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No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

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161–170 of 221 posts

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#161

You know, it's funny, there's a lot of comments saying something along the lines of "college isn't just to get a job". Which is really funny, since that's absolutely the primary reason why college educations are pushed. E.g. "if you don't go to college you'll end up working at McDonald's" Plus, I have yet to see the evidence that colleges provide this virtuous yet intangible quality of non-economically beneficial "wh…

I have never found the argument that "college isn't about getting a job" convincing. Yes, it's important to be well rounded and expand your horizons and all the other platitudes that people say. But I'm not paying tuition to be "well rounded", I'm going to college as an investment in my own human capital. I can read an interesting book in the evening to be "well rounded".

Some people confuse being well-rounded with having other people tell you their ideas and then being able to repeat and maybe even riff on them.

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think taxpayer money should be spent in ways that create measurable benefit to both the individual and the economy as a whole. I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like Renoir.

> I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like Renoir. You are picking the edge case here. Art and culture are much more then just rich class's pretense. As far as wasting money is concerned, spending it just to create more replaceable cogs for capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise. Why not ask the In…

> things which cannot be measured in next quarter.

I'm all for long-term investments, but can these ever be measured? If not, it will take more than your claims to convince me that it's worth investing in.

There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, etc. These are all free or much cheaper than a course in a college. You haven't demonstrated how an academic setting is better and worth the cost.

Govt doesn't need to subsidise industry. I'd be fine if these loans are issued by private investors, as with Lambda school.

> capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise

No, their benefit can be measured in GDP. Imperfect, sure, but 100x better than your hand-waving claims. No personal offence intended.

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#164

I’d like to congratulate the brain trust at silicon valley for inventing public education and taxes

I was thinking exactly the same, although a bit less passive agressive in the tone :)

In Denmark (where I'm from), there is a system where education is free. There are private schools, but to my knowledge no private universities. Your entry ticket to a university is your grade from high-school. You actually get some money while studying. You can still chose to do a studen loan on top of that, but typically people come out of university with maximum $20k in debt most way less.

I have many friends that are absolutely brilliant and successful, who would probably not have been able to afford a university degree.

One thing is what that does to the crazy debt many people get in other countries, but think about what it does for low-income areas, immigrant and integration and general inequality of a population.

By all means, Denmark is not perfect. But I think we nailed it with access to education.

And yes. Our tax pressure is pretty high. But surprisingly not that much higher than for example California and NY.

Martin

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus, I have yet to see the evidence that colleges provide this virtuous yet intangible quality of non-economically beneficial "wholesome" education. You could try checking course requirements. Every college I'm aware of requires that students take classes in a variety of subjects outside their major before they can graduate.

Which doesn't provide the evidence the parent was looking for. Just because you take a variety of classes doesn't mean that they have a benefit. If they do, please give us the evidence.

Not sure if it’s anyones job to search for evidence for you or the parent.

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#166

You know, it's funny, there's a lot of comments saying something along the lines of "college isn't just to get a job". Which is really funny, since that's absolutely the primary reason why college educations are pushed. E.g. "if you don't go to college you'll end up working at McDonald's" Plus, I have yet to see the evidence that colleges provide this virtuous yet intangible quality of non-economically beneficial "wh…

Don't get me started

College education is hugely overrated, and especially by using bad reasons like that

Spare me the hyperboles, using the "well rounded" adjective makes no sense except for objects that are supposed to be round.

College is essential if you are in a regulated profession and/or is it too expensive (or impossible) to learn it yourself (like medicine, other engineerings, law, etc)

For other areas? Not so much

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#167
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it stepped at all? Do you owe nothing before 50k and then once you cross that threshold you now owe money? That would seem to incentivise staying below that threshold for a percentage of borrowers. I also have difficulty seeing the first benefit you list as being a benefit. I don't have a problem with people pursuing degrees in fields that aren't big money makers, but I also don't know that the government should b…

The only % you pay, is on the money above the threshold amount. So if you earn 52k, you only pay the 8% of your student loan back on the 2k above the threshold. So yes, it is stepped, and no, there is no incentive for staying below that threshold. re: your second point, there is no 'incentive' to study in those fields, it is merely possible to do so. It is good, as fields that are low-earning like literature and art;…

HECS repayments are one of the only Australian taxes I can think of that actually isn’t progresssive and the percentage is applied to your whole income, not just that above the threshold. Which is why it’s also such a gradual tax, not even hitting 8% until a fair way past 100k.

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#168

Australia has a system that, while different, has similar perks to this. We have a government loan system called HELP (formerly HECS). Basically students can get a zero interest government loan (rises with inflation), and only need to pay it off once they make above a certain threshold ($51,957 according to the official website[1]). The payments are deducted as a percentage of your income, with the payments increasin…

Fiji has this too. The Tertiary Education Loan Scheme (TELS).

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#169

> At Lambda, students pay nothing upfront. But they are required to pay 17 percent of their salary to Lambda for two years if they get a job that pays more than $50,000. This appears to create a cliff: If you make $50000 a year, you keep $50000 a year. If you make $51000 a year, you pay 17% ($8670) and you keep $42330. That extra dollar cost you a ton of money. It really ought to be a marginal rate like tax brackets.

It turns out that people usually work more than a few years, and their salaries rise over time. It would be counterproductive not to negotiate the highest salary you could (because you'll probably go upwards from there).

> It turns out that people usually work more than a few years, and their salaries rise over time.

It also turns out that people know this and don't appreciate your trite condescension.

Even more amazingly, it turns out that when people get a raise they expect to actually take home more money, which is only possible when the rate of taxation or whatever this thing is acts on marginal income rather than total income.

Re: No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job

#170
post #96
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it stepped at all? Do you owe nothing before 50k and then once you cross that threshold you now owe money? That would seem to incentivise staying below that threshold for a percentage of borrowers. I also have difficulty seeing the first benefit you list as being a benefit. I don't have a problem with people pursuing degrees in fields that aren't big money makers, but I also don't know that the government should b…

> Is it stepped at all? Do you owe nothing before 50k and then once you cross that threshold you now owe money? That would seem to incentivise staying below that threshold for a percentage of borrowers. Once you earn over the threshold your HELP repayments apply to your entire income. So, yes, at low incomes you get a pretty significant tax increase when you cross the threshold. I think they should make it marginal l…

Technically you always owe the money, you just don't have to repay it when you have a low income. It is stepped in the rate of repayment -- it might be 2% of income at $50k and 8% at $100k. It certainly seems like your biggest raise ever when you pay it off.
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