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U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

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Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#151

Post by rosterface »

troutwine wrote: post #144
rosterface wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a member of the first group, I agree with you. I really don't like the idea of subsidizing what I consider other people's bad decisions. I was able to make financially reasonable decisions, which often involved sacrifice, and chose to focus on a viable career. I don't want to spend my hard earned money supporting people who didn't do that. I did not come from money and came from a pretty awful environment so I kno…

Also a member of the first group and I disagree with the conclusion. I'd be very happy to see all current student debt forgiven and subsidies to university programs improved. Good on you, though, for getting through an education without debt. That's a real accomplishment. There are for sure a good number of people who get an education for a viable career and wind up with loans that spiral out of control, especially i…

Actually, I don't have a degree. That's sort of my point. It's very possible to just enter the labor market and make money if you work hard and smart. I'm a developer but I know plenty of people I grew up with who went on to be: military people, plumbers, cops...

> there's a good number of folks with student loan debt they can't easily manage who made all the right decisions but got a bad break somewhere.

I don't think it's ever the right decision to take out a massive amount of debt. Even to study something you love. You can't fight against the real world economics of that decision. I saw the option to get what I considered to be a lifetime's worth of debt and looked for alternatives. Lots of people who come from lower class backgrounds do the same.

I think it's going to be very hard to get those people on board with paying off other people's student debt.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#152

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

gnicholas wrote: post #147
RGamma wrote: post #127

From a European perspective I can only shake my head at this. It doesn't seem like a good idea at all to indebt a significant part of the young population (which I presume creates a lot of avoidable stress) while the rich gain in wealth and power year after year. But I guess longer-term thinking has been thrown overboard in economic decision/policy making anyway, because that would make the numbers not grow fast enou…

I’m curious about the juxtaposition of the indebting of young people and the rich gaining in wealth and power. Is there a causal linkage between student loan debt and the rich getting richer? It’s true that we could levy higher taxes on the rich to pay for college, but as others have pointed out, part of the problem of spiraling costs is the heavy governmental subsidies. Or am I missing the point on how these two thi…

Who do you think decided that students need debt? And that some of the richest economies in the world "can't afford" to educate their citizens without it?

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#153

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #138

Let it burn down. No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. This is a scheme in which they've fucked over a large portion of the population with the skyrocketing prices of education. Further, this education is the regularly accepted means of increasing your production. Society says you have to do this, and then continuously increases the price, without reason. The gist of this is; some shi…

>No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop.

Sorry. But you took a debt, you pay it back. Integrity isn’t outdated.

I agree that the idea and industry behind “13th grade” is dumb. Obviously not every kid should be encouraged to take on debt to go to college. But “stop paying your debts” is a bad message imo.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#154

Post by holografix »

monting wrote: post #135
RGamma wrote: post #127

From a European perspective I can only shake my head at this. It doesn't seem like a good idea at all to indebt a significant part of the young population (which I presume creates a lot of avoidable stress) while the rich gain in wealth and power year after year. But I guess longer-term thinking has been thrown overboard in economic decision/policy making anyway, because that would make the numbers not grow fast enou…

Don’t mean to sound defensive (I’m not American), and I mostly agree with you. But, from a non-European perspective, Europe doesn’t seem to be doing well? It seems the EU is slowly disintegrating, and the monetary union isn’t working. Also the political landscape seems to be in turmoil as well.

Also non-American and non-European here. My impression is that the EU is getting itself into a huge mess mainly due to abused good intentions taking in immigrants and as a byproduct of the GFC and Middle East’s proxy American x Russian war.

While the Americans seem to not be operating as a democracy for a while and are instead a Corporocracy. It became fairly obvious after the GFC. The three “super powers” in the world are not democracies.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#155

Post by groestl »

ashelmire wrote: post #74
Coding_Cat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a rather simple way of stopping the ever growing tuition bubble, one that is employed in the Netherland, but I feel like it won't be popular in the US: Cap the tuition a college is allowed to charge and restrict them from charging additional fees.

Actually, the simplest way to put downward pressure on tuition in the US is to allow the loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Yes, or, if you want to go even further, introduce a special bankruptcy after X years, just for tuition debts. Which is effectively the idea of the IBR (income-based repayment) scheme, as I understand it (I'm not US-American).

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#156

Post by CogitoCogito »

bad_good_guy wrote: post #108
ourmandave wrote: post #32

This is why keep pushing my daughter towards a trade school. (Once you become immune to eye-rolling life gets easier.) There's a lot of companies with unfilled skilled blue collar jobs. And despite self-driving trucks, semi drivers can make some serious money. And HVAC projected job growth is 14% over the next 10 years. Thank you Global Warming!

Should you really be actively pushing your child in any direction? Would the best course of action not just be to make sure that trade schools are a completely viable choice, should she not be interested in an academic subject?

Basically everybody actively pushes their child in some direction. Assuming you have some wisdom to offer, that's basically what parenting is about. If the OP truly believes trade schools are a better choice, then I don't see why he shouldn't push them.

Besides in the circles I grew in this attitude would have brought some balance to things considering I was surrounded by people pushing deeply academic subjects beyond all else.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#157

Post by orzig »

Honest question: what are the best two or three studies showing where all the extra money has gone over the last few decades?

If millions of people are losing, some set of people must be winning (by an amount roughly inversely proportional to their size). I understand economics is complex, feedback loops, etc., but with so much money flowing it must accumulate somewhere. And I’m sure people have studied it on a deeper than anecdotal level

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#158

Post by lordnacho »

gnicholas wrote: post #147
RGamma wrote: post #127

From a European perspective I can only shake my head at this. It doesn't seem like a good idea at all to indebt a significant part of the young population (which I presume creates a lot of avoidable stress) while the rich gain in wealth and power year after year. But I guess longer-term thinking has been thrown overboard in economic decision/policy making anyway, because that would make the numbers not grow fast enou…

I’m curious about the juxtaposition of the indebting of young people and the rich gaining in wealth and power. Is there a causal linkage between student loan debt and the rich getting richer? It’s true that we could levy higher taxes on the rich to pay for college, but as others have pointed out, part of the problem of spiraling costs is the heavy governmental subsidies. Or am I missing the point on how these two thi…

The connection is that people who have debt out of college tend to need to take whatever job they can find. This worsens their negotiating position vs a situation where they don't have any obligations.

Wealthy people tend to be owners of businesses (directly or indirectly) that buy this labor, and they have a better negotiating position.

Young people with all the time in the world, an education, and no debt are also in a good position to establish new businesses. Having fewer of those reduces competition.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#159

Post by sillyguy123 »

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #84
ashelmire wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the simplest way to put downward pressure on tuition in the US is to allow the loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Won't people then plan to go bankrupt? Although perhaps that will allow a better equilibrium.

Probably - it would change the dynamics between pricing , companies providing the financing and universities.

How I’ve no idea. Right now it’s kinda risk free to give loans out so that would change. Maybe then less cash is made available and universities have extra capacity.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#160

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

iguy wrote: post #85
Shivetya wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been fine with Medicade/Medicare spelling out costs for services and such they should be willing to accept the same in higher education to obtain a Federally backed loan. Schools will trip over themselves to offer degree programs to meet Federal Assistance requirements. Each degree, each course credit leading to that degree, should all be subject to review on a periodic basis to insure that the needs of t…

> each course credit ... should all be subject to review on a periodic basis ... needs of the country This sounds horrifying. You want every change of a course to go via some central bureaucracy for approval? This bureaucracy will be staffed by ideologically neutral disinterested angels, regardless of which party is in power? I think there's a much more free-market solution here. Cap student loan payments at 15% of t…

The predictable outcome will be a glut of professionals with high-prospect degrees which will actually drive wages down in those fields, while useful-but-low-prospect careers - nursing, the arts, teaching - will continue to be underfunded and underpaid.

There's already more than enough "ideologically neutral disinterested" distortion of social value created by so-called free markets everywhere else in the economy. If free markets were going to solve university education they'd have done it by now - just as they've been promising to for decades now.

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