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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

#311

Post by tombo2008 »

Lazare wrote: post #225
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.

That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates. One day, I hope and imagine, we will live in a post-scarcity world, and then yes, that sounds like a great plan for organizing society. > rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now. Perhaps we should wait to relax that focus once we've actually solved th…

"That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates."

We've had a system not a million miles different from the one described in Ireland since the 70's/80's. There are grants for school uniforms and books for those that cant afford them, the cost of a college degree is not exorbitant and is again covered by a grant for those that cant afford it (I went to college with several guys who were on the grant) There's always the focus on getting a job, for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of people who go back and re skill with a 2nd degree.

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

#312

Post by ud0 »

ap22213 wrote: post #263
Lazare wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates. One day, I hope and imagine, we will live in a post-scarcity world, and then yes, that sounds like a great plan for organizing society. > rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now. Perhaps we should wait to relax that focus once we've actually solved th…

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…

> 'the lazy people' will just do nothing all day?

IMHO It's a bad thing considering the fact that a lot of people worked hard to get us to where we are today.

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

#313

Post by msandford »

drabiega wrote: post #303
cpursley wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You do realize that you met those people who did get that random windfall because they were working, not because they just took the money and ran, right?

Sure you might have met 20 of them. How many haven't you met because you're busy working instead of being where those folks hang out while they're not working?

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

#314

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

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…

I see this sentiment a lot, and I feel like you fundamentally misunderstand what is actually happening at universities. Discounting athletics, which in some places are revenue neutral and can be counted as marketing/local cultural artifact depending on who you talk to, the "wise passionate teachers" you praise so aren't there to teach idiot undergrads. Instead, they're hired to do research with the teaching as essentially a subset of that in most cases. Pure research, especially in a political climate that's increasingly anti-intellectual and anti science, is expensive and that cost gets offloaded to incoming students since the hard requirement for a college degree for many professional jobs creates inelastic demand.

The "phony administrative positions", lawns, and student facilties you dismiss as pork are the school's way of competing for the piles of grant money replacement known as undergrads.

Then further more, prices are already in the ball park of your supposed ideal. An instate student can go to a school like Georgia Tech (ranked 5 or so in engineering nationally depending on the year) for 12k before scholarships, essentially free if they don't piss away their grades. Private top tier schools cost more, but tend to offer more scholarships and grants so that's harder to compare between institutions. It's not that schools are expensive, it's that students are choosing to not go to the inexpensive schools, usually to get out of their state, or to be in an institution that specializes in their major, or go someplace with better student institutions.

US research is what makes our schools the top in the world, and the actual education gained from an undergrad degree isn't the drive for most people. It's the networking, the exposure, and the certification, none of which can be duplicated in a dinky classroom with a whiteboard and an underpaid teacher. Just look at American High Schools if you want to see how that turns out.

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

#315

Post by jimmywanger »

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…

> 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).

It's funny that a lot of the outliers are the degrees that can actually help you with financial stability later. Universities love humanity courses, exactly for the reasons you point out. It's easy to shoehorn a couple more undergrads into a literature or philosophy class, all you need to do is buy a few more chairs, and the books sort of buy themselves, and you're paying the TAs starvation wages anyways, what's a few more students between friends.

Whereas in a material science lab, you need a rockwell brinell hardness tester. For a computer science lab, you need some heavy iron if you're going to be doing heavy algorithms (might have changed lately, it's been going on 20 years for me). For electrical engineering, you need the CAD workstations with licenses for VHDL programs and the hardware to reprogram FPGAs.

So that's kind of interesting

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

#316

Post by tombo2008 »

programmarchy wrote: post #302
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.

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 cult…

Mr. Orwell? Big fan - may I have your autograph? :)

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

#317

Post by aquadrop »

laughfactory wrote: post #113
rahimnathwani wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why are interest free student loans never floated as an option?" Imagine what would happen if the US government made student loans interest free. Who would gain, and who would lose? (1) Students could afford to take out larger loans (as the repayments would be more affordable with 0% interest vs. 4.66% interest) (2) As a result of (1) colleges could charge higher tuition fees, without reducing the number of students…

You're right on the money. In fact, I'd argue that almost no one is smart enough (or wise enough) to only borrow what they really need. I went to college when I was 30. I thought I was smart. I knew that new graduates typically make, maybe, $40K. Yet, I signed up for the full boat...taking every last cent they'd loan me. Consequently, my wife and I are now $250K in debt--and have just bachelor's degrees (plus incompl…

> But yeah, I've noticed the same thing: the more we incentivize people to go to college by way of grants and loans, the more expensive it gets

But it gets more expensive for those who don't have grants. Maybe that's the problem - too few grants? What if colleges were required by law to enroll one 'free' student per each paying student? It would make it more expensive for paid students, but also will create large pool of bright students to compete for free spots.

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

#318

Post by ud0 »

jimmywanger wrote: post #304
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 luxur…

no truer words have been spoken here.

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

#319

Post by digler999 »

jimmywanger wrote: post #315
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…

> 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). It's funny that a lot of the outliers are the degrees that can actually help you with financial stability later. Universities love humanity courses, exactly for the reasons you point out. It's easy to shoehorn a couple more underg…

> For a computer science lab, you need some heavy iron if you're going to be doing heavy algorithms

Not for 200 undergrads learning how to bubblesort. For that you need a lab with 50-100 PC's. For grad courses in parallel comp. or AI, you might need a semi-expensive cluster to play around with, but if you want something that just works you could just buy cluster time on AWS, which I'm sure they'd give a discounted academic rate. I'd expect the most expensive thing in a CS lab to be the electricity to power the computers.

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

#320

Post by talmand »

tombo2008 wrote: post #311
Lazare wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates. One day, I hope and imagine, we will live in a post-scarcity world, and then yes, that sounds like a great plan for organizing society. > rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now. Perhaps we should wait to relax that focus once we've actually solved th…

"That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates." We've had a system not a million miles different from the one described in Ireland since the 70's/80's. There are grants for school uniforms and books for those that cant afford them, the cost of a college degree is not exorbitant and is again covered by a grant for those t…

That is in no way even close to the imagined situation that the response you are quoting is referring to.
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