3 ms·

Some people feel that the best societal arrangement is to let the people who benefit from an optional activity figure out how to pay for that activity on their

Some people feel that the best societal arrangement is to let the people who benefit from an optional activity figure out how to pay for that activity on their own. I mean, if people can't seem to figure out how to avoid becoming indentured servants simply because they refuse to be economically productive and live frugally during the 4-6 years of college, how is the answer to just give them more of an ability to use resources without thinking about the consequences? The real problem in the U.S. is that bankruptcy protection does not apply to student loan debt. Change that and the problem goes away.

dv_dt 8y ago
I feel that societal shared loading for university education makes the most sense. Individual loading doesn't help anything about practical independence in our society, while making us all poorer for no social benefit. Bankruptcy protection is a problem, but even if you fix that, significant problems remain. Let me explain: You significantly retard your own economy by weighting all new university grads with significant payments. If as soon as they graduate, some portion of their earnings starts going to repay loans, it's either slowing the flow of money into the economy (if not being spent), or taking money from possible retirement savings growth of that grad. Society and our economy also loses out on not educating sharp people with leading edge knowledge. So by creating this front end debt load, some very sharp people might be unable to take the debt, or others will avoid it, but held back by self-learning things that they could have picked up faster or more comprehensively at university. Societally, productivity is higher with a more educated labor force: https://www.epi.org/publication/states-education-productivity-growth-foundations/ https://www.epi.org/publication/states-education-productivit...
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  The cost of college in the US is not a limiting factor for the types of people who would succeed in college. If somebody is intelligent and not going to college, there is something else at play and it’s not at all clear to me that making college free would fix those kinds of problems. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are poorly suited to college who would probably attend if it, as well as room and board, were free. After all, what irresponsible 18yo wouldn’t take free room and board in exchange for half-assing some classes. The community college system in the US is actually a pretty good way to figure out which students on the margins are actually able to succeed in an academic setting. All without requiring that taxpayers pay for for room & board. And regarding the economic aspects: it shouldn’t matter who pays for college or when they pay. The same amount of economic activity is happening.
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    Free tuition, low cost rent and board. There are many serious economic effects of individual loading of debt for education: $100 dollars saved for retirement in your 20's goes much much farther then $100 saved in your 40's when many will maybe end up paying off their loans... Lets see how those loans interact with the economy in the next recession.

dv_dt 8y ago

I feel that societal shared loading for university education makes the most sense. Individual loading doesn't help anything about practical independence in our society, while making us all poorer for no social benefit. Bankruptcy protection is a problem, but even if you fix that, significant problems remain. Let me explain: You significantly retard your own economy by weighting all new university grads with significant payments. If as soon as they graduate, some portion of their earnings starts going to repay loans, it's either slowing the flow of money into the economy (if not being spent), or taking money from possible retirement savings growth of that grad. Society and our economy also loses out on not educating sharp people with leading edge knowledge. So by creating this front end debt load, some very sharp people might be unable to take the debt, or others will avoid it, but held back by self-learning things that they could have picked up faster or more comprehensively at university. Societally, productivity is higher with a more educated labor force: https://www.epi.org/publication/states-education-productivity-growth-foundations/ https://www.epi.org/publication/states-education-productivit...

toasterlovin 8y ago
The cost of college in the US is not a limiting factor for the types of people who would succeed in college. If somebody is intelligent and not going to college, there is something else at play and it’s not at all clear to me that making college free would fix those kinds of problems. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are poorly suited to college who would probably attend if it, as well as room and board, were free. After all, what irresponsible 18yo wouldn’t take free room and board in exchange for half-assing some classes. The community college system in the US is actually a pretty good way to figure out which students on the margins are actually able to succeed in an academic setting. All without requiring that taxpayers pay for for room & board. And regarding the economic aspects: it shouldn’t matter who pays for college or when they pay. The same amount of economic activity is happening.
- dv_dt 8y ago
  Free tuition, low cost rent and board. There are many serious economic effects of individual loading of debt for education: $100 dollars saved for retirement in your 20's goes much much farther then $100 saved in your 40's when many will maybe end up paying off their loans... Lets see how those loans interact with the economy in the next recession.