The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe • Hacker News Board

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#271

Post by Bakary » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:29 AM UTC

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #251

fiftyfifty wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need to reduce or eliminate government backed student loans and the problem will take care of itself. This "crisis" is almost a replay of the housing crisis we just had, government backed loans encourage lenders to lend out money to people who are not qualified for the loan. It doesn't make sense to keep loaning out tens of thousands of dollars to 18 year old kids that have no income [yet] and no real plan to…

> We just need to reduce or eliminate government backed student loans and the problem will take care of itself Why not just go directly to a caste system?

We already have that in all but name

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#272

Post by hkmurakami » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #263

asabjorn wrote: post #202

This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs". It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state-subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning pote…

here’s another thing to think about: - people want to go to name brand/Well known schools - The maximum number of schools that humans can remember in their brain is largely fixed - The population is increasing - Schools largely Don’t increase their enrollment size due to space and notoriety concerns you combine all the factors above and you should expect the price of top-tier schools go up dramatically with populatio…

As a supporting data point, I looked up the stats. My “elite” undergrad institution increased enrollment by 14% in the last 15 years.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#273

Post by conanbatt » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #267

barry-cotter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly, the data reject the bloat theory. Figure 8 shows spending shares in higher education. Contrary to the bloat theory, the administrative share of spending has not increased much in over thirty years. The research share, where you might expect to find higher lab costs, has fluctuated a little but also hasn’t risen much. The plant share which is where you might expect to find lazy rivers has even gone…

Both of these are ludicrous. The salaries for my school are public, they are for all public schools (that I've looked at at least). I can tell you from the data from my school the administrative costs have gone up substantially. Both from number of administrators increasing significantly. The average administrative staff wage is over 250k (I know that's not a lot in tech salaries, but that is HUGE where I am. Cost of…

> The average administrative staff wage is over 250k (

This is a big salary even in SF. What average admin staff is that?

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#274

Post by conanbatt » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:44 AM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #9

H1B compete with the newly graduated college students. Before people say that there’s no problem with STEM graduates finding a job, I’ll counter that many of my coworkers 20 years ago didn’t have STEM degrees, and were previously English majors, business majors, etc. They were people with technical aptitude who realized they had picked a field of study that didn’t quite suit their financial aspirations. They were abl…

You have another option for people of your ideological inclination: ban any software product that is made outside of the us. Inevitable, consumers will have to turn to the domestic market which will inflate the salaries you are so interested in protecting.

Once that works, you can advance further and ban free open-source, including platforms like Github. Free labor is the enemy of high wages. You can increase salaries even more by regulating licenses and limiting how many people can be software engineers or write code at all.

And then you can keep going, and ban high use of computing power: you will need more labor to compensate the inefficiencies of wasteful, environment harming, computer processing.

Success is guaranteed!

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#275

Post by conanbatt » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #31

joelbluminator wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't a 28 American with an English major do a coding bootcamp and find an entry level job? I'm sure if he's reasonable intelligent and ambitious he can. There aren't that many h1b's around competing with him, most American jobs aren't h1b jobs.

For starters, H1Bs are cheaper to hire. Also, they're more desperate to stay in the US, so they won't demand too much and won't walk away from poor conditions. That also fixes with the population issue since middle class Americans can't really afford to have kids.

Cheaper to hire by the design of people that agree with you: if you want them to be just as pricey as an american you have to eliminate all restrictions of negotiation.

You also have to eliminate all tax-benefits that americans receive that foreigners don't. And then you have to make public all wages of american citizens, to equal the information asymetry

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#276

Post by eikenberry » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #263

asabjorn wrote: post #202

This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs". It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state-subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning pote…

here’s another thing to think about: - people want to go to name brand/Well known schools - The maximum number of schools that humans can remember in their brain is largely fixed - The population is increasing - Schools largely Don’t increase their enrollment size due to space and notoriety concerns you combine all the factors above and you should expect the price of top-tier schools go up dramatically with populatio…

But it has not been only top-tier universities whose tuition has increased so dramatically, it has been nearly every university. The only ones that haven't skyrocketed in price have been community colleges.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#277

Post by kurthr » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:54 AM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #272

randyrand wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here’s another thing to think about: - people want to go to name brand/Well known schools - The maximum number of schools that humans can remember in their brain is largely fixed - The population is increasing - Schools largely Don’t increase their enrollment size due to space and notoriety concerns you combine all the factors above and you should expect the price of top-tier schools go up dramatically with populatio…

As a supporting data point, I looked up the stats. My “elite” undergrad institution increased enrollment by 14% in the last 15 years.

I don't think US population increased 14% in the last 15 years (even the world is barely 16%).

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#278

Post by FussyZeus » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #254

chii wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But without the student loans, the under privileged will not be able to afford said education - I don't want to see a society where only those who can afford it go to university.

This simply isn't true. Schools offer crazy financial aid and there are junior colleges / state universities that offer 100% of aid to impoverished individuals. The people taking malinvestment (student loans for unproductive means / negative ROI) are firmly in the middle class bracket, both lower/upper sides of it.

And who decides what constitutes malinvestment? I'm guessing there will be plenty of funds made available for tech work, what with Twitter, Ubereats and Facebook being so critical. How about the arts? How about history and culture, you know the stuff that makes living worthwhile beyond your usefulness to line the pockets of capitalists?

Or how about we just confront the problem dead on, remove the money and profit aspect entirely, and offer free college like dozens of other nations do, and have for many years, somehow without their economies imploding? Why must we sacrifice yet more of our society on the altar of profits? Fuck good investments. Fuck investors. Fuck this entire screwed up system that decides that anything that cannot be monetized is worthless.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#279

Post by anovikov » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:04 AM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #122

anovikov wrote: post #39

A little bit unrelated question: why are HE revolving loans so cheap, having negative CAGR? Some piece of economics i totally fail to understand.

Growth rate of the category is a different thing than internal rate of return. Negative CAGR just means that consumers are paying off or otherwise discharging the loan type at a faster rate than they're taking it out. Revolving home equity got a large amount of that wiped out in the 2008 crisis, which happened in the timeframe in question (2005-2018).

Oh God i just missed the point of that particular chart - it was the chart of average interest of each type of load, by growth rate of the total amount outstanding! LOL! Then it's clear.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#280

Post by killjoywashere » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:05 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #267

barry-cotter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly, the data reject the bloat theory. Figure 8 shows spending shares in higher education. Contrary to the bloat theory, the administrative share of spending has not increased much in over thirty years. The research share, where you might expect to find higher lab costs, has fluctuated a little but also hasn’t risen much. The plant share which is where you might expect to find lazy rivers has even gone…

Both of these are ludicrous. The salaries for my school are public, they are for all public schools (that I've looked at at least). I can tell you from the data from my school the administrative costs have gone up substantially. Both from number of administrators increasing significantly. The average administrative staff wage is over 250k (I know that's not a lot in tech salaries, but that is HUGE where I am. Cost of…

My medical school tuition was $38k for my final year of medical school. If my professors were making $250k/yr (1) their hourly rate would be $125. With a wrap rate of 25%, my institution's billable cost would be $156.25/hr. For $38K I should get 243 hours, or a bit over 12% of an FTE. Figure I got 1-2 hours a day direct time and 1-2 hours indirect time. We'll say 3 hours a day for 250 work days. But it was often "group therapy" where one faculty member would have 3-5 students and residents at a time. Still, at 1 hour a day, that comes out about even.

(1) Average US physician income: $294k, dragged down by military and public health physicians.