USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts • Hacker News Board

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#181

Post by bko » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

david38 wrote: post #151

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

Yes, adults can make poor choices. Agreed. Said choices should be constrained though. She wouldn't be allowed to buy a 300k car with no possibility of bankruptcy. The lender is made of adults as well. They also made poor choices. Why is a group of adults hiding behind a piece of paper allowed to be saved from their poor choices while an individual not?

> Said choices should be constrained though. She wouldn't be allowed to buy a 300k car with no possibility of bankruptcy.

The reason she isn't able to get a crazy car loan is because there's no government program giving anyone unlimited loans, no questions asked. Private lenders understand not all degrees are made equal, so if you go to LendingClub or similar and ask for a student loan for a top tier law school, they'll gladly give you a loan and charge you less than the government. Bonus is that you can dismiss the debt in bankruptcy.

The simplest answer would just be to severely restrict or eliminate federal loans for school and let private lenders fill in the gaps.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#182

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

eindiran wrote: post #138

BizarroLand wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Take a lower paying course that benefits society for little or no cost to you or a higher paying course that will push you into the upper middle or lower upper class that costs more. The only losers here would be the colleges that no longer get to charge the same $300k for every degree they stamp. Where is my logic wrong?

Loosely, jobs which pay poorly have a lot of labor supply relative to demand and jobs that pay well have a lot of demand relative to supply. If you artificially change the price of degrees to match the expected lifetime ROI of that degree, you are decreasing the barrier to jobs that we already have too many people attempting to do and increasing the barrier to jobs we need more people to do. Of course this analysis o…

[deleted]

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#183

Post by clairity » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #170

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

>The problem with Student Loan forgiveness is it would typically help the highest paid Americans. Most people with 100k plus in loans also make very good money. Why would that be a problem ? First, your "typically" needs a citation. The average student loan is about $40K. Second, it's not a problem to help struggling people if a percentage of people who are not struggling benefits too. Nothing is 100% efficient, and…

while the parent poster indeed made an unsubstantiated assertion, it's not that hard to understand the perverseness of giving money to already well-off people.

i personally think we should make federal loans highly progressive, both in amount and interest rate, and make them dischargeable via ordinary bankruptcy proceedings (also, revert the bankruptcy-tightening laws that were passed in the mid-oughts). that would be something like loans for 100% of tuition, room & board for those from families under median income (~$68K in recent years) smoothly varying (but not linear) down to 0% for those above 3× median household income (~$200K). same for interest rates: risk-free rate (~2.5%) for under median to market rate for unsecured personal loans (in the 10-20% range) at 3× median income. anyone above 3× median will likely have an established banking relationship somewhere to be able to get private loans.

this would put downward pressure on tuition, while still meeting the objective of providing opportunity for the less privileged majority. same goes for loan forgiveness--make them highly progressive based on recent earnings/wealth (including unrealized gains).

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#184

Post by ikr678 » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

BizarroLand wrote: post #122

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

I don't know if there is a solution to this, but it seems like the cost should be somehow equivalent to the average payout. I feel that college in general would serve the country better if the results were tied to the expenses and efforts required. A Sociology degree that empowers people to make life changes for disadvantaged and neglected people (while living on subsistence wages) would serve our future better if it…

In a functioning market for any other service, degree pricing would follow some sort of expected utility curve - students would only be willing to pay for thier expected value of the degree.

But, student loans dont behave like standard loans, the payoff of expected utility is a long way down the track, and Universities cultivate/market these intangibles like prestige and networking as a justification for the higher prices.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#185

Post by yumraj » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

> having a hard cap of 100k unless enrolling in a high paid field ( Dr , Lawyer, anything that requires a state sanctioned license) would be a good idea.

I think you have a valid point, which probably got missed in the rest of your comment.

Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay? I cannot get a $100K loan for a Corolla nor can I get $5 million loan for a $500K home. So, why are students provided loans that are not tied to the income potential of their choice of program?

I believe once we do that, education cost will undergo a rebalancing.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#186

Post by bsder » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #185

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

> having a hard cap of 100k unless enrolling in a high paid field ( Dr , Lawyer, anything that requires a state sanctioned license) would be a good idea. I think you have a valid point, which probably got missed in the rest of your comment. Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay? I cannot get a $100K loan for a Corolla nor can I get $5 million loan for a $500…

> Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay?

They used to be because they could be discharged through bankruptcy.

Once you prevent people from being able to discharge the loan through bankruptcy, this is what you get.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#187

Post by brutal_chaos_ » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #185

999900000999 wrote: post #106

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

> having a hard cap of 100k unless enrolling in a high paid field ( Dr , Lawyer, anything that requires a state sanctioned license) would be a good idea. I think you have a valid point, which probably got missed in the rest of your comment. Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay? I cannot get a $100K loan for a Corolla nor can I get $5 million loan for a $500…

How would humanities, arts, pure reasearch and the like survive in this model?

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#188

Post by yumraj » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #187

yumraj wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a hard cap of 100k unless enrolling in a high paid field ( Dr , Lawyer, anything that requires a state sanctioned license) would be a good idea. I think you have a valid point, which probably got missed in the rest of your comment. Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay? I cannot get a $100K loan for a Corolla nor can I get $5 million loan for a $500…

How would humanities, arts, pure reasearch and the like survive in this model?

Reduce the tuition, which last I checked is still a substantial portion of the total cost of education.

How can a school charge the same amount of tuition, per unit, for different fields that pay substantially, sometimes orders of magnitude, different over the lifetime.

For example: MBAs, JDs, Medical fields' tuition is much higher. Why is that not the case across the board?

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#189

Post by 908B64B197 » Wed, Nov 10, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

smeyer wrote: post #141

908B64B197 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On LinkedIn I frequently see Harvard listed on profiles, but upon digging in, it is Harvard Extension School which mostly seems to offer certificates. This becomes awkward when interviewing if there's a real Harvard grad in the room. Invariably the first question they'll ask is which house the candidate was in.

>Invariably the first question they'll ask is which house the candidate was in Are people actually asking this at the beginning of interviews? I'm a Harvard College grad, and that's a question I sometimes ask or am asked in social settings, but not in interview settings. When I've worked with interns or recent grads from the college it usually comes up eventually, but usually only after the internship/job has started…

There might be a selection bias here: the interviews were it came up were for juniors and the interviewer was fairly green as well. I think in one case they even had one year of overlap.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#190

Post by 908B64B197 » Wed, Nov 10, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26

vgeek wrote: post #5

Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…

All non-thesis CS master degrees are a bit suspect. They are basically a few more courses, usually at night for professional students, but increasingly online. I'm not really sure what kind of value they add beyond looking good on a resume. Thesis masters are increasingly rare these days as American schools allow you to jump straight to a PhD program (Europe is a bit more rigid here). The other kind of Masters degree…

> I'm not really sure what kind of value they add beyond looking good on a resume.

To me it adds negative value. And I'm not the only one [0]. Especially when the undergrad was from a weak school or something unrelated to CS.

[0] https://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-compu...