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Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

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Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#311

Post by gerbilly »

tswartz wrote: post #4

It's such a weight off of the shoulders to have paid my wife and my student loans off a few months ago. Instead of the 20 or 30yr plan we put every extra dollar towards it and paid it off in 3.5 years. It feels fantastic! It's bizarre that student debt has become the norm and students who have potentially low-earning majors such as History are still given similar amounts of money from banks as a CS major.

>It's bizarre that student debt has become the norm

Our generation has no solidarity. We should just strike or protest and demand lower tuition. Or just not pay back the loans en-masse.

How come with the internet and twitter etc, we can't organize whereas in the 60s and 70s they could get their act together?

>and students who have potentially low-earning majors such as History are still given similar amounts of money from banks as a CS major

The corporations would love to turn universities into training grounds for the skills they need. Yet another example of them pushing an externality back onto the rest of us again.

Education is not the same as training. Education is more than training and expands your mind.

Training just teaches you a set of job skills.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#312

Post by ArkyBeagle »

karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #59

This will impact every other aspect of our consumption economy...home sales and even car sales will be impacted as working adults have to dedicate more and more earning potential to paying off student loans...far in excess of any real economic value these degrees have provided. I hate to get all "Zero Hedge", but this really does stink of some conspiracy to turn the middle class into lifelong renters instead of owner…

Home ownership is a bubble created first by VA and then FHA subsidized financing.

Mortgages were sort of unusual - housing was simpler then and people just paid cash. Sears sold home kits - of 12,000 pieces they said could be finished in 90 days by the owner - and while they offered financing, they topped out @ 60K in 2016 dollars. I don't think the financing was a "mortgage" per say, closer to consumer credit. People pay $60k for cars on four and five year notes.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#313

Post by mmagin »

flubert wrote: post #121
readhn wrote: post #108

The only recent grads (within 5 years) with student debt in my circles who could afford and have bought a house recently are: 1. Doctor & Finance couple with combined income $400,000+/year 2. Pharmacist & Finance couple with combined income $200,000+/year 3. Science Research & Quant(finance) couple with combined income $300,000+/year Interestingly - all have finance or medical field/science exposure.. The rest are re…

Location, Location, Location: $124/mo, 840 sq. ft: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1204-Via-Seville-Cathedral... $93/mo, 1190 sq. ft: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/617-NW-8th-Ave-UNIT-11-Mil... $70/mo, 832 sq. ft: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1745-35th-St-NW-Winter-Hav... $72/mo: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8528-Highland-Ave-Kansas-C... $92/mo, 2302 sq. ft.: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/122-Chey…

Only the Kansas City, MO one looks like it might be within a reasonable commute of good jobs.

The one near Palm Springs may be a close second, but I can't image what the commute from there to to some job in the LA or SD area is.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#314

Post by gm-conspiracy »

jazzyk wrote: post #107
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> university is a place where people should go to learn about things that interest them and inspire them in the company of other like-minded people whilst simultaneously growing as an individual As long as we continue to believe this, nothing will change. Universities indoctrinate, lets not be naive. Most schools have little interest in widening the perspectives of students. They are on a mission to unify perspective…

Looking at my daughter's textbook at a top-20 college in the US, I was stunned. She took a (core) class in philosophy/psychology. Very little time was spent on classics (ancient philosophers, Kant, Hegel, Freud, etc.) They were replaced by contemporary researchers (often from the same university), often with a VERY extreme, one-sided, politicized agenda (feminist, etc.). Pretty sad.

How much did the textbook cost?

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#315

Post by [deleted] »

jazzyk wrote: post #107
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> university is a place where people should go to learn about things that interest them and inspire them in the company of other like-minded people whilst simultaneously growing as an individual As long as we continue to believe this, nothing will change. Universities indoctrinate, lets not be naive. Most schools have little interest in widening the perspectives of students. They are on a mission to unify perspective…

Looking at my daughter's textbook at a top-20 college in the US, I was stunned. She took a (core) class in philosophy/psychology. Very little time was spent on classics (ancient philosophers, Kant, Hegel, Freud, etc.) They were replaced by contemporary researchers (often from the same university), often with a VERY extreme, one-sided, politicized agenda (feminist, etc.). Pretty sad.

[deleted]

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#316

Post by morgante »

st3v3r wrote: post #305
morgante wrote: post #176

Am I the only one who hates the notion of being forced to pay for other people's bad financial decisions? I made the choice to go to a slightly less prestigious school so I wouldn't have to go into debt for college. I also worked all through college to pay for my expenses. Should I now be punished for that decision? Why should we make people's financial mistakes consequence-free? I think the government should get out…

"Should I now be punished for that decision?" You're not being punished, in any sense of the word.

Of course I am. I had to pay an initial cost (avoiding loans) and then am further being forced to pay for other people's decisions through taxes.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#317

Post by majormajor »

morgante wrote: post #176

Am I the only one who hates the notion of being forced to pay for other people's bad financial decisions? I made the choice to go to a slightly less prestigious school so I wouldn't have to go into debt for college. I also worked all through college to pay for my expenses. Should I now be punished for that decision? Why should we make people's financial mistakes consequence-free? I think the government should get out…

Thinking the government shouldn't be involved as a matter of principle is fine, but in terms of policy recommendations, you have to balance that against the evident dislike of the current situation by substantial parts of the voting public.

If you set up the situation so that students can get themselves into crippling debt due to the market, you should realistically recognize that this might result in people with different underlying assumptions deciding that those students/former-students should get bailed out. So maybe it's better to just figure out ways to preempt the problem, which leaving it to the market (often a fairly abusive place for the less-informed or less-wealthy) doesn't really do.

Making them dischargable in bankruptcy would be a very useful change here, but where I disagree is that the market would be good at usefully signalling "this is a valuable degree" or "this isn't a valuable degree."

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#318

Post by reader5000 »

morgante wrote: post #289
x2398dh1 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of empathize with you since I did the same...but just because I feel angry, does that dictate what's moral overall? Here's an interesting question. Does someone who served in the military, peace corps, Americacorps or whatever have a higher, "moral high ground," for having served the country, for a super-reduced wage, over one who has not? Using your same logic, we should have anyone who did not do that pay a,…

> Using your same logic, we should have anyone who did not do that pay a, "non-participation fee." Err, we do. It's called taxes, which fund the military. More importantly, joining the peace corps is a choice . Nobody compels you to do it. Taxes are not: if student loans are forgiven, I'm being forced to pay for other people's financial decisions. I find that much more objectionable than my voluntary charitable contr…

To be fair, you are being forced to pay for your poor investment decisions as a taxpayer. That is, you as the taxpayer are the person who wrote all the terrible loans, wildly inflated tuition, and destroyed the spending capacity of an entire generation of young people. Kids arent making poor financial decisions, theyre just doing what society demands of them to get jobs. It is your financing that makes the system the clusterfuck it is. So yeah, the American taxpayer should be the one to eat it.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#319

Post by st3v3r »

h4nkoslo wrote: post #203
Salgat wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always loved this quote, “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” I'm almost done paying off my student loans, and because of that, I don't want anyone else to have to endure paying for student loans, even if I myself don't get the benefit.

No one's stopping you from cutting them a check. Ideally you would not hold a gun to my head and demand I do the same.

You completely missed the point. Further, this "holding a gun to your head" thing is completely asinine.

Re: Soaring Student Debt Prompts Calls for Relief

#320

Post by gerbilly »

morgante wrote: post #307
gerbilly wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Am I the only one who hates the notion of being forced to pay for other people's bad financial decisions? You are undoubtedly not the only one who feels this way. It's very natural. However, in the west sometimes I think we forget how lucky we are, and that the rest of the world often pays for our bad decisions and with much more than money. I would rather pay their student loans and be grateful for what I have as a…

> I would rather pay their student loans and be grateful for what I have as a white western person, which puts me on a privilege level well above a large proportion of humanity. I am very aware of my privilege. In fact, that's why I donate at least 10% of my income to charities operating in the developing world. That's actually part of why loan forgiveness galls me so much. It's offering a subsidy to people who are a…

> There's also a choice aspect of this.

Points taken above.

I'll just point out that the focus on fairness is a strong human trait, and IMHO it is a trait that we over-express. Often our notion of fairness is very biased as well.

We are most likely to recognize situations that are unfair against us, but easily gloss over all the unfair advantages we may have.

An anecdote: One time I was complaining to my grandmother that something wasn't fair, what did I do to deserve this... etc.[1]

And she said: "Don't say that. If we got just a fraction of what we had coming to us for our sins, we'd be in big trouble!"

If we insist that things should be fair, let's be very careful about what we wish for.

[1] She was the most upstanding, hardworking honest person I have ever met, and a whole community agrees with me. And even though her point was made from within a religious framework, I think it is very applicable. She died almost 20 years ago, and she would have been 100 years old today. She is greatly missed. I also realize it's a bit of an imposition to mention this in your thread. I just wanted to insert a reference to a remarkable individual on this anniversary. Her name is Thérèse Pilon.

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