7 ms·

Nobody was forced into taking a large loan to get a worthless degree that is useless in the job market. Be glad for these people, may their mistakes and poor ju

Nobody was forced into taking a large loan to get a worthless degree that is useless in the job market. Be glad for these people, may their mistakes and poor judgement serve as an example so that others and their kids do not make the same ill-informed decisions.

fruzz 7y ago
I was 17 when I chose my undergrad. I got a degree in a field I didn't care about for the sole purpose of being employable. Then the 2008 recession wiped out entry-level mining and then oil sector jobs (my field). I jumped into software development, which I've been doing since. I don't have a degree in it but I make a good living. If your argument about a generation-wide problem involves blaming individuals, instead of looking at the wider factors that caused this outcome to be predictable, you're missing an opportunity to improve matters.
floatrock 7y ago
I'll take the troll bait. Ok, sure, but why did the loan officer approve it? Because student loans can't be shed off in bankruptcy, so it's guaranteed. What loan officer wouldn't approve such a loan? If we're going to blame the victim, let's also look at the market structures that allow it to happen in the first place. If the lender took on some of the risk instead of passing the buck to our modern-day debtor's prison, then these degrees wouldn't be fundable if they are as worthless as you suggest.
threwawasy1228 7y ago
It is easy to take potshots at people who got Art degrees, but what people never want to engage with is those who didn't do that. Investing 50-100k in a software degree may provide job-market-value and the ability to pay back the loan, but a huge loan is still a drain. A huge loan that was taken out to pursue a very economically viable career path still delays basic things like owning a home, marriage, children. The effect is more extreme on certain degrees than others, but that 60k still causes harm to the economy regardless.
- naravara 7y ago
  Also if all those English degrees went and got comp sci degrees, those comp sci degrees wouldn't be worth nearly as much in the market.
  - analog31 7y ago
    Those degrees are already worthless. That's why we have coding interviews.
- xibalba 7y ago
  But that $60k has to come from somewhere, right? So what we're really talking about is where to shift that burden. Who pays? And regardless of who is paying, society just doesn't value liberal arts degrees.
  - threwawasy1228 7y ago
    The 60k comes from the loan officers, who work for institutions that are regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. And after you have graduated, your loan servicer is assigned to you by the the DoE, you don't get to pick that either. So the burden to pay is on the voters who voted to put this system in place, and those who continue to keep it in place by not voting for politicians that provide alternatives.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Who benefits most from having an educated workforce and a rich market? Company owners, aka rich people. It makes sense to me that taxes on the rich should pay for most of it.
mullingitover 7y ago
The loans are foisted on people who aren't even trusted with the decision of whether or not to drink alcohol. It's predatory, and at the same time the cost of education has absolutely skyrocketed. Baby boomers could emerge debt free from college with a minimum wage job. If they ended up with loans they couldn't afford, they could declare bankruptcy. The baby boom generation pulled up the ladder behind them, and is now pouring boiling oil down on the generation trying to catch up.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  Baby boomers didn't cut school funding. Gen X did.
vanilla_nut 7y ago
While I agree with some of this, few of these people are fully responsible for their situation. Anyone born after the year 1980 or so has been force-fed the "go to college" meme so much that it's difficult to imagine any alternative. Ask millions of not-yet-fully-developed brains to choose between "go to a college, make new friends, get away from mom and dad" and "start working a minimum wage job and get your own cheap place" and you will likely have few takers of the minimum wage option. The real problem here is that the colleges responsible for high tuitions (thus high debt for graduates) and useless degrees are not held responsible for the outcomes of the educations they confer. Because the government guarantees many of these loans for students, we're effectively handing out money to anybody who asks for it -- at the expense of a potential entire life spent in debt if you choose poorly or even sub-optimally. It's hard to be glad that these people are suffering under high debt loads when you realize that we will all be affected. When they retire with no savings and pull money from the system funded by taxes on your income and investments, you will likely not be happy. No man is an island and all of us are affected by macro-trends like this.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  Why is it better for taxpayers to pay off their loans now instead of waiting to see if they retire penniless?
- nradov 7y ago
  Colleges need to have some skin in the game. Lenders should require that colleges pay out at least a small percentage of the loss when borrowers default. And instead of a single flat interest rate for all student borrowers, actuaries should set interest rates based on the school and major. So students entering programs that produce a lot of defaulters would pay higher rates. That would provide a clear market signal indicating we have a surplus of people with that education, and encourage students to look at other options.
- bobloblaw45 7y ago
  I remember high school in the 90s. Basically if you had 2 braincells to rub together you were dissuaded from even considering the military and even trade related classes. I didn't even know apprenticeships were even a thing in the US until well into my 20s because nobody ever told you about it unless you had family that was a tradesman. The really sad thing was that there was a lot of push for lower class kids to go to college which means taking out loans. I was a part of a program for first generation college bound kids (basically lower class) and they spent some time helping us apply for scholarships and grants but everyone knew it was pretty much not a sure thing and that we'll all most likely resort to loans. Also I feel the explosion in for-profit colleges in the 2000's were largely due to the easy access to loan money. I had it bad but these kids that fell for the for-profits had it worse.
fiveoak 7y ago
It's easy to say that but kids (yes, kids) that are age 17 aren't really the best equipped to make great life altering decisions in the first place. People fuck up all the time and our response as a society shouldn't be "well, too bad" because 1) that's a terrible way to treat other people 2) if a ton of people are bankrupt due to student loan payments it WILL affect you indirectly, and potentially your own children/family members/friends I'm not sure of a great solution and it's way outside my knowledge/expertise but ignoring the issue and basically just saying "should have got a STEM degree idiot" isn't good for society
- bufferoverflow 7y ago
  So if you're not ready to take on responsibility of a large loan, maybe don't take one out, wait a few years, research the market, maybe work some jobs that don't require a college degree. And seriously, figuring out which degrees pay takes literally one google search. A 17-year-old can easily do that.
  - autotune 7y ago
    Maybe go to community college for a bit as an alternative and figure out if it's right for you before taking out a large loan.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Most middle class kids coming out of school see college as an extension of the education required to compete in the market - they're also told that trade schools are a rip off and community college is for underachievers, so they end up diving into university before giving that option any real critical examination. I imagine upper class kids just get their education bank-rolled by their parents so who cares. And I didn't live the life of a lower class kid (my family was middle or lower middle) so I can't speak to their experience - but that middle class suburbanite definitely isn't going to get a check from their parents to cover their full schooling.
      - 7y ago
freehunter 7y ago
When I was 15/16 years old I was promised by adults I trusted (teachers, principal, parents, family members, speakers at my school) that if I got a college degree I would be guaranteed a good paying job when I got done. At 15/16/17 years old, you are a child and you follow the advice and leadership of adults. In my senior year of high school, my parents started taking out loans in my name (called a Parent Plus loan) to pay for my college. Could I have refused? Yes, but remember I had been promised by every adult that I needed this to get a job. "A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma" I remember being told over and over [1] [2]. If you don't want to work at McDonalds, you have to get a degree. So yeah, no one put a gun to my head and forced me to take on student loan debt. Instead they put poverty to my head and threatened that I would sleep in my car and work for minimum wage if I didn't. When you are a child and the adults tell you this is what you need to do for your future, you listen. What you're doing is blaming children for the bad advice their parents and mentors gave them. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-the-college-degree-has-become-the-new-high-school-degree/2014/09/08/e935b68c-378a-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-th... [2] http://www.msnbc.com/jansing-co/college-degrees-are-becoming-the-new-high-sch http://www.msnbc.com/jansing-co/college-degrees-are-becoming...
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  What college did you go to? Public or private? In state or out? Community or state? What was your major field of study in college? Why would you be homeless if your parents have a home with a room for you? How old are you? The student debt crisis is 20 years old already. If it's your parents' fault, take their money to pay back the loan. What's your parents' excuse for taking out large bad loans?
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Again with blaming children for the bad advice and mentoring that their parents gave them. Absolutely none of those questions mean anything if you're a 15 year old and your parents say "time to start looking for colleges!" We know now, as adults, looking back and seeing that it was a bad idea. But 10-15-20 years ago when your parents told you it was time to go to college and you'd be homeless without a degree, you, as a child, listen to them.
munk-a 7y ago
I actually believe that society today has enough wealth that we can allow people to pursue both their vocation and their interests - I don't think people need to go to college to learn their trade (out of a few specific fields). Instead they benefit from that learning by living a more fulfilling life - and, sneakily, they also end up developing their soft skills quite a bit and soft skill proficiency is classically what has allowed American labour to retain it's value.
bitlax 7y ago
Sure. Just as long as you agree that the loans should be dischargable in bankruptcy. The lenders here should also bear the consequences of making a poorly thought out contract.
diob 7y ago
Even people with "nonworthless" degrees that get hired have a hard time paying off their debt. I was lucky enough to get out of college without debt and into my engineering job. The way we educate children in school is predatory when it comes to college and loans. We tell them to follow their dreams and that they must go to college. Of course you're going to have 18 year olds (who we know aren't fully developed until 25, who've been conditioned through schooling / society, etc.) make choices that turn out to be wrong in the long run. For some reason, the older generations of our country (along with many others I would say) have decided they would rather eat their young. None of this is an accident. It's to fund someone's luxurious lifestyle or retirement. Why build housing when we can force the next generations to rent from us until they die? Why have healthcare when we can use that to drain the accounts of any cancer stricken family who might have some actual savings built up? (healthcare related bankruptcies are staggeringly high in the USA) All these things make someone richer. And if it's not you, you should probably be questioning why our country is making these decisions. They aren't the only decision we can make, other countries have proven that. Empathy is hard. Sometimes people can't imagine the viewpoints on these things until someone in their family experiences it (gets cancer, loses their job, etc.). I guess I would say, realize that no one is trying to get into these bad situations where they can't pay off their loans. They didn't wake up at 18 years old and say: "By golly, I sure would like to be hating my life in 10 years." They had hopes, they had aspirations, they had extenuating circumstances and a childhood that was different from our own. The point is, almost no one sets out to make their life awful. Life happens.
RandomInteger4 7y ago
Why do you people always assume that the degree we chose to pursue was useless? I chose to pursue Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. I had to leave school prior to completion due to financial circumstances beyond my control at that time and have been unable to get my foot in the door without a degree since then.

fruzz 7y ago

I was 17 when I chose my undergrad. I got a degree in a field I didn't care about for the sole purpose of being employable. Then the 2008 recession wiped out entry-level mining and then oil sector jobs (my field). I jumped into software development, which I've been doing since. I don't have a degree in it but I make a good living. If your argument about a generation-wide problem involves blaming individuals, instead of looking at the wider factors that caused this outcome to be predictable, you're missing an opportunity to improve matters.

floatrock 7y ago

I'll take the troll bait. Ok, sure, but why did the loan officer approve it? Because student loans can't be shed off in bankruptcy, so it's guaranteed. What loan officer wouldn't approve such a loan? If we're going to blame the victim, let's also look at the market structures that allow it to happen in the first place. If the lender took on some of the risk instead of passing the buck to our modern-day debtor's prison, then these degrees wouldn't be fundable if they are as worthless as you suggest.

threwawasy1228 7y ago

It is easy to take potshots at people who got Art degrees, but what people never want to engage with is those who didn't do that. Investing 50-100k in a software degree may provide job-market-value and the ability to pay back the loan, but a huge loan is still a drain. A huge loan that was taken out to pursue a very economically viable career path still delays basic things like owning a home, marriage, children. The effect is more extreme on certain degrees than others, but that 60k still causes harm to the economy regardless.

naravara 7y ago
Also if all those English degrees went and got comp sci degrees, those comp sci degrees wouldn't be worth nearly as much in the market.
- analog31 7y ago
  Those degrees are already worthless. That's why we have coding interviews.
xibalba 7y ago
But that $60k has to come from somewhere, right? So what we're really talking about is where to shift that burden. Who pays? And regardless of who is paying, society just doesn't value liberal arts degrees.
- threwawasy1228 7y ago
  The 60k comes from the loan officers, who work for institutions that are regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. And after you have graduated, your loan servicer is assigned to you by the the DoE, you don't get to pick that either. So the burden to pay is on the voters who voted to put this system in place, and those who continue to keep it in place by not voting for politicians that provide alternatives.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Who benefits most from having an educated workforce and a rich market? Company owners, aka rich people. It makes sense to me that taxes on the rich should pay for most of it.

mullingitover 7y ago

The loans are foisted on people who aren't even trusted with the decision of whether or not to drink alcohol. It's predatory, and at the same time the cost of education has absolutely skyrocketed. Baby boomers could emerge debt free from college with a minimum wage job. If they ended up with loans they couldn't afford, they could declare bankruptcy. The baby boom generation pulled up the ladder behind them, and is now pouring boiling oil down on the generation trying to catch up.

fjsolwmv 7y ago
Baby boomers didn't cut school funding. Gen X did.

vanilla_nut 7y ago

While I agree with some of this, few of these people are fully responsible for their situation. Anyone born after the year 1980 or so has been force-fed the "go to college" meme so much that it's difficult to imagine any alternative. Ask millions of not-yet-fully-developed brains to choose between "go to a college, make new friends, get away from mom and dad" and "start working a minimum wage job and get your own cheap place" and you will likely have few takers of the minimum wage option. The real problem here is that the colleges responsible for high tuitions (thus high debt for graduates) and useless degrees are not held responsible for the outcomes of the educations they confer. Because the government guarantees many of these loans for students, we're effectively handing out money to anybody who asks for it -- at the expense of a potential entire life spent in debt if you choose poorly or even sub-optimally. It's hard to be glad that these people are suffering under high debt loads when you realize that we will all be affected. When they retire with no savings and pull money from the system funded by taxes on your income and investments, you will likely not be happy. No man is an island and all of us are affected by macro-trends like this.

fjsolwmv 7y ago
Why is it better for taxpayers to pay off their loans now instead of waiting to see if they retire penniless?
nradov 7y ago
Colleges need to have some skin in the game. Lenders should require that colleges pay out at least a small percentage of the loss when borrowers default. And instead of a single flat interest rate for all student borrowers, actuaries should set interest rates based on the school and major. So students entering programs that produce a lot of defaulters would pay higher rates. That would provide a clear market signal indicating we have a surplus of people with that education, and encourage students to look at other options.
bobloblaw45 7y ago
I remember high school in the 90s. Basically if you had 2 braincells to rub together you were dissuaded from even considering the military and even trade related classes. I didn't even know apprenticeships were even a thing in the US until well into my 20s because nobody ever told you about it unless you had family that was a tradesman. The really sad thing was that there was a lot of push for lower class kids to go to college which means taking out loans. I was a part of a program for first generation college bound kids (basically lower class) and they spent some time helping us apply for scholarships and grants but everyone knew it was pretty much not a sure thing and that we'll all most likely resort to loans. Also I feel the explosion in for-profit colleges in the 2000's were largely due to the easy access to loan money. I had it bad but these kids that fell for the for-profits had it worse.

fiveoak 7y ago

It's easy to say that but kids (yes, kids) that are age 17 aren't really the best equipped to make great life altering decisions in the first place. People fuck up all the time and our response as a society shouldn't be "well, too bad" because 1) that's a terrible way to treat other people 2) if a ton of people are bankrupt due to student loan payments it WILL affect you indirectly, and potentially your own children/family members/friends I'm not sure of a great solution and it's way outside my knowledge/expertise but ignoring the issue and basically just saying "should have got a STEM degree idiot" isn't good for society

bufferoverflow 7y ago
So if you're not ready to take on responsibility of a large loan, maybe don't take one out, wait a few years, research the market, maybe work some jobs that don't require a college degree. And seriously, figuring out which degrees pay takes literally one google search. A 17-year-old can easily do that.
- autotune 7y ago
  Maybe go to community college for a bit as an alternative and figure out if it's right for you before taking out a large loan.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Most middle class kids coming out of school see college as an extension of the education required to compete in the market - they're also told that trade schools are a rip off and community college is for underachievers, so they end up diving into university before giving that option any real critical examination. I imagine upper class kids just get their education bank-rolled by their parents so who cares. And I didn't live the life of a lower class kid (my family was middle or lower middle) so I can't speak to their experience - but that middle class suburbanite definitely isn't going to get a check from their parents to cover their full schooling.
    - 7y ago

freehunter 7y ago

When I was 15/16 years old I was promised by adults I trusted (teachers, principal, parents, family members, speakers at my school) that if I got a college degree I would be guaranteed a good paying job when I got done. At 15/16/17 years old, you are a child and you follow the advice and leadership of adults. In my senior year of high school, my parents started taking out loans in my name (called a Parent Plus loan) to pay for my college. Could I have refused? Yes, but remember I had been promised by every adult that I needed this to get a job. "A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma" I remember being told over and over [1] [2]. If you don't want to work at McDonalds, you have to get a degree. So yeah, no one put a gun to my head and forced me to take on student loan debt. Instead they put poverty to my head and threatened that I would sleep in my car and work for minimum wage if I didn't. When you are a child and the adults tell you this is what you need to do for your future, you listen. What you're doing is blaming children for the bad advice their parents and mentors gave them. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-the-college-degree-has-become-the-new-high-school-degree/2014/09/08/e935b68c-378a-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-th... [2] http://www.msnbc.com/jansing-co/college-degrees-are-becoming-the-new-high-sch http://www.msnbc.com/jansing-co/college-degrees-are-becoming...

fjsolwmv 7y ago
What college did you go to? Public or private? In state or out? Community or state? What was your major field of study in college? Why would you be homeless if your parents have a home with a room for you? How old are you? The student debt crisis is 20 years old already. If it's your parents' fault, take their money to pay back the loan. What's your parents' excuse for taking out large bad loans?
- freehunter 7y ago
  Again with blaming children for the bad advice and mentoring that their parents gave them. Absolutely none of those questions mean anything if you're a 15 year old and your parents say "time to start looking for colleges!" We know now, as adults, looking back and seeing that it was a bad idea. But 10-15-20 years ago when your parents told you it was time to go to college and you'd be homeless without a degree, you, as a child, listen to them.

munk-a 7y ago

I actually believe that society today has enough wealth that we can allow people to pursue both their vocation and their interests - I don't think people need to go to college to learn their trade (out of a few specific fields). Instead they benefit from that learning by living a more fulfilling life - and, sneakily, they also end up developing their soft skills quite a bit and soft skill proficiency is classically what has allowed American labour to retain it's value.

bitlax 7y ago

Sure. Just as long as you agree that the loans should be dischargable in bankruptcy. The lenders here should also bear the consequences of making a poorly thought out contract.

diob 7y ago

Even people with "nonworthless" degrees that get hired have a hard time paying off their debt. I was lucky enough to get out of college without debt and into my engineering job. The way we educate children in school is predatory when it comes to college and loans. We tell them to follow their dreams and that they must go to college. Of course you're going to have 18 year olds (who we know aren't fully developed until 25, who've been conditioned through schooling / society, etc.) make choices that turn out to be wrong in the long run. For some reason, the older generations of our country (along with many others I would say) have decided they would rather eat their young. None of this is an accident. It's to fund someone's luxurious lifestyle or retirement. Why build housing when we can force the next generations to rent from us until they die? Why have healthcare when we can use that to drain the accounts of any cancer stricken family who might have some actual savings built up? (healthcare related bankruptcies are staggeringly high in the USA) All these things make someone richer. And if it's not you, you should probably be questioning why our country is making these decisions. They aren't the only decision we can make, other countries have proven that. Empathy is hard. Sometimes people can't imagine the viewpoints on these things until someone in their family experiences it (gets cancer, loses their job, etc.). I guess I would say, realize that no one is trying to get into these bad situations where they can't pay off their loans. They didn't wake up at 18 years old and say: "By golly, I sure would like to be hating my life in 10 years." They had hopes, they had aspirations, they had extenuating circumstances and a childhood that was different from our own. The point is, almost no one sets out to make their life awful. Life happens.

RandomInteger4 7y ago

Why do you people always assume that the degree we chose to pursue was useless? I chose to pursue Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. I had to leave school prior to completion due to financial circumstances beyond my control at that time and have been unable to get my foot in the door without a degree since then.