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U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

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Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#281

Post by tptacek »

mbroncano wrote: post #213
rayiner wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education bubble has nothing to do with the rich. It’s entirely a middle class phenomenon—a wealth transfer from young middle class people to older middle class people (professors and administrators). To the extent that state colleges aren’t more heavily tax subsidized, again its primarily the fault of the older middle class. (The biggest difference between US and European tax rates is for the vast middle class.…

> Middle class Germans pay twice as much or more Citation needed. My personal experience paying taxes in both EU/NL and US/TX is that I pay slightly more in the US, in pretty much the same situation (family of four, two incomes)

You don't have to work this out from first principles; varying tax burdens in developed countries is intensively studied, and any analysis angle you come up with has already been come up with, long ago, by professionals paid to analyze this stuff. Germany's middle-class tax burden is significantly higher than that of the US.

http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/oecd-tax-rates-on-labour-income...

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#282

Post by tptacek »

nswx wrote: post #226
rayiner wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education bubble has nothing to do with the rich. It’s entirely a middle class phenomenon—a wealth transfer from young middle class people to older middle class people (professors and administrators). To the extent that state colleges aren’t more heavily tax subsidized, again its primarily the fault of the older middle class. (The biggest difference between US and European tax rates is for the vast middle class.…

Not generally. The reason the middle class pay higher taxes in Europe is mostly because of contributions to public welfare systems. Society level concerns are usually still to a large degree paid for by taxes on high incomes and businesses.

No, the tax burden on the middle class in Germany is substantially higher than in the US after accounting for benefits, which, of course, tax policy analysts thought of doing long before we started arguing about it on HN.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#283

Post by robmaister »

jclay wrote: post #241
RGamma wrote: post #127

From a European perspective I can only shake my head at this. It doesn't seem like a good idea at all to indebt a significant part of the young population (which I presume creates a lot of avoidable stress) while the rich gain in wealth and power year after year. But I guess longer-term thinking has been thrown overboard in economic decision/policy making anyway, because that would make the numbers not grow fast enou…

American here who just went through this process. I returned to finish my undergrad at one of the most expensive schools, in one of the most expensive cities. I think as others said, many students aren’t doing the ROI calculations. For me, the government loans are 3.75% which is totally reasonable IMO. One could easily outpace this with an ETF fund. The private loans are more expensive at 6% and up but the lower end…

My federal loans from a few years ago ranged from 3.25% to 6.7%. My fiance had to stay an extra semester, which means she had to get a private loan for it. ~9% fixed.

My school wouldn't give anyone extra aid even if you went in in person and asked (the only case I know about is a student's mother passing away halfway through undergrad) and you'd get a little less every semester because tuition kept going up.

Top schools tend to be more generous despite the higher sticker price. My sister graduated from one with around 1/4 of the debt that I did. 2 years was with the same FAFSA for both of us.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#284

Post by toasterlovin »

iguy wrote: post #271
toasterlovin wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your take that the EU, and not nuclear weapons, is the driving force behind the European peace since 1945?

I'd wager that even without nuclear weapons, dividing Germany in half and keeping half a million or so foreign soldiers there for 50 years would have been pretty effective at keeping the peace.

The feasibility of that depends on the stability brought about by nuclear weapons, though, no?

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#285

Post by nickthemagicman »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #279
nickthemagicman wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not one Americans would support" "Taxes would increase" 100% bonafide baseless claims. Have some vision friend. There are alternatives even though you can't think of them.

I worry that you don't understand how hard it is to raise taxes in the States. It hasn't been done in a substantial way for close to half a century. The trend has been rather the opposite.

Taxes need to raise on the rich. That is all.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#286

Post by strictnein »

temp1928384 wrote: post #70
strictnein wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What year did you pay $8k a year for a "top 10" public school?

I went to University of Washington and graduated in 2010. It's now $11,207/year. I think in my first year it was actually $6500 and rose to around $8k in 2010.

Ahh.. you're not counting room and board. $19k if you include that.

https://admit.washington.edu/costs/coa/

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#287

Post by iguy »

toasterlovin wrote: post #284
iguy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager that even without nuclear weapons, dividing Germany in half and keeping half a million or so foreign soldiers there for 50 years would have been pretty effective at keeping the peace.

The feasibility of that depends on the stability brought about by nuclear weapons, though, no?

Perhaps. It's possible a cold stalemate between the two non-nuclear armies would have lasted a while, I don't think there was much enthusiasm for full-scale fighting.
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