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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#261

Post by randomdata »

vpilcx wrote: post #160
kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdles for poor people to jump through." There are certainly a lot of useless majors. But that doesn't imply all of them are useless. "the fact that educational debt in America can never be voided through bankruptcy seems like a conscious systemic decision to create debt slaves." I'm not in the US, but isn't the…

> There are certainly a lot of useless majors. But that doesn't imply all of them are useless. It's not so much a critique of the majors but rather the professional requirements of the job listing. For jobs that don't have an innate technical (technical in the loosest sense of the term) requirement, they only want a certain class of person working there and college degrees are just how they do that. > I'm not in the…

Realistically, employers are simply seeking to reduce the number of applicants down to manageable levels. When you have 1,000 people lined up at the door for a job, you cannot meaningfully evaluate them all and need to find a mechanism to quickly eliminate most of them.

You also need a method is deemed legally acceptable. Throwing out all the resumes of women, for example, could land you in some legal hot water. Degrees are one of the few filters that is deemed legally acceptable. It's there to keep the lawyers happy and little else.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#262

Post by JoeAltmaier »

algo646464 wrote: post #102
duxup wrote: post #14

> Cultural norms can also encourage poverty cycles. I often wonder about these. Growing up I watched friends whose families had what you might describe as a cultural distrust of institutions, including schools, or even anyone who seemed to “think they’re better than us” (translation anyone who did well in school or a career). They constantly made self defeating choices and seemed destined to have the same problems/ p…

I sometimes think, one way to break this cycle is to send the all the kids to boarding school or military school. It could put them in an environment free from their background circumstances. It is of course a harsh thing to do, but I think maybe it could work.

Once people leave a structured environment (home, boarding school etc) and live 'on their own' even if it's just a dorm room, then tend to act as one who has been leaning against a post, and you take the post away suddenly. It can talk a while for them to stand up straight again - keep their room clean, do their laundry on time, manage their money, wash and dress suitable for the situation.

I could always tell in college, which people had not lived on their own before. They were a mess.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#263

Post by pixl97 »

refurb wrote: post #220
vbezhenar wrote: post #191

When I started to pile some cash, so many opportunities opened up to save more money. Like I've got a chance to buy a good car for a good price, but I need money right now. Or I can buy plenty of food at once with a good discount, but I need to have enough money and enough refrigerator space to store it. Poor people who don't have a house, must spend tremendous money to rent it. I'm spending like $20/month to pay for…

Of course, but my own experience was that I could forgo a car for a bike. I could still buy bread at the end of day for a 75% discount. I could rent a room with 2 other people for 1/4 of what a 1 bedroom would be. I could go to 2nd hand stores for clothes. Yes, trying to replicate a middle class life as a poor person is expensive. But you can also just live like a poor person and get by.

Trying to live as a poor person in the US is difficult as we optimize the process for suburban car owners.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#264

Post by echelon »

as_i_fall wrote: post #210
dijit wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a harder problem than just "Free Education". I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious. I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test r…

I mean what's the alternative? I don't think dumping kids out of school is going to improve anything for anyone.

To help foster growth, kids need a person that encourages them when they fail, keeps them from trouble and bad influences, disciplines them when they make bad decisions, helps with their mental health, and encourages them to learn and grow in whatever interest the kid enjoys.

Not all children have access to this kind of role model. And even if they do, it's not a guarantee, just a more favorable probability.

School is so strained that it can't be this system by itself. Good teachers help, but they're transitory, and typically not available after hours. And very few care in the same way a parent, grandparent, relative, or adoptive family would as they're not as deeply invested.

Other children can be horrible influences that can make a child depressed, angry, lose faith in themselves, and take up bad habits. Kids need to be shielded and told that the pain they experience is temporary, that life holds promise, and that the problems they face can be overcome.

It's a very hard and important problem.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#265

Post by zdragnar »

duxup wrote: post #14

> Cultural norms can also encourage poverty cycles. I often wonder about these. Growing up I watched friends whose families had what you might describe as a cultural distrust of institutions, including schools, or even anyone who seemed to “think they’re better than us” (translation anyone who did well in school or a career). They constantly made self defeating choices and seemed destined to have the same problems/ p…

I was fortunate to not experience this myself, but my best friend struggled with his peers in school bullying him for "acting white" when he actually tried to do well. Fortunately for him, his dad was a firm believer in education, so he moved up out of poverty when most of his childhood friends ended up in gangs or worse.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#266

Post by mattchew »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #236
throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their point (which i agree with) is why do you need a college degree just to get a basic entry level job with a career path. You're delaying entering the workforce for 4+ years ($100k+ at minimum wage, minus some if you work during college) with ~30k debt (with your example tuition/costs not sure if it include room & board) so they should get a similar output from that education. This probably wasn't the situ…

> why do you need a college degree just to get a basic entry level job with a career path. The two options here are that either all the businesses using college degrees as a signal are wrong and they could be saving a lot of money by hiring non college educated applicants for slightly less pay and building them up. OR college education is a useful signal and so businesses are willing to pay a higher price for it. If…

A degree can be a valuable signal to employers and also be a terrible waste of time and resources. It can be both at once.

It would be better if we found ways to let young people get into white collar and middle class professions without spending $100K and four years of their lives. This used to be possible. I'm quite sure it could be done again, but collectively we're not going to go there. Yet, anyway.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#267

Post by drdec »

eadmund wrote: post #238
vpilcx wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdles for poor people to jump through. In the U.S., this is due to the fact tha…

> In the U.S., this is due to the fact that employers practically may not use proficiency exams

What do you mean here?

I'm a life-long US resident and I've never heard such a thing. I've also taken exams when applying to jobs. There is also the civil service exam which is a prerequisite for many government jobs. Jobs like the police and military have exams, both written and physical. I can't square my experience and your statement.

More likely, employers do not want to pay for additional exams as part of the hiring process and use college-degrees as a proxy. But there's nothing preventing them from using exams if they wanted.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#268

Post by kmano8 »

ausbah wrote: post #225
RHSeeger wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm spending like $20/month to pay for house that I own. Even assuming you own the house outright (which is not true for most people that have bought a house less than 30 years ago), that number seems ridiculously low. In every place I've lived, the land taxes alone are an order of magnitude higher than that. And then maintenance for the house is on top of that (something that people renting don't pay directly). I…

aren't things like taxes and maintance passed along to the renters?

Not necessarily. The market will ultimately dictate what a landlord can charge for rent .. if that includes their cost of repairs + taxes, good for them. It's by no means a guarantee, and landlords can go through periods of being cash-flow negative on a property.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#269

Post by eadmund »

vpilcx wrote: post #155
bko wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. Can't you just hack this by going to school for pretty much anything you're interested in and being able to work in an unrelated field? > my next gripe with it is the seemingly insurmountable debt that said education brings You've established that education is a good investment. So why not find an affordable college? It's not a…

> You've established that education is a good investment. My friend often comes to me and says, "Hey, man, how come you don't invest your money in ?" Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest. > So why not find an affordable college? So I did a quick calculation. Affordable, meaning junior college and public state college, would come out to roughly $23k for a bachelor. Maybe…

> People who live in poverty don't have money to invest.

You wrote below this line that your current expenses are $500/month. The poverty line is currently $12,880. Even if you are making one half of that (which is hard to believe: $6,440/year works out to $3.10/hour), you would still have $440/year to invest. You wrote elsewhere that you are in your late thirties; $36.67/month invested in the S&P 500 over the last 15 years (which has returned 8.4% over that time) would be worth $13,195.76 today. That is not a lot for folks above the poverty line, but by your own math that works out to over two years' living expenses. Over the course of forty years at the same long-term rate one could expect to have enough saved up for twenty-four years' expenses.

Or you could invest it in something with a greater than 8.4% return … such as a college education.

> I also feel really uncomfortable with debt in general, especially debt that I cannot choose to have absolved through bankruptcy.

Debt can be a problem, but it can also be a solution. Borrowing at X% and investing at Y% is a great idea when Y > X (of course, if Y or X is not constant, then there is a risk that Y > X, as in the case of going to college for a marketable degree, it is an easy decision.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#270

Post by drdec »

RHSeeger wrote: post #214
vpilcx wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…

> the fact that educational debt in America can never be voided through bankruptcy seems like a conscious systemic decision to create debt slaves The inability to be voided through bankruptcy, as I understand it, was setup so that educational loans would not wind up with insane interest rates. Given that they are unsecured (there's nothing for the lender to repossess if the borrower fails to pay), there is much great…

> The inability to be voided through bankruptcy, as I understand it, was setup so that educational loans would not wind up with insane interest rates. Given that they are unsecured (there's nothing for the lender to repossess if the borrower fails to pay), there is much greater risk to the lender.

Most loans issued before 2010 are guaranteed by the US government. So while they are technically unsecured, the government will cover the lender if the borrower doesn't pay.

Since 2010, student loans are actually owned by the government, that is, students are borrowing money directly from the US federal government.

So, in most cases, if a student loan were discharged in bankruptcy, it would be the federal government that would eat the cost of the loan.

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