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U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

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121–130 of 161 posts

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#121
post #109
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of repossession is that he bank can sell it to recover at least some of their loss. Without that, it’s just destructive punishment. You’d be making society poorer by restricting this person’s job prospects, with no gain anywhere to offset it.

I don’t know how you get “the whole point” as being that. The credit scoring system likewise doesn’t give the lender anything to resell and merely punishes the borrower, but we recognize it as having positive sum effects for the credit system. A program of revoking degrees would behave the same way. (Even if you have criticisms of the credit score as it exists today, most at least see the merit of “hey, other lenders…

The point of credit scores isn’t to punish the borrower, it’s to allow future lenders to better gauge risk. No value is destroyed when you put a negative mark on someone’s credit report.

Revoking degrees would be equivalent to burning down houses in foreclosure. Such destruction of value is obvious madness.

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#122
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic runs like this: A secured loan should be easy and cheap to get, because if it goes bad, the lender can reposes the collateral. This is like your house and the truck; you ran up some debt, it didn't work out, you lost them both, but you also lost the debt. An unsecured loan should be harder to get and pretty expensive, because it's riskier. If I run up $20k on my credit card paying for a fancy vacation, then…

>Student loans are for an education, which you can't repossess, but we also don't want to carefully vet applicants or charge them 16% interest rates. To try and square the circle, we've decided that student loans will be super easy to get and have very low rates, but then to try and avoid abuse we've decided they can't be discharged in bankruptcy. And then to try and avoid people being stuck with massive loans they c…

Here you go: https://www.cappex.com/articles/money/history-of-bankrupty-d...

The parallel history to this is that the banks lobbied for the "mean" changes to the bankruptcy rules. The politicians were seeking reelection by guaranteeing that everyone could go to college at lower and lower rates, but they needed to keep the bankers happy too: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-loans/federal-...

Caveat: If you don't live in the US, neither of these histories apply to you.

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#123
post #10

Disclosure: I work as a blue-collar engine mechanic. Ive never been to college. That having been said, im familiar with debt after the 2008 housing collapse. I lost my truck and my trailer home, partly because of a shady home loan and partly because well, my employer went out of business. That having been said it was relatively easy to discharge these debts. the bank wasnt too upset about the home and offered to help…

Because there were assets tied to those loans (the house and the car)

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we won’t get that. American culture and politics won’t permit it. (I can see the New Yorker articles now.) Not only that, we won’t even get the quota systems for different majors various European countries have. It’ll be underwater basket weaving for everyone, at the public expense.

Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think we can do it right. We had two tracks in high school. the ones who could go to college stayed in class all day. The others who were slated for blue collar jobs went to trade school for the first half of the day, then took essential classes in the afternoon.

> Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think we can do it right.

Our politics would never allow dual tracking. (There are many things that Europe does fine, such as public education, and transit, that Europe does just fine, but which we can’t do as well because of cultural differences.)

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#125
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you get “the whole point” as being that. The credit scoring system likewise doesn’t give the lender anything to resell and merely punishes the borrower, but we recognize it as having positive sum effects for the credit system. A program of revoking degrees would behave the same way. (Even if you have criticisms of the credit score as it exists today, most at least see the merit of “hey, other lenders…

The point of credit scores isn’t to punish the borrower, it’s to allow future lenders to better gauge risk. No value is destroyed when you put a negative mark on someone’s credit report. Revoking degrees would be equivalent to burning down houses in foreclosure. Such destruction of value is obvious madness.

> Revoking degrees would be equivalent to burning down houses in foreclosure.

While I agree with your larger point, I think this particular bit is a little weak.

A revoked degree can easily be un-revoked, while a burned down house needs to be re-built from scratch. This is why it is socially acceptable for schools to withhold transcripts for students who owe money to the school.

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#126
post #103
post #10

Disclosure: I work as a blue-collar engine mechanic. Ive never been to college. That having been said, im familiar with debt after the 2008 housing collapse. I lost my truck and my trailer home, partly because of a shady home loan and partly because well, my employer went out of business. That having been said it was relatively easy to discharge these debts. the bank wasnt too upset about the home and offered to help…

The logic runs like this: A secured loan should be easy and cheap to get, because if it goes bad, the lender can reposes the collateral. This is like your house and the truck; you ran up some debt, it didn't work out, you lost them both, but you also lost the debt. An unsecured loan should be harder to get and pretty expensive, because it's riskier. If I run up $20k on my credit card paying for a fancy vacation, then…

> we also don't want to carefully vet applicants

Sounds like you don't want to vet them at all, when carefully vetting would be a good answer.

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think we can do it right. We had two tracks in high school. the ones who could go to college stayed in class all day. The others who were slated for blue collar jobs went to trade school for the first half of the day, then took essential classes in the afternoon.

> Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think we can do it right. Our politics would never allow dual tracking. (There are many things that Europe does fine, such as public education, and transit, that Europe does just fine, but which we can’t do as well because of cultural differences.)

We have dual tracks now. We are allowing it. You mean at a national level?

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the most prominent counterexample is Germany, which has basically free tuition. They also have different kinds of high schools preparing people for universities or trades, not everyone needs to go to university.

I know that it's worked elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it will work here (without some cultural changes). I'm not saying college shouldn't be free - maybe it should - but I'm saying that the problems we have today with underemployment aren't going to be fixed by free tuition. We first have to undo decades of treating trades as a lesser class of work, and telling everyone they have to go to college and "follow their…

Aren’t employment rates in the U.S. doing pretty well at this point? I think the companies struggling to find people are skilled labor—the likes of which require 4 year degrees for a lot of their positions.

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#129
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic runs like this: A secured loan should be easy and cheap to get, because if it goes bad, the lender can reposes the collateral. This is like your house and the truck; you ran up some debt, it didn't work out, you lost them both, but you also lost the debt. An unsecured loan should be harder to get and pretty expensive, because it's riskier. If I run up $20k on my credit card paying for a fancy vacation, then…

> we also don't want to carefully vet applicants Sounds like you don't want to vet them at all, when carefully vetting would be a good answer.

> Sounds like you don't want to vet them at all

I'm struggling to understand how you could read my comment and feel like you have any idea what I think should be the case. I am making a positive claim about US politics, not a normative claim about how it should be.

> when carefully vetting would be a good answer.

No doubt you have a citation for this? An example country that has implemented this with excellent outcomes?

Re: U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

#130
I'm homeless with $9k owed to Betsy DeVos' Navient, not the Federal Govt, went through bankruptcy and can't get a job with a degree that isn't usable for reasons other than itself. Seems like another case of the vampires squeezing the blood of poor to pay for the tax cuts and welfare for the rich. Isn't it the usual case the weakest members of society are routinely scapegoated when there's a nationalist, bifurcating upheaval?
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