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Is it necessary for the 17-year old to fully grasp what he's getting into and how to deal with it? The point of an education loan is that it will pay to mature

Is it necessary for the 17-year old to fully grasp what he's getting into and how to deal with it? The point of an education loan is that it will pay to mature the young person and provide him with the capital necessary to become educated about how to handle debt. And more specifically to obtain skills and experience that can be converted to a prosperous career which allows him to repay what he owes. If a college graduate is not able to keep up with his student debt is it his fault for not being fiscally responsible? Or is it the school's fault for not doing the job it was paid to do? It is as if we are building bridges that collapse easily then blaming it on the trucks being too heavy when the problem is the engineers are making crappy bridges.

danielsju6 11y ago
The kicker to me is that you can't drink till you're 21; look at porn, buy cigarettes, or consent to sex with an adult until you're 18... but you can sign a federal promissory note for "super debt" that will fuck up your life and the lives of your next of kin.
- jMyles 11y ago
  > consent to sex with an adult until you're 18 Holy shit, there are places in the USA where you have to be 18 to have sex. TIL.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Well both are right. Yes, 17 year olds need to fully grasp these decisions, and yes colleges and gov should do more, much more, too. For example my gf's now doing her 2nd master's to become a teacher, in a field which, surprise, there are no jobs in. Now frankly she mostly knew this, wanted to do it anyway because she's got the resume to get that 1 job that opens up every 5 billion years and she's really passionate about teaching this field. But what struck me was that a few days ago as she was complaining about her job prospects, I said 'your uni has a responsibility here, too', and I went to the website to see if they offered any support. Got to the 'employability' page, and it essentially said the prospects were 'good'. In reality, the employability of this particular degree is probably in the bottom 5%. I mean this is the Netherlands, tuition is $2k a year, it's a 1y programme and student loan rates are currently 0.01% (fixed until 2020, and averaged < 1% in the past 20 years), so it's fine. But for other institutions in other countries, that's blatant false advertising bordering on the criminal as we're talking about multi-year time investments in addition to tens of thousands of dollars. And I see this all the time, but institutions and governments aren't currently willing to be dead honest about job prospects.
dwaltrip 11y ago
But if there are very few qualified engineers that exist, maybe we should slow down on the bridge building?

danielsju6 11y ago

The kicker to me is that you can't drink till you're 21; look at porn, buy cigarettes, or consent to sex with an adult until you're 18... but you can sign a federal promissory note for "super debt" that will fuck up your life and the lives of your next of kin.

jMyles 11y ago
> consent to sex with an adult until you're 18 Holy shit, there are places in the USA where you have to be 18 to have sex. TIL.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

Well both are right. Yes, 17 year olds need to fully grasp these decisions, and yes colleges and gov should do more, much more, too. For example my gf's now doing her 2nd master's to become a teacher, in a field which, surprise, there are no jobs in. Now frankly she mostly knew this, wanted to do it anyway because she's got the resume to get that 1 job that opens up every 5 billion years and she's really passionate about teaching this field. But what struck me was that a few days ago as she was complaining about her job prospects, I said 'your uni has a responsibility here, too', and I went to the website to see if they offered any support. Got to the 'employability' page, and it essentially said the prospects were 'good'. In reality, the employability of this particular degree is probably in the bottom 5%. I mean this is the Netherlands, tuition is $2k a year, it's a 1y programme and student loan rates are currently 0.01% (fixed until 2020, and averaged < 1% in the past 20 years), so it's fine. But for other institutions in other countries, that's blatant false advertising bordering on the criminal as we're talking about multi-year time investments in addition to tens of thousands of dollars. And I see this all the time, but institutions and governments aren't currently willing to be dead honest about job prospects.

dwaltrip 11y ago

But if there are very few qualified engineers that exist, maybe we should slow down on the bridge building?