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Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

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Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#241

Post by killjoywashere »

lawlessone wrote: post #6
PatientTrades wrote: post #4

There is plenty of blame to go around here. However a major cause of this has been the push by the left that college is the only path to success. Trade and vocational schools as well as military service are all great options for young adults who may not know exactly what they want to do with their life right away. Spending 4 years of your life taking on debt, simply because society tells you college is the path to su…

>as well as military service are all great options for young adults Getting shot at for an education doesn't seem that great. Better off just moving to a better country.

There are plenty of jobs more hazardous than "soldier". I believe there's a guy who made a show about such "dirty jobs"? Mining, oil fields, and commercial fishing come to mind.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#242

Post by jotjotzzz »

jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

Make student loans dischargeable under bankruptcy like any other loans, including corporate loans. Then we'll see big changes. But since we punish the young, by not letting them off the hook, these loan sharks will continue to bite.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#243

Post by hfourm »

jedberg wrote: post #48
hfourm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truthfully, depending on your definition of majority, most college students ARE already pursuing more profitable majors. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.a... The "underwater basketweaving" so to say, may be at most 10-15% of current college graduates. I think the solution lies more with reducing the cost of college, open source textbooks, more elearning, etc. Regardless of government fundin…

You could do all those cost reduction things, but until you either decrease demand or decrease the supply of money, costs will never go down -- profits will just go up.

That is overly generic and not necessarily true.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#244

Post by clairity »

jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

you describe a classic misattribution problem with the demand for higher ed. people use "college" as a synonym for "successful life", but those two things only have a loose correlation, which is only getting weaker with the swell of people getting degrees that they can't wield effectively.

we all want a successful life, and being good little free-market capitalists, we eagerly buy into the story that we can achieve success by simply buying a degree (hey, i bought three of 'em!) and letting the rest play out like our wildest dreams.

but of course it doesn't work that way because we didn't scrutinize the winding path between degree and successful life, because the shortcut between those two things doesn't actually exist (at least not any more).

colleges and universities have done a good job extracting most, if not all, of the value out of the higher education market, with the help of government distortions (guaranteed interest, unbankruptable debt). it's time to put to bed the idea that a degree equals success (it's also time to get rid of those market distortions). a few of us will get lucky of course, but pretty much everyone will need to create success the old-fashioned way: by working hard for it.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#245

Post by czep »

ardit33 wrote: post #87
cloakandswagger wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works. And a similar number of people who elevate science to the level of religion, marching in its name and developing a brand of hero worship for scientists when they too know nothing at all about the scientific process. Both are forms of anti-intellectualism that are growing in our polarized…

Say what? I'd say a "propper scientist" will know about the "scientific process" pretty well. Sure, there are plenty of pseudo scientists out there that promote their political or economic agendas, but you can't discredit all science because of that. Right now "hard" science is the best way to explain things around us and the universe. Sure, often it is wrong as new science gets discovered, but that's how human knowl…

> They are more prone to trends, fads and more personal biases

This is not necessarily true, and I would urge caution when making such generalizations. There is junk social science and there is also plenty of junk "hard" science. Examples of fake data, political and personal biases interfering with the scientific method, occur in all fields. Some "fads" eventually become accepted fact. It took 100 years before plate tectonics was accepted by the majority of the scientific community, there are many such examples.

Don't universally discount social science: it is just as important as physical science. We actually need more social scientists to help understand the reasons behind anti-science movements in the first place, and to help legitimize science as a process, critial thinking, and to debunk illogical arguments.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#246

Post by treyfitty »

a2tech wrote: post #218
jedberg wrote: post #22

There is definitely an education bubble. It's way too easy to get money for college. You hear a lot of stories about the increasing costs of college and crushing debt on graduation, but you don't hear a lot of stories of "I wanted to go to college but couldn't get a loan". Almost everyone gets approved, regardless of their future ability to pay it back. We need a fundamental shift in the way college is paid for. Some…

I wanted to go to college, but couldn't get a loan. Its easy for people who's parents already participate fully in the credit market-but for people like myself who's parents are poor and don't use credit for anything, it wasn't an option.

My parents were poor. I went to school for dirt cheap at a state school. My cousin went to Princeton for free because his parents didn’t make enough income (the income limit was quite generous, at less than $100k per household in NY).

Being poor, in hindsight, was a blessing.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#247

Post by ProAm »

gedy wrote: post #95
ProAm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education doesn't always need to have an ROI, sometimes it's just worth what you spend on it.

For sure, but the issue is whether you should borrow so much that it becomes a public policy issue.

Who fault is that really? The banks and gov for over extending risky loans? Or the people who borrow? Probably both, but if the banks do not know the risk of over extending risky loans Im not sure what will ever be done.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#248

Post by unethical_ban »

throwawayaway12 wrote: post #237
ithilglin909 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. I’m not the kind of engineer that has a STEM only mindset and I see a lo…

>Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. It does seem like this baseline understanding does shift with progress…

You need to be basically educated in algebra, literature and philosophy/civics to be a productive, contributing voter and citizen. Forget vocation.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#249

Post by andrewjl »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #155
jackweirdy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another solution is to let you go to school for free and then pay a percent of all your future earnings back to your college, or at least into a pool that pays for the next generation's college. We could call it income tax :)

The problem with subsidizing college in any way, including the current student loan system is that it encourages people to go to college whether it makes sense or not, and as several people have mentioned in this discussion, in a lot of cases, it doesn't make sense. Anyone who is properly motivated should be able to go to college, but when I hear cries for a free college education, I can imagine that that would stimu…

Society benefits when people get more educated, period, including better voting decision, more civic engagement, and ability to build social ties across class, ethnic, and ideological lines.

Re: Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

#250

Post by csomar »

Xylakant wrote: post #114
smokeyj wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell if you're enlightened or institutionalized. > Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better. Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make.

> Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make. Studying for a degree involves more than just reading a book. A good degree (no matter what major you choose) should leave you with the skills and capabilities to learn and teach yourself new skills. This - not the knowledge gained - is by far the most val…

This was not my experience. I think the University in this case matters; and thus we shall not conclude that all of them are useless or priceless.

My opinion is that many (I'd say most but I'm not certain) of the universities in the US are pretty good.

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