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I feel there is a massive difference in funding an engineering student's debts versus an art history major's debt. Every engineering degree typically results in

by generj 10y ago

I feel there is a massive difference in funding an engineering student's debts versus an art history major's debt. Every engineering degree typically results in 60K plus jobs straight out of school. I doubt a single engineering student has had their Social Security garnished, and if they did they almost assuredly made enough poor financial decisions I have a hard time feeling sympathy. We need to decide as a society what the point of university is. If our aim is to increase human capital, degrees should be invested in by the government in a way which maximizes that human capital increase. If we argue that university is essential for almost everyone for a republican democracy to work, we should provide or heavily subsidize it rather than using debts. Right now we allow people to take out massive debts which never disappear only to learn things which the market judges as not increasing their human capital whatsoever. I don't have anything against degrees which don't increase human capital, but they are basically luxuries which the government shouldn't intervene to fund. In the mean time the massive rise in student debt has allowed for a huge inflation in spending by university administrations and massive swelling in tuition.

mulmen 10y ago
So the only value of education is to increase the bottom line of the capitalists? The meaning of life is to maximize my contribution to some CEO's yacht? Our declaration of independence states a desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say anything about maximizing human capital.
- generj 10y ago
  I think you believe I'm espousing views which I don't hold. The aim of education is to learn something because knowledge usually increases happiness. Insofar as that information costs money and time, most people have decided they want additional future earnings in exchange for gaining that information. Remarkably, historically knowledge has increased happiness both directly (via things like art, satisfying curiosity, etc) and indirectly (through more productive labor). The main difference between 1916 America (when most everybody farmed daily) and 2016 America is human capital. Go look up the Solow Growth model. Income disparity has also increased in that time frame, but that's a problem of how society distributed the new found gains, not the fault of the gains themselves. If you'd read my comment, I was considering what the country thinks the use of university is. Right now the government's actions don't help people regardless of what you think the object of university is. If they want to help human capital, they should subsidize certain degrees. If they want to have as many people as possible go to college, because going to college has benefits other than increased productivity, they should subsidize (partially or completely) degrees. But the current state of affairs is just silly. There's lots of international evidence that a better educated populace makes for a better citizenry and thus a better government. That's one reason why the government pays for and mandates primary and secondary schooling in the US (the other is human capital makes our entire society better off). If we think the citizens need more education in order to provide society a benefit, we should pay for it directly rather than create a massive loan bubble which is bound to burst at some point.
- civilian 10y ago
  Our declaration of independence isn't the guiding statement of student loans. :) I don't think that generj is pushing one direction or the other. We just need to recognize the choice. Are we giving out student loans to grow the economy? Or are we giving out student loans as a way to fund The Arts ? Or some combination? Do we know what our goal even is?

by generj 10y ago

mulmen 10y ago

So the only value of education is to increase the bottom line of the capitalists? The meaning of life is to maximize my contribution to some CEO's yacht? Our declaration of independence states a desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say anything about maximizing human capital.

generj 10y ago
I think you believe I'm espousing views which I don't hold. The aim of education is to learn something because knowledge usually increases happiness. Insofar as that information costs money and time, most people have decided they want additional future earnings in exchange for gaining that information. Remarkably, historically knowledge has increased happiness both directly (via things like art, satisfying curiosity, etc) and indirectly (through more productive labor). The main difference between 1916 America (when most everybody farmed daily) and 2016 America is human capital. Go look up the Solow Growth model. Income disparity has also increased in that time frame, but that's a problem of how society distributed the new found gains, not the fault of the gains themselves. If you'd read my comment, I was considering what the country thinks the use of university is. Right now the government's actions don't help people regardless of what you think the object of university is. If they want to help human capital, they should subsidize certain degrees. If they want to have as many people as possible go to college, because going to college has benefits other than increased productivity, they should subsidize (partially or completely) degrees. But the current state of affairs is just silly. There's lots of international evidence that a better educated populace makes for a better citizenry and thus a better government. That's one reason why the government pays for and mandates primary and secondary schooling in the US (the other is human capital makes our entire society better off). If we think the citizens need more education in order to provide society a benefit, we should pay for it directly rather than create a massive loan bubble which is bound to burst at some point.
civilian 10y ago
Our declaration of independence isn't the guiding statement of student loans. :) I don't think that generj is pushing one direction or the other. We just need to recognize the choice. Are we giving out student loans to grow the economy? Or are we giving out student loans as a way to fund The Arts ? Or some combination? Do we know what our goal even is?