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

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

#661

Post by brightball » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #179

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…

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. 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? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be disc…

I think they should for the same reason you point out. The cost of school has gone up due to the endless supply of loan money mixing with demand.

That cost will go waaaaaaay down if the loan money dries up, potentially back to the point where it was when “working your way through college” was possible.

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

#662

Post by RandallBrown » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #645

Software should be either a trade school or a masters program depending on a student’s level of commitment to the academics involved just like law, medicine, or engineering. The primary problem with education financing is unrealistic expectations. Do some basic math before paying for any education. If an education loan costs you a certain amount plus interests you need to make a certain amount minus what you would ea…

If you go 100k in debt to get a job that pays the same as one you could have only gone 10k in debt for, it's probably because you like doing that better.

Some people would way rather be an elementary school teacher than an electrician and that's fine.

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

#663

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #606

jefftk wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I've just graduated from college with a degree. I have minimal assets (clothes, computer) and lots of debt (100k in student loan debt). How does bankruptcy work out poorly for me?

7ish year delay in buying a house. Which may be better than 20 years of payments to debt.

[deleted]

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

#664

Post by Spivak » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

zhynn wrote: post #633

jefftk wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bank doesn't want the bet because "bankruptcy" means very different things to the bank and to the student. To the bank it means they lose all their money. For a just-graduated person with minimal assets it's not that bad -- sure you can't get a mortgage to buy a house for a while, but you probably couldn't have afforded that anyway with student loans. You still have the degree, they can't take that (well, https:/…

I would not underestimate the impact bankruptcy plays in someone's life. You would be getting a bankruptcy on your record in the prime of your life (mid-twenties), making it very very difficult to borrow for the next 10 years. You end up starting building credit in your mid to late thirties, and maybe you are able to participate in the modern economy in your forties. It sucks. I lived it.

However, in a world in which it is common for college students to declare bankruptcy immediately after graduating, financial institutions might take advantage of that information and realize that their creditworthiness is much higher than the bankruptcy would predict. Kind of like how the stock price many companies go up after they cut retirement benefits.

This of course will be to the spiral and collapse of the college loan system.

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

#665

Post by wolfgke » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #648

iateanapple wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a just-graduated person with minimal assets it's not that bad It is in fact bad. You can’t just declare bankruptcy and get a high paying job a year later and have no student debt.... When I looked into personal bankruptcy I was told by my lawyer that it would only make financial sense if there was no way I could pay back the amount owed in the next 7-10 years.

Having a bankruptcy on your record may make it difficult to get that high-paying job, as employers may not look favorably upon it.

> Having a bankruptcy on your record may make it difficult to get that high-paying job, as employers may not look favorably upon it.

Why? I rather consider this as a sign that the person will be rather loyal as employee because he needs the money ...

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

#666

Post by kevindong » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

Upvoter33 wrote: post #568

Not all colleges are the same. For example, at the UW-Madison, over half the students leave with do debt at all. There is a Bucky tuition promise so that any low-income person will have college paid for in entirety. All of the negative comments on here treat "college" as if it is one unified thing, when in fact the experiences across institutions (both educationally, as well as financially) are quite different. All o…

> try telling that to a person in the middle of the state, who has never been to Madison, has never had a kid go to Madison, and who has to pay their tax dollars to support the University. It is a hard sell.

Everyone wins some and loses some with government spending. But overall as a collective group, the idea is that the group is better off (e.g. a more educated population produces greater amounts of valuable work which raises the standard of living for everyone, etc.).

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

#667

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

jmeister wrote: post #447

Swizec wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a lifehack: Attend college in Europe then move to USA for that high paying job. Works really well. Cheap to free education, better skills because you’re not just living the college life and professors have little incentive to make it easy. It’s great. Hell you don’t even have to fully graduate to get most of the benefit.

This will also have the beneficial effect of drastically reducing immature America-bashing among the young.

I really doubt this. Irish people are plenty familiar with Britain and Canadians with the US. Doesn’t stop bashing at all.

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

#668

Post by slg » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #628

slg wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the supply for colleges isn't going to make overall college education cheaper while maintaining the same quality of education. There is certainly some waste in college budgets, but it will mostly force colleges to cut the least profitable programs. Education is a social good. We should invest in it like we do with other public services. It shouldn't need to be profited minded.

>Reducing the supply for colleges isn't going to make overall college education cheaper while maintaining the same quality of education. There is certainly some waste in college budgets, but it will mostly force colleges to cut the least profitable programs. Education is a social good. We should invest in it like we do with other public services. It shouldn't need to be profited minded. We subsidize the shit out of e…

A person's ability to pay off a loan is not the true value of the investment. There are positive externalities to getting an education that boost society as a whole. Real wage stagnation, rising income inequality, and compound interest on loans would all serve to make this investment less rewarding for individuals while not decreasing the overall societal value of education.

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

#669

Post by kevindong » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #25

I think it's time to decouple education from all of the other things tied to colleges. When I studied abroad in Australia, things like the gym or meal plans were available, but not "bundled in" to your tuition. The idea of tying competitive sports teams to a university would be laughable. We need to remove all of the "excess" stuff from higher education and get back to the core of education and research. Sure, things…

I went to Purdue. At Purdue, athletics and student housing/dining are entirely separate divisions from the academic side of the university. Each of those divisions is required to be self supporting without needing aid from tuition dollars.

That being said, a mandatory part of tuition is funding for the student gym. I think it came out to be something like $100/student/semester which I'd consider reasonable.

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

#670

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #179

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…

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. 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? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be disc…

Now you have to explain how students got loans before 1998 and 2005, before student loans were made non-dischargeable.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/09/student...

The fact of the matter is that by making the loans non-dischargeable, lenders loosen their purse strings since risk of default is much lower. And colleges being on the receiving end of these loans are naturally going to move their prices upward to capture the increase.

Going back to the way things were in 1998 would go far in bringing down the astronomical tuition increases we see year after year.