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U.S. To Forgive at Least $108B in Student Debt in Coming Years

• roymurdock 10y ago
  Hard to discuss an article that is paywalled, and that can't be accessed through the usual "web" search for title method.
  • CoryG89 10y ago
    I was able to access a readable version through the "web" link. First Google result for me.
  • smitherfield 10y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=U.S.+To+Forgive+at+Least+%24108B+in+Student+Debt+in+Coming+Years https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=U.S.+To+Forgive+at+L...
    • roymurdock 10y ago
      Web didn't work for me, but this did. Cheers.
    • downandout 10y ago
      Looks like the tbm=nws parameter needs to be added to all WSJ web links on here. I wonder if we can get HN to do it.
  • samsolomon 10y ago
    I was able to access it by clicking the News tab in Google and then clicking on the link.
  • qntty 10y ago
    WASHINGTON—The federal government is on track to forgive at least $108 billion in student debt in coming years, according to a report that for the first time projects the full cost of plans that tie borrowers’ payments to their earnings. The report, to be released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, shows the Obama administration’s main strategy for helping student-loan borrowers is proving far more costly than previously thought. The report also presents a scathing review of the Education Department’s accounting methods, which have understated the costs of its various debt-relief plans by tens of billions of dollars. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) ordered the report last year amid a sharp increase in enrollment in income-driven repayment plans, which the Obama administration has heavily promoted to help borrowers avoid default. The most generous version caps a borrower’s monthly payment at 10% of discretionary income, which is defined as any earnings above 150% of the poverty level. That formula typically reduces monthly payments of borrowers by hundreds of dollars. Any remaining balance is then forgiven after 10 or 20 years, depending on whether the borrower works in the public or private sector. Congress approved the plans in the 1990s and 2000s, and President Barack Obama has used executive actions to extend the most-generous terms to millions of borrowers. Enrollment in the plans has more than tripled in the past three years to 5.3 million borrowers as of June, or 24% of all former students who borrowed directly from the government and are now required to be making payments. They collectively owe $355 billion. The GAO estimates that $137 billion of that figure won’t be repaid. Most of it—$108 billion—will be forgiven because of borrowers fulfilling their obligations under income-driven repayment plans. The $108 billion only covers loans made through the current school year, however. The overall sum could continue to grow alongside enrollment increase. The other $29 billion will be written off because of disability or death, the GAO projects, the only other circumstances under which the government takes a loan off its books. The government can garnish wages and Social Security checks for those in default. Supporters say the plans offer a lifeline to borrowers who are unemployed or earning little, while the Obama administration has credited the programs for leading to a reduction in the number of new graduates defaulting on their loans. Supporters also point out that under current law, any amount forgiven would be taxed as ordinary income for private-sector workers, limiting the benefits for individuals. Public-sector workers aren’t taxed on forgiveness. The overall government loan program—currently totaling $1.26 trillion of debt outstanding, including privately issued loans backed by the government—continues to generate a profit, though these projected revenues are dwindling as more people go into income-based repayment. The government has a separate program, not included in the $108 billion estimate, to forgive loans to students who prove their colleges lured them to enroll by deceptive practices. Critics, including academics across the political spectrum, say the income-based repayment program isn’t targeting the neediest borrowers and instead bestows big benefits on those who attend pricey colleges and graduate schools and earn high incomes. Education Department data show that most borrowers with high debt balances have attended graduate school. Roughly 8 million borrowers are currently in default on their loans, most owe under $10,000, government data shows. But Wednesday’s report suggests the average balance of borrowers in income-driven repayment plans is nearly $67,000. President Obama has called for capping how much debt an individual can have forgiven, but Congress hasn’t acted on the proposal. While Republicans such as Sen. Enzi have criticized the debt-forgiveness plans, President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he supported the idea of helping student-loan borrowers. He has proposed setting payments at 12.5% of income and forgiving balances after 15 years. Meanwhile, the GAO report also criticizes how the Education Department has produced budget estimates for the loan program. For example, it said the department has failed to account for inflation when estimating borrowers’ future earnings. And it said the agency failed to account for further increases in enrollment in income-driven repayment plans. “Due to growing IDR-plan popularity, improving [the Education Department’s] estimation approach is especially important,” the report says. “Until that happens, IDR-plan budget estimates will remain in question, and Congress’s ability to make informed decisions may be affected.” The GAO said it could take 40 years to know full costs of the programs. In a recent sign of that uncertainty, the Education Department in November reduced the projected revenue from all loans issued before the 2015 fiscal year. It reduced estimated revenues by $23.35 billion from a prior estimate because of higher-than-expected default rates, a different assumption on interest rates and growing enrollment in income-driven repayment programs.
    • tkxxx7 10y ago
      I don't think this would be a bad default practice for these articles.
      • Scirra_Tom 10y ago
        Going to put an unpopular opinion here, but isn't this straight up copyright theft?
        • zzalpha 10y ago
          Let's call it copyright violation, but otherwise, heck ya, its definitely a violation of the law.
        • coldpie 10y ago
          It is a violation of NYT's copyright, yes. (Note that this is different from "theft.")
    • _delirium 10y ago
      Ah that makes more sense. I was wondering how any kind of student loan forgiveness program could possibly get passed in the current political situation, and it looks like the answer is that there isn't any such program being passed. This is just a new budgetary report estimating the fiscal impact of existing student-loan rules which cap repayment to a maximum percentage of income for a maximum number of years (such rules date back to the 1990s).
  • deleted 10y ago
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• dexterdog 10y ago
  This is a horrible message to kids currently thinking about borrowing because it will make them more likely to borrow which will make tuition skyrocket above its already criminal level.
  • VLM 10y ago
    Its a necessary part of the bubble cycle. Once you're on it, you can't just wish away the bubble and say "now we're gonna run this economic sector on financial fundamentals" or whatever. There doesn't seem much political will to de-bubble economic sectors, real estate certainly hasn't been fixed and thats a larger problem, ditto medical-industrial complex.
    • arenaninja 10y ago
      Could it be that real estate and medical haven't been fixed, just as student loans won't be fixed, because this kicks the can further down the road instead of addressing the problem?
    • dexterdog 10y ago
      And that's what we do - band aid at the cost of everybody so that the industry can keep its racket going and ultimately cost even more in the future.
    • hood_syntax 10y ago
      Housing is screwing the country (rent in particular) and it will create serious problems for the future if nothing is done about it. It's killing the opportunities for young people to save for retirement and reducing their purchasing power.
  • Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    You say this like borrowing for college is a reasonable choice for most people, or a choice at all. For many, going to college means borrowing money because there isn't another way. The average cost for tuition and fees in Indiana is nearly 8,000 per year. This does not include books and supplies (at around $1200) nor what they view as living expenses ($11,500). This is an average yearly cost of $20,700: $9,000 of this will be needed in a lump sum payment to the school when going. And I'm guessing the yearly living expenses aren't exactly all-inclusive. Minimum wage is only $7.25. If you work 38 hours a week for a year you only earn a bit over $14,000 before tax. You might not get tax breaks because you are still a dependent on your parent's taxes. Heck, you can't even afford to pay your living expenses if you are working part-time. As a young high school graduate, most jobs that are willing to work around your college schedule pay this rate. I'm not saying it is impossible, but highly improbable that you can go to college without financial aid. Tuition skyrocketing - yet again - will make little to no difference.
• sleepychu 10y ago
  ... to students of Trump University
• niemyjski 10y ago
  Bullshit.. I paid off student debt like a responsible adult
  • CoryG89 10y ago
    Then you are not the target for student loan forgiveness. It is meant for those who took a loan on the premise that they would be able to get a job that allowed them to pay back the loan. This is not the case for a large portion of college graduates. Here on HN this is not going to be common due to the demand in our job market. But talk to someone who borrowed a bunch of money to major in something with a less demanding job market and you'll hear a different story.
    • yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Yes, the target for student loan forgiveness is irresponsible people. I think that's the point.
      • CoryG89 10y ago
        Yes, or perhaps just people who were mislead by universities and/or student loan providers.
        • pc86 10y ago
          If you were misled by a loan provider, that's fraud and you should report it. The much more likely scenario is that you assumed a $150k degree guaranteed you a job, which is obviously not the case.
      • thompo 10y ago
        what do you mean, irresponsible? how do you know these people aren't working their asses off in a responsible manner to try to pay off their debt?
      • kbart 10y ago
        It's not fair and responsible (from a government point of view) to burden teens with decision that might lead to a debt for the big part of their life imho.
• reader5000 10y ago
  Student debt is not real anymore than indebting newborns for their $30k birth costs at 6.8% interest rate would be real.
  • thatwebdude 10y ago
    Except newborns don't have the choice of being born. Also, your figure is for the average C-Section; not as common as traditional. And, there is no "insurance" option (as there is for birthing) for student debt; which really would reduce it to about 10% of the cost...
• Chuckalucky89 10y ago
  Having a reasonable discussion about student loans with an age group that attended college 20-30 years ago isn't reasonable. The costs increased exponentially compared to what it was. The reasonable solution is to educate high school students on the affordable options of in-state universities and community college.
  • VLM 10y ago
    Also the trades. Everyone going to Stanford will get a tech job in SV, which is nice for about 0.1% of the population, but its a national problem and rando graduate of some state U has at best 50/50 odds of getting a job in their field or working retail/restaurant/bartend work. Better off as a 22 yr old electrician than as a 22 yr old unemployed kid in moms basement.
    • _delirium 10y ago
      You have to pick the right trade, though, which requires quite some economic forecasting. Several of my extended family members took exactly this route for the reason you suggest, and they're now unemployed former steelworkers. In retrospect they would've been better off with a university degree, as unemployment rates are much lower for people with degrees. I know people with degrees who got laid off from steel companies too (doing engineering, HR, accounting, IT, various things), but they had a much easier time switching industries to find new jobs. Most of the building trades have also fared badly (with electrician somewhat of an exception), as wages have collapsed over the past few decades in trades like carpentry and roofing.
      • pc86 10y ago
        Aren't there programs to retrain workers whose jobs are offshored?
        • kingkawn 10y ago
          Not really
        • 10y ago
• superninja234 10y ago
  There should be a clause that only helps individuals with useful majors (Engineers, Education, Math) and not some dingus that went to a $60,000 a year private school for art therapy.
  • DanBC 10y ago
    > for art therapy. Art therapy is a respected form of psychotherapy. It's available to people on the English NHS (which focuses on evidence based treatment), and "art therapist" is a protected title in the UK. Does "art therapy" mean something else in the US?
    • pc86 10y ago
      What is a "protected title" in the UK?
      • DanBC 10y ago
        You can't call yourself a protected title unless you have the qualification and professional registration. Here's a list for health care: https://www.hpc-uk.org/aboutregistration/protectedtitles/ https://www.hpc-uk.org/aboutregistration/protectedtitles/
        • pc86 10y ago
          Thank you for the clarification.
    • nilved 10y ago
      A title being protected doesn't mean it's scientific. C.f. naturopathic "doctors." I don't know enough about art therapy to say that it is or isn't scientific, though.
      • justin66 10y ago
        Art therapists are licensed therapists who focus on treating patients in the way the title implies. I don't think I'd call it science, although the one graduate program I'm familiar with has their students treat children and report on the efficacy of the results. It's often an MA degree, so there's no pretense of it being a scientific endeavor.
• Swizec 10y ago
  Hey that's not fair. How will I make my US friends feel bad about paying so much for the same or worse education as I got for free in Europe? My favorite effect of this social difference between [most of?] EU versus [most of?] US is that in non-england Europe, paying for private schooling means you're dumb and can't earn good grades without paying for them. In the US few non-private universities are considered truly legit. Always a fun pub or thanksgiving dinner conversation.
  • hood_syntax 10y ago
    I feel like a good amount of the top tier are public a la UC Berkeley, UPenn.
    • Swizec 10y ago
      Don't those charge many dollars in tuition despite being public? UC Berkeley is $13k/year according to their site. For comparison, my european public uni was 50eur/year for enrollment fees. LMU Munich, #1 uni in germany, is 110eur/year in mandatory fees.
      • hood_syntax 10y ago
        They certainly are nowhere near as cheap as universities in Europe, but they are comparatively affordable. UC Berkeley's tuition, for example, I would put in the middle of public universities, and likely anywhere from 10-30k less than most private ones
        • ant6n 10y ago
          Still unlikely to graduate without debt unless your parents are loaded
    • rrdharan 10y ago
      UPenn is private.
      • 10y ago
• golemotron 10y ago
  The student loan system needs serious reform. It encourages students to take on debt with the student holding the bag and then ultimately the taxpayer, based on an individual judgment about whether a particular degree will have market value. One reform that has been suggested is to make sure that universities have skin in the game, that they actually lose money when a loan defaults. I'm not sure we should go there but there should be a system better than debt servitude for students coupled with moral hazard for society.
• AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
  This is absolutely disgusting. The only way this would the ok is if the Government also stopped backing student loans. My family didn't have a lot of money so I went to a cheap, but good, local college, and commuted from home by public bus while I worked every day. If I had known I could simply borrow money and not pay it back and live on a country-club-like "farm" for 4 years, getting drunk and going to frat parties, I probably would have. Screw all these freeloaders.
  • pc86 10y ago
    What this actually means is that someone is making on-time payments for 20 years (10 if they work for the public sector) and still hasn't paid back the balance. More often than not this means they're paying less than interest. When I was initially on an IBR plan I was paying roughly 3/4 of the interest that was accruing every month. Do you have any idea how soul-crushing it is to make less than $30k a year, make payments in the multiple hundreds of dollars every months, and see the balance increase? After 20 years of that, I think you deserve the forgiveness. But not only that, you're then taxed on the forgiveness (which I think is necessary!). So you struggle for 20 years, still have the debt, then get nailed with what could very well be a 5-figure tax bill. Under most circumstances they have probably paid more to the federal government than you have. Screw all those freeloaders!
    • thatwebdude 10y ago
      Don't forget while you make payments you get tax credits paid on interest - up to a limit (which is really easy to hit; by the way).
      • pc86 10y ago
        Yes but if you're on IBR this is minuscule. I only paid ~$2k my first year in repayment, a small part of that was interest, and because my income was low enough the taxes on that small part was only a few dozens of dollars. But absolutely when you're making $2250/mo before taxes and extra $20 in your refund is awesome :)
• dangerlibrary 10y ago
  Interestingly, and the article touches on this a bit, a disproportionate fraction of this forgiven debt goes to those who got terminal professional degrees, like doctors and lawyers. > Critics, including academics across the political spectrum, say the income-based repayment program isn’t targeting the neediest borrowers and instead bestows big benefits on those who attend pricey colleges and graduate schools and earn high incomes. Take a new surgical resident who just graduated from med school with a slightly above average amount of debt - $300k [0]. They consolidate their loans and put themselves on an income based repayment plan, and start their residency at a nonprofit hospital. After 120 payments (at most one per month) made while working for a 501(c), their remaining loan is forgiven, tax-free. [1] At the outset, the income based plan really is the only option. They'll be earning a modest salary as a resident - 40-60k per year. During this period their debt will accumulate unpaid interest as their payments are capped at 10% of their income (above 1.5x the poverty line, so something like max_payment = 0.10*(income-20k); $200-300 a month, at most). After ~7 years of surgical residency, depending on specialty, the doctors begin earning $300k-$500k/year. At this point their total loan amount at 7% simple interest (unpaid interest isn't compounded under these programs) has grown somewhere on the order of 40-50%. Now they are making the maximum payment on their debt assuming a 20-25 year repayment term. Unfortunately, they'll only be making those payments for 3 years before the entire balance of the loan is forgiven - tax free. The end result is that for doctors whose residency and subsequent career begins by working at nonprofit hospitals, the government will end up forgiving the full amount of their medical school tuition, usually plus a little bit of interest. Med schools, law schools, and other professional schools know this, and actively promote these programs as a way for students to justify going into unbelievable levels of debt. [2] In general, those with less than about $40k in debt will see no change to their monthly payment by moving to an income based repayment program, so they have little incentive to go through the hassle of signing up. [0] http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/debt-rankings http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu... [1] https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancell... [2] https://www.law.gwu.edu/loan-repayment-plans https://www.law.gwu.edu/loan-repayment-plans
  • reader5000 10y ago
• jbmorgado 10y ago
  In a nutshell, all US citizens end up paying extremely expensive education (compared to countries with same or better education level) to overpriced private faculties and in bank loans instead of simply accepting that higher education should be public (and with that greatly reducing the expenses with education) and founded by state with a network of public faculties. All in all, people appreciate the idea of having a middleman in the equation that greatly increases the costs of the product, just so that then can pretend they are not financing other people education when they could simply accept public education, pay much less and get rid of the speculative middleman. Same goes for healthcare actually. It's a strange part of American mentally: better pay more for an inferior product and pretend that you aren't actually financing those that can't afford the product, than pay less and have a part of what you pay directly helping those that can't afford it by themselves.
  • ant6n 10y ago
    It's to perpetuate the myth of 'rugged individualism', one of the founding legends of the US. Those middle men making all the money have a vested interest that people follow this belief. It's related to the believe where everybody views themselves as 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', which explains why they are willing to take on so much debt to study, and why they accept the trickle up.
• pdog 10y ago
  Why is the federal government the largest single lender to students? This is a direct transfer from taxpayers to a few public and private institutions. If colleges and universities were responsible for student debt, they never would have made these loans that need to be forgiven in the first place.
  • pavlov 10y ago
    It's the American way: profits are private but losses are public. (See also the health insurance system.)
    • iamatworknow 10y ago
      >The overall government loan program—currently totaling $1.26 trillion of debt outstanding, including privately issued loans backed by the government—continues to generate a profit, though these projected revenues are dwindling as more people go into income-based repayment.
    • projectileboy 10y ago
      Check out the US crop insurance system for an even better example. It'll make you laugh (and cry).
    • mstodd 10y ago
      Are there any standard paths to getting in on this scam? I'm tired of always being picked to fund other people's carelessness.
      • pavlov 10y ago
        Harvard Business School, I guess?
  • delecti 10y ago
    If the federal government is lending to students then "taxpayers" (as a collective) aren't funding colleges, the individual students are (who are taxpayers individually, but I don't think that's what you meant). And if the government participates in loan forgiveness, then the fact that the government is also a lender isn't really relevant, because the taxpayers will be covering that bill anyway. Really, it's for the best that the federal government gets any interest from student loans, rather than private banks having a vested interest in the growth of tuition rates.
• deleted 10y ago
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• aikah 10y ago
  http://archive.is/Hoj9R http://archive.is/Hoj9R
  • thoughtpalette 10y ago
    Thank you, was looking for this.
  • CamelCaseName 10y ago
    This is a mirror of the article, in case anyone didn't want to click blindly, or is doing a ctrl+F for mirror or source.
• JackFr 10y ago
  The most earnest attempts to help are again struck down by the law of unintended consequences. From the article, for the 8 million people currently in default the average outstanding balance is < $10,000. For the people enrolled in the income-based repayment plan the average outstanding balance is > $67,000. So it seems if the marginal cost of borrowing more is 0, people are going to borrow more. I think the real story is that it's difficult to have government subsidies for students without putting some form of price controls on the schools. What we see in practice is that the subsidies cost the government (which is fine -- that's what a subsidy is) but the value is being captured by the school, not the student.
  • hash-set 10y ago
    The whole mess that is higher education sickens me. The bankers did this. They colluded with susceptible financial aid officers and corrupted and victimized. Now the rest of us are left holding the bag, as usual. Socializing the losses. This is unacceptable. I still think the idiots who took out the loans need to repay them, not be let off. You might say it is akin to modern day slavery, and I get that, but the fact of the matter is, it is the bankers who are looking for the write offs because a) they still get paid and b) they need those same suckers to take on loads more debt buying houses.
    • John23832 10y ago
      Modern investment banking seems to be at the root of a lot of society's ills.
    • humanrebar 10y ago
      Bankers didn't raise tuition and pile on fees on top of that.
      • velodrome 10y ago
        Agreed. 1) The universities obtained massive loans to build fancy new buildings and that cost is simply being passed on to students. 2) The ease to obtain educational loans prevents universities from having any sort of revenue constraints. Constraints breed innovation. If there are no constraints, the universities have no incentive to reduce costs.
• grigjd3 10y ago
  I saw academic bloat run sky-high when I was a post-doc. Today, I think about saving for my daughter's college, which I am fortunate enough to be able to do. It's infuriating that the money is going to paying for self-preserving bureaucracy and campus beautification projects like replacing the flowers every month. From what I've read, it's even worse today.
  • mtberatwork 10y ago
    > self-preserving bureaucracy When academia is run as a business and subsidies are drastically cut, you need to devote resources into acquiring new customers, which means competing with other universities who are doing the same thing. Hence the rapid increases in campus amenities and business administration positions that never existed 30 years ago. > campus beautification projects like replacing the flowers every month Out of all things to complain about, flowers on campus are on the low end of the totem pole. Let them plant flowers, I say! I enjoy them.
    • grigjd3 10y ago
      When a school with ~4000 students has a multimillion dollar flower replacement budget, it says a lot.
  • castratikron 10y ago
    The highest paid public employee in my state is a college basketball coach.
    • pc86 10y ago
      A. I think it's less about the amount any one person is paid and more about the huge number of administrators moving paper from one desk to another. I went to a private liberal arts college with a few thousand students. We had a Dean and four assistant Deans, all of whom made multiple six figures a year. Our president when I was there made $450k/yr and had next to no living expenses. B. Private v. public has nothing to do with academic bloat.
• asdasfdsfsdfwe 10y ago
  Some private firms in the income-based repayment space: - Vemo Education (vemo.com) - LEIF (joinleif.com) - Purdue, Washington U (...)
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• rietta 10y ago
  My wife is a mental health worker - a therapist - who works with people with severe needs. The jobs in her field are almost always state funded either via the criminal justice system or counties providing services for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. Therapists get paid less than a fast food restaurant manager and many times and have student loan debts that quite large compared to the expected earnings. In my mind, this sort of work is exactly why the public service 10 year program was created and is a form of the Federal government subsidizing the state government efforts to care for the least and the last.
• throwaway98237 10y ago
  University is the new H.S. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. We have publicly funded high schools. It's time we have publicly funded universities. If the U.S. wishes to be competitive globally we need a well trained, educated workforce unencumbered by mountains of debt at the very time their supposed to be making their first "adult decisions" (buying a home, having kids, choosing which city to live in). Lump this in with climate change and universal health care, as far as I'm concerned. This is 2016, not 1850. It's not every person for themselves on the frontier. Almost everything we consume is touched by folks far away, requires IP to be built, and public infrastructure to get to you. This "there are no externalities that we need to worry about", "I can take care of myself mythology is so blatantly false at this point", it's b.s. and I just consider someone that starts with that as a set of axioms for their world view as ignorant or delusional.
  • nradov 10y ago
    University is not the new high school. Community college and trade school is the new high school. Not everyone is suited to a university education, or wants one.
    • throwaway98237 10y ago
      I oversimplified. I would say that all three of those should be an option, that one should not consider their education complete till they'd gotten through either university, college, or a trade school. I'm even a huge advocate of apprenticeships. I suppose those could be rolled up into the trade school category. But I believe that leaving university out of that group (only counting college and trade school) ignores a large and important portion of the economy. Also, the liberal arts portion of schooling is important for a citizen.
• nfriedly 10y ago
  The current situation is a mess, and I don't really know what to say about how to handle it. Maybe the government forgiving it is a good idea. But, moving forward... Kids: please don't go into debt for education! Go to a community college or a state school. Go part time. Go to a trade school. Start a business (no degree required!) But just try to avoid debt. It's hard to describe exactly how suffocating debt can feel. All those things you want to do when you grow up - debt is going to make most of them harder of impossible. Parents: if you want to save up and pay for your kids education, I guess that's fine. But if you can't/won't, then it's your responsibility to inform you children about debt.
  • jetti 10y ago
    >debt is going to make most of them harder of impossible. I experienced this when buying my first house. My wife and I were unable to get a conventional loan because our debt to income ratio was too high. I had $90k in student loans from grad school which prevented us from getting a conventional loan. We were able to get an FHA loan and can re-finance once we get to 20% equity but it is frustrating to have to put up with FHA regulations before buying the house.
  • xname2 10y ago
    Why would anybody take your advice when they know it is very likely the government will forgive student debt again in the future? People do not take advice on face value, incentive matters!
• nradov 10y ago
  A lot of this problem would go away if student loan lenders and educational institutions were required to give students / borrowers a list of median starting incomes for graduates broken down by major, along with examples of typical repayment schedules.