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The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

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Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#341

Post by rchaud »

isoskeles wrote: post #335
chii wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But without the student loans, the under privileged will not be able to afford said education - I don't want to see a society where only those who can afford it go to university.

If I am a bank, I’m absolutely giving a loan to an underprivileged kid with good grades who wants to go to college for a useful degree.

If you are a bank, you issue loans only on things that are likely to have a positive ROI. With a mortgage, you know what the property is worth and can foreclose on it if the borrower isn't able to make the payments.

No such equivalent with a college student. 18-year olds for the most part aren't going to know for sure what they want to major in, so "a useful degree" at the time the loan is signed, might change 2 years in, when they actually have to declare a major.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#342

Post by isoskeles »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #340
isoskeles wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Do you think 99% of people who go to college are self-thinking and not corporate drones? Why do so many of them move on to work at corporations?

> trade school [] are optimized to make corporate drones I mean, I'm not a native English speaker but it seems pretty clear to me I was NOT talking about college output, quite the opposite actually.

You must understand that we’re talking about trade school as an alternative to college, so if you point out some stunning detractor toward trade school, you’re implying the detractor does not exist for the alternative.

Maybe I took that implication to an extreme end, but calling out trade schools for producing “corporate drones” absolutely bears the implication that you believe the alternatives are different / not as bad.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#343

Post by isoskeles »

rchaud wrote: post #341
isoskeles wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am a bank, I’m absolutely giving a loan to an underprivileged kid with good grades who wants to go to college for a useful degree.

If you are a bank, you issue loans only on things that are likely to have a positive ROI. With a mortgage, you know what the property is worth and can foreclose on it if the borrower isn't able to make the payments. No such equivalent with a college student. 18-year olds for the most part aren't going to know for sure what they want to major in, so "a useful degree" at the time the loan is signed, might change 2 year…

We can easily conceive of loans that are contingent on the major not changing to something useless. I don’t believe flaws in the current system have to stick forever.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#344

Post by FussyZeus »

isoskeles wrote: post #336
FussyZeus wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who decides what constitutes malinvestment? I'm guessing there will be plenty of funds made available for tech work, what with Twitter, Ubereats and Facebook being so critical. How about the arts? How about history and culture, you know the stuff that makes living worthwhile beyond your usefulness to line the pockets of capitalists? Or how about we just confront the problem dead on, remove the money and profit as…

> How about the arts? How about history and culture, you know the stuff that makes living worthwhile beyond your usefulness to line the pockets of capitalists? Do you ever think about the possibility of people making art or studying history without going into tens of thousands of dollars of debt?

Considering I just said make college free, yeah I think I've considered the possibility.

Even going past that, though, if studying History can't get you a job that makes enough to pay off your debt, then why does it cost so much in the first place?

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#345

Post by tracker1 »

asabjorn wrote: post #202

This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs". It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state-subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning pote…

Largely came to say similar... As someone who didn't go the college route, it's hard for me to sympathize with someone who chose to go 6 figures into debt for a degree in a job that's specifically overloaded, and jobs that pay less than 1/4 if that debt. It's just not a wise decision. Not to mention the over-bloated costs to begin with.

Most of the suggested solutions will not really do much to change things. Maybe requiring students to sign that they've seen job market studies for their chosen program and/or forcing non-compounding interest for student loans while still in college. Maybe even capping loan interest to 10% of income when direct withholding 15%. Optioning loans under cost/benefit would probably go a long way as well.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#346

Post by solidasparagus »

I would like to see these graphs next to graphs of for-profit university attendance. Looking at wikipedia, for-profit grew rapidly until enrollment started dropping around 2009.

For-profit schools are "13 percent of the nation's college enrollment, but account for about 47 percent of the defaults on loans. About 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community colleges and 48 percent at four-year public universities."- 2012 report [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/education/harkin-report-c...

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#348

Post by LoSboccacc »

isoskeles wrote: post #342
LoSboccacc wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trade school [] are optimized to make corporate drones I mean, I'm not a native English speaker but it seems pretty clear to me I was NOT talking about college output, quite the opposite actually.

You must understand that we’re talking about trade school as an alternative to college, so if you point out some stunning detractor toward trade school, you’re implying the detractor does not exist for the alternative. Maybe I took that implication to an extreme end, but calling out trade schools for producing “corporate drones” absolutely bears the implication that you believe the alternatives are different / not as…

> you’re implying the detractor does not exist for the alternative.

no? what kind of crazy dichotomic logic is that? you're way overthinking it.

> Do you think 99% of people who go to college

moreover college output has a lot more variation than trade school output, so assuming that the proportions of outcome are the same is as well something that was never claimed.

> You must understand

you just dropping things I never said and argue as if I said them, how does one go and debate or understand that? it was never my point to begin with!

jesus, 6 post ago I made one point: trade school aren't providing the titles one would go get to optimize for class mobility, heck, the rest isn't even a point of discussion really, the whole idea on which trade school are based on is to bake blue collar workers.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#349

Post by tracker1 »

derefr wrote: post #208
asabjorn wrote: post #202

This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs". It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state-subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning pote…

In this case, though, the "product that [was] being sold" that made these students originally go to school, is employment—or rather, a proxy signal for employability that the consumers of the product hope will get them employment. People consume education when they can't find a job, in the hopes that they'll become more employable, even though this makes the problem of their unemployment more dire rather than less (b…

I agree with that... however, there are a lot of people studying programs that are overloaded. Let's say there's 100 positions for Foo Studies program majors, but 10000 people get Foo Studies degrees each year. How many of those people will find jobs in their field? How many will wind up in jobs not paying enough to cover cost of living + student loan repayment? Who is responsible for not understanding that a Foo Studies degree will not get them where they need to be? And even when they can get into their chosen field, because there's so much excess supply the actual job pays even less.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#350

Post by tracker1 »

solidasparagus wrote: post #346

I would like to see these graphs next to graphs of for-profit university attendance. Looking at wikipedia, for-profit grew rapidly until enrollment started dropping around 2009. For-profit schools are "13 percent of the nation's college enrollment, but account for about 47 percent of the defaults on loans. About 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community c…

I've also heard that the pricing of for-profit schools is to maximize backed loans out before a student drops out (since most drop around the end of their second year). I know a lot of people who couldn't get funding for their final year of study.
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