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> A big takeaway from this article (for me) is that people are surprised that 17 year old kids don't understand what they're doing when they take out that colle
by erichocean 11y ago
> A big takeaway from this article (for me) is that people are surprised that 17 year old kids don't understand what they're doing when they take out that college loan.
Student loans are the only legal way to sell yourself into "debt slavery"[0] in the United States. It's not the 17 year olds that are screwing up, it's society as a whole by even allowing this situation to exist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage
- reality_czech 11y agoI agree with this 100%. Student loan debt should not be treated specially. It should just be normal debt that you can discharge through bankruptcy. At that point, the incentives of schools and the incentives of students would be aligned. Schools would not lend huge sums to students unless they had confidence that the education those students got was adequate to prepare them to repay. And the situation would fix itself. The fixed situation would probably have a lot fewer humanities students, and those students would have better job prospects since supply and demand would be aligned. Degrees would be shorter and less expensive, and overheads would be lower.
- massysett 11y agoMostly it is the federal government doing the lending, not the schools. Eligibility is fixed by law and has nothing to do with ability to repay.
- lliamander 11y agoGood point, which allows them to make lending decisions for political rather than purely economic reasons.
- reality_czech 11y agoI agree that there are a lot of government loans for education-- another thing that ought to stop. The government shouldn't be a loan shark for young people.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- refurb 11y agoIt should just be normal debt that you can discharge through bankruptcy. I think doing that would likely result in no loans for many students or at least higher interest rates. Hell, if I were 22 with $100K in student loan debt to be discharged, I'd be silly not to declare bankruptcy.
- Pinckney 11y agoIt's not clear to me that this would be a bad thing.
- stickfigure 11y agoEspecially since loan availability and price would likely factor in the earning potential (aka social demand) of the subject of study.
- refurb 11y agoI don't disagree.
- jdminhbg 11y ago> Student loans are the only legal way to sell yourself into "debt slavery"[0] in the United States. Do you mean that student loans are the only legal way to attain a loan whose collateral is your future earnings potential? Because if so that's very wrong.
- justaaron 11y agono, the poster meant that student loans are the only kind of loans that are NOT dischargeable through bankruptcy. literally. look it up.