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Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

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Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#821

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The state cut all funding under the last governor so they had some major issues.

Be careful. Rauner cut 400 million for education during a year he could make a budget with legislators. Pat Quinn cut education spending by 340 million during a year when he got to write the budget himself because the legislature couldn't pass one.

The legislature passed a budget every year under Rauner, he refused to sign it because he wanted anti-union runners. Agreed it's been a long time coming though, definitely not just Rauner's fault.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#822
post #113

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> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be disc…

Surely some kind of middle ground is possible? Something like, "student loans aren't dischargeable for 15 years after you receive them."

That would eliminate the possibility of a quick "tactical bankruptcy" after college, while also allowing students who made an unwise financial deal when they were 18 not to spend their whole lives paying off debt.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#823
post #400

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I believe Australia has a system along those lines, with forgiveness for people who work in the public service sector.

The US has this too, has for many years: https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-d...

And the US Department of Ed denies 99% of applications: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/09/24/public-...

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#824

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What you're essentially asking for is to create two separate classes of people. Your idea would result in us regressing back to the idea of 'philosopher kings' and I would hope I shouldn't need to argue why that's a bad idea. People should be able to get an education no matter their social standing. It shouldn't be tied to this idea of job prospects because commodification of education is a sham.

If educacation doesn't have some sort of monetary value what is the point? Entertainment is a valid answer, but it should be in different bucket. I did not not in any way say that some people shouldn't be able to get an education. I said if the education isn't valuable they shouldn't get one, but there are many valuable education paths to take.

Why does everything need a monetary value? If someone wants to be an artist, that doesn't necessarily come from a world of wanting to make money from their art.

And who defines whether or not an education is valuable? Teachers don't have very good job prospects (low pay means they're less valuable), do you think it would be a really good idea to restrict who can become a teacher to only the reasonably well off?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#825

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Correct, the entire market for such loans would pretty much collapse - current yields are comparable to those of commercial real estate or high-yield corporate bonds, with none of the downside protections. Unsecured personal loans (that are subject to bankruptcy) are a valid asset class, coveted by LendingClub and some banks, but they require solid credit history and carry a higher interest rate, more aggressive repa…

It’s like this entire thread is from another planet and has no knowledge of the college loan program (student loans used to be dischargeable in bankruptcy like any other loan), its origin or even presidents Obama’s attempts to overhaul it and concerns that it was actually driving up the cost of college.

So, rather than criticize, you might share some of the knowledge you think we are missing...

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#826

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They may if they face competition form Lambda School style ISAs (not necessarily just ISAs generally, but ones that are actually good for the student). As a bonus this would make universities better at education since the incentives would be aligned with the students. It would be helped though if the easily available government loans were not available, though with the generally bad politics from both sides on this,…

You're assuming a lot of faith in market forces. In reality, the incentives should already be aligned with student interest: All of the information for it is already available. Retention & graduation rates are public knowledge, and you can easily find out if a school has job placement (and their rates) or merely a "career services" area that will help you write a resume and point you at some other resources. The fact…

What that would do is put the pressure to analyze and align decision making with the real world in the hand of an institution instead of the hands of a typical 17 year old.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the US also did some strange things like giving GIs free tuition (not necessarily a bad thing) then artificially supporting those GIs by requiring a college degree as gatekeeping for bureaucratic jobs. If you look around places where there's lots of bureaucracy (like washington dc) there's tons of strange billboards and the like on public transit advertising graduate school (MA and PhD) targeted at beaurocrat…

Credentials are used as a lazy proxy for ability in any number of large organizations all over the world.

Anecdotally, I think its worse in the public sector. I know several public school teachers who have gotten graduate degrees for the sole purpose of getting a raise. Its not like a private company where you can get a bigger raise by impressing your boss.

Most school districts have what’s known as a “step and lane” salary schedule for teachers. These grids specify how much raises are worth. Teachers earn a “step” increase for each additional year of experience, with many teachers peaking with the highest “step” at around age 55.

Teachers can also earn more by having more education (those are the “lane” increases). Some districts pay teachers holding a master’s or doctoral degree a premium, while others move teachers into a higher pay column when they earn a certain number of credit hours of professional development.

https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/teacher-pay/index.html

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#828

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For the average college graduate, college is still a pretty good investment. I could write lots of comments about people without a college degree that live crappy lives and have trouble finding good paying jobs, and people with college degrees that live well and make a lot of money. My prediction is that we'll see changes in the US system. The problem you're pointing out is the risk. Universities are the ones that IM…

No college is going to advocate for taking future income from students over government backed loans or a traditional loan. The former translates to less immediate income. Colleges had little reason to raise tuition since 2000 except for money, I don't see them suddenly moving to forward-thinking strategies.

For schools in good financial states (they are few in number), I think they will actually trend in this direction.

The most prestigious medical schools, engineering schools, etc. actually make a ton of money from non-tuition-based sources. Income from patent licensing, federal research grants, etc. dominate income from tuition.

Some of these schools also have endowments that are absurd multipliers of their annual expenditures.

For these schools, where the lack of tuition isn't such a near-term threat, they might actually realize that they can make more money in the long-term (and incentivize better education) by making tuition something more like an ISA.

You've seen it already, where some schools are offering "free tuition", because the value of the labor they get from their students is already greater than the tuition they charge. There's also probably some good tax benefits to writing off the expense of education, in these scenarios. https://med.nyu.edu/education/md-degree/md-affordability-fin...

Especially when you include the tax benefits, free tuition might actually be cheaper than an ISA, because enforcing an ISA requires operational overhead.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colleges should not even offer loans for non-viable majors. Oddly enough, a couple of the best programmers I have ever work with are now CTOs at their respective companies. One of them had an english degree and the other a music degree. Just yesterday there was an article here on HN about the importance of writing. So, which majors would you consider non-viable?

Would you agree that their college education was a waste of time and money?

Not at all. In fact the english degree is probably one of the more useful degrees to have. Knowing how to write and communicate effectively is key to many jobs, and is useful over an entire career. I should add, that he told me he even felt this way.

I'm not so sure about the music degree, but I can see the general skills of being detail oriented and working with a team as an IC to create something bigger as key life skills useful in any job.

Meanwhile, I got a CS degree when OO was big and nearly minored in business. I haven't looked at OO in years for programming, but the business courses I took have been key every step of my career. I wish I had taken more writing classes.

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