Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Stepping Up Enforcement on Delinquent Student Loans

bloomberg.com

141–150 of 161 posts

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

#141
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…

Students treat college as a jobs training program and as an investment of their time to get into a better life.

However, both the government and the schools do not treat college this way. If the government was wisely investing, they'd decide STEM Folks can get huge loans due to the long-term need for them and their relative scarcity, but "luxury" degrees such as art, history, music, etc majors can only take out tiny ones due to the lack of economic utility, with quota's set for each so that you do not over-supply the market with more labor than it can absorb. You need both long-term and short-term feedback systems and you need to fail people in programs who are unsuitable early on.

Furthermore, because college is about "building character and life skills", there's no control on accredited institutions that do not provide economically viable candidates. Which college students in what programs repay their loans vs do not? Where's that data? Surely that information is a matter of public record but students go to college courses, get A's, and come out the other end jobless or under-employed.

The net effect is children who's parents have never gone through college or continuing education programs, especially minorities, don't know to ask the above questions or how to navigate the system successfully, and the college administrators in order to make their millions, screw those kids and their families over 9 ways from Sunday as hard as they possible can because it's a dog-eat-dog world and screw em'. Think about it; please fill out your FASFA and tell me exactly how much money you make so I know how much to charge.

It's an unsustainable system and the only thing that gives it a some amount of legitimacy is the fact the loans are given by the government and people are allowed to do what they want with them. It's a system that is begging for regulation.

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

#142
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…

It would be problematic for rich people who do not need loans, and destroy the trust on schooling system. Diplomas need to be irrevocable except for serious procedural issues.

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

#143
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…

> and have very low rates,

The rates used to be very low. They are no longer very low. Lower than 16% yes, but 9% is not uncommon.

The much-higher-than-inflation rate turns a languishing undischragable loan into a debilitating time-bomb.

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

#144
post #33

I’m convinced you can’t fix the education problem in the US until you can fix the demand side as well. Where I live in Maryland, you can do two years at the local community college (which is excellent) for $8,000 in tuition and fees (total), before finishing up at a four year-college. Very few people take advantage of the opportunity. Why are people clamoring for free college when they’re not using the cheaper option…

> Where I live in Maryland, you can do two years at the local community college (which is excellent) for $8,000 in tuition and fees, before finishing up at a four year-college. This is true for the majority of students, but not generally true for the top ~1-10% of students who often need all 4 years to compete for slots at top law schools, med schools, phd programs, and employers. And getting into the top 4-5 of any…

> who often need all 4 years to compete for slots at top law schools,

You can get into a highly ranked law-school with a high LSAT score and essentially nothing else.

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

#145
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do this for K-12 and nobody had to be enslaved.

When someone takes 100% of the fruits of your labor it is slavery. What do you call it when someone takes 45% of the fruits of your labor?

It’s called “getting back more than 45% in returns in the form of a functioning and secure society.” That’s not what slaves got in return for 100% of their income.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The assessing is done by the school as they are a trusted third party. That might be for some loans, but from my understanding everybody is guaranteed a loan, regardless of their grades. The point was the government would back the loans so those who were less affluent could also go to school. The end result is we tried to help the poor, and screwed everybody else along the way. Not only did the poor get a bad deal,…

" but that simply how supply and demand works " Are you sure? Because the normal way of thinking about "supply and demand" is to suggest that prices will go down if supply grows faster than demand, which is what happened for nearly all of the 20th Century. And if that process has stopped, then we need to ask why. Please consider the data here: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_302.60.a... Try to exp…

There was a price surge from 197[1] to 1996.

Taking the 25 year period from 1971 to 1996 and then the 20 year period 1996 to 2016, the CAGR in the first period was 7.6/6.7% and in the second period was only 4.6%/5.3% for 4-year public/private colleges respectively. Data: [0]

That data shows there was a higher rate of price increase (in nominal dollars) during the first period than the second. Now, general inflation was also higher in the first period (5.1%/6.9% CAGR of wage increases for men/women vs 2.5/3.4% in the latter period).

Taking the mathematically unsound step to average the public and private increases and average the wage increase rates for men and women, and compare the two, it seems that college costs rose 1.1% faster than wages in the first period and 2.0% faster than wages in the second period. Is that effect driven by college costs rising faster or wages rising more slowly?

[0] - https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resou...

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

#147
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this meant to be sarcastic? I suppose it would be possible if you enslaved those with PHDs and unpaid debt, forcing them to teach at universities administrated by those enslaved for their debt, built by those enslaved for their debt. Pharaoh had a lot of things for “free,” as did the plantation owners in the US, but the cost of free is pretty much the opposite of free for those who end up doing the paying. And the…

As is true of so many other things in the United States, you just have to look at all the other western countries that manage to handle this just fine. Not all have totally free tertiary education of course, but there's a mix of that, along with interest free loans, partial subsidy by the government etc etc. And many of them work very well. This kind of myopic skepticism is so tiring.

Because tax-payer funded, universal high school worked out so well that we’ve had to supplement it with four extra years to get a similar outcome to the past?

You know the definition of insanity that goes doing the same thing and expecting different results?

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't find gainful employment with your new degree, not much worth repossessing, is there?

We teach kids they can be whoever they want to be, then stick them with a massive bill and say 'ha ha only kidding you miserable debt slave.'

Do you think that people who complete high school should be expected to understand compound interest and that people who can be legally tried as adults should be trusted to enter into a contract and abide by the terms thereof? When you grow up, one of the things you can choose to be is an adult.

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

#149
post #39
post #33

I’m convinced you can’t fix the education problem in the US until you can fix the demand side as well. Where I live in Maryland, you can do two years at the local community college (which is excellent) for $8,000 in tuition and fees (total), before finishing up at a four year-college. Very few people take advantage of the opportunity. Why are people clamoring for free college when they’re not using the cheaper option…

I also do not understand this. For example, Arizona community colleges (2 years) are $2,400 while Arizona state universities are $10k. People are deciding to spend more money elsewhere. They have been convinced that to have a successful career and life they must be in a certain program at a specific university. And for those that wish to be academics or working as a part of the 1% at the cutting edge of their field -…

I'm from Chicago, have you been to one of our community colleges. They're not that great. I know, I went to one for a year before transferring to a more renowned college. Not to mention if you don't think the people around you in a community college setting are largely responsible adults optimizing their career/life paths, you are also wrong, these are well-known things that affect the quality and consumption of your education.

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

#150
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…

It would be problematic for rich people who do not need loans, and destroy the trust on schooling system. Diplomas need to be irrevocable except for serious procedural issues.

Yeah, good point, universities never revoke degrees over objectionable behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby#Rescinded_honorary_...

Post reply on HN