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U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

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Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#301

Post by jazzyk »

This is another example of the law of unintended consequences.

While the idea of helping people become more educated is obviously beneficial to both individuals and the society as a whole, government loans - which are supposed to "help" - are a huge factor fueling ever-raising costs. The loans, in effect, subsidize the higher-education complex, rather than students.

Many of us have been brainwashed to think that higher education has to cost a lot of money. But it need not: all that great education requires are wise, passionate teachers and a bit of infrastructure: a whiteboard, a few books, and a laptop computer (with a couple of outliers).

We don't need football/hockey teams with coaches paid $3-4M/year. We don't need armies of "Deans of Diversity & Inclusion" (and other phony administrative positions), who make $400K/year, we don't need manicured lawns and Olympics-quality sports facilities (these salaries are from the Univ of California - a state school!)

If a good private university cost < $20K/year and a state university < $10K, we would not have endless discussions wrt who should pay, who should study what, etc.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#302

Post by programmarchy »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #204
Lazare wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but how does that translate into policy? Fact 1: Education in the US is very expensive, in large part because the ready availability of loans removes most downwards pressure on prices. Fact 2: If you are loaned money to obtain a degree which is not economically valued then you will not be able to pay it back. Fact 3: If you loan people money without expecting people to pay it back, then it's not a loan, it's a…

Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

Terrible, dystopian idea. You know education can't be "free", right? Unless you want to enslave educators and force them to work for nothing. In reality, the middle class will have half their income seized to subsidize the dependent class, being worked to the bone in mega corporations. Meanwhile, the elite will reap all the profits and pour them into more social control programs. Result of basic income will be a culture of demoralized serfs, totally dependent on a feudal corporate state for their survival.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#303

Post by drabiega »

cpursley wrote: post #289
JulianMorrison wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

If someone can just get on Basic Income, why even bother with attending college and putting in all that hard work? This is a serious question. Most people are not intrinsically motivated; the hacker news echo-chamber is an anomaly.

People always want more. I've met plenty of people who had enough inheritance / other random windfall to just get by who still went to college and careers. If those who get it by random chance or family act as such, why should we assume that those who would get it from Basic Income would be any different?

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#304

Post by jimmywanger »

skwosh wrote: post #117

There seems to be a strong sentiment in this thread that the only value provided by education is the contribution to career (e.g. that loans should only be provided for financially viable courses, that studying arts is as useful to one's career as studying finger painting, etc). This just seems so wrong. Optimising for vocational training means you're effectively tuning out the abstract arts and sciences and... oh, t…

> This just seems so wrong.

Why? Out of all the things to think are wrong, inability to pick a useless major based on financial status is wrong? As opposed to pollution in East Asia, conflict minerals in our supply chain, or slavery in shrimp fisheries in Thailand?

> These fields don't usually/directly translate into a financial success, but they broaden our perspective and deepen our experience.

Yes. Those are luxuries. For most of history, middle class people couldn't afford to study those fields. Colleges used to have much smaller enrollments. They'd either by A&M schools, used to help train up mechanics and farmers or engineering schools where you need to learn the math to become an engineer. Only a few prestigious ones (Yale, Harvard, etc etc) offered humanities majors, for landed gentry. The kind of people who didn't really have to work for a living.

> And to a certain extent, "true" art is antithetical to capitalism

That is ridiculous. "True" art has to appeal to an audience, and if it appeals, it will sell. You can't just put our art and say "hey, it's true, support me". That's a dangerously naive view of the world.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#305

Post by kesselvon »

charlesdm wrote: post #279
nickik wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually not ridiculous at all. There is a lot of study on the idea that the main value of education is not what you actually learn but much more signal that you are dedicated, motivated and have the ability to learn. There is a huge argument going on right now about how much of the value is signal vs actual knowledge you need for the job. There is a lot of evidence that suggest that signal is a huge part of the…

> There is a lot of study on the idea that the main value of education is not what you actually learn but much more signal that you are dedicated, motivated and have the ability to learn. A signal, I can agree with that. But isn't that only because someone is unable to signal that (s)he can be a valuable asset in other ways? The type of person to only rely on their degree is probably a person that isn't creative enou…

Most places will not take your resume seriously if you don't have a degree attached. Startups tend to be more lenient sometimes, but Big Corp. isn't going to touch you without a degree, nor will you have a promotion path without one.

It's the reality of the situation, and until there's a significant change in attitude, not having "a" degree is going to hurt your career prospects unless you're a wildly successful entrepreneur or have great connections/independently wealthy.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#306

Post by LesZedCB »

lkbm wrote: post #296
ap22213 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely unlikely that a post-scarcity world will ever occur without, say, a collective global work project. There is no financial incentive for private capital to initiate it. Just like the Internet (in its current form) would have never occurred without government funding. The technology to bring about a post-scarcity world mostly exists, and we could get there very quickly (maybe 5-10 years). But, how do yo…

This seems more optimistic than I usually hear. Do you mind going into what you mean by "post-scarcity" and how we'd achieve it? Does it just mean a living UBI, or is there tech/infrastructure (extensive solar, e.g.) to be developed/built out as well?

we bulldoze away houses, we throw away food. meanwhile, people are homeless and hungry. Clearly we already live in a society of overproduction.

The difference is that the owners of the capital aren't willing to lose on their investments, and it's cheaper to bulldoze and throw away than to give it away or provide work maintaining the communities that these properties exist in/on.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#307

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

matwood wrote: post #236
JulianMorrison wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

Basic income I think is going to have to happen at some point in our lifetime. There are just simply not enough jobs. Please stop saying 'free' tuition. It's not free, it is just not paid by the student. Keep in mind that many states already have just this setup for in state students to use lottery money.

Basic income is my one hope from the next 4-8 years (because socially, we are screwed)

Much like with Obama, Trump and the Republicans are going to learn what is and isn't possible for the POTUS. And while there are many factors in the election, a significant chunk of the votes were poor whites who are traditionally opposed to social programs.

So on the off chance we build more factories, they are going to be modern (automated), dispelling that myth.

Which should set the stage for the Dems (or even the Republicans, but I doubt it) to pivot back toward being "the poor people's party" and finally get to push some of those social programs.

And the only one that really makes sense (at least, to me) is some form of basic income/guaranteed minimum income.

I am still sceptical that we'll see the real thing in our lifetimes, but I do think we can start down that path sooner than later.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#308

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jazzyk wrote: post #301

This is another example of the law of unintended consequences. While the idea of helping people become more educated is obviously beneficial to both individuals and the society as a whole, government loans - which are supposed to "help" - are a huge factor fueling ever-raising costs. The loans, in effect, subsidize the higher-education complex, rather than students. Many of us have been brainwashed to think that high…

Except its a program that can be managed correctly. The problem was that there were no incentives to do so. My understanding is that loans initially were smaller and helped with the cost of tuition at a time where tuition was more affordable, but still out of reach for many working class families. Now they can pay for all of tuition and the cost of tuition is just pegged to the max loan offer from the government.

No one put in sane cost controls. No one told the universities that federal money wouldn't just increase to their whims. No one told students what its really like in real life to payback a 50k or 100k or even 150+k loan for a 4 year degree. What that means as an opportunity cost compared to cheaper schooling. My relatively modest loan is like making car payments on a decent car everything month... for 20 years. So 4 lower-end Lexus's if you consider interest. Or less to put in retirement.

I have no idea how people with large loans get by. I imagine the recent Obama rules regarding loan repayment as percentage of salary helps with an 20 year payment forgiveness plan. Not sure if the new business friendly administration is going to keep that in place.

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#309

Post by awinder »

koolba wrote: post #297
awinder wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scope of someone going to college for say 40 years (from 20-60, for sake of argument) is a lot different than saying 4 years of education should maybe be an institutionalized cost. If you figure: 1. At 12K/year, base education runs a cost of 156K 2. At 20K/year, college education for 4 years runs 80K 3. At 20K/year, college education for 40 years runs 800K Then what we're saying is 80K represents 50% of the educa…

> Then what we're saying is 80K represents 50% of the educational costs we're all comfortable with sinking into base education. You're making assumptions that we're all comfortable with paying for 12 years of education. I think the majority of that is a waste of time (and by extension money). > Most people want to go to college to get skills to then contribute something to society, whether or not today's economy spec…

Sorry to lump you in, caveat that statement in whatever way makes you feel comfortable. Hopefully we can agree that at least as far as level of discussion goes, much more is made of college costs than of childhood education costs. I found to be a little absurd given the financial numbers involved (every kid goes through primary education, even if college is free it'll never rise to the level of every kid utilizing it, etc.)

> Sure but I don't want to pay for that either

I left a comment in another thread, but the amount of shit that is in the budget leaves every American with a feeling of "I don't want to pay for that". The DoD budget alone clocks in at over 8x the projected cost of free college education, very few people talk with vitriol about the hand-outs we're creating for the myriad of people that make up that apparatus.

> It's artificially inflated to match amount of money a student can expect to beg / borrow

I'm not as well read here as I'd like to be, but I have a hard time understanding how this is going to be such a magic fix. Professors aren't going to be too keen to take a pay cut here, and state universities aren't exactly making out like gangbusters right now. Is the idea that we'd have less students and less professors? What's the economic impact of seeing those jobs, and the dependent jobs in school communities, eliminated?

Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt

#310

Post by mason240 »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #138
nightski wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the value of adversity is lost sometimes on HN. We should be especially familiar with it. Earning a high level of income makes life extraordinarily comfortable, to the point where it is easy to become complacent and stop trying to really contribute to society in a meaningful way. Some times a struggle is not a bad thing. Not to the point where one should be homeless or starving of course, but having every…

Your comment is the typical lack of perspective I expect from HN. Going to college is extremely stressful. Going to college poor (actually poor) is nearly impossible.

> Going to college poor (actually poor) is nearly impossible.

This isn't true at all. I speak from personal experience.

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