Why not just cut out 1) all together. Let people get chosen randomly.

How do you get rid of them? Term limits? Then we go back to the problem of having people who can get things done...

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#298

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

CamTin wrote: post #282

forapurpose wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> College is still probably a good deal the majority of the time I think, but I wish there was some acknowledgement that it is less important in some fields than others. I'm certainly not advising you what to do - I don't know you at all and you didn't ask - but speaking generally about the issue: I think the unstated premise that college is vocational training for careers is very misguided. College is the acquisitio…

Sure, we all want to be well-educated and conversant in all the sciences, arts, and humanities. Even more than that, we want to be able to feed ourselves and start a family. From an individual perspective, it makes sense to take care of the latter first. IOW, get a degree that'll put some coin in your pocket, and if you really want to get yourself into the patches-on-your-suitcoat-elbows set, you can do so after you'…

Or, collectively, we figure out how to ensure college doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands in tuition for a BA.

When I attended UVA, back in the late 90s, my family was able to pay with no loans. Same for my sister a few years later. Looking at current tuition, that might not be true today. That’s with an engineer father and mom was a teacher (ie, we were comfortably upper-middle class, far from rich, but def. never had financial worries).

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#299

Post by AvocadoPanic » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #257

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for a debt jubilee.

So people who do everything right and delayed purchasing a house/etc to pay student loans just get screwed? If I can make my loan payments, they can too. Student loan forgiveness is a solution that only helps a narrow slice of those affected by the student loan problem. It's not something that just affects those making payments, it affects literally everyone who ever had a loan. Jubilees are only going to decrease re…

Maybe lending should be risk based like other types of lending.

250k for med school, sure. 100k for undergrad in women's studies - no government guarantees for you

I'm sure there's enough data already on the RoI of various programs. Seems like there should be a floor / bar based on the RoI for programs to qualify for government backed loans to students.

Re: The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined

#300

Post by fnrslvr » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #272

vilmosi wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're slightly missing the point. If student loans can be defaulted, it doesn't matter what the investor thinks or what interest you get or if you're backed up by the government or not. Even if you study [insert profitable degree], the rational action to do after graduating is to default, since students typically don't have much to lose.

Exactly. It is a poor investment option. So less investments are made, so less students attend, tuition plummets, community colleges spring back to life, people focus on degrees that offer pay, kids exit with no unforgivable debt, on and on. That is bad?

It seems to lead to the sort of situation where the only kind of success a poor kid can hope for in life is the kind where they get into the kinds of degrees that offer pay, whereas privileged rich kids have the luxury of getting to go into "useless" humanities degrees and curate our culture and history and whatnot. Only enabling the leisurely well-to-do to enter the latter kind of career path is generally considered a bad thing.