Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college • Hacker News Board

Re: Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college

#121

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 11:16 PM UTC

lttlrck wrote: post #24

Zigurd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can leave the country. Most of the people deeply in debt with degrees or training that won't pay the debt would find, for example, teaching English in China a relatively comfortable living. If you have the imagination to look beyond Europe, finding a gig that's better than debt slavery isn't too difficult.

The future repercussions may not be worth it. As a US citizen (or Green Card holder) you must a file an annual tax return wherever you live in the world, plus disclose foreign bank accounts. Failure to do so can have very harsh penalties. https://americansabroad.org/issues/taxation/us-taxes-while-l...

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei...

So, you're paying taxes to the local government, and getting a credit towards your US taxes. You'd still file your informational return with the IRS, but they don't touch a dime of your foreign income.

Re: Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college

#122

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 11:18 PM UTC

skizm wrote: post #110

bdcravens wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's insurance on your house. Perhaps the same should happen with eduction.

My point is just because the thing you bought with your loan money is now useless/worthless doesn't relieve you of your obligation to the bank.

Walking away from mortgaged property is extremely easy compared to student loan debt.

Re: Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college

#123

Post by Zigurd » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 2:03 AM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #118

Zigurd wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other parties to the deal, namely the banks and schools, are far more culpable than the students. Let the banks and schools sue each other over the money owed. They are the ones that bought the laws and regulations than enable them to sell duff diplomas and finance those duff diplomas.

The school does not exist anymore. There is no one to sue and the money is gone, regardless. And if you pin it on the banks then either loans will get more expensive to account for the added risk of potentially having to foot the bill for bad schools or will stop lending altogether, making it harder for students to go to school.

Why should school loans be made by investor-owned banks? Don't tell me it's because the private sector is better suited at selecting against investor-owned schools. So, yeah, let the creditors take it in the pants.

Re: Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college

#124

Post by elros » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 6:49 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #39

sheepdestroyer wrote: post #21

A lot of countries have a free post secondary education system : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education#Partial_list_of... It always astonish me to think it can be seen as normal, even more equitable, to require people to get so huge debts before even being trained to work.

A sensible system would be one like Brazil's (and possibly other countries): free education at public universities for those who qualify on the stringent entrance exams along with a system of private universities for those who don't make it and can pay for it. This would allow all deserving students a high quality, free education while limiting the amount of waste and degree inflation that would result from a complet…

With the caveat that public elementary education in Brazil is very bad, so the people who are able to qualify on those exams are the people who come from families who could afford private schools at the elementary level.

So in essence, it's a system that's geared towards keeping the rich educated and the poor uneducated, by using a slight Catch-22.

Of course YMMV, and it often does, Brazil is huge and there are exceptions, but what I've laid out is what most commonly happens.

In the past few years though, the Government has built programs whose goal is to increase the amount of poor people who get educated, either by subsidizing the cost with tax money in private universities (Gasp! Socialism! :P) or by affirmative action with a quota system in public universities.

This brings about worries of its own, such as "Will people who are granted access to well-ranked Universities based primarily on their low income be able to actually follow through with the course?", for example, but overall the situation is an improvement.

Re: Students refuse to pay back loans to failed for-profit college

#125

Post by innguest » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 9:36 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #103

innguest wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so we have this common ground of thinking money isn't too real if it can be printed at will by central bankers. That's good. Now ask yourself: what do central banks hoard? Whatever they hoard must be, at the very least, a more "real" kind of money than the money they print. Do they hoard diamonds? No. Do they hoard platinum? No. Do they hoard fine art? No. Do they hoard expensive wine? No. What do they hoard? Gol…

Does gold truly have that much worth as a value store? Its not a terribly great metal, and I can't see myself buying food with gold anymore than I can see myself using dollars if the economy collapses. In a nod to Accelerando ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando ), the only value store I could see being useful in the future is perhaps reputation.

> Does gold truly have that much worth as a value store?

Why do central banks hoard it?

Two questions, one answer.