Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloombergquint.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 287 posts

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

#231

Post by felipelemos »

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 pay taxes to fund public school and universities, using it myself or not, because I don't want to live among ignorants.

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

#232

Post by zizee »

stenl wrote: post #219
mbroncano wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Middle class Germans pay twice as much or more Citation needed. My personal experience paying taxes in both EU/NL and US/TX is that I pay slightly more in the US, in pretty much the same situation (family of four, two incomes)

US taxes on average-ish incomes are definitely among the lowest in the OECD (as expected): http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/24/among-develo...

> So we chose to focus on a simple measure of tax burden: national-level income taxes plus mandatory social-insurance contributions as a percentage of gross income

I am not an American, nor that knowledgeable about their tax system, but my impression is that their system has a lot of layers (like state/county/local), which might make it unfair just to compare national level taxes.

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

#233

Post by RGamma »

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…

Note sure whether there's a (more or less evident) causal linkage and in retrospect that juxtaposition is somewhat artificial. I just thought that these two things seem inconsistent given the central importance of tertiary education in this day and age.

My thinking was more along the lines of: shouldn't the haves fund/enable the future success of the have nots instead of having them turn into (hopefully temporary) "have even less's"? In my mind it doesn't seem very sustainable to fuel education with debt even with government as creditor, especially in case should economic downturn occur...

I'm a university student myself and thanks to publicly funded universities I pay ~300 EUR per semester here (including an IMO quite generous public transit ticket). Obviously someone else is paying all the rest (plus the cost explosion is probably not nearly as bad here). The thought of having to personally indebt myself however, not knowing how things'll play out in this increasingly crazy world, seems quite scary. Looking at the situation of US students makes me all the more grateful to not be in their shoes.

I admit my original comment wasn't very well thought out, just something I wanted to vent (reading certain subreddits may have had something to do with this). There's obviously more forces at play concerning US higher education (and the welfare state in general), many of which I'm sure I can't see.

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

#234

Post by Gpetrium »

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 think there is a balance to emphasize the psychological and physical impact that debt can have to individuals and incentives individuals need to make smarter decision (debt is an incentive, not forced on ppl 99% of the time). If folks know that they will be indebted after university, they have more reason to study something that will allow them to pay it off or that it is at least partially paid by grants/etc.

Long-term thinking may mean less burden in society by making the incentives based on debt

I also think people forget that the US is a superpower in part because of the brain power it has, that brain power in part comes from the folks coming out of university. When you look at Uni's top 100 rank, 58% is American & 22% is European. Although this might be a simple correlation vs. causation scenario, I think it is worth accounting for in conjunction with a variety of variables.

I still agree that the tuition $ in the US is exorbitant and that governments need to teach people the values, risks, etc of going to university just like I think everyone should have at least 1 personal finance class in high school, it would help a lot of people.

P.S. I am not American

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

#235

Post by lotsofpulp »

goodells wrote: post #59
anilshanbhag wrote: post #10

There is so much waste in universities: bloated admin/it staff , libraries filled with journals/magazines that no one reads, tenure system that doesn't allow you to downsize departments that have no students. Tuition can be reduced, however there is no incentive to do it since students can easily get loans.

This is spot on. An anecdote from my undergrad studies and living in Madison, WI: the UW has a division of housing, which provides (shoddy) canvas carts to the students to use for moving in/out of the dorms. My student organization happened to "acquire" some of these carts, and when using one I was confronted by none other than the director of housing, who promptly called the police on me. In the end I was happy to r…

There is a reason those carts cost $800, and you definitely can’t make them from Home Depot materials for half that. Hotel owners don’t waste money on $2k and $3k luggage carts for no reason, google how much they cost.

Also, theft when you are an adult is not excused by claiming you were dumb kids in my opinion.

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

#236

Post by toasterlovin »

pbiggar wrote: post #194
monting wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. The purpose of the EU is to prevent war. The EU hasn't had a war in 75 years. That is the longest that Europe hasn't been at war in its recorded history.

Is your take that the EU, and not nuclear weapons, is the driving force behind the European peace since 1945?

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

#237

Post by toasterlovin »

systematical wrote: post #38
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #6

Education is important. Access to education is important. But our current system of giving out student loans with no regard to if the student will ever have a realistic ability to repay borders on predatory. If we can't do anything to solve that portion of the problem, we should at least restrict the mandatory fees that are tacked on for non instructional purposes. No student should have to pay for decades to prop up…

Education is important, but I sometimes wonder if there is a whole lot of correlation does not equal causation going on here. What I mean is, statistics say those with a four year or higher degree earn more than those without. A correlation. But you might say that those who are predisposed with the aptitude for higher earning power are more likely to pursue a higher degree in the first place. It's this thought, that…

You intuition is correct. If you dive into the behavioral genetics literature, you'll find that the school you go to and how long you go to school doesn't affect your life outcomes. Instead, both your life outcome as well your "quality" and duration of schooling are all driven by genetics and random stuff in the environment (actually, what is called non-shared environment, so stuff outside of your family, school, neighborhood, etc.).

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

#238

Post by oldprogrammer2 »

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…

To be fair, there are plenty of state universities in the US that are considerably cheaper than private schools. Students entering college are generally making two bad decisions:

1. Selecting a very expensive, non-prestigious private school.

2. Selecting a major that has no ROI for the cost of tuition.

To give concrete examples:

Option 1.

   4 years at U of Texas at Austin.

      Tuition = $40k.
Option 2.

   2 Years at Tarrant County College.

   2 years at U of Texas at Austin.

      Tuition = $24k.
Option 3.

   4 years at Southern Methodist University.

      Tuition = $250k.
So a student could spend $24k versus $250k, and I would imagine most would consider the UT Austin degree more valuable, as well, though these two schools are ranked similarly for undergraduate.

And, while I would support further taxes to support state schools, I have no desire to support students who are personally selecting to attend a school that will cost 10x just because they want to. And I have no desire to forgive their loans, either.

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

#239

Post by [deleted] »

zizee wrote: post #232
stenl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US taxes on average-ish incomes are definitely among the lowest in the OECD (as expected): http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/24/among-develo...

> So we chose to focus on a simple measure of tax burden: national-level income taxes plus mandatory social-insurance contributions as a percentage of gross income I am not an American, nor that knowledgeable about their tax system, but my impression is that their system has a lot of layers (like state/county/local), which might make it unfair just to compare national level taxes.

[deleted]

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

#240

Post by tomjakubowski »

rayiner wrote: post #206
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…

The education bubble has nothing to do with the rich. It’s entirely a middle class phenomenon—a wealth transfer from young middle class people to older middle class people (professors and administrators). To the extent that state colleges aren’t more heavily tax subsidized, again its primarily the fault of the older middle class. (The biggest difference between US and European tax rates is for the vast middle class.…

You fail to account for student loan interest, which does not transfer to your academic boogeymen.
Post reply on HN