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Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

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Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

#111
post #78
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy access to unlimited loans is a major comtributor to high tuition.

I believe for public universities the cost driver has been an increase in administrators and a decrease in funding per student.

Right, but they're competing with private universities. And those are adding administrators, facilities, etc. The public universities are keeping up with that. Without no default loans, the dynamic would change.

Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's absurd about that? The bank has no salvageable assets to claim. They can't claim 4 years of European Literature from your mind.

You can wipe out medical loans, which also have no assets to claim, with bankruptcy. Or do you think we need to make Repo Men a reality?

Medical loans? You can wipe out medical debt, but can you actually get a loan for medical procedures?

Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

#114
The figure 8% of GDP sounded mind boggling. But apparently it's true.

Quoth the wiki: "Approximately 43 million have student loans, with an average balance of $30,000. In 2017, average student loan debt reached $39, 400, an increase of 6% compared to 2016. Americans owe more than $1.48 trillion (44 million borrowers) which is roughly $620 billion more than the overall credit card debt in the country."

Just to compare to a communist I mean socialist country (Finland in this example), where we had an article about the massive increase in student loans (doubled in the last 10 years).

400 000 people with loans totalling 3 billion (about 7600eur per person). To scale that with the population of the US so about 60x we get the number 180 billion vs. 1480 billion.

Man you have it tough there :) Good thing that you all will be multi billionaires (or so everyone apparently thinks when voting) so no need for tax reform or any other kind of communist/socialist crap :)

Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s very reasonable to take out a loan for an income producing asset (like education), as long as the expected return is greater than the cost of the loan. but those sensible loans have also normalized loans for non-income producing assets, and that’s where it’s better to be able to pay up-front (unless you get an interest rate below inflation or the fed rate).

The variance is more important than the EV. An individual human is N=1. It's a single trial. You only live once. ;) An example would be taking out a mortgage. The highest EV is generally mortgaging yourself to the hilt. But in various circumstances, you'll then lose everything. Oh, and during the period you've basically given yourself a guaranteed annual cost you can't discharge without potentially taking huge losses…

yes, i've assumed a functioning market where the interest rate correctly accounts for risk, but that does mean a small but non-zero chance of loss.

but simply being alive is risky; there are no guarantees in life.

Re: Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials

#116
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s very reasonable to take out a loan for an income producing asset (like education), as long as the expected return is greater than the cost of the loan. but those sensible loans have also normalized loans for non-income producing assets, and that’s where it’s better to be able to pay up-front (unless you get an interest rate below inflation or the fed rate).

get rid of banks, and make tuition a combination of % of income for x years, combined in with some kind of social good calculation, so charity type work can count more than what it pays.

i'm not sure getting rid of banks would be appropriate, but i agree about pricing in positive externalities!
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