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Most scorn of universities and loan programs never seem to address a serious problem: Students taking on debt to fund degrees with little market value, or few j

Most scorn of universities and loan programs never seem to address a serious problem: Students taking on debt to fund degrees with little market value, or few job prospects. Racking up $100k to get an interdisciplinary degree in women and gender studies might sound awesome, but not at the cost of a school like NYU.[0] I think schools should be required to press upon students prior to taking out these loans honest and factual statistics about their future job prospects, needs for advanced education, and the average graduates ability to pay back the loan. [0]. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loa...

wolfgke 9y ago
If you do some kind of investment (say, in stocks of some company), you first read up on investment, the market this company works in, products this company is planning etc. in particular if you go in debt for this investment. So why can't one simply expect from grown-up people to do the same for the degree that ones planes do get?
- Joe-Z 9y ago
  One can, but we're talking about 18-year-olds fresh out of high school here.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    But the parents are surely not 18 years old and just out of highschool.
    - hkmurakami 9y ago
      I mean this is why you have Asian immigrant parents insisting that the only acceptable areas of study are premed, prelaw, and (more recently) engineering. Some will refuse to pay for tuition unless their children agree. (I think there's a famous anecdote by Bobby Jindal where his father told him that he could be anything he wanted to be -- any kind of doctor that is) Heavy-handed? Yes. Effective? Also yes.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        This is also the kind of environment that I am used to. Even though university education is mostly free in Germany, there are still costs of living etc. Thus there exist quite some children whose parents are quite hesitant to pay for the education of them if they don't agree with the degree course that the child chooses - even though by law they are typically required to pay.
        b4lancesh33t 9y ago
        Parents are required to support their children into their adulthood in Germany? That doesn't sound likely, but then, I'm not German. Edit: found a reference that says parents must support children until they are 21 or have a profession to support themselves (presumably whichever is sooner -- I hope!).
        wolfgke 9y ago
        > Parents are required to support their children into their adulthood in Germany? That doesn't sound likely, but then, I'm not German. > Edit: found a reference that says parents must support children until they are 21 or have a profession to support themselves (presumably whichever is sooner -- I hope!). According to > https://www.merkur.de/leben/geld/erwachsen-kind-finanzieren-eltern-zr-8259243.html https://www.merkur.de/leben/geld/erwachsen-kind-finanzieren-... if the child studies at a university, the parents have to pay for them until it gets its master's degree (which is typically much longer than up to the 21 years of age). There are exceptions, such as if the parents can prove that the child does not concentrate on his studies or if it changes the degree course "too often" etc. But assume that the normal case is that the parents have to support the child up to master's degree.
    - drharby 9y ago
      Assuming an educated and stable home life
    - bunderbunder 9y ago
      The parents may be more experienced, but they are, for the most part, just as naive. They grew up in a world where a bachelor's degree - any bachelor's degree - virtually guaranteed at least a middle class lifestyle, if not an upper middle class one. Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. Especially the ~2/3 of them who don't hold bachelor's degrees themselves.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. It is not only about finding a job (I believe with a "sensible" degree you will always find one), but about finding a job that pays well enough so that beside the costs of living (which are enormous in some regions) also the college debts can be paid back in a reasonable time.
        sanderjd 9y ago
        There is no workable definition of "sensible" here. A number of my friends graduated with journalism degrees in 2007. They couldn't find jobs in journalism. This probably seems obvious to you now, that journalism is not a "sensible" degree, but in 2002-2004 when we were choosing schools and degrees, every major city had two or more competing newspapers with healthy entry level hiring. The world changed. That happens. It is happening to some set of degrees right now, but we don't yet know what they are. Maybe computer science degrees will not be "sensible" in 2021. My point is just that a solution to this problem that requires teenagers and their parents to accurately predict the future of a complex society is not actually a solution at all.
        RhysU 9y ago
        This change in the economy is why college should be about education and not vocation.
        sanderjd 9y ago
    - plandis 9y ago
      Neither of my parents went to college. I actually missed filling out FAFSA my first year because I didn’t even know it existed. I took the SAT late for a similar reason (I knew it existed but I though you take it your senior year of high school). The parents of first generation college attendees are ill equipped to help. Their advice was effectively go to some college at all costs.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Their advice was effectively go to some college at all costs. If they advice this, they should put their money where their mouth is, i.e. be willing to pay for a substantial part of the college debt.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I would expect high school guidance councilors would be a resource for this decision as well.
empath75 9y ago
I think the colleges should have some skin in the game and be at least partially on the hook if the loan defaults. That should prevent some of the completely egregious price gouging.
- stult 9y ago
  At the lower end, they are. If their default rate gets too high, the school loses access to federal funding altogether. Of course, places like NYU have excellent programs with valuable degrees to balance out the defaults among the less valuable degrees. Plus their graduates in those less valuable programs also are far more likely to have wealthy families to support them and certainly have more ability to go on to grad school, resetting their default risk somewhat. So really it's only super scammy, low end, primarily for-profit schools who are at risk of losing their access to federal funds. And even that is a super low bar.
- nprecup 9y ago
  I can't say this is true for all Universities, but accounting for inflation, at the University of Washington the cost to educate one student is the lowest it has ever been. So at least at one school they have been working hard at keeping costs down. Unfortunately, we keep reducing state funding to public schools, and the proportion of that cost born by the student is now much higher. Gone are the days that you could work your way through a state college, and it is not because the schools are price gouging.
- imsofuture 9y ago
  This is really the only path forward: make student debt dischargable. Yes, it will make less people go to college, but too many people going to college is clearly one of the root causes of cyclical skyrocketing costs and increased borrowing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickpeterson 9y ago
    I agree with this. I really think most people are better off being hired and trained on-site for their careers. Students who show tremendous promise make more sense to attend a university, and that should just be federally funded.
watwut 9y ago
Interdisciplinary degree in women and gender studies are a minisculle percentage of all degrees out there. So is antropology. If you want to make the argument that students are mostly picking wrong degrees, make it with one that is actually prevalent. Not the one that is fashionable among rich kids you personally despise.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Meh. It's valid to pick an extreme example to make you point in a colorful way. It undermines the idea that all four year college degrees are worth subsidized financing.
jbump 9y ago
but also, if every single student majored in computer science, the market value of that degree would plummet. it's not like everyone will be rich if everyone does the same thing. also, a society without variety would be a sad thing.
Antimachides 9y ago
I agree students shouldn't be taking on the loans they do for worthless degrees but I'd like to add that 17/18 years old is just not old enough to (1) decide what you want to do for the rest of your life and (2) begin taking dozens of thousands of $ in bankruptcy-immune loans to pay for it. There's also the issue of the cost of college being an artificial grossly expensive racket. If the opportunity for moneyed interests to milk kids of every cent because of the kids' and parents' blind desire for collegiate status and opportunity then they will, because this is America.
- RhysU 9y ago
  American society indeed says 18-year-old adults can legally do these things. Are you advocating for 21 being again the age of formal adulthood?
  - Antimachides 9y ago
    I'm just making an observation, not a prescription.
aylmao 9y ago
I agree, but I would say that's not the real problem here. Take the story in the article for example. My guess is that guy majored in English, and he did it because he understands it and likes it. That should be fine and enough because there is value in English; he's a teacher, he's definitely gonna produce a TON of value over his lifetime for society (and, discussion over fair wages for teachers aside, enough money). More than the $35k debt he graduated with. Or take the lady who has payed $63k towards her $8k original debt. The problem here is that the student loan debt market is structured such that this value won't actually pay the debt. If they tie you in with perpetual debt, they can essentially "tax" you for the rest of your life, and because student debt is some sort of exception, there's nothing you can do to default out of it. What corporation wouldn't take the incentive for this essentially free, steady monthly income?
jogjayr 9y ago
> I think schools should be required to press upon students prior to taking out these loans honest and factual statistics about their future job prospects, needs for advanced education, and the average graduates ability to pay back the loan. I think schools should be required to justify why imparting a gender studies education costs $100k. Apart from professor salaries (maybe $80k/yr for a public uni in a a major metro area) and classrooms/whiteboard markers/projectors (already paid for, but figure equivalent of $15k/year) what exactly is that money going toward? We in industry can also help by not valuing the university "name" so highly, and saying so loudly and often. If the job market was kinder to applicants from institutions of lesser-renown, we'd have fewer students willing to go into crazy debt to get into a prestigious school. I acknowledge that software is actually pretty good about this but other industries are not.

wolfgke 9y ago

If you do some kind of investment (say, in stocks of some company), you first read up on investment, the market this company works in, products this company is planning etc. in particular if you go in debt for this investment. So why can't one simply expect from grown-up people to do the same for the degree that ones planes do get?

Joe-Z 9y ago
One can, but we're talking about 18-year-olds fresh out of high school here.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  But the parents are surely not 18 years old and just out of highschool.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    I mean this is why you have Asian immigrant parents insisting that the only acceptable areas of study are premed, prelaw, and (more recently) engineering. Some will refuse to pay for tuition unless their children agree. (I think there's a famous anecdote by Bobby Jindal where his father told him that he could be anything he wanted to be -- any kind of doctor that is) Heavy-handed? Yes. Effective? Also yes.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      This is also the kind of environment that I am used to. Even though university education is mostly free in Germany, there are still costs of living etc. Thus there exist quite some children whose parents are quite hesitant to pay for the education of them if they don't agree with the degree course that the child chooses - even though by law they are typically required to pay.
      - b4lancesh33t 9y ago
        Parents are required to support their children into their adulthood in Germany? That doesn't sound likely, but then, I'm not German. Edit: found a reference that says parents must support children until they are 21 or have a profession to support themselves (presumably whichever is sooner -- I hope!).
        wolfgke 9y ago
        > Parents are required to support their children into their adulthood in Germany? That doesn't sound likely, but then, I'm not German. > Edit: found a reference that says parents must support children until they are 21 or have a profession to support themselves (presumably whichever is sooner -- I hope!). According to > https://www.merkur.de/leben/geld/erwachsen-kind-finanzieren-eltern-zr-8259243.html https://www.merkur.de/leben/geld/erwachsen-kind-finanzieren-... if the child studies at a university, the parents have to pay for them until it gets its master's degree (which is typically much longer than up to the 21 years of age). There are exceptions, such as if the parents can prove that the child does not concentrate on his studies or if it changes the degree course "too often" etc. But assume that the normal case is that the parents have to support the child up to master's degree.
  - drharby 9y ago
    Assuming an educated and stable home life
  - bunderbunder 9y ago
    The parents may be more experienced, but they are, for the most part, just as naive. They grew up in a world where a bachelor's degree - any bachelor's degree - virtually guaranteed at least a middle class lifestyle, if not an upper middle class one. Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. Especially the ~2/3 of them who don't hold bachelor's degrees themselves.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. It is not only about finding a job (I believe with a "sensible" degree you will always find one), but about finding a job that pays well enough so that beside the costs of living (which are enormous in some regions) also the college debts can be paid back in a reasonable time.
      - sanderjd 9y ago
        There is no workable definition of "sensible" here. A number of my friends graduated with journalism degrees in 2007. They couldn't find jobs in journalism. This probably seems obvious to you now, that journalism is not a "sensible" degree, but in 2002-2004 when we were choosing schools and degrees, every major city had two or more competing newspapers with healthy entry level hiring. The world changed. That happens. It is happening to some set of degrees right now, but we don't yet know what they are. Maybe computer science degrees will not be "sensible" in 2021. My point is just that a solution to this problem that requires teenagers and their parents to accurately predict the future of a complex society is not actually a solution at all.
        RhysU 9y ago
        This change in the economy is why college should be about education and not vocation.
        sanderjd 9y ago
  - plandis 9y ago
    Neither of my parents went to college. I actually missed filling out FAFSA my first year because I didn’t even know it existed. I took the SAT late for a similar reason (I knew it existed but I though you take it your senior year of high school). The parents of first generation college attendees are ill equipped to help. Their advice was effectively go to some college at all costs.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Their advice was effectively go to some college at all costs. If they advice this, they should put their money where their mouth is, i.e. be willing to pay for a substantial part of the college debt.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I would expect high school guidance councilors would be a resource for this decision as well.

empath75 9y ago

I think the colleges should have some skin in the game and be at least partially on the hook if the loan defaults. That should prevent some of the completely egregious price gouging.

stult 9y ago
At the lower end, they are. If their default rate gets too high, the school loses access to federal funding altogether. Of course, places like NYU have excellent programs with valuable degrees to balance out the defaults among the less valuable degrees. Plus their graduates in those less valuable programs also are far more likely to have wealthy families to support them and certainly have more ability to go on to grad school, resetting their default risk somewhat. So really it's only super scammy, low end, primarily for-profit schools who are at risk of losing their access to federal funds. And even that is a super low bar.
nprecup 9y ago
I can't say this is true for all Universities, but accounting for inflation, at the University of Washington the cost to educate one student is the lowest it has ever been. So at least at one school they have been working hard at keeping costs down. Unfortunately, we keep reducing state funding to public schools, and the proportion of that cost born by the student is now much higher. Gone are the days that you could work your way through a state college, and it is not because the schools are price gouging.
imsofuture 9y ago
This is really the only path forward: make student debt dischargable. Yes, it will make less people go to college, but too many people going to college is clearly one of the root causes of cyclical skyrocketing costs and increased borrowing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- nickpeterson 9y ago
  I agree with this. I really think most people are better off being hired and trained on-site for their careers. Students who show tremendous promise make more sense to attend a university, and that should just be federally funded.

watwut 9y ago

Interdisciplinary degree in women and gender studies are a minisculle percentage of all degrees out there. So is antropology. If you want to make the argument that students are mostly picking wrong degrees, make it with one that is actually prevalent. Not the one that is fashionable among rich kids you personally despise.

humanrebar 9y ago
Meh. It's valid to pick an extreme example to make you point in a colorful way. It undermines the idea that all four year college degrees are worth subsidized financing.

jbump 9y ago

but also, if every single student majored in computer science, the market value of that degree would plummet. it's not like everyone will be rich if everyone does the same thing. also, a society without variety would be a sad thing.

Antimachides 9y ago

I agree students shouldn't be taking on the loans they do for worthless degrees but I'd like to add that 17/18 years old is just not old enough to (1) decide what you want to do for the rest of your life and (2) begin taking dozens of thousands of $ in bankruptcy-immune loans to pay for it. There's also the issue of the cost of college being an artificial grossly expensive racket. If the opportunity for moneyed interests to milk kids of every cent because of the kids' and parents' blind desire for collegiate status and opportunity then they will, because this is America.

RhysU 9y ago
American society indeed says 18-year-old adults can legally do these things. Are you advocating for 21 being again the age of formal adulthood?
- Antimachides 9y ago
  I'm just making an observation, not a prescription.

aylmao 9y ago

I agree, but I would say that's not the real problem here. Take the story in the article for example. My guess is that guy majored in English, and he did it because he understands it and likes it. That should be fine and enough because there is value in English; he's a teacher, he's definitely gonna produce a TON of value over his lifetime for society (and, discussion over fair wages for teachers aside, enough money). More than the $35k debt he graduated with. Or take the lady who has payed $63k towards her $8k original debt. The problem here is that the student loan debt market is structured such that this value won't actually pay the debt. If they tie you in with perpetual debt, they can essentially "tax" you for the rest of your life, and because student debt is some sort of exception, there's nothing you can do to default out of it. What corporation wouldn't take the incentive for this essentially free, steady monthly income?

jogjayr 9y ago

> I think schools should be required to press upon students prior to taking out these loans honest and factual statistics about their future job prospects, needs for advanced education, and the average graduates ability to pay back the loan. I think schools should be required to justify why imparting a gender studies education costs $100k. Apart from professor salaries (maybe $80k/yr for a public uni in a a major metro area) and classrooms/whiteboard markers/projectors (already paid for, but figure equivalent of $15k/year) what exactly is that money going toward? We in industry can also help by not valuing the university "name" so highly, and saying so loudly and often. If the job market was kinder to applicants from institutions of lesser-renown, we'd have fewer students willing to go into crazy debt to get into a prestigious school. I acknowledge that software is actually pretty good about this but other industries are not.