411–420 of 457 posts
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We want to subsidize poor people for art because often the best artists are poor. Hell, it's literally a cliche.
But the reason poor people make great art is that they are not part of the elitist orthodoxy. If they go to an expensive art school they would lose that advantage.
I'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…
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Alright. Can you dispute them though? > Increased competition for desirable placements is the classic limited supply high demand scenario. I would suggest that if you believe the issue facing the US higher education system is a limited supply of places, you may not understand the US higher education system. In fact, if you look globally you'll find that the countries with low tuition are the ones who ruthlessly contr…
You misunderstand the point about limited "places" (or at least the point I believe is intended). For sake of argument, assume 90% of jobs out there are "bad jobs"--no prospect of real wage growth, declining stability, decreasing benefits--and the remaining 10% of jobs are "good jobs" (with some wage growth, stability, and benefits). Assume also that it is widely believed that in general, to have a chance at landing…
Absolutely, but the resources you can throw at it is strongly dependent on the availability of loans. Hence why we have $1.3 trillion in aggregate debt.
We 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…
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> If you read my and other responses in this thread, the arts/humanities are far from useless (they just have a less direct economic effect). I never said arts/humanities are useless. I said they are luxuries, and the fact that people are bemoaning that it costs so much money to enter a non-lucrative profession is the very definition of a first world problem. > Historically important art/music has often been ignored,…
> I never said arts/humanities are useless. >> inability to pick a useless major I agree with the sentiment though, that (in general) an Arts degree (or whatever) alone it's not enough to sustain a career. I just think it's an important part of a balanced education, and that overall society is better off having more engagement with the arts, language, history, philosophy, cosmology, theoretical physics, category theo…
Note that I said the major was useless, not the area of study. Out of all the career areas in the world right now, the one that cares least about credentials seem to be the humanities, unless you want to go into academia (which is a whole new can of worms.)
> but to do so by crippling participation in the Arts by making those qualifications prohibitively expensive (by not providing loans) is a mistake.
No, the point is that these qualifications a) aren't inherently prohibitively expensive (a library card and or a paint set doesn't cost 30k a year) and b) make it easy for you to take out crippling amounts of loans you have very little chance of paying back. Nobody needs these qualifications you speak of.
Female in lower income bracket - I believe this. I think this is a rather heartbreaking reality so I am a ok not going into this. What I do know is that Ive met a few peoples whos moms work 16 hour days as much as possible.
- chronically ill - the college educated are competing with the chronically ill for jobs
- mentally ill - the college educated are competing with the mentally ill for jobs.
- unable to afford - so they are working but cannot find housing. I believe it.
I dont think 'bail out' is the solution. Its 'salvage and prevention'. Ensuring that future generations dont fall into the trap and if they do it is an educated risk. And salvaging multiple generations lives who were chasing after the american dream.
Im all for helping those that cant help themselves. But Im also interested in getting those 60% there to 100%. If the "prividged" are having are hard time post graduation. The under privlidged have it even worse. We are talking about the future of basically educated children not just "foolish rich kids"
I wonder how much money could be saved if the US got rid of its general education based system.
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…
The real answer is tradition and the reason it's not going away is money and because a 2 year degree in the USA is considered a lesser degree called an associates.
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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.
Also, South Korea has a similar college funding issue as the USA with rising tuition. However it's blunted in Asia because parents are expected to pay for it so the loans are more bearable. Pay and status tends to be seniority based so the burden doesn't fall on the recent grad living at home.
Im glad I got someone with the shock value. Its clear you have a very unique perspective that I appreciate you sharing. Female in lower income bracket - I believe this. I think this is a rather heartbreaking reality so I am a ok not going into this. What I do know is that Ive met a few peoples whos moms work 16 hour days as much as possible. - chronically ill - the college educated are competing with the chronically…
Yeah, no. This is incredibly insulting.
I am not incapable of helping myself. I am working damn hard every single day to resolve my problems in the face of a hugely uphill battle that is compounded by sexism, housing designed solely for the rich and a whole bunch of other entrenched barriers to ordinary people making their lives work.
You may be able to pretend that the homeless (and other poor people) are a bunch of utter and complete losers who can't help themselves, but your reply means you either didn't really listen or didn't really understand.
As these problems deepen, larger numbers of people are being pushed out into the streets. Perhaps if homelessness hits 50%, the world will stop talking like it is merely a bunch of fringe losers who need our compassion and charity and realize that, no, actually, the system is deeply broken and actively screwing over a very high percentage of people and chewing them up and spitting them out.
Or perhaps all the rich assholes will continue to be all LA LA LA NOT LISTENING, you must just be defective as it cannot possibly be the shitty company/policies I created that is somehow at fault.
Has there been extensive research or trials of corporate sponsorship (or are there any startups exploring this idea)? There are probably some principal/agent issues but by and large why can't Google sponsor some CS students and they sign a 4 year deal with them in return (somewhat similar to sports?). In some fields, big corporations already compete for talent, why not start the competition a level earlier (internshi…
ROTC does this for the military.
>Google sponsor some CS students and they sign a 4 year deal with them in return (somewhat similar to sports?
They would probably try to get fired so they can get hired elsewhere for more money leaving Google holding the bag or be lazy as fucks. Non compete agreements are difficult to enforce....you cant create a wage slave and expect it to be enforced by the courts.