The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

Here's a revolutionary idea: let's make bankruptcy easier.

I've paid more than I borrowed, and I still owe more than I've paid. I have dozens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and I'm on the doorstep of defaulting on some of it.

Mark Cuban's right. The money is insanely easy for everyone to get. Sallie Mae, AES, and the rest are happy to give students money. Colleges are happy to take money from students, and pass or fail (I failed), bad situation or not, the guarantors will get their money from the student. Legally, you can't escape that loan via bankruptcy. The guarantor can even garnish your wages.

I don't WANT to support bankruptcy. I certainly didn't think I'd be in the situation to have looked into it when I took that first loan out in 2002. But a funny thing happened on October 17, 2005. On that date, all federal student loans, even private ones, became effectively immune to dismissal via bankruptcy.

Now, the law still says "excepting such debt from discharge under this paragraph would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor's dependents", but call a lawyer. They will tell you, flatly, "you can't dismiss any federal student loan debt through bankruptcy." Not "it's hard", but "you can't". (Seriously, call one up for free and ask if they handle bankruptcy cases with large amounts of student loan debt.)

As it is, currently the only loser in the system is the borrower. The school gets their money up front, the lender gets theirs from the guarantor, and the guarantor gets theirs from the borrower, even when it's blood from a stone.

1/5th of students default on their debt. That's not even counting those that make payments, but are barely getting by. Let people get out from their student loan debt, and, well, I'm not talking about dumping a trillion dollars into the economy. But many people who can barely make rent (or those like me who can't), are suddenly covered. I'm off couches and renting an apartment. People in apartments are buying homes. People scraping buy are making leisure purchases.

Agreed!

You want to find the people who care enough about technology (of whatever type) to invest their own time and resources in it. I've met too many so-called professionals who see development as their job, and see no reason whatsoever to do it for recreation.

The only "no" answer that I ever respected in this regard was "Hobbies? I am working two jobs to get through school. I have no time to do anything but work and study."

That's not exactly true. On average with the current unemployment I think you are correct, but the value of an ivy league degree is still many multiples its cost because it gets into the good ol' boys club.

The point I thought was interesting was how Mark Cuban talked about the Innovator's Dilemma for many universities that don't believe in or support online learning.

I'd venture to say the education model experienced this same sort of ID (Innovator's Dilemma) when writing/print became available to the masses.

What was traditionally taught via in-person sessions (e.g. Socrates => Plato => Aristotle) could now be written down and distributed. Sure, if you optimize for depth of learning, you won't get anywhere near the quality of having Aristotle teach you in person. Then again, unless your last name is "The Great" (Alexander), you're probably not going to get Aristotle as your teacher.

What we're seeing now is remarkably similar. You have elite legacy institutions available to a few, while technology has progressed enough to make it available to the masses. I understand the point about how great a "signal" it sends to potential employers and why that's necessary, but now that more and more of your work can be online, it's easier than ever before to send the right signals.

This is where having a solid referral network and a good technical pre-screening process help.

The screen would be a quiz, puzzle, or other technical challenge which can root out the obviously unqualified (and possibly net you some viral buzz), while being easy for an HR drone to administer. They don't need to verify the code, just that it produces the correct result. Mind that "correct result" should be sufficiently qualified (e.g.: parsing /etc/passwd for valid user accounts will vary somewhat by 'Nix system and Linux distro).

College degree does make for a useful filter. It's not the only one. For a company which is deluged in qualified candidates, the problem isn't making the exact correct hire, but in eliminating obvious misfits quickly. Now, I'd also hope that they'd make exceptions for personal referrals who lack a college degree.

Also: college is itself a place to seed referral networks. Again, not the only one, but there.