Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bigger problem that I see is that women are more likely to major in financially unrewarding fields.
Can you support that?
I do not have the nationwide stats, but I've been around the block.
Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
101–110 of 116 posts
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since Europe does not seem to have too many gender studies students and they have nearly free higher education it does not appear that the evidence supports your position of there being increasing gender studies students as a result of free higher education. It may be possible to avoid an onslaught of such people and still have free higher education! I don't suppose that Google and Uber will hire increased numbers of…
Thanks for the discussion. It's now much clearer why you feel lenders deserve more blame for the student loan crisis in the US.
In all lending situations both the borrower and lender have responsibilities and one side should not shoulder an undue amount of the ire. This view has nothing to do with my beliefs about higher education.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more the not-even-veiled misogyny than the statement about the relative worth of degrees that caused my down vote. Also, most/all of this generation are told that it doesn't matter what your degree is in, just that you get a degree. That idea combined with some generic distain for trades is what drives kids to college regardless of cost. Men are also taking out loans. We need to respect trades and respect that n…
Is it necessarily misogynistic, though? At the population level, women’s degrees are worth less than men’s because women more often exit the job market to raise children. If someone wants to do that - and I 100% stand behind that being a valid and important decision, for either sex - then college debt would be a very poor financial decision. I’m not convinced it’s a systemic problem, but it would be interesting to se…
The comment was, yes. First, it isn't a problem that is specific to women in any way, shape, or form. Second, it paints women as only existing to find a mate, and this is hampering that. Why should women be singled out in this? They should be able to explore their intellectual side as well.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#104Often times when student loans come up people blame exclusively the borrower. We should keep in mind that in a properly functioning lending market both the borrower and lender take on risk. The lender should not left out of the equation on who to blame. Both parties are at fault. But we don’t have a properly function student loan industry. Lenders assume very little risk in this market but they should not be absolved…
I think our public education system is also to blame. We push kids down academic paths too often and many of those paths do not lead to professions that can sustain 45-80k debt after graduation. Too much easy credit is available driving up the price. Degrees are not properly valued. Degrees in social work should not cost the same as a degree in STEM because they are not worth the same. More kids should be going into…
Most of my friends growing up were way into music... not just playing in bands in their spare time, but high school band, marching band, jazz band, drumline, etc., as well as composing and producing digital music in their spare time.
A few of these friends pursued other careers in college but many of them went to the state college that's known for its music programs. There, they eventually came to realize the reality of the situation: if you want to continue pursuing music in a college capacity, you're looking at either education or performance. Performance is extremely demanding and unless you're the best of the best of the best... good luck finding work with that degree. If you go down the education route, then, being a state school, you're STRONGLY encouraged to teach at a school somewhere in the state... which has the lowest teacher wages in the country (correction: second-worst as of 2018, moving up!).
Many of my friends didn't fully realize the reality of the situation until they'd already got their degrees. One ended up a high school band teacher in our hometown and truly loves it. Another decided to purse computer science instead and just completed his degree in that (and is now realizing how hard it is to find work as a fresh grad with no internship). Another quickly got a business minor and is doing well in the banking industry. Another is a bouncer and photographer.
What I'm getting at is, these kids were all pushed into going to college and getting degrees in the thing they enjoyed doing in high school, without stopping to realize their career prospects with said degree. College is just a thing you do after high school, unless you're a loser (or you went to a trade school, which is "a step up but not college").
The whole system is completely broken for modern society in my opinion, we need something to shake the whole thing up and turn it on its head.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Which is partly because of near infinite free money that no one is really responsible for. Hindsight is 20/20, and not being American I don't have the whole history...but what I'm picturing with this situation is: "Omg, it costs $5000 to get a degree! That means only the rich have access to education and increase the gap between rich and poor! We need a solution!" "You can't just go giving education for free! Co…
> Im just used to government paid education You are from Europe, right? And you have rigorious exams to sort out the folks who will get the government-paid education and who will not. And this is ok, since Europe is more or less homogenous. Hans goes to university and Peter and Mark and Bernard all go to work in mcdonalds instead. No outrage here, it was just a hard exam, and only Hans was able to pass. Now guess wha…
Canadian actually. And the "hard exam" was just which type of math I graduated highschool with and it only decided if I could go in engineering or had to settle for something else. The people working at McDonald are doing it part time while in college to pay rent and the ramen noodles.
But yes, I've lived in the US long enough now to know that in the current political context, people's expectations of what the Government should provide are not realistic or in line with the reality the country is in.
I also strooooongly believe in everyone (who is part of the system through one of the many legitimate methods) having a right to equal opportunity, but not necessarily a right to equal outcome. That is also very, very difficult in the US because of its history as well as its current political climate, for both some good and some bad reasons.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the discussion. It's now much clearer why you feel lenders deserve more blame for the student loan crisis in the US.
In all lending situations both the borrower and lender have responsibilities and one side should not shoulder an undue amount of the ire. This view has nothing to do with my beliefs about higher education.
They're only irrelevant if it's true that the loan guarantees are only in place because of lobbying from lenders. It's not--but you've stated you think it is, so the distinction is valid if I accept that as true.
If it's actually the case that these loan guarantees were put in place by well-intentioned people with the same goals and ideas that you have, then the blame may be better placed elsewhere. And that might prompt some retrospection as we consider larger and wider-ranging initiatives proposed based on the same world views.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lenders, through lobbying and regulatory capture, created the system. At least as I see things.
I don't doubt they contributed, but this isn't like a coal company getting emissions restrictions relaxed. There's a pretty common world view that financial viability should not even be a concern in young people's choices of what field to pursue, and subscribers to that are what created this policy. Lenders benefit, but this is driven by what a large group of people want society to look like. Even if the government s…
> Even if the government subsidized all higher education and removed the lenders from the equation completely,
Which it mostly has; private student loans dropped off a cliff with the late 2000s financial crisis, and then private lenders were cut entirely out of the federally guaranteed student loan program, which is where most loans for study at fully accredited schools come from. For guaranteed loans, the only lender is the federal government, so everyone talking about the supposed effect of federal guarantees on lender behavior is missing a very important fact.
So, the federal guaranteed loans, with below market interest, various forgiveness options, income-based repayment, etc., are basically an erratic, bureaucratically complicated, inconsistent, method of federal subsidy which excludes private lenders.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#108Student loans always did feel kind of predatory to me. We're asking 17 or 18 year olds whose brains haven't fully developed the ability to prioritize long term consequences to take on 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars in debt when in many cases, they don't even know their path through college (major etc). Now don't get me wrong, I don't have some sort of magic plan to fix this (maybe allow them to declare bankruptc…
> bankruptcy would be a start? Yes. This is the start and the end. Bankruptcy will stop lenders from making predatory loans. It puts risk on both sides. Tuition costs will naturally (and quickly) drop. Because there will be fewer people able to pay a crazy loan fueled price without a crazy loan given to them.
Maybe. The other option is that higher education will just be for the global rich. It’s a myth that markets need everyone, in fact it’s a core tenet of modern economics that markets can hum along just fine while excluding a large class of people, with no incentive to bring them into the fold.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest question. Why doesn't the lender require the borrower to explain how they plan to repay? Or why do they continue to lend large amounts for degrees where there's a low probability of getting a good salary after graduation. Or does the govt assume the risk of student loan defaults?
Why doesn't the lender require the borrower to explain how they plan to repay? No lender ever asks that. Lenders ask themselves , "how will I be repayed? And in the case of default?" In most cases, the answers are "by the borrower" and "take the house or car, the sale of which will offset some of the loss". In the case of student loans, the answer to the second question is "the U. S. government will pay it, in cash".…
> No lender ever asks that.
I just bought a house and you're utterly wrong.
Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which was the status quo before federal student loans.
I'm just curious, before federal loans, were private lenders willing to fund anybody, or only degrees they found lucrative? Or was the tuition so low it didn't matter? (E.g., somebody who gets a psychology degree and winds up making $40k/year doing data entry still can afford to pay the relatively small amount)?
Before federal student loans it was possible to attend University on a part time wage. It was hell, like it always is when trying to improve your socio economic status. But possible, unlike today.