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What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

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Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#41

Post by jamesaguilar »

dnautics wrote: post #38
dajohnson89 wrote: post #6

It is criminal that serious student-loan reform isn't on the table. As a recent graduate making monthly payments towards a 5-figure principal, I say fuck capping the interest rates. Please cap tuition and fees. Don't give me that BS about how universities need the money. During undergrad, I squatted in a 600 sq. ft. apartment shared with 3 other people. I seriously doubt my health is unaffected by the mold, mildew, v…

how about making academic debt dischargeable without question during bankruptcy - so that the school is 100% on the hook for the balance of the funds if it educates the student poorly and can't get them a job, instead of keeping them in (albeit voluntary) virtual slavery to service their debt? Yes, interest rates would go up, to cover the risk of defaulters, but then only serious students would go to college.

Schools would immediately close departments that tend to graduate low-paid folks -- humanities, acting, psychology, history, anthropology, all gone. Not sure if it would be a problem for society because those who actually produce art tend to learn to do it before college and just spend their time in college refining, which they could as easily do in clubs and societies without the BS that goes along with college.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#42

Post by dnautics »

roguecoder wrote: post #31
xyzzy123 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> banks would just give 20somethings who want art degrees $200,000 completely unsecured? Of course they wouldn't. That's the idea though. Back-pressure. The idea is that it would then become unrealistic for institutions to try and charge 200k for an arts degree which no one can afford, even with loans. This should lead to lower tuition. Bear in mind that that what any institution wants to charge is the absolute maxim…

The demand for college education is still elastic. College loans merely allow colleges to extract values greater than the student's ability to pay.

and since college loans aren't dischargeable, you get to keep the student in hock for the rest of their life!

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#43

Post by greghinch »

jacques_chester wrote: post #30
zanny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you link touches on it, but before you even consider where students go to school you must ask why they do. And that is a very vacuous answer most of the time. I got my CS degree only because my peers said it would be significantly easier to be consistently employed with a BS even when it cost me 20k to get. In reality, young adults don't go to college to learn. They did that for ~15 years (even worse, the…

Universities are older than the printing press, older than telegraphs, older than fast & cheap mass transport, older than radio and television. To be quite honest I don't see the internet usurping them either.

Are you being facetious? All of those things have been dramatically changed by the internet. Or are you saying because they are older, universities are impervious to change?

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#44

Post by dnautics »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #41
dnautics wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about making academic debt dischargeable without question during bankruptcy - so that the school is 100% on the hook for the balance of the funds if it educates the student poorly and can't get them a job, instead of keeping them in (albeit voluntary) virtual slavery to service their debt? Yes, interest rates would go up, to cover the risk of defaulters, but then only serious students would go to college.

Schools would immediately close departments that tend to graduate low-paid folks -- humanities, acting, psychology, history, anthropology, all gone. Not sure if it would be a problem for society because those who actually produce art tend to learn to do it before college and just spend their time in college refining, which they could as easily do in clubs and societies without the BS that goes along with college.

or in select conservatories.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#45

Post by dnautics »

dnautics wrote: post #39
ebiester wrote: post #11

So.. We make it so that only people likely to pay the loan back get student loans. Then, we watch as the actuaries figure out that students frompoor families are the ones who disproportionately pay their loans (since they don't have the same familial support during and after college.) So, poor students are disproportionately denied loans, and we continue to see generational wealth inequality expand. There are no grea…

why is 'leaving it to the market' immoral? If you think the poor should be granted preferential financial treatment, then you should reach into your own pocket and help pay for them. Or help scholarship funds raise money. Or at least pressure your alma mater to set aside some funds for the economically underprivileged. If you don't do any of the above, then you don't really believe in it, do you? It's also kind of in…

should clarify, my 'unique college experience' was that I went to a fairly expensive private research university in the US; I strongly suspect that the waste of time in college cuts across socioeconomic lines at many big box state schools.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#46

Post by saraid216 »

greghinch wrote: post #43
jacques_chester wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities are older than the printing press, older than telegraphs, older than fast & cheap mass transport, older than radio and television. To be quite honest I don't see the internet usurping them either.

Are you being facetious? All of those things have been dramatically changed by the internet. Or are you saying because they are older, universities are impervious to change?

He's saying that universities have not been significantly changed by the numerous communication technologies that came after them, and implying that the Internet does not have a property distinct from those previous technologies.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#47

Post by rdouble »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #41
dnautics wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about making academic debt dischargeable without question during bankruptcy - so that the school is 100% on the hook for the balance of the funds if it educates the student poorly and can't get them a job, instead of keeping them in (albeit voluntary) virtual slavery to service their debt? Yes, interest rates would go up, to cover the risk of defaulters, but then only serious students would go to college.

Schools would immediately close departments that tend to graduate low-paid folks -- humanities, acting, psychology, history, anthropology, all gone. Not sure if it would be a problem for society because those who actually produce art tend to learn to do it before college and just spend their time in college refining, which they could as easily do in clubs and societies without the BS that goes along with college.

Based on that criteria, wouldn't universities also have to close math, biology, physics, foreign languages, environmental science, psychology, architecture, civil engineering, etc?

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#48

Post by saraid216 »

maxharris wrote: post #32
chrisrhoden wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really wish all objectivists had been born (actually) underprivileged.

It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. Where you start in life doesn't matter, but how big a jump you make in improving your lot does, and that's something that's entirely up to you. Please lay off the Rawlsian stuff - it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life. Nor does it square with the experiences of many of my friends that…

> It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be.

> it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life.

> To do that, we have to look at adults - lots of them, ranging from bums to billionaires, across time and professions, on and on. Then at young adults, then at small children (to fully see the contrast with adults).

I like that you've indicated your own confirmation bias right there.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#49

Post by mordae »

dnautics wrote: post #37
Ihmahr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct. For example, if you want to study engineering you have to have certain math skills. Otherwise university won't let you in, no matter how much you pay. Oh, free college no. But tuition is something like $700 annual in germany/france. There is no housing or anything.

this is all and good for something like engineering where it is possible and maybe desirable to set some reasonable, objective standards. What about something like political sciences? Almost all of the upper-level public servants in a country like France come from the same school (ecole sciences-po)... Doesn't this become dangerous? Who gets to be the gatekeeper?

Well the entrance tests for Faculty of Philosophy that my close friend attended have been in the form of interview and they mostly asked about what authors did you read, what were they trying to say and such. It's actually not that complicated for people invested in some area (of science, politics, culture) to spot good candidates when you give them a chance.

Sadly, the quality of education in Czech Republic have degraded significantly in capitalism. We have gotten rid of Marxism-Leninism but have also let significantly more people in and set the incentives to produce a lot of graduates with much less knowledge, with rest of the bulk being thrown out after 2 years so that the university gets maximum state support.

We are probably going to end up with student loans and lower government participation, which will ruin our education system completely.

Re: What's Really 'Immoral' About Student Loans

#50

Post by maxharris »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
maxharris wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. Where you start in life doesn't matter, but how big a jump you make in improving your lot does, and that's something that's entirely up to you. Please lay off the Rawlsian stuff - it doesn't square with the things I've observed in my own life. Nor does it square with the experiences of many of my friends that…

>>Where you start in life doesn't matter, but how big a jump you make in improving your lot does, and that's something that's entirely up to you. How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life. It is significantly more difficult for someone born into a poor, single-parent household to bootstrap and "choose to make something of themselves" compared to someone who is born int…

"How big a jump you can make in improving your lot is a function of where you start in life."

Says you, but my experience contradicts it. You have not convinced me.

"It is significantly more difficult"

So? Why does that matter? None of us are equal in any way, and none of us ever will be. You might as well decry the fact that some people are taller, or have an eye color that you prefer, or keep a head full of hair into old age. In a just (my definition of that word, not necessarily yours) society, we are equal in one respect alone: equal before the law.

Before you rattle off a point about "justice," see my amended comments in the post above. The concept of justice pertains to choice, and applying it to situations where there is no choice involved (e.g., who your parents are, how much money they have) is not a valid use of the concept.

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