U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by chmln » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

LesZedCB wrote: post #306

lkbm wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> we bulldoze away houses etc

People can do whatever they want to their property, no?

Do you personally allow homeless people into your house?

Problems you mentioned are real and tough, but the objections are very simplistic. Its very easy to demand others to do something, and distance yourself away.

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

#332

Post by vkou » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #330

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…

Add to that students have "suites" with private bedrooms and shared living space. Add to that meal plans with all you can eat Nutella and endless options. That money has to come from somewhere. It used to be old buildings with one block wall room with a set of bunks and two crappy desks. It has become an arms race and the parents have helped this along by indulging their kids. A lot of this debt is the parents paying…

And yet, in order to finance the construction of fancy student dorms, many universities require unmarried undergraduates to live in a dorm.

Speaking as a commuter in my student years, this boggles my mind.

Of course, any concerns about cost are dismissed by the big handwave of 'well, financial aid is available...'

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

#333

Post by ap22213 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

ud0 wrote: post #312

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…

> '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.

Sorry that I wasn't clear. My point is that it's a subjective qualifier. My productive may be your lazy and vice versa

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

#334

Post by brianwawok » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

pirocks wrote: post #115

School-Cotton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General education requirements in American universities serves the purpose of getting people up to the level of academic high school students in Europe or Asia. We could get rid of it, but we'd have to fix high schools first. This would likely require admitting that a focus on academic subjects isn't appropriate for everyone. In many European countries, a majority of students go to trade-oriented secondary schools an…

Agreed. I think that changing the high schools would be the best way to go about this, instead of finding ways of paying massive amounts to colleges.

Why not just make colleges cheaper?

I would argue that kids in America have a much better life than say kids in Japan or South Korea, with all night cram schools.

And in the end, the innovation in the world is coming out of America not Japan and South Korea, so at least to some extent it must be working.

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

#335

Post by Mathnerd314 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

trgn wrote: post #324

conanbatt wrote: post #217

Speaking from a purely market-driven position, the Student Loan Debt market has one issue that prevents colleges from not raising tuition prices: its the incapacity to default on loans. Its obvious a huge part of the loans are used for careers that will never make its money back, and the loans only collateral are the person itself(not his parents assets). So if someone had an arts degree that cost him 150k, and never…

Is the $150k fine arts degree really that common? These are the anecdotes we see in the news, because they stoke populist outrage and generate rage clicks. But I think they barely register in the overall stats. My completely unfounded opinion based on personal experience is that most humanities or fine arts students come from families that actually more or less can afford it anyway.

I've met some people in college who clearly didn't care about their finances and AFAICT were there just to get the loans for spending money.

I would guess somewhere around 1 in 1000; not widespread, but every institution will have a few.

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

#336

Post by CaptSpify » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #332

snarf21 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to that students have "suites" with private bedrooms and shared living space. Add to that meal plans with all you can eat Nutella and endless options. That money has to come from somewhere. It used to be old buildings with one block wall room with a set of bunks and two crappy desks. It has become an arms race and the parents have helped this along by indulging their kids. A lot of this debt is the parents paying…

And yet, in order to finance the construction of fancy student dorms, many universities require unmarried undergraduates to live in a dorm. Speaking as a commuter in my student years, this boggles my mind. Of course, any concerns about cost are dismissed by the big handwave of 'well, financial aid is available...'

Captive markets are the best markets!

I had similar requirements for school. Meals ended up costing me ~$10 per. I could get much cheaper food on my own, but that wasn't going to make the university any money.

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

#337

Post by throwaway729 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #314

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 essent…

> Pure research... is expensive and that cost gets offloaded to incoming students

Do you have evidence for this?

I have never been privy to the financials of a university, college, or even department where tuition money subsidizes research staff, including professors.

> 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.

Believe me, we'd see this dynamic regardless of whether your hypothesis re: research funding were true. For evidence, look toward small liberal arts colleges. Most have never received anything more than token amounts of federal grant money, and yet their tuition increases match those of research universities.

>...Georgia Tech...

is an extreme outlier in terms of quality for cost.

Also, that $12k is only tuition. The actual cost, assuming you can't find free room/board in Atlanta, is 2x before interest on inevitable loans.

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

#338

Post by Smircio- » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #332

snarf21 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to that students have "suites" with private bedrooms and shared living space. Add to that meal plans with all you can eat Nutella and endless options. That money has to come from somewhere. It used to be old buildings with one block wall room with a set of bunks and two crappy desks. It has become an arms race and the parents have helped this along by indulging their kids. A lot of this debt is the parents paying…

And yet, in order to finance the construction of fancy student dorms, many universities require unmarried undergraduates to live in a dorm. Speaking as a commuter in my student years, this boggles my mind. Of course, any concerns about cost are dismissed by the big handwave of 'well, financial aid is available...'

That almost happened at my university the semester after they went big into debt for a new stadium. We're one of the last ones in the state who aren't forcing under clansmen to live in the dorms. They cited things like, "it sill save them money! It will help with inclusion! It will help their GPA!" It was bogus of course. Thankfully the students protested fairly hard and our president sided with the students.

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

#339

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

andorov wrote: post #250

conanbatt wrote: post #217

Speaking from a purely market-driven position, the Student Loan Debt market has one issue that prevents colleges from not raising tuition prices: its the incapacity to default on loans. Its obvious a huge part of the loans are used for careers that will never make its money back, and the loans only collateral are the person itself(not his parents assets). So if someone had an arts degree that cost him 150k, and never…

What if the schools were required to underwrite the loans on behalf of each student? Incentives would be more in line.

Im not a policy expert, but I advocate for making things simpler. The capacity to default already exists and will always exist. Devise a new specific mechanism to offset another specific mechanism is like a patch to solve a patch on a bug.

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

#340

Post by ap22213 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

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?

Our current global scientific and engineering output is staggering, and it is continuously accelerating. If there was a global 'manhattan project' focused on this, then it would happen.

Global economic output is $80 trillion. There are 100s of millions of scientists, engineers, programmers, technicians in the world. Aside from the ideological complexities, which are probably intractable, it seems like it would be pretty easy to me.

What would it really take to provide basic housing, food, water, clothing, energy, and medicines to 7 billion people? Robotic automation, free / cheap energy, and access to natural resources.