Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

Totally, utterly disagree! I used to think exactly like this. I am from Norway and when I was young I was full of disdain for the Norwegian system, where government pays for all sorts of stuff. I was completely convinced like you that if only things were like in the US, where people have to pay lots of money to go to University, tell will be super serious students.

Then I went to the US to study....

Boy was I wrong!!! Having to pay for university had zero influence on the seriousness of the students I met. In fact I'd claim it was much worse than my experience from different European countries with free University.

What I realized is that if it is not government money it is going to be somebody elses money and that is frequently American parents. American students did not seem to be any more concerned about wasting their parents money than Norwegian students are concerned about wasting government money.

Again I think it is worse. Over the years, looking at this in more detail I think we are completely overestimating the effects of financial incentives. People are not really optimizing homo economicus. A lot of other factors matter equally much or more.

It is also about what society promotes and values. American society offers no respectable vocational training programs, and does not promote or value that path. Look at Switzerland and Germany which values this and provide great vocational schools. A lot more people go down that route and get skills to get well paid jobs without burying themselves in debt.

It is actually half decent in Norway as well since our system is closely modeled on the German system, however we have suffered from being too heavily influenced by the American view on education. Luckily there has been a push to change this and promote vocational training, causing more people to take that route.

However you can't get people in America to make sensible educational choices, when private schools are shamelessly misguiding student to reap more profits and society is pushing the idea that you can't make a good wage without going to college. Never mind the unhealthy American habit of thinking "anybody can be anything." American optimism can be great for launching google and facebook but it can be poisonous to people of average skill and talent who are deluded into thinking they can be anything they want as long as they work hard enough.

I think you got to work both on attitudes, what the school system offers, the values promoted. Financial incentives can be structured in many ways which doesn't need to punish people severely.

E.g. here in Norway you don't pay for school but you have living expenses, so you get a government loan and stipend to deal with that. As you pass classes they convert increasingly larger part of your student loans to grants. This gives a carrot to anybody to attempt to finish the study in reasonable time.

I am not Danish, but that is just super ignorant. One of the most widely used game engines, Unity3D is danish. They got several world beating companies making windmills. Creator of C++ programming language is danish.

Anyway it is a poor metric, especially compared to the US, because small countries are not well suited for consumer oriented tech companies such as Facebook. The home market is too small. Small Scandinavian countries tend to have tech companies in particular niches.

I am Norwegian myself and a lot of high tech here is related to the oil industry, making specialized software, hardware and instruments for it. Norway is world leader in this area, but few people outside the oil industry would know that.

Another problem for small countries is due to the small home market, our tech companies usually get bought by big American multinationals. That means a lot of tech done here happens under umbrella of some American company and doesn't show up as some independent Norwegian company.

Almost every single Norwegian tech company I have worked for has gotten bought out by some big American multinational. Video conferencing, secure authentication systems, 3D modeling of geology etc.

It is not unique to Scandinavian countries. Israel dubbed startup nation suffers the same problem. Few tech companies ever manage to get very big before they get bought by an American multinational. It is an issue that worries government there as being a country only made up of branches is not as profitable as having tech HQs.

To pay back £90k would involve paying back £3k a year, or earning an average £33k over the threshold - currently that's £54k well into the top 10% of earners.

Currently income tax between £50k and £60k is 60% due to the wothdrqwal of child benefit, student loan increase this to 69%.

Personally I think we tax income - especially earned income, far too high. We have millionaire pensioners paying hardly any tax at all, yet people paying 70% who are unable to buy a house. Sickening, but it's not tuition fees to blame.

I was homeschooled from 4th to 8th grade and doing a few hours a day of work I still finished by Christmas. By comparison most classses never seemed to finish their textbooks.

Going back for high school felt almost painfully slow. I don't think kids need to be crammed with as much information as possible, but you could probably double the content without leaving most people behind.

In my case, I went to school to become a musician. Got a master's degree in music performance, but got tired of working hard and earning very little.

I self taught computer science and programming, so now I have a good salary and a much more comfortable life.

I feel my bachelor's was pretty special since it was a liberal arts degree and my employer seems to recognize the difference between me and someone who didn't go to school and/or just studied STEM exclusively.

I was very lucky to have scholarships, that made it easier on me when I was younger. But wanting to go back for CS made it impossible later in life without getting in debt. And I refuse to get a student loan. It's sad that when someone didn't get lucky with a well off household or scholarships, they have to cripple themselves into debt.