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How America's universities became debt factories

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Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#261

Post by pc86 »

paulcole wrote: post #188
airstrike wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had a 75% scholarship to help with tuition.

State school was hella cheap (it was back when Florida’s lotto money mostly went to scholarships for in-state students). I think full sticker price would’ve been around $2500/year for tuition+fees at the time? I also started with enough credits to be nearly to (the equivalent of being in) junior year and took the bare minimum credits to keep the scholarship.

I'm sorry the match doesn't even remotely work.

$20k in loans over 4 years, when full sticker price was about $10k for the same 4 years and you had a 75% scholarship, and started as a junior?

That plus it somehow taking you 20 years to pay $20k in loans makes this smell pretty fishy. The real question is why make something like this up?

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#262

Post by golemiprague »

tway_GdBRwW wrote: post #48
mchusma wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But…the whole point is that it is NOT a market. If student debt is dischargeable and the government guarantee is removed or dramatically reduced, pretty much all problems are “solved”. Universities will have to start focusing on ROI. Universities that provide a poor ROI will shut down. Universities will need to reduce costs for traditional coursework, cut courses with poor returns, add courses with higher returns. Th…

> Universities will have to start focusing on ROI. In Europe, they have a simpler system. Education is paid for from taxes. If a student does well, they pay for it via taxes. If they don't, then they aren't crippled by debt. The problem with the ROI approach is it still places too much burden on the student, and, well, life happens. Say you major in comp sci (or some other high-paying field) but shortly after graduat…

[dead]

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#263

Post by cruffle_duffle »

jajko wrote: post #211
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean for fucks sake we were pushing 18 year old teenagers into tens of thousands of dollars of debt! I dunno about most people but at 18 I had absolutely no clue about anything, especially the concept of money nor career. How the fuck does an 18 year old comprehend why taking $60,000 to get a degree in “Latin Dance” is not a good idea (and we all know many people who fall into this bucket too!). And yet parents, co…

Where were parents? Don't tell me they were absent in such a massive decision that absolutely defines rest of their kids lives. Yes its horrible to force 17-18 year old to make such an important decisions and also schools should have known better and counsel heavily beforehand. But lets not forget that for the state you are 100% responsible for your actions at that point including any crime, state will happily draft…

Of course for many the parents were present! They were being told the same thing by the education system. They were told that unless their kid got a college education their kid would not be successful. And while I wasn’t parent then but am now, I’m positive their peer group was pressuring them into helping kiddo out by co-signing on crazy large loans for degrees that their kid might never really use. I’ve seen it happen.

I get that there is a lot of societal bias toward blaming the person who got the loan for being a pile of shit deadbeat who was stupid enough to get a $70,000 “art history” degree… but dude. These people are basically kids. Or at best adults with very, very little life experience being given strong thumbs up by “the elders” who are supposed to know better…

The student does take some responsibility but society at large should take most of it.

I mean for Christ sake you had 18 year olds getting into huge amounts of debt that you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. There are very few financial tools in life that are so “iron clad” as a student loan and we handed them out like candy to the least experienced adults out there. What a shit thing to hand to somebody who just started out in the real world. Feed them lies and convince them to saddle up with a lifetime of debt that has absolutely no undo button besides death. We let total deadbeats rack up tons of unsecured debt and let them discharge it but somehow an 18 year old is allowed to basically take on perma-debt. It’s complete bullshit that makes the rich richer and the poor worse off.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#264

Post by ghaff »

pixodaros wrote: post #210
foobazgt wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to have a happy life, you have to have a vocation and an avocation that are separate from each other. This reads to me as your career shouldn't involve doing something you enjoy. I think this mostly happens in situations where people are doing exactly at work what they'd do at home, and they don't like their job for any vast number of reasons. Usually that's only a problem if you don't have the security to…

The problem is finding that intersection. If you are really suited to journalism you will have a hard time financially in 2024. And the experience of studying a thing and doing it for a living are different, and in 2024 its hard to try different careers out because most employers want credentials and experience. There are still jobs where you can walk into the office and talk someone into giving you an internship but…

To your specific example, there are a lot of jobs that involve content marketing and other types of writing that aren't exactly hitting the pavement journalism but probably pay a lot better, are more reliable employment, and may be close enough. As you say, it's about finding the intersection.

If I were looking for a writing job today--which I did a lot of over the past 10 years--I wouldn't be looking to the New York Times or certainly a small city paper, I'd find an opportunity with a company that would doubtless have some guardrails but would also have other opportunities.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#265

Post by TeaBrain »

lapcat wrote: post #253
TeaBrain wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost 60% of U.S. undergraduate students take out either federal or private loans and there are 5x as many undergraduate students as graduate students in the U.S. For those downvoting: 54% of US graduate students take out student loans, while around 55% of US undergraduate students take out loans. The average undergraduate student loan debt is around $29000, while the average debt for graduate school borrowers is $7…

I think the OP is referring to the number of dollars rather than the number of students.

Of course it was based on the number of dollars, but based on which figures? It was an assertion conjured out of thin air. If there are five times as many undergrad students as grad students and a similar percentage of grad students had to take out student loans, then this would mean that students are incurring on average five times more debt for graduate school. This is without taking into consideration that a far higher percentage of US graduate students are international students.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#266

Post by xrd »

zozbot234 wrote: post #259
lapcat wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct except for one word: "lucrative". To this day, almost two decades after I left my philosophy PhD program (without a PhD), I still have massive student loan debt. Even if I had completed my degree, though, philosophy PhDs aren't particularly lucrative. Tenured professors at major universities do ok, but the road to getting tenure-track jobs and then tenure is littered with the bodies of grad students. I…

> It's worth noting, by the way, that the United States has a shortage of medical doctors. That's a pipeline problem. What the U.S. actually has is a severe bottleneck in available places at medical schools and for residency training.

Let's do note that on that graph which mapped a variety of increased costs, the only thing that increased faster than college costs was the cost of medical. That's connected to the shortage of doctors. Regulatory capture isn't just an issue with higher ed.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#267

Post by recursivecaveat »

MarketingJason wrote: post #92
tway_GdBRwW wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why don’t market forces correct these issues? Another theory: The value creation is not linked to the value capture. So market forces make a bad feedback loop. Look, I'm totally pro business, but business is only "good" at allocating capital when value capture and creation are linked. Education isn't like that. The closest we have are the bootcamp schools, where they take a cut out of your first 2 year's salary…

I ran a coding bootcamp school that had both your typical pay-upfront and later added an option like you outline. I can't speak for all programs, but schools use an affiliate third party lender for those "free" loan programs. It was relatively new for us when I left, so I never saw the aftermath. I know it worked out well for some students, but my biggest concern was ensuring payments only kicked in if the job was "i…

Apparently yeah at least arguably the most prominent boot camp takes a verry broad stance on 'related' occupations for income sharing: https://www.sandofsky.com/lambda-school/

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#268

Post by adityamwagh »

ghaff wrote: post #203
scoofy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the most important part. The people agreeing to these debts, by definition , do not have an education in complex debt instruments that cannot be discharged. Taking our a vast loan to study English literature might seem unwise, but it’s something I could definitely see a starry eyed 17 year old deciding to do.

Plenty of smart people who get liberal arts degrees from top schools do just fine. I know plenty of them even though I have engineering degrees myself. They may not get FAANG salaries in general--unless they end up in management--but plenty of people I know are just fine.

I see a problem here. Why are English majors in Management positions? With LLMs, I don't see a value on an English degree anymore. So I personally believe it's just a money sink at this point. I don't believe art can be taught in universities as a degree program. Universities should only be for domains that have tangible value.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#269

Post by elashri »

pc86 wrote: post #255
elashri wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I lost my parents before they got the chance to teach me that? What if I was raised in a foster care and I never knew who my parents were? And what if my parents don't know these things themselves? There are many ways that this logic goes wrong. The school should teach that because it is very important lesson to engage in a society and be a good citizen. Edit: Sorry I meant people raised in orphanages not fos…

This kind of argument might hold water if there were an epidemic of 12 year olds aimlessly drifting across the countryside with no adults taking care of them. But there's not, and you're not really making any point. If you are assuming a guardianship role over a child, however temporary, you have a responsibility to teach them things, full stop. I've known several foster parents over my life who would be outraged at…

I think I mistyped what I mean. I meant people who were raised without parents in orphanages not foster care. Excuse my mistake and sorry if anyone felt anything negative from my comment.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#270

Post by Cheer2171 »

lapcat wrote: post #247
zozbot234 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk of education debt in the U.S. is not about undergrad degrees in English literature or the like. By and large, it gets incurred either for lucrative postgrad degrees (MBA, law, medical etc.) or for earning degrees at "non-traditional" for-profit colleges.

You're correct except for one word: "lucrative". To this day, almost two decades after I left my philosophy PhD program (without a PhD), I still have massive student loan debt. Even if I had completed my degree, though, philosophy PhDs aren't particularly lucrative. Tenured professors at major universities do ok, but the road to getting tenure-track jobs and then tenure is littered with the bodies of grad students. I…

You self-funded a philosophy PhD with loans at age 21?
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