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No, he is the author. And if nothing else, it provided me with the pleasant knowledge that I think he's a terrible writer even when I agree with him.
Really, I think he's somewhat wonderful. The way he marshals words in the service of outrage, anger and disenchantment with authority is extremely appealing to me, even when I disagree with him.
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> An even worse solution is getting rid of loans. A good solution is making loans optional like in Scandinavia. Universities are pretty much free, but some students take loans to get by.
So you're saying, "A good solution is to lower the price of education." I agree. I think we all would. But how? Loans are already very optional - that's a nonsolution.
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I agree. Loans aren't at the root of the problem, but they're also a bad solution. An even worse solution is getting rid of loans. The only solution worse than that? Blaming students. This is why, until there's some radical, radical change, I'll always vote for the people perpetuating student loans. I'm not going to be the one that screws an entire generation out of a worthwhile education in the name of "loans are ba…
> Loans aren't at the root of the problem Loans absolutely are at the root of the problem. Not the abstract concept of loaning money, but the current implementation. The student loans legally allowed today are borderline usary. They provide a convenient way for lenders to sidestep bankruptcy protection. This leaves students with exact same problems society had before bankruptcy: it's far too easy for the unwary to si…
> Maybe it's time to cap total outstanding student debt to some reasonable expectation of when they can be repaid.
I think that's a good start. Kind of resembling a loan-forgiveness mechanism (which there are already a few). It falls into the same trap most solutions do, though. What's "a reasonable expectation," and who decides it?
One big problem I have with college loans is that people that sign up for it are not adequately informed on the long term consequences of their action. Since this is a loan for education one would expect that before being allowed to sign for the loan there would be a test that you'd have to pass to be able to apply. That would get rid of a lot of people that find out the hard way that they've borrowed themselves into…
Amazing, perspective is everything. I don't deny that college kids are being taken advantage of. Graduating from a small liberal arts college in South Dakota that no one's ever heard of with a degree is Culture Studies and 80k in debt really is a rip off. The flipside of this coin however is someone like me. My parents are immigrants and I was the first to go to school. To my parents, the fact that someone would be e…
50 years ago, if you wanted to go to college, you went, and the prices were reasonable because people could not afford a lot of money for it, and no one would lend it to them.
There is almost no downward price pressure on college costs, and there is upward price pressure: since the students don't care about the price, they always want the school with better and more modern facilities, which cost money.
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So you're saying, "A good solution is to lower the price of education." I agree. I think we all would. But how? Loans are already very optional - that's a nonsolution.
Make the government pay for education.
I can't count the number of Facebook statuses I have seen that say "So proud I'm graduating!!!!" or something to that effect, without having even a vague concept of what to do after that are cheered on and congratulated by similarly clueless people. Add in a mix of pictures in those $70 graduation caps and gowns effing everywhere, and you have the recipe for something younger students will rush into doing without thinking of the consequences.
I think an immediate lessening of the adulation showered on people who have graduated from college, and an increase in the respect for those who have actually learned a useful trade or done something (note: a summer exchange program in Europe that your parents or the Govt. paid for does not count) would go a long way towards getting people to think carefully before signing up for one of these predatory loans.
Students didn't want to go to Vietnam and stopped it. Students are getting plundered for going to college, it's probably time to stop that too.
The problem with fixing this, however, is that any measure that makes loans less available will be seen as a negative, since it will limit who can go to college. In a country where people have declared that everyone should be able to go to college, this will be a very unpopular position. We need social acceptance of some viable alternative, like vocational schools to fill our ever dwindling ranks of skilled workers.
* Note, this comment is focused on the US. I don't know enough about other country's systems to comment on them.