Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#461

Post by compiler-guy » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #153

gwd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; It's sad that most cultures understood the danger and fragility that debt brings, and yet we've all somehow how forgotten it. We even have terms like "good debt".

I prefer the terms, “productive debt” and “consumptive debt”. Productive debt allows you to produce more things. A business loan, for example. Or even a small loan for an inexpensive car so you can go to work would also be productive debt. Consumptive debt is a large loan for a car that is way more than the minimum, or for most recreational spend.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#462

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #440

gwd wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? If it's a bad bet for the bank , it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That's the point -- right now we're essentially suckering millions of naive young adults into a life of wage slavery by giving them a "bet" which they are completely unequipped to evaluate; and many of t…

> If it's a bad bet for the bank, it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That doesn't follow: you could graduate, get your degree, and declare bankruptcy. You're fine, your loan is gone, and the bank regrets their investment.

Let's make that point clearer:

Since the bank is absolved from making that bet, it is now the young adult making the same bet that no sane bank would take.

A lot of people are now living with having lost that bet.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#463

Post by bluGill » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #287

staticautomatic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this attitude disturbing. The only things stopping real change in America are people who don't want it to happen and people who have been tricked into believing it can't.

I want real change, I just don't believe this is the change that makes sense. Changing the way colleges are paid for would make sense. Capping tuition would make sense. Making you pay a portion of your income back to the college for the rest of your life (or maybe just 20 years) would make sense. But allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy would do more harm than good without other systemic changes.

If you are getting a degree that doesn't have good job prospects then you should pay for it out of pocket, only the rich should try for it (rich can mean middle class with a good job taking a second degree for fun). If you take a loan that means you expect the value of the degree is worth more than the loan amount over time. If you can't find such a job paying enough to make it worth it, then you should declare bankruptcy.

If the only value of the degree is it makes you well rounded, then universities should ensure that only enough people start down the path using loans as their are tenured positions expected to be open in 10 years. If there is industry demand elsewhere then meet it.

I don't know how to solve the problems of someone declaring bankruptcy as soon as they finish their degree though.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#464

Post by clairity » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

thelean12 wrote: post #454

clairity wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, total cost, as that's the truer measure.

Certainly not an option for everyone, but a ton of people in my state school class still lived at home. A good percentage could have lived at home but chose not to. It's also hard for me to include housing because you'd need housing no matter what path in life you choose.

that's true, but that ignores opportunities/opportunity costs, which would cover housing/food in an alternate scenario.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#465

Post by hinkley » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #440

gwd wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? If it's a bad bet for the bank , it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That's the point -- right now we're essentially suckering millions of naive young adults into a life of wage slavery by giving them a "bet" which they are completely unequipped to evaluate; and many of t…

> If it's a bad bet for the bank, it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That doesn't follow: you could graduate, get your degree, and declare bankruptcy. You're fine, your loan is gone, and the bank regrets their investment.

And then you can't get a decent loan for anything until you're 30. It's not a great solution.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#466

Post by thorwasdfasdf » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #113

nimbius wrote: post #64

Disclosure: i never went to college, I went to a trade school. Colleges really only started scaring the heck out of me when I started enjoying my career. After spending a day wrenching in a garage, we'd hit miller time and head down to the Soapbox Bar and Grill. Over the span of a month or two ordering buckets and shooting pool I learned our bartender Javon had a masters in biology and his fiancee Cortisha who bussed…

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

those loans shouldn't be allowed in the first place. There should be some kind of cap on the loans in the first place. Perhaps, create a ceiling of something manageable say 5k. At that point, colleges will have no choice but to start cutting costs and make college more affordable.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#467

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #191

matchbok wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, sadly the demand is still there. It's so easy to get huge loans and as a result, there is no downward pressure on price. My tiny college had 5 full-time staff for "residence life", plus a dean of that department. Totally unnecessary.

How exactly is it "so easy to get huge loans" for college? My kid needs that, but we see only $5500 available for the first year. Did you instead mean loans that the parent takes on, perhaps as cosigner? I'm seeing nothing beyond $5500 that can be obtained by a student.

I think if you're low income, you qualify for a lot more loans.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#468

Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #211

nimbius wrote: post #64

Disclosure: i never went to college, I went to a trade school. Colleges really only started scaring the heck out of me when I started enjoying my career. After spending a day wrenching in a garage, we'd hit miller time and head down to the Soapbox Bar and Grill. Over the span of a month or two ordering buckets and shooting pool I learned our bartender Javon had a masters in biology and his fiancee Cortisha who bussed…

For the average college graduate, college is still a pretty good investment. I could write lots of comments about people without a college degree that live crappy lives and have trouble finding good paying jobs, and people with college degrees that live well and make a lot of money. My prediction is that we'll see changes in the US system. The problem you're pointing out is the risk. Universities are the ones that IM…

>For the average college graduate, college is still a pretty good investment

Evidence doesn't seem to bear this out.

"The college income premium—the extra income earned by a family headed by a college graduate over an otherwise similar family without a bachelor’s degree—remains positive but has declined for recent graduates. The college wealth premium (extra wealth) has declined more noticeably among all cohorts born after 1940. Among non-Hispanic white family heads born in the 1980s, the college wealth premium is at a historic low; among all other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero [emphasis added]. Using variables available for the first time in the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that controlling for the education of one’s parents reduces our estimates of college and postgraduate income and wealth premiums by 8 to 18 percent. Controlling also for measures of a respondent’s financial acumen—which may be partly innate—, our estimates of the value added by college and a postgraduate degree fall by 30 to 60 percent. Taken together, our results suggest that college and post-graduate education may be failing some recent graduates as a financial investment. We explore a variety of explanations and conclude that falling college wealth premiums may be due to the luck of when you were born, financial liberalization and the rising cost of higher education."

particularly noteworthy: "[...]among all other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero[...]"

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/is...

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#469

Post by thorwasdfasdf » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #279

panzagl wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough upper class to go to all of the schools currently operating- colleges would have to lower prices or disappear.

Yes exactly. The small schools would just disappear, and the big names would keep going.

or the small schools find a way to make education more cost effective. i'm sure there are tons of businesses that would be happy to give you an online education for cheap if it were legally allowable.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#470

Post by PascLeRasc » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

nsnick wrote: post #427

PascLeRasc wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every EE I graduated with, including me, had to give up on our dream of being a hardware engineer because nearly zero hardware companies will hire an EE grad from a mid-level school. They either refuse to hire new grads or only recruit at CMU/Purdue job fairs. Then you take a software job that's available but not interesting, and you get pidgeonholed into that field. It's not retail but it doesn't seem great f…

This is absolutely true which is why I went back and got a masters from CMU.

How'd you like it/would you recommend it? I've heard really good things about that program specifically, other than it can be hard to graduate from it.