I'm 41, graduated in 1997. And, my impression obviously, back then was this idea that just "getting a degree" was the goal. What your major was was secondary.
Cancel student loan debt?
- Thread starter rdwight
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I'm 41, graduated in 1997. And, my impression obviously, back then was this idea that just "getting a degree" was the goal. What your major was was secondary.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Sure, but I understood you to be talking about the value of the degree - i.e., whether the student can get a good job with it, pay off their loans, retire comfortably, etc. If you want to measure the value of a school by its graduation rate, that makes sense to me. If you want to measure the value of a school by the career outcomes of its graduates, that doesn't.
(Too, graduation rate doesn't always tell the whole story. The Navy SEAL training program, BUDS, has a dropout rate of about 75%. But the government still considers it a good place to send money, and rightly so.)
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Caveat emptor. If colleges cannot demonstrate the value of their degrees, then why in the all-singing, all-dancing, ever-loving, mother of **** is the federal government carrying ONE POINT SIX TRILLION DOLLARS of outstanding student loan debt?
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I gotta say I'm pretty impressed. You curmudgeon like a man twice your age.
And you edge-lord nihilistic contrarian like one still in Junior High School.
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And that holds true for some degree tracks at some Universities and Colleges.
Some colleges/Unis are not elite overall but have specific programs and degree tracks that are. Students in those tracks tend to have high dropout rates - but those who make it through are recognized for having the right degree from the right place for that field of study. The dropout rate can actually be part of the allure, as it signals difficulty.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Oh, that's easy: because the citizens demand it. Yes, it's a stupid wish, but the government genie has to obey even the stupid whims of the voting masters. Of course it does so in a way that just happens to cater to moneyed interests, but that's to be expected of both government and moneyed interests. It's a perfect triad of stupidity and greed in which one party needs to reassess what it actually needs, another needs to reassess how to actually meet those needs, and the third party needs to either tone down the rapacity or gtfo of that market.
But I'm a premature curmudgeon myself so nobody listens to me.
Colleges may offer what ever programs they wish within established legal and ethical norms.
We're talking about what overall society, acting through the government, has any duty or responsibility (or even the vaguer "Is this is a good idea") to pay for.
Nobody is suggesting that courses in Underwater Mesopotamian Basket Weaving Studies be made illegal. Just as to whether or not we as an overall society should be funding them if the society isn't currently in the need of more people who can weave baskets underwater in the Mesopotamian style.
We're talking about what overall society, acting through the government, has any duty or responsibility (or even the vaguer "Is this is a good idea") to pay for.
Nobody is suggesting that courses in Underwater Mesopotamian Basket Weaving Studies be made illegal. Just as to whether or not we as an overall society should be funding them if the society isn't currently in the need of more people who can weave baskets underwater in the Mesopotamian style.
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TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Ultimately it boils down to the ancient conundrum: how far do we let government act "for their own good" when people are being foolish? We agree it shouldn't stop people from taking courses in Underwater Mesopotamian Basket Weaving. But should it loan money for them to do so?
Beelzebuddy
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Stop putting the blame for this on the students seeking an education, instead of the financial institutions preying on them. Just as broke students defaulting was a problem that needed a solution beyond the typical rules, so too does runaway cost inflation buoyed by debts that can't be wiped through bankruptcy.
The solution's simple: wipe existing debt, and going forward allow for bankruptcy to default on student loans after 10 years or another reasonable time limit.
Maybe the kids should have known better than to let things get this out of control, but the banks definitely should have. If their parasitic asses fold, they fold. **** 'em. Let a more responsible company pick through their corpse.
The solution's simple: wipe existing debt, and going forward allow for bankruptcy to default on student loans after 10 years or another reasonable time limit.
Maybe the kids should have known better than to let things get this out of control, but the banks definitely should have. If their parasitic asses fold, they fold. **** 'em. Let a more responsible company pick through their corpse.
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rdwight
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If the atmosphere of 2020 has any correlation, that would depend on their socioeconomic position. The poor should not be denied the opportunity to drown in debt for any educational or artistic endeavor, no matter it's value to their future earnings or society.
Incapable, no. In a poor position to do so, yes. You list off all the other crap they are dealing with in that 12-18 month time-frame when they are making these decisions and yet you left out band practice, theater rehearsals, football two-a-days, travel for baseball games, studying for AP tests and navigating early sexual encounters while living with their parents.
So, this clearly focused teenager is making a life altering decision with the help of college admissions and financial aid professionals who have vast resources behind them to come up with misleading statistics that make their university sound like a great investment.
My law school proudly displayed their graduates average salary without disclosing that 1) the data was collected from a voluntary survey that is not likely to include responses from people who are still struggling to find a job 18 months after graduation and 2) the data shows a heavily binomial distribution such that less than 20% of the respondents made anything close to that average, with a large cluster around the high starting salary of big firms and an even large cluster around the much lower salary I was giving up to go to law school. My undergrad program didn't produce any such data.
Because I saw the friends of my kids doing exactly that. And I see it in people I interview. And I see it family friends. I don't understand it, but I also don't see why it should be encouraged by taxpayer supported loans.
I think expanding federal grants in a measured way to be available to more kids would not be a terrible idea, though. Sure, there is no predatory lending market pushing for this, but surely the large colleges and universities have some pull.
To be clear, the bank did not insulate themselves, we gave them the insulation specifically so that they would make these loans. The consequences seemed obvious, not unexpected.
As to the highlighted, of course the answer is no, the is the only way to answer a question with that word in it. We all have taken multiple choice tests.
As to the underlined, but moral superiority is so gratifying while public policy is so cold and the benefits are so detached.
Boys, get a room. I'm blushing over here.
A prefer triad of stupidity. Well put.
It's not blame; lest not totally, but even at 16-18 the vague concept of "Hey I'll have to pay this back" shouldn't be lost on them, nor the base concept of what a "marketable skill" means.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
qed lol
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I admit that as a taxpayer, the dropout rate is definitely part of the allure of BUDS, for me. If we're to spend good money on an elite military unit, I want it to be as elite as we can reasonably make it.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
As has been pointed out above, this isn't a morals question of who to blame. It's a policy question of how to fix a problem now, and how to reform things so the problem doesn't occur again. Deciding who is the "good" and who is the "bad" isn't really helpful if your goal is process improvement.
Of course if your goal is the weighing of sins and judging of characters, then proceed as you like. In that vein I blame everybody involved for the sin of greed: students for being greedy for degrees they expect to reap rich rewards with, politicians for being greedy for votes (and kickbacks) so they arrange bad programs, and the lenders for being greedy for profit so they loan to people they shouldn't for things they shouldn't. And thus I send everyone to hell, where they must fill out loan applications using a cheap pen and that ineffective yellow and pink paper that's supposed to copy through but never does entirely.
TurkeysGhost
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Damn me, I mistyped above.
I meant to say that it should matter whether people graduating with these degrees, even if the education was high quality, are actually able to land jobs that are relevant.
If colleges are churning out 10x as many qualified workers in a niche field as there are job positions, clearly something is wrong and colleges are over admitting into these degree programs.
That's part of why there's such a disconnect. The schools only care that they provide quality education. It doesn't really matter to them what market conditions are like for their graduates seeking a job.
We are in a weird in-between spot where these schools have very little top-down management from the government writing the loans, but are also largely insulated from market forces that might exist in a laissez-faire free-for-all. The people charging money for education suffer no consequences from student loan defaults, highly regulated banks are still required to keep making these bad loans, and schools have no reason not to accept money and continue to offer degrees of dubious worth.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
We're talking about federal student loans. Those are the loans that Biden ostensibly has the power to forgive via Executive Order. The predatory "financial institution" here is the federal government.
And yes, that is where I'm putting the blame.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
I would like, if it were possible, for student loans to involve some sort of job placement for after the education is completed (if done so successfully). That would offer a greater degree of security for both the student and the lender, as well as provide a more measurable outcome for the educational institution (rather than just flinging its fledgings out of the nest once they get the funny hat).
TurkeysGhost
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In my experience coming through high school in the late 2000's, this mentality from those in guidance positions (teachers, admins, guidance counselors) was still quite dominant. Especially from those who were on the older side and came through college when this was still largely true. There were some murmurs of dissent from younger staff that saw that things had changed, but the prevalent attitude was that getting into college itself was the goal and everything after that would largely fall into place. I vividly recall doing these weird personality tests as a form of career and degree guidance that did not give any serious consideration to financial viability.
It seems to me that myth of "just get a degree" has largely been debunked in the following years as more and more new college grads struggled, especially in the post-2008 recession.
I majored in a STEM career where even the drudgery work right out of school paid a livable wage. This is largely a matter of luck rather than any wisdom on my part. I naturally gravitated towards these subjects in school because I was better in these fields than others. Lucky for me I wasn't a history or literature nerd and instead liked science.
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