5 ms·

> Until you come to find out one of the college grads couldn’t get any employment and the one that did (with $100,000k+ in loans) So they should get their coll

> Until you come to find out one of the college grads couldn’t get any employment and the one that did (with $100,000k+ in loans) So they should get their college loans paid off by taxpayers that had nothing to do with their really really bad decision?

onion2k 7y ago
If the decision was based on government-backed advice like schools teaching "Everyone should have a degree!", and the government subsidising cheap loans for all then yes, obviously. It's a problem taxpayers created so it's a problem taxpayers should fix.
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
  It's still a really really bad decision to go to a $100,000 school over a $20,000 school
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It's a really bad decision to lend a kid $30k+ to obtain skills no one wants to pay for.
    - bluedevil2k 7y ago
      No, the person was lent $30k for the OPPORTUNITY to study anything they wanted, to become anything they wanted. The person CHOSE to obtain skills no one wants to pay for.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        My point is that the lender also made a bad decision.
        ChrisLomont 7y ago
        What lenders require you to list the classes you plan to take?
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I didn’t claim any lender did, just that it’s a bad idea to lend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to young people with no collateral and only a loose requirement to use it on “education”. No lender is actually stupid enough to do this, other than the US taxpayer.
        malandrew 7y ago
        Many US taxpayers aren't this stupid. The problem is that they need to contend with the votes of people who may or may not file taxes but still vote.
        ChrisLomont 7y ago
        The reason these loans can be made without collateral for the rates they are is the loans are not discharged easily. They’re still a benefit to both parties, because both gain from them on average. No one is stupid here. Stupidity would imply a net loss on one or both sides, which simply isn’t true.
      - onion2k 7y ago
        This is not a matter of people getting the wrong skills, or being bad at those skills, or anything to do with choices. If 200,000 kids go to university to get a particular degree and 4 years later enter a market recruiting 180,000 graduates with that degree then there's a problem, yet no individual made the wrong decision. The problem is about predicting the future job market, attrition rates at universities, and the over-supply of graduates as a whole. It's not simply people doing the wrong degrees. Putting all the blame on individuals for making bad choices shows a distinct problem of your understanding of the issue.
  - tuesdayrain 7y ago
    I would gladly pay an 80k premium to go to a more prestigious school if I had to choose. I'd bet that the increased lifetime earnings due to a better resume and better education would easily surpass 80k.
will_brown 7y ago
Well if you are going to frame it as taxpayers paying off the loans (I don’t necessarily agree with you framing it that way), then the taxpayers are also the ones that extended these guaranteed loans in the first place. So by your logic, yes taxpayers are responsible to the extent they are guaranteeing loans in the first place which is what allows the schools to charge artificial prices which the data shows can’t be repaid in millions of cases because the jobs and wages aren’t there. The article maybe just a few anecdotes but when the data amounts to 1M defaults a year, at what point are you going to stop complaing about the taxpayers having to make up for the bad decisions of 18 year old kids trying to better their future and question taxpayer funded loans allowing the runaway school costs in the first place?
- kazinator 7y ago
  > taxpayers are responsible Taxpayers have no choice: pay taxes or face fines / jail.
  - tarmon 7y ago
    Arguably taxpayers also get to choose who they vote for. You can argue about the effectiveness of the democratic process in the US but it feels a tad disingenuous to suggest we have no responsibilities in this system we are all apart of.
    - kazinator 7y ago
      A political ballot doesn't carry enough bits of information for you to express how you would like to see student loans administered, and every other thing you'd like to influence. In the first place, a government like that of the US is a massive bureaucracy, only a tiny fraction of which is actually elected. No matter who is elected, pretty much the same people will be administering student loans.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      Of all tax units filing income taxes, 76.4 million tax units pay no federal income taxes. That's 44.4% of all tax units. That's approximately 44.4% of potential votes by people who likely choose politicians that are spending the money of those who do pay taxes. And of those that pay income taxes, a few pay the disproportionate share of those taxes. So basically, many people who are tax filers but not tax payers are getting to choose who they vote for, but others are left shouldering all the tax responsibility for the bad policies of those politicians. These tax filers might be paying other taxes like state and local sales tax, but those taxes are pretty much all state and local and irrelevant when we are talking about federal loan programs. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-zero-or-negative-income-tax-liability-september-2018/t18-0128-tax-units https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-ze... * "A tax unit is an individual, or a married couple, that files a tax return or would file a tax return if their income were high enough, along with all dependents of that individual or married couple."
moate 7y ago
Yes.
yardie 7y ago
I'd just like to point out that when I was a student the university upgraded from a cafeteria to a foodhall (rated one of the best in the country), tore down old student dorms and replaced them with suites. And went into massive debt to pay for new buildings and renovate old ones. The students had no say in the matter and I'm sure if given the option would have preferred the old, paid for buildings. This was a state school of 30,000. The school and the state decided what tuition was going to be, not the students.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  My college did the same. Tore down the old library and built a new one that put all the books behind robo shelves. Built a new gym, several new dorms, a "student center", basically anything other than contributions to education. It's like they had a surplus of cash and had to find a way to spend it.
  - bluedevil2k 7y ago
    They have to spend a certain % of endowment funds every year (4% maybe) in order to maintain tax-free status.
    - yardie 7y ago
      Uh, why not simply give it to the students?
Frondo 7y ago
Yes, because letting them funnel their debt-servicing money back into useful parts of the economy (houses, cars, businesses, whatever!) would be a much better thing for the country as a whole than what they're doing now. This debt is a huge bottleneck on the economy; it's slowing things up for a huge part of the population, and for what? We're not better off as a people. We're not building a better country or future this way. The arguments I've seen in favor are all "they made a bad decision, they should live with it" or "I paid mine off, why should they get a free ride" or any number of variations on that sort of thing. I haven't seen a single argument that the student debt status quo is good or healthy for the country, or is getting us where we want to be as a people. Personally, I don't give a shit what stupid degree people got or how much student debt there or how hurt those who paid theirs off will feel; hurt feelings or resentment are no good basis for policy. This is a bad scene for the country and forgiving the student debt would improve things in so, so, so many ways; the trade-offs are absolutely 100% worth it.
- malandrew 7y ago
  > improve things Improve things for whom? Who is going to shoulder the disproportionate burden of forgiving all those loans?
  - amanaplanacanal 7y ago
    Uncle Sam.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      Uncle Sam is the US taxpayer, or more precisely, the minority of Americans paying most of the taxes.
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
  Using your argument, why not pay off everyone’s car notes too?

onion2k 7y ago

If the decision was based on government-backed advice like schools teaching "Everyone should have a degree!", and the government subsidising cheap loans for all then yes, obviously. It's a problem taxpayers created so it's a problem taxpayers should fix.

bluedevil2k 7y ago
It's still a really really bad decision to go to a $100,000 school over a $20,000 school
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It's a really bad decision to lend a kid $30k+ to obtain skills no one wants to pay for.
  - bluedevil2k 7y ago
    No, the person was lent $30k for the OPPORTUNITY to study anything they wanted, to become anything they wanted. The person CHOSE to obtain skills no one wants to pay for.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      My point is that the lender also made a bad decision.
      - ChrisLomont 7y ago
        What lenders require you to list the classes you plan to take?
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I didn’t claim any lender did, just that it’s a bad idea to lend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to young people with no collateral and only a loose requirement to use it on “education”. No lender is actually stupid enough to do this, other than the US taxpayer.
        malandrew 7y ago
        Many US taxpayers aren't this stupid. The problem is that they need to contend with the votes of people who may or may not file taxes but still vote.
        ChrisLomont 7y ago
        The reason these loans can be made without collateral for the rates they are is the loans are not discharged easily. They’re still a benefit to both parties, because both gain from them on average. No one is stupid here. Stupidity would imply a net loss on one or both sides, which simply isn’t true.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      This is not a matter of people getting the wrong skills, or being bad at those skills, or anything to do with choices. If 200,000 kids go to university to get a particular degree and 4 years later enter a market recruiting 180,000 graduates with that degree then there's a problem, yet no individual made the wrong decision. The problem is about predicting the future job market, attrition rates at universities, and the over-supply of graduates as a whole. It's not simply people doing the wrong degrees. Putting all the blame on individuals for making bad choices shows a distinct problem of your understanding of the issue.
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  I would gladly pay an 80k premium to go to a more prestigious school if I had to choose. I'd bet that the increased lifetime earnings due to a better resume and better education would easily surpass 80k.

will_brown 7y ago

Well if you are going to frame it as taxpayers paying off the loans (I don’t necessarily agree with you framing it that way), then the taxpayers are also the ones that extended these guaranteed loans in the first place. So by your logic, yes taxpayers are responsible to the extent they are guaranteeing loans in the first place which is what allows the schools to charge artificial prices which the data shows can’t be repaid in millions of cases because the jobs and wages aren’t there. The article maybe just a few anecdotes but when the data amounts to 1M defaults a year, at what point are you going to stop complaing about the taxpayers having to make up for the bad decisions of 18 year old kids trying to better their future and question taxpayer funded loans allowing the runaway school costs in the first place?

kazinator 7y ago
> taxpayers are responsible Taxpayers have no choice: pay taxes or face fines / jail.
- tarmon 7y ago
  Arguably taxpayers also get to choose who they vote for. You can argue about the effectiveness of the democratic process in the US but it feels a tad disingenuous to suggest we have no responsibilities in this system we are all apart of.
  - kazinator 7y ago
    A political ballot doesn't carry enough bits of information for you to express how you would like to see student loans administered, and every other thing you'd like to influence. In the first place, a government like that of the US is a massive bureaucracy, only a tiny fraction of which is actually elected. No matter who is elected, pretty much the same people will be administering student loans.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Of all tax units filing income taxes, 76.4 million tax units pay no federal income taxes. That's 44.4% of all tax units. That's approximately 44.4% of potential votes by people who likely choose politicians that are spending the money of those who do pay taxes. And of those that pay income taxes, a few pay the disproportionate share of those taxes. So basically, many people who are tax filers but not tax payers are getting to choose who they vote for, but others are left shouldering all the tax responsibility for the bad policies of those politicians. These tax filers might be paying other taxes like state and local sales tax, but those taxes are pretty much all state and local and irrelevant when we are talking about federal loan programs. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-zero-or-negative-income-tax-liability-september-2018/t18-0128-tax-units https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-ze... * "A tax unit is an individual, or a married couple, that files a tax return or would file a tax return if their income were high enough, along with all dependents of that individual or married couple."

moate 7y ago

Yes.

yardie 7y ago

I'd just like to point out that when I was a student the university upgraded from a cafeteria to a foodhall (rated one of the best in the country), tore down old student dorms and replaced them with suites. And went into massive debt to pay for new buildings and renovate old ones. The students had no say in the matter and I'm sure if given the option would have preferred the old, paid for buildings. This was a state school of 30,000. The school and the state decided what tuition was going to be, not the students.

JudgeWapner 7y ago
My college did the same. Tore down the old library and built a new one that put all the books behind robo shelves. Built a new gym, several new dorms, a "student center", basically anything other than contributions to education. It's like they had a surplus of cash and had to find a way to spend it.
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
  They have to spend a certain % of endowment funds every year (4% maybe) in order to maintain tax-free status.
  - yardie 7y ago
    Uh, why not simply give it to the students?

Frondo 7y ago

Yes, because letting them funnel their debt-servicing money back into useful parts of the economy (houses, cars, businesses, whatever!) would be a much better thing for the country as a whole than what they're doing now. This debt is a huge bottleneck on the economy; it's slowing things up for a huge part of the population, and for what? We're not better off as a people. We're not building a better country or future this way. The arguments I've seen in favor are all "they made a bad decision, they should live with it" or "I paid mine off, why should they get a free ride" or any number of variations on that sort of thing. I haven't seen a single argument that the student debt status quo is good or healthy for the country, or is getting us where we want to be as a people. Personally, I don't give a shit what stupid degree people got or how much student debt there or how hurt those who paid theirs off will feel; hurt feelings or resentment are no good basis for policy. This is a bad scene for the country and forgiving the student debt would improve things in so, so, so many ways; the trade-offs are absolutely 100% worth it.

malandrew 7y ago
> improve things Improve things for whom? Who is going to shoulder the disproportionate burden of forgiving all those loans?
- amanaplanacanal 7y ago
  Uncle Sam.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Uncle Sam is the US taxpayer, or more precisely, the minority of Americans paying most of the taxes.
bluedevil2k 7y ago
Using your argument, why not pay off everyone’s car notes too?