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More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

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Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#131
Tie student loans to educational institutions where the study takes place.

If the student fails to repay, a %age of the student loan debt should be paid for, by the edu institution where he/she graduated from.

Would be great if it is 50%. Even if university doubles the price, demand/supply economics will ensure universities cannot bump fees up at will.

Without holding the educational institutions and the students as equally responsible for the debt, edu institutions have no incentive to not-ripoff students.

Factor in the repayment history by graduates of a program at an institution to decide the percentage of debt the university is liable for.

If STEM grads are having lesser default, the school is responsible for 10% of the debt.

If a grads of have a higher default rate, school owes closer to 50%

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#132
post #110

With constantly rising real estate prices, this is hardly surprising. Rent is crazy. Time to switch to free high education system.

Are there any recent studies that crunch the numbers on how much that would cost? Because as a debt free college grad earning ~16000 pre tax I'm still willing to commit a fair amount, call it 500 a year? but I have no idea if that's even close to enough if we assume it's progressive at the same rate as income tax.

Most of the time people calculate it as if all the current cost were just transferred to the state.

But of course in reality, when universities were free in the past they weren't allowed to just raise their prices to whatever they felt like charging, as they basically do now.

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#133
post #110

With constantly rising real estate prices, this is hardly surprising. Rent is crazy. Time to switch to free high education system.

How would free college affect rent prices?

Because instead of people being debt-slaves their whole lives they'd have that money to pay rent.

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#134
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all, I'm just pointing out that many jobs that only required a high school degree now require a college degree without the job fundamentally changing all that much. More people attending college would likely worsen that trend to the point where "College 2" (whatever it would be called) would then be required to stand out.

And we would have educated our citizenry and let millions of people learn about the world and the expanses of human knowledge instead of just the rich for nothing, since those citizens wouldn't be able to generate extra wealth for their bosses. What a nightmare.

If your very expensive proposal doesn't end up in someone generating additional wealth that can be taxed or donated or given in loans and so on, how are you going to fund your utopia?

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#135

This one is easy. People are buying things that they can't afford. Throwing it into a loan and then partying their way through school. Since that worked out so well, then they do that with their car, house, furniture, cell phones, and car rims. You aren't entitled to 100,000 dollar education. You aren't entitled to go down to Mexico every spring break. you aren't entitled to eat pizza and hit the bar every weekend. Y…

>You aren't entitled to a college education.

But you are. We have a right to an education. My parents paid literally $0 for their education, because university was free, in a time with much lower productivity and less wealth. The state could afford it then, so it can certainly afford it now.

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free" is covered by taxes already paid. So making university "free" would be an additional tax. But instead of the attendees paying for them directly, the pay would be spread out. Also, it would change the dynamic of which school you could attend. High School is covered based on taxes in the town paid for by property owners. Some university programs are subsidized by state taxes (like SUNY for New York) and are disc…

We just spent $80bil on the military. Free college is estimated at $65-75bil, so we just take that money, and move it over here and blammo. Free public university for everyone. (:

With that amount of money, can't you just end poverty directly? Why do so many people treat college like a terminal, intrinsic good?

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#137

This one is easy. People are buying things that they can't afford. Throwing it into a loan and then partying their way through school. Since that worked out so well, then they do that with their car, house, furniture, cell phones, and car rims. You aren't entitled to 100,000 dollar education. You aren't entitled to go down to Mexico every spring break. you aren't entitled to eat pizza and hit the bar every weekend. Y…

Our federal government is $20 trillion dollars in debt. We are trillions more on debt from every level from local to federal. Most of the states are on the verge of bankruptcy, if not bankrupt already (like Illinois). Countless millions who depend on pensions and other promised benefits from states and municipalities are about to be in for a rude surprise. Despite this crushing debt, we continue to spend trillions of dollars to bomb and invade countries around the world.

Blaming entitled kids for our debt-laden society and failed economy is not smart or useful. The truth is that there aren't enough jobs (let alone decent-paying jobs) for 1/4 of the tens of millions of kids who enter college every year. These kids weren't the ones who mismanaged society so that property taxes, mandated healthcare premiums, income taxes, and rents are so high.

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#138

Tie student loans to educational institutions where the study takes place. If the student fails to repay, a %age of the student loan debt should be paid for, by the edu institution where he/she graduated from. Would be great if it is 50%. Even if university doubles the price, demand/supply economics will ensure universities cannot bump fees up at will. Without holding the educational institutions and the students as…

I've never thought of it that way. I don't know if there wouldn't be some second or third order issues from something like this, but at first glance this seems like a good idea.

Why shouldn't the school take on some of the risk?

Re: More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

#140
post #108

I hate sounding both old and weird but I cannot shake the feeling that much of the claims of economic health and growth in the US is... if not fake (I’m not totally nuts) but not accurate. My most charitable interpretation if I’m right is that we’re using the wrong metrics (possibly intentionally) that give a distorted view of the economy. But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is…

>But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is great The question you have to ask is, who are you hearing this from? The answer is: people with a vested interest in making you believe the economy is doing great, or people fooled into believing this by those with a vested interest. I suggest you closely examine the metrics used by those who claim the "economy is great". First these met…

I dream about the day when the CBO and the Fed lay out all their calculations in a Jupyter Notebook and some means of accessing the raw data used. I can smell the transparency there.
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