Archive through June 07, 2022
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Let's Fix Student Loans:
Archive through June 07, 2022
As a state-by-state average, New York is on top. But state-by-state averages are deceiving. Head to small towns in upstate New York -- particularly in the region known as the Southern Tier -- and you'll find schools that barely have two nickels to rub together. Again, it comes down to property taxes; most of upstate New York never recovered from the recession during the OPEC embargo in the mid-1970s.
Seattle passed a school levy several years back that had a staggering per-student number attached to it. One official said it would have been cheaper to close the district and send the students to private schools in France, including flying the parents over to visit. (Seattle is currently sixth on the list for per-student costs.)
There's a few school districts around here that I avoid living in because their residents can't say no to school levies. Their per-students number are nuts compared to what I grew up in.
Depends on how you view public schooling. Here in Oldham county it is considered a wise investment.
I went to a mega sized public school in Louisville. And my class included some that did extremely well, and plenty of those that did meh. Most of the results were directly tied to your parents MAKING you get educated. If you put the work in you could do quite well...
Note that IMHO the number one way to improve schools is to GET RID of disruptive students. You don't behave and off you go to the school for disciplinary problems.
Our new principal expelled 600 students his first year. No appeal, no second strike, just pack your locker and find another school. It definitely changes the environment for everyone else when the people that don't want to be there are filtered out.
(My high school was an experiment, a mediocre school handed over to a new principal with evil plans. That first semester was a brutal awakening for non-freshmen.)
Try to filter out problem students and you WILL run in to parents who won't accept that their "Sweet little angel" is a troublemaker and, well...
I'm sorry for crossing the line here, but there are those people who will use the expulsion of inner city street gang thugs as an excuse to throw the charges of "Discrimination" and "Racism" against the people who are trying to give non-thugs a chance at a decent life; people who call themselves "Community Activists" who throw those charges as a way of promoting themselves, even at the expense of the people they're supposedly trying to help. 
Sad thing is those jerks have gotten so entrenched that they're now an obstacle that'll be impossible to overcome.
None of this has to do with the Student Loan issue, however much it helps feed into it by pushing the students towards it. Please focus on the topic at hand rather than those aspects of the system that anger you, however justified.
One thing on student loans, is that I think they should be returned to being dischargeable in bankruptcy. I have three reasons for this:
1. I think that the number of graduates engaging in "strategic bankruptcies" will be lower than many fear. Bankruptcy has a lot of impact, and not all of it is purely financial. I know a number of jobs, mostly at the higher end where a bankruptcy will have a negative impact on your employment prospects. I had one neighbor, for example, who lost his security clearance due to a bankruptcy. This is likely to make people who are not suffering utterly crushing debt (which is what bankruptcy is for), hesitate to use it casually.
2. Secondly, by adding an element of risk for the lender, I think you'll see more effort by lenders to vet people. I've known students who got money, when they literally had no idea what they were going to focus on for a couple of years. In part, the lenders (speaking to one) were okay with this, because again, in most cases, it's not dischargeable.
And of course lastly, if you declare bankruptcy, well the judge and trustee has something to say about that. If we're worried about students declaring bankruptcy and immediately walking into a high paying job, you could amend the code to take into account things like that.
You might (and we should) do that with new loans (although I wouldn't count on getting the loans at any decent rate or terms) but you cannot change the existing loan contracts. The lenders went into the deal that was written down and signed, not the deal that Congress retroactively invented. One of the earliest Supreme Court cases (Mississippi vs Yazoo) established that a deal is a deal, no matter how stupid.
As you say, the lenders were willing to loan money to people who were getting degrees in underwater basketweaving and Marvel comics because they were not dischargeable.
Yeah. I mean, the only way to solve the current student debt issue is (for private loans at least), the government to buy out, either directly or via some other method, those individual lender'sproperty interest in the loans.
Until then, the contracts will stand.
I mean, I have friends and I continually have to remind them that "Why can't the government just eliminate debt." is a sign you haven't studied the problem, at all, because in addition to everything else, if the government did, say via using mind control rays on the courts, unilaterally eliminate debt, well, the twenty dollar bill in my pocket is simply a bit of debt that the government promises to back. If people decide the US is suddenly saying: we don't have to back debts made in good faith... Yeah, Bad news, Ray.
Oh, on another point for student debt--High schools, at least those in my experience, have horrifically bad home economics and debt courses. I mean, I'm a historian, did my MA on the British slave trade, and my friends knew to run when I started talking about it. But I'd honestly say, in terms of utility? I wouldn't want to make the choice, but if I had to? A good course on debt, debt management and home economics would win over another history course, hands down. Especially today with the Internet making it so easy to hit people with bad offers, a graduating senior needs to be *fully* aware of how debt works, how it can easily spiral out of control and what his or her legal options are regarding their rights AND their responsibilities.
The government cannot buy the student loans out unless it just prints money to do it with. And why should the taxpayers or inflation pay the debts of those who did not pay and not reimburse those who did, AND compensate those who were smart enough to get degrees without debts?
Here is a solution…
1. Stop the current system so it gets no worse.
2. Stop deferrals and enforce at least some payment.
3. If your degree did not get you a job the university endowment fund owes you a 50% refund.
4. Allow student debtors to use their retirement accounts without penalty to pay on the principal. They have to make the regular payments themselves.
I still say, make it so the only organization that can loan a student money is the School they are attending....
Then the school and professors have skin in the game and hopefully do a better job.....
The problem with that is that overpriced schools will still do what they do today (foster the myth that their higher priced degree is actually worth it).
One of the issues with making student loan dischargeable in bankruptcy is you ended up a a number of residents filing bankruptcy. While their first 5-10 years they are not making much and filing for bankruptcy. Forgive $500K worth of debt for someone who could be making $300K a year once their residency is over is a hard sell.
If I recall correctly this is one of the reasons student loans were not discharable.
An interesting article from the Washington Post, apparently the US Government has recently started tracking how much a degree from various colleges and universities actually return.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/01/college-degree-value-major/?utm_campaign=runway-2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&utm_content=education-college-degree-worth-it-runway&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F35c6c21%2F61e44b689d2fda14d7f5733a%2F596a4649ade4e20ee36ff476%2F58%2F70%2F61e44b689d2fda14d7f5733a
Thought I heard the end of a story talking about a couple of lenders, who were forgiving/paying a part of a student loan...
can't seem to bring it up anymore....
Bottom line: Unless you're getting a degree with a direct, high-paying job skill - or unless you have the money and are doing what you seriously love without being paid - college is just plain not ****ing worth it.
Example of what might be worth it: I'm paying roughly $25K a year to send my older daughter to Wichita state, so I'll spend probably close to $100K by the time I'm done. However, her major/minor are International Business and Japanese Language. That should be a marketable set of skills...
Engineering would also be useful.
I wouldn't pay for a degree in art.
They are comparing income of people willing and able to attend a college and finish a degree, with people with only a high-school diploma who were unable or unwilling to get into a college or to finish a degree.
And then treating the university/college time as the only difference relevant to income....
They also, in this case, do not count the opportunity cost of lost earnings for four+ years of college rather than burger flipping as part of the cost of college. The "cost of college" is in fact mostly being measured by student debt load, ignoring family contributions or work/study earnings. (Although to be fair, they are also only examining students who take out student debt, so some of the really elite students in terms of earning potential don't get counted.)
But both of these are obvious nonsense and bias things heavily toward "university good". And the colleges and universities are STILL too expensive. A plumber can make about what I make with a mathematics Ph.D. and various physics degrees. In terms of job prospects, all that university time wasn't for more money, it was for a not excessively difficult indoor job with air-conditioning and a nice benefits package.
The best way to fix student loans is to make Universities responsible if the student defaults. I mean, if you borrow $100,000 to get a degree in a Grievance Studies field and end up earning $15 an hour at Starbucks, obviously your loan is never going to be repaid. But the University should be on the hook.
As long as you figure out a way to say that the guy who got a $100,000 degree in nuclear physics and got a $500,000 a year job but just refused to pay stays on the hook.
And as long as you figure out a way to say that the guy who got a $100,000 degree in computer engineering and never got a job because he "found himself" and went to work for $10 an hour as a janitor at a wildlife refugee stays on the hook.
The best way to fix student loans is to show kids they don't have to go to college in the first place.
If they want to go to school they can reduce costs by attending a two year community college and transferring 60 credits (two years worth). Also (most employers) no one actually cares or will ever know that they only attended that school for 1/2 the time.
Also well known Universities that have alternate campuses are far cheaper to attend when you take courses at those locations. (e.g. University of Michigan has their well known Ann Arbor main campus, they also have a campus in Flint and Dearborn. In the end your degree just says "University of Michigan".)
Another option to consider is Modern States:
https://modernstates.org/
It offers online/remote college classes for free, and feeds into the CLEP exams for credit at many conventional colleges. One could potentially obtain an entire Freshman year for very little or no cost. High school kids could also potentially take classes for dual credit, and graduate from HS with a partial or even a full college Freshman year completed.
--Mike
In reply to Mike:
2 of my nieces did exactly that. They had enough college credit when they graduated high school to be considered sophomores at the the start of their college years. One is now working for Texas Instruments, the other is in grad school at Baylor down in Houston. Both had scholarships and grants to pay for their undergrad educations.
Excellent!! Such a great way to save time and money. Hats off to them for putting in the hard work to make it happen.
--Mike
Steve Cole:
Yes, the student should be on the hook first. BUT if the student doesn't pay, and either can't be forced to, or society chooses not to force the student to pay, then the University should be next in line. A big part of the problem happens because we have the Gov't as guarantor. If the University were the guarantor, you'd see more responsible decisions from them, and hence a lot fewer defaults.
William,
I am not sure that would be true. The universities would increase the interest rate to cover the defaults, just like any other lender.
With the government at least you can have low very low interest rates as the government does not have to make a profit but recoup the taxpayer monies put out.
I do think that if you have student loans your tax return should go towards helping pay off the loan.