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False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

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Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#131

Post by secfirstmd »

kevindong wrote: post #102
topkai22 wrote: post #36

The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…

My school, Purdue, offers a program (Income share agreement - ISA) where a borrower pledges a percentage of their future income for 10 years in exchange for tuition money. To me, the most "innovative" part of the program is that the percentage charged varies by major. The main conclusion from this program is that if you're income is going to be high (basically >=$70k/year starting salary), you're better off with a tr…

In Europe we call that taxes.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#132

Post by sgroppino »

chrisseaton wrote: post #126
scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can completely recover from bankruptcy within 7 years - a much shorter time than it takes to pay off a loan. More than likely though, it won’t come to bankruptcy. After not paying your credit card for awhile, you can usually negotiate a lower rate. There are all kind of ways to get around bad credit - co-signers, putting things in your spouses name, etc. You can also buy a house three years after a foreclosure wi…

> You can completely recover from bankruptcy No I don't think you can ever completely recover from bankruptcy. I'm often asked on applications for things 'have you ever been bankrupt'. It is a permanent matter of public record that you are a bankrupt.

This would be an amazing topic for a blog - whether you can (and how long it takes to) recover from bankruptcy in different countries.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#133

Post by scarface74 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #126
scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can completely recover from bankruptcy within 7 years - a much shorter time than it takes to pay off a loan. More than likely though, it won’t come to bankruptcy. After not paying your credit card for awhile, you can usually negotiate a lower rate. There are all kind of ways to get around bad credit - co-signers, putting things in your spouses name, etc. You can also buy a house three years after a foreclosure wi…

> You can completely recover from bankruptcy No I don't think you can ever completely recover from bankruptcy. I'm often asked on applications for things 'have you ever been bankrupt'. It is a permanent matter of public record that you are a bankrupt.

Recover as far as getting anything you want on credit.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#134

Post by toomanybeersies »

sadamznintern wrote: post #58
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viewpoint that college is a place for vocational education seems to be a very common viewpoint here on HN, a similar viewpoint seems to be that it's normal and easy to pack your life up and relocate so XYZ city because cost of living is low and wages are high, or some other reason. I guess being a tech-centred community this is to be expected. I don't know about others, but for me university was an important expe…

The idea that college is a place to find yourself is mostly a statement of immense privilege. I grew up upper middle class (professional parents with masters) and I didn’t spend a moment in college finding myself, I spent most of it working or networking or sleeping. My folks paid for my CS degree from a state school, but even looking at the opportunity cost I’m not sure if anybody but the already wealthy or those at…

Maybe it's different in the USA, but in New Zealand, in between my student loan and a part time job, I was able to get by just fine.

Everyone else I know was in the same situation. We spent 4 years partying, hanging out, and having a good time.

I'm aware that it is a position of privilege to be able to say that university is a place to find yourself, but it's not a position of immense privilege at all in New Zealand, or most of the western world for that matter.

These days, I earn enough that I generally don't worry about money. I check my bank balance on payday to see how much I've got, and don't worry about it for the next month. I'm no happier than I was when I had to check my balance every time I went to the shops, when I had $5 to last me 2 days to payday. Sure, I'm less stressed, but I'm not happier.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#135

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

reaperducer wrote: post #117
azemetre wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this information from? Because nothing I am able to see points to people discharging their loans happening on a massive scale. The only "news article" [1] I can find that references this mentions 0.3% of student loans were discharged through bankruptcy in 1977 [2]. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/history-student-loans-bankrup... [2] http://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/vol126_s…

Seems be to be some serious revisionist history going on... Just because it’s not a link on the internet doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It was pretty much common knowledge when I was in school. I only knew a few pre-meds, but it certainly came up as a discussion topic more than once.

Just because someone talked about potentially doing it doesn't mean it's true either. If it was three quarters of all 20 year old's would have quit school and worked on their band full time.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#136

Post by weberc2 »

bedhead wrote: post #125
jwally wrote: post #92

The U.S. would do itself a huge favour by allowing student debt to be bankruptable. College prices can rise infinitely because there is an unlimited supply of AAA+ debt to feed it. Drop that rating to reality and investors don't buy the debt, loans don't get originated, demand for college at $250k dries up.

Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no income, no assets, and no credit?

College shouldn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars to begin with; that’s part of the OP’s claim.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#137

Post by toomanybeersies »

feverfew wrote: post #79
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viewpoint that college is a place for vocational education seems to be a very common viewpoint here on HN, a similar viewpoint seems to be that it's normal and easy to pack your life up and relocate so XYZ city because cost of living is low and wages are high, or some other reason. I guess being a tech-centred community this is to be expected. I don't know about others, but for me university was an important expe…

I personally found that 13 (5-18) whole years of education was more than enough time to determine, at least academically, what I wanted to do in life. If you want to 'find yourself' take a gap year and do some self-study or self-reflection, without paying the inflated fees. Heck you can do a degree and still attend lectures in a different course even if you are not enrolled, if you seek to broaden your horizons. Did…

Academically I knew what I wanted to do when I finished high school. I wanted to be a software engineer, and I became one.

It sound super fucking corny, but when I left home at 18, I didn't really know who I was as a person. University really helped me find that.

It's not just the independence, but the fact that at university you have a lot of free time, and you have a lot of opportunities to meet and interact with people from different backgrounds, who have different interests to you. I don't want to spend my days hanging out with a bunch of software engineers. I'm actually proud of the fact that in my circle of friends, I don't know anyone who's a software engineer. I actually hate talking about software or computers outside of work, I spend 40+ hours a week doing that shit, I want to do anything that doesn't involve software engineering for the other 128 hours of the week.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#138

Post by koin0r »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #71

False advertising for everything is pretty much the norm. I get fatigued just navigating through all of the rackets out there. I do not know how people who skip the fine print manage to survive these days.

*advertising IS pretty much the norm for everything these days. we are being flooded with ads, but we're often selling ourselves as well... ad-based world this is..

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#139

Post by dreamcompiler »

jwally wrote: post #92

The U.S. would do itself a huge favour by allowing student debt to be bankruptable. College prices can rise infinitely because there is an unlimited supply of AAA+ debt to feed it. Drop that rating to reality and investors don't buy the debt, loans don't get originated, demand for college at $250k dries up.

Likewise healthcare. The fact that insurance companies exist who will pay for a $250000 procedure guarantees that those prices continue. If the customers of healthcare (patients) were the payers, those ridiculous prices would vanish.

Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm

#140

Post by randomdata »

reaperducer wrote: post #123
CM30 wrote: post #99

Eh, even most normal colleges are pretty honest in their ads compared to game design ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAFLfx3mvIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho But seriously, the fact of the matter is: 1. Too many people go to college, so its original value (as a status indicator) is now virtually non existent 2. It's too expensive, so unless a good job is a near guaranteed outcome, people will lad…

That sounds good in writing, but it doesn’t seem to work in real life for some reason. Two of the cities I’ve lived in have been places with several large businesses focused on a single non-factory industry. They could never get enough workers, so demand for labor was high and because of that so were wages. The prevailing attitude among the very local teens (2nd generation plus) was “Why should I go to college when I…

> The result is that most of the locals are pretty dumb.

It is concerning to me that after approximately 18 years on earth and 12 years of schooling that the locals are still dumb. But as little as two to four more years of school can transform them into smart, well rounded, people capable of understanding complex social issues related to their city and beyond.

It seems the real shame is not that college is expensive, but that we've wasted the time of our youngsters.

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