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How America's universities became debt factories

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Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#271

Post by slt2021 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #200
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.

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.

there is a difference in prospects of payback/ROI between Harvard MBA and University of South Podunk MBA.

they are the same though for the federal student loan program.

same with law degrees

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#272

Post by lapcat »

TeaBrain wrote: post #265
lapcat wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

It looks like graduate debt was approaching the majority and could in fact be a majority in 2024: "If these trends continue, graduate loan disbursements may exceed undergraduate disbursements in the next few years." https://sites.ed.gov/ous/files/2023/08/OCE_GraduateDebtRepor...

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#273

Post by techjamie »

NemoNobody wrote: post #182
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.

Exactly - 12 years of education to get children ready to be citizens and not single class on how to manage a bank account, or even the most basic education about investments or actual wealth building. Instead, all I was told was to go to college. So... the people that made me woefully sheep like and "financially innocent" then sent me to the wolves because they believed in me. Seriously, they made huge changes to the…

It's a tough problem that reenforces itself. The high availability of loans allows colleges to charge exorbitant rates, and for most, the exorbitant tuition rates necessitate the use of loans, which allows the tuition rates to go even higher.

Fresh High School grads are a terrible demographic where good credit is concerned, there aren't many 18 year olds you could loan 6 figures to and expect to see that money again.

But now we're so deep in this rabbit hole that neither side has incentive to back down. Nothing shy of government intervention, or mass protest of the system, is likely to change it in my opinion.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#274

Post by 29athrowaway »

freshtake wrote: post #113
lenerdenator wrote: post #89

1) Move most good careers that do not require a college degree out of the country for the benefit of shareholders 2) Tell everyone born between 1980 and 1995 that they'll be unable to compete in the global marketplace if they don't get at least some post-high school education, and imply that the mere presence of a degree will help instead of having a specific type of degree 3) Have next-to-zero standards for public f…

5) Do nothing about the problem until the debt becomes too large, then attempt to blanket cancel the debt without expecting any fallout. All the while doing nothing to fix the underlying issues.

i.e.: transfer the wealth from the taxpayer to the creditors anyways, just in a different way

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#275

Post by plandis »

lordnacho wrote: post #117
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for medical students, who require a teaching hospital and all its equipment.for their education Except for EE and other engineering students, who require lab and other equipment for their education Except for chemistry, biology, and other science students, who require chemistry equipment, etc. for their education. You get the idea. Even for fields that require no specialized facilities, frankly, I don't see an…

> Except for medical students, who require a teaching hospital and all its equipment.for their education They're not really students in the normal sense, they fit more into the PhD category that I mentioned, since they need actual personal help. > Except for EE and other engineering students, who require lab and other equipment for their education I have an engineering master's from a world famous university where th…

> I have an engineering master's from a world famous university where the lab work was pretty pointless. It didn't count for much if at all, and was more or less just entertainment.

For me personally, having a maker space and access to expensive equipment was how I learned to do useful things as an electrical engineer. Was it entertaining? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. In fact, the things I’ve had the easiest time learning were things I’ve done because they were inherently enjoyable.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#276

Post by lapcat »

Cheer2171 wrote: post #270
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…

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

I'm talking about deciding at age 21 to go to grad school, like deciding at age 17 to go to undergrad.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#277

Post by linotype »

grecy wrote: post #165
paulcole wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took out around $20k in loans to study literature starting in 2001. Graduated in 2005. Rent was $150 a month. Played a lot of poker and disc golf. Studied and learned a bit. Had a 75% scholarship to help with tuition. Had a $300/semester book stipend as part of that and just bought penny books off Amazon (one of the benefits of an English degree) and pocketed the difference. Basically for 5-8% or so of my (estimate…

Woah, you were paying off that debt with interest from 2005 to 2021? Damn I’m happy to live in a country with free university.

Now do wages and taxes.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#278

Post by csa »

Yaina wrote: post #30

It's somewhat besides the point of the piece and might be unfair, but I can't help to feel an immediate sense of distrust for any piece of writing that uses AI images. Anyways, tying lending terms to the value of the degree sounds like a horrible idea, because how do you even determine that? Seems to me the big issue is A) that the loans are managed b private companies with ridiculous terms and that even public state…

> It's somewhat besides the point of the piece and might be unfair, but I can't help to feel an immediate sense of distrust for any piece of writing that uses AI images.

Im guessing that you’re probably not representative of the target audience, or the author doesn’t know his audience well.

The image is thematically appropriate. I don’t think the author is trying to bamboozle anyone with that image.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#279

Post by mbostleman »

lenerdenator wrote: post #89

1) Move most good careers that do not require a college degree out of the country for the benefit of shareholders 2) Tell everyone born between 1980 and 1995 that they'll be unable to compete in the global marketplace if they don't get at least some post-high school education, and imply that the mere presence of a degree will help instead of having a specific type of degree 3) Have next-to-zero standards for public f…

For number 2, how did you come up with the very narrow 15 year window of birth from 1980 to 1995? I was born in 1963 and for the entirety of my upbringing it was a forgone conclusion that the lack of post high school education had a dire and inescapable consequence in future earning and socioeconomic status.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#280

Post by ghaff »

adityamwagh wrote: post #268
ghaff wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What the hell do LLMs have to do with anything on this topic? If anything, they commodify low-level tech folks just like past tools have. I'll mostly hire a smart liberal arts major so long as they're respectful of tech and other domain expertise over someone who thinks it's only about (probably narrow) technical smarts.
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