I wonder how much money could be saved if the US got rid of its general education based system.
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
#42I can't begin to express the disgust I have over ever-increasing tuition. From what I can tell, a lot of it goes towards pointless fancy buildings, costs for other activities other than learning and the ever present college textbook scam.
There was an interesting episode on Planet Money why college textbooks cost a ton but not high or middle school.
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless of how much debt there is, this isn't a bubble. These loans are nearly impossible to discharge. Recent graduates will be on the hook for this debt whether they want to be or not. The largest negative effect of all this debt will be the drag it puts on consumption. Young people are already delaying major purchases like cars and houses due to all their student debt.
With automation how are they expected to even service that debt, much less pay it off? If you can't pay minimum interest on the debt and it keeps growing. What then? Will you have to service the debt out of your guaranteed income?
By automation you mean in many, many years, right?
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless of how much debt there is, this isn't a bubble. These loans are nearly impossible to discharge. Recent graduates will be on the hook for this debt whether they want to be or not. The largest negative effect of all this debt will be the drag it puts on consumption. Young people are already delaying major purchases like cars and houses due to all their student debt.
With automation how are they expected to even service that debt, much less pay it off? If you can't pay minimum interest on the debt and it keeps growing. What then? Will you have to service the debt out of your guaranteed income?
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Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
With automation how are they expected to even service that debt, much less pay it off? If you can't pay minimum interest on the debt and it keeps growing. What then? Will you have to service the debt out of your guaranteed income?
By automation you mean in many, many years, right?
Automation will start causing job loss by the millions in 5 years. So no I mean it's a problem creeping up very quickly. Initially it will be less qualified workers, but the fact is that many university grads, say art majors, end up in less qualified jobs (if they exist).
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#46Every time I read articles about student loans in the USA, the options are always presented as either the current state, or free tuition. Why are interest free student loans never floated as an option? Here in New Zealand, our student loans are provided by the government and are interest free as long as we reside in New Zealand. It means that people who don't do tertiary education, or who do a trade, don't subsidise…
As a non-American living here, I think it boils down to social attitudes. Remember, this is a nation of "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
The general attitude in the US is more like "Everything is a choice" rather than "The Government should do things that are broadly good for everyone". So anything that gives relief to students as whole will be deeply unpopular, but universities charging exorbitant rates and employers using college degrees as a filter for jobs that don't need them are okay, because it's your choice to get into student debt for a degree, or because it's your choice as an employer to use whatever filter you want.
This attitude is really hard to change because practically anyone in the US who is admired or famous is so because of their wealth. All the parents think that their kid is going to be good enough to go to Harvard and become a millionaire. And that is why they pony up the ridiculous fees that keep their child in facilities that are ridiculously good for some petulant 18-year olds.
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#47Anyone have any idea what the 20 to 50 year implications are for this? I imagine this will crush the economy eventually if millennials cannot pay it off.
Probably pretty minimal. The median debt isn't astronomical, it's something they will be able to manage.
(Hard to find a solid number, seems to be around $40,000 for new grads. This is a lot of money, but those grads are typically going to earn quite a lot over their career)
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#48I'm curious why we treat student loan debt as being special. We don't make a huge deal out of people taking on other debt and then being unable to pay for it. I think probably if anything, what we should have are better controls for what types of degrees you are allowed to take a loan out for. If your degree of choice is unlikely to yield the kind of return that will pay for it, then you should be required to save up…
I'm curious why we treat student loan debt as being special.
Because it is. If student loan debt was treated exactly the same way as every other form of debt, 95% of rational students would declare bankruptcy as soon as they graduated, since their financial wealth at that point would be negative and their intangible wealth -- primarily the education they've received -- can't be repossessed and sold off. Obviously no lender would want to issue loans under such conditions; so treating student loan debt the same way as other debt would simply result in student loans not existing.
But as a society we're better off if students can borrow money to get training which significantly increases their future earnings[1], so the government steps in with regulations to prevent strategic defaults on student loans. Unfortunately, it's very hard to distinguish between strategic and non-strategic defaults... and so we get the current situation, where some people have large amounts of "zombie" student loan debt.
Ultimately what is needed is a system which doesn't allow for strategic defaults but simultaneously avoids having punitive repayments; many countries around the world are moving to income-based repayments for this reason -- that is, you can't get rid of your student debt by declaring bankruptcy, but your minimum payments won't exceed a formula based on your income (e.g., $5 out of every $100 you earn past $15k/year).
[1] Not all degrees do increase students' future earnings, but academic institutions are very good at misleading students about this. We need stronger regulations here, and not just for the benefit of students taking loans; I think the best approach would be to add questions to the Census about the specific academic qualifications individuals have and then report -- and require institutions to republish -- the average incomes of graduates of particular programs. This would not be perfect, since students entering higher education are biased towards higher incomes whether they get that higher education or not; but it would be better than the present complete lack of information.
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#49We don't need student debt reform (and I say that as someone who has a lot of student debt). Student loan debt is a middle/upper middle class problem. 2/3 of millennials don't have a college degree, disproportionately in the lower and lower middle class. The majority have no student debt. Public money spent on college or debt reform would be a regressive benefit to those who are already better off than the median per…
I would argue that the problem isn't "if the poor are screwed, bad. If the rich are screwed, ok."
I think the problem is eqch individual is pushed to go to college to find a good job which raises demand of college, which raises price. But those good jobs are barely out there for the graduates. And the college institutions didnt guide people down paths of success, instead gave enough freedom to find their own path to failure.
Now, you have a lot of intelligent hardworking (college is not easy) people who are in debt with a very abysmal perspective on their future. Their debt makes them worse off than working poor because any low income job would simply put them in the black. And the gov has their habds tied because america is a great believer in the free market yet a huge group of hardworking young people are effectively worthless and the coming generations are likely to fall in the same trap.
Re: U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
#50The Wall Street bailout was only...what, a trillion? If we bailed out real estate speculators, I wouldn't be surprised if something happened with college grads. Unfortunately. I hate assuming responsibly for monetary decisions other than mine, but judging the trend, that's where we're headed.
Wasn't most of that money repaid with interest? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Progra...
> Wasn't most of that money repaid with interest?
But how much did it cost to borrow the bailout money at first place ? I'm pretty sure the US government didn't have trillions in cash at that time.