181–190 of 565 posts
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If I want a philosophy degree then it's my God-given right to pay $240,000 plus interest for it. Maybe it shouldn't be subsidized, though.
Well, the way things are going, maybe it should be way more subsidized... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48818544 https://archive.ph/94e7p
I'm generally against banning things like smoking and gambling but I am absolutely for putting giant warning labels on those things.
Adults which means anyone over 18 should know the risks and what they are signing up for.
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You can't really tell people that they just can't be bankrupt though. What are they supposed to do if they have debts they can't pay but they're not allowed to declare bankruptcy because they pinky swore they wouldn't do it seven years ago?
Bankruptcy is such an alien concept. Adults took out consensual loans from another adult and now they get to just say oops "take backsies"? It's one thing if you're in a crazy desperate situation and someone takes advantage of you, I could get that. But if you're not desperate and you took money from someone else and can't pay it back? Theft. The rest is just how we manage to keep that low on an aggregate level in ou…
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The full reason is that preventing bankruptcy is the only way to keep interest rates low and make the loans widely available. If bankruptcy was allowed then the obvious play would be to take the loan, max out credit cards right before graduation, then declare bankruptcy before you get your first job. Lenders would respond by increasing interest rates dramatically and restricting loans to those who had assets. This wo…
> The full reason is that preventing bankruptcy is the only way to keep interest rates low and make the loans widely available "They are eating the dogs and cats." It simply isn't true. I got my student loans a quarter century ago. Back then the loans were dischargeable and low. My loans came in at like 4% interest at the time. It is propaganda that it was a widespread problem and the "solution" was to legally protec…
If a negligible proportion of people would discharge the loans as you suggest then the need to do it is the "eating the dogs and cats" in this case, since it doesn't matter a whole lot if nobody can do something nobody would have done anyway.
So which one is it?
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"we seen during" This was an intentionally ironic use of poor grammar in a statement against organized education, right? Hopefully?
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If that was an actual problem wouldn't people be doing it without the college already? When I was in my early 20s I got non-stop credit offers and I could have easily pulled out tens of thousands in crappy debt.
Ok. And the interest on unsecured debts like credit cards are like 25%. Sounds like the risk is properly priced in. What's your point?
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If it’s your own money, college can be whatever you want. When it’s someone else’s, they get to be involved in making a decision as to what college is for.
Collectively, yes, but not individually. The problem is that the electorate tends to not understand the concept of second-order effects. For example, a college graduate in the arts might, directly or indirectly, generate more economic activity than someone without a college degree, regardless of the difference in income level of people in those two buckets.
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In the US, college is considered a privilege for those who can afford it or are poor enough to be granted it from poorly designed taxpayer funds. Then we set the bar for hiring to requiring a degree making it so that if you want anything above minimum wage, you’re going to have to get a degree. This is how the predatory lending prior to 2008 started with student loan debt. Glad to see that 20 years hasn’t taught us a…
There is always a catch. We (Russia) have so called "free higher education" but it doesn't mean anyone can get a degree for free. There is a limited number of budget-funded places, and only students with better scores are accepted. For top universities like ITMO, you need to have 100/100 points on 3 subjects + 10 extra points for scientific activity to get "free" education. Otherwise, pay money. Furthermore, within t…
The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job... but the purpose of a college LOAN is 100% a job, and it's very important to differentiate between the two. The whole point of the loan is to buy time; you don't want to wait for when you have savings to purchase the degree, you want to do it now . If you are not doing it for the job, then why the loan, what's the rush? If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then…
If it is quite profitable to get a certain education, why would it need the tax payer to provide the loan for it? Shouldn't that be easy to fund from the private sector?