Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal • Hacker News Board

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#51

Post by codegeek » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

error54 wrote: post #8

Remember a while back when the price of gold skyrocketed and suddenly there were all "Cash 4 Gold" places that were willing to pay you "good money" for your gold. I've noticed the same thing has happened with the education system with a of a bunch of college popping up seemingly out of nowhere with promises of making more money by having a better career. The whole college system seems like a racket to saddle people w…

on that note, I work on wall st and there is a Cash 4 Gold store right on wall st. Go figure!!

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#52

Post by anExcitedBeast » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

Rolling Stone should stick to music.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#53

Post by burntsushi » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #44

AnIrishDuck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The overall price of education is the root of the problem, and the price of education has little correlation to the availability of student loans (contrary to popular belief). > 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 s…

> The overall price of education is the root of the problem, and the price of education has little correlation to the availability of student loans (contrary to popular belief).

Did you read the article? It provided a fairly sound argument supporting the conclusion that the availability of student loans and the price of tuition are quite related.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#54

Post by danielweber » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

gte910h wrote: post #21

Zimahl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenting as an Oregonian, it isn't going to solve any problems it just makes college more accessible, allowing students to kick the can down the road. College is still too expensive and costs have risen for no reason. I went to state college in Washington (Washington State, go Cougs) and when I started there tuition was $1300 (semester system, so $2600 per year). My middle-class parents were easily able to cover my…

I'm fine if costs stay where they are....as long as there is a mandatory forgiveness 15 or so years past graduation. Then lenders will discriminate based on major (as it should be) and not fund english degrees and other such things that we have a glut of.

Why 15 years?

Let people declare bankruptcy and cancel all their loans.

The worry back in the 70's was that people would get a lot of loans and then declare bankruptcy after graduation and then no one would lend money and no one would afford school.

I can see why they were worried about that. We got something much much much worse.

If students could declare bankruptcy, people would still make educational loans, but only for a few thousand dollars. Schools would have to lower prices.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#55

Post by theorique » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

The major problem is that university administrations are becoming top heavy. Instead of hiring tenure-track faculty to teach real subjects like computer science or mechanical engineering (or even English lit, so as not to be prejudiced to the humanities), universities are creating $300K per year sinecure positions like "Vice-President and Associate Dean of Student Diversity".

Guess who pays for this? Students and their families.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#56

Post by waylonk » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #7

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…

In New Zealand the government pays about 75% of tuition costs in the first place (a degree is around $5000 NZD a year), there's a student allowance if your parents earn under a certain threshold, and your student loan is interest free as long as you remain in New Zealand.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#57

Post by pekk » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

There's no way to win this issue. If you don't give loans, you are doing wrong. If you do give loans, you are doing wrong. If you expand no-strings grants, those are expanding entitlements.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#58

Post by Symmetry » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #12

gxs wrote: post #7

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…

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…

Getting rid of loans isn't really on the table, people are generally free to loan each other money and there doesn't need to be a special government program for student loans to exist. But we do have a lot of laws and programs around student loans and I'm not sure that they do more good than harm, on net.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#59

Post by positr0n » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #44

AnIrishDuck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The overall price of education is the root of the problem, and the price of education has little correlation to the availability of student loans (contrary to popular belief). > 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 s…

Since that is indeed popular belief, do you have any proof otherwise? I'd love to hear different theories.

Re: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

#60

Post by nickff » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:47 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #46

gxs wrote: post #7

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…

Part of the reason prices have gone up so much is that credit has become so easy. 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 t…

The institutions are the ones receiving the benefits of the subsidized loans; the students bear the long term costs of the 'student loans'.

"Where the supply curve is more inelastic than the demand curve, producers bear more of the tax and receive more of the subsidy than consumers as the difference between the price producers receive and the initial market price is greater than the difference borne by consumers." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_taxes_and_subsidies_o...