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And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing

by hajile 7y ago

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll be in demand and getting a decent wage. Banks understand this fact and will do the math to give a loan anyway. Some of my kids seem like they enjoy academics, but others do not. I'll be pushing the latter toward trade school. Average IBEW (electrical union) pay is about $20/hr for an apprentice and $33 for a journeyman. $40,000 to $66,000 with ZERO DEBT right out the gate is nothing to ignore (and that pay can easily double -- especially in your younger years -- if you're willing to travel and put in those extra hours). It sure beats minimum wage at a crappy service job.

mmmBacon 7y ago
Additionally student loans should be something you can refinance. When I took out loans in the early 90s, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans were about 8%. As interest rates dropped during the course of my education, I was locked into that interest rate and the only way to get a lower rate on those high interest early loans was to consolidate loans. Loan consolidation doesn’t get you a market rate new interest rate instead you get the average of the 2 interest rates.
- teddyc 7y ago
  My student loans have auto re-financed to lower interest rates with no action on my part. But I got them in the 00's, maybe the rules changed.
newguy1234 7y ago
Military is also a good option to college, especially if your specialty is a skilled trade. My brother did this straight out of high school. Spent a few years overseas and then eventually changed his specialty to biomedical equipment repair. When he left the service he made 60k/year and after 5 years he is at 125k/year. Also when you are in the service, you are getting paid and if you are overseas, all your bills are paid too. He never had any student loans ever or school expenses. When he was young he just saved most of his money....most of which has doubled or tripled in value due to how good the stock market has been.
- mnm1 7y ago
  Yeah, but you're gambling that you will survive and that you will survive intact. A life full of PTSD or without legs or arms or eyes isn't worth a million a year, let alone $60 to $125k. Then there's the very real possibility of dying. Not to mention the high risk of suicide afterwards. Given those risks, I can't see how the military is a good option.
  - jki275 7y ago
    Extremely low probability of any of those happening. Besides, military service changes you. It gives you perspective you will never get anywhere else.
    - mnm1 7y ago
      Maybe the percentage is low but it's still plenty high to be a deterrent and much, much higher than at any educational institution and most jobs. You bring up another excellent reason to avoid military service. I'm sure there are plenty more.
    - standardUser 7y ago
      Extremely high probability compared to any other developed nation. The US fights foreign wars with alarming regularity, We are currently fighting several.
      - jki275 7y ago
        That’s because other developed nations barely have militaries. Of those who actually do and deploy and do the things we do the numbers are probably about the same - very low.
    - btilly 7y ago
      I have 3 nephews who served in the military. 2 have PTSD, one severe. The one with severe PTSD also got to spend 6 months in a hospital after being shot out of the air in a conflict that we are theoretically not involved in. Given their other options, military service might have been a good thing. But the odds of PTSD or injury are much, much higher than I would like.
penagwin 7y ago
I struggled with college and don't know if I'll be returning... I made it over a third of the way to a CS degree but had to take a break from school. I got a job while in college as a programmer - and work full time making around the 50k range. I feel that I self taught myself the necessary technical skills for my job, and that the biggest places for self improvement aren't acedimic but business/relationship related. I have less then 5k in school debt left, and I already have the job I wanted, my only fear is when I eventually look for a new job, how well they'll consider me without a degree. I strongly feel my technical skills are at least up to par, meanwhile in school I watched classmates copy answers off YouTube...
- shantly 7y ago
  1) look into transferring your credit while it's still good (it can expire) to some place with a fairly cheap online CS program. Most degree programs, including most CS degree programs, are the "do the work, get the degree sort", not the (good) kind that'll run you ragged trying to do 20 hours of math and algo homework a week or whatever, so you can knock them out about the same speed as normal as long as you use the Summer sessions (you'll still have tons of weeks a year without any classes). No one who isn't already (more or less) filtering out non-top-tier school graduates cares where you got your degree or how rigorous the program was, unless the interviewer happened to go there—they aren't getting many candidates from top-tier schools, even at pay much higher than $50k, so they can't be that picky. Just sit down and force yourself to do whatever school work you have for the day before doing anything else, after work. Most days it likely won't really be that much. Every now and then you'll have a 3-hour night of school stuff. 2) make sure the program you're transferring to accepts a bunch of CLEP tests for credit and then pass those for anything you haven't already taken that qualifies—a book, a couple weekends of hard study, and a (relatively) cheap test beats paying for a class and taking all that time. These will mostly be 100-level courses, including and especially "gen ed" classes. Maybe you don't have any of those left, but if you do, CLEP right the hell out of them. If you can get it cheap enough IMO it's definitely worth some money and some effort not to have questions about why you didn't go to or finish college, in interviews. If nothing else the confidence not having that stuff come up gives you frees you to ask for higher salaries. One 20k bump (not a crazy number for a jump with one job move, if you're at 50k, even if you're in like a 3rd- or 4th-rate city for tech) that otherwise would have taken a couple years longer to achieve, and that degree's a hell of a long way toward paying for itself. You could probably have one in under 3 years, maybe around 2, without taking on too much stress. [EDIT] oh and ask your employer to chip in for tuition. Can't hurt to ask.
david38 7y ago
This. Pushing college the way we do helps to stigmatize the trades. Why don’t we push the trades? We give the impression they are “lesser”.
- smnrchrds 7y ago
  I have a feeling that trades are paying well because a generation of pushing people away from trades has created a shortage. Now that people are rediscovering this career path and just do trades is becoming (and in some circles has become) the new de facto advice, the generation who all go to trades will have the same issues as the generation who all went to college: stagnating wages, insufficient opportunities, increasing difficulty of getting your foot in the door, etc. Trades aren't easier to get in and better paid because of their inherent characteristics. The supply and demand in the market has made them so. The new generation of advice is going to change the supply side. I am not sure if the advice is going to be valid for the rest of a young person's career should they choose this path. We have already done this once before with just go to college.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  The people who work in the trades are pushing their children away from the trades. (An example is the recent HN post on Chinese restaurants closing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21871240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21871240) The hours can be long, the manual labor is hard, and the conditions are often harsh.
- JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
  I may live in a bubble in this scenario growing up with parents and their friends that did painting/contracting/electrical/plumbing/flooring/etc. but I don't ever hear them as stigmatized. I think a lot of people have a real solid view of these jobs; Physically demanding with low top end rewards. Few people go into those jobs or unions and make 200k a year. People def make a livable wage, but it's very demanding work physically. I have a friends that do flooring and roofing and they absolutely pay the bills but they are hurting and only just approaching 30. They have months where they have tons of work, and months where they have no work at all. So while these jobs beat entry level roles and service jobs paying 15 an hour if you're luck, they don't hold the same value as being a lawyer or a doctor or like many of us here, an engineer. My back hurts because I have bad posture and sit all day, not because I was lifting hundreds of pounds of shit all day. And my salary is higher than my buddy that is high up in his union stopping OSHA violations. Support trades, they are valuable and important. But I don't think we should praise them as the best path to securing your future. They are jobs just like any other with their own risks and rewards.
kxyvr 7y ago
I will contend that this is not the core problem, but an auxiliary one forced by the states themselves. The primary source of funding for universities is the state, which makes sense because universities rely on local infrastructure and respond to local needs. Depending on the size of the university, they can essentially be a small city within a city. At the same time, the amount of money invested in universities has dropped dramatically: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost-decade-in-higher-education-funding https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost-de... In order to stay solvent as institutions, the universities raise tuition, which is then enabled by student loans. My point isn't that student loans are blameless. They certainly are. In addition, there's a lot of blame that can be levied at the universities themselves for wasteful spending, but this itself is complicated due to donations being contingent on particular projects or buildings and competition between the universities to attract students who often choose a school based on how awesome the quad is. However, at its core, if a state like Arizona reduces its per student spending by over 50%, how is university supposed to stay solvent without dramatically raising tuition? None of this helps the family in the article. I think they did the right thing. I wish more people would hold the states accountable rather than first blaming students loans.
- mnm1 7y ago
  State institutions are only part of the picture and not the worst part. This might explain why they've raised their tuitions but it doesn't explain why private institutions have done so even more aggressively. It's definitely the easy, guaranteed money from student loans.
  - kxyvr 7y ago
    Yes and no. Higher public tuition costs allow private entities to raise their tuition as well. While it depends on the college, I contend that most private colleges are not competing on cost. Schools like Harvard and Duke use price as a way to convey prestige, so they need to remain higher priced than their public counterparts. Schools like University of Phoenix compete on convenience, but if everyone else is charging higher tuition, then they can justify even higher tuition costs as well since everyone else is doing it and this new price is the de facto standard. Now, I agree that the Feds need to cut back on loans in order to put pressure on the states to reduce their tuition costs. Essentially, the student loan system allows the states to receive free federal money by using students as the vessel of that transaction. I find that morally wrong. At the same time, there are a huge number of students who need some kind of loan to pay for college. I believe it to also be morally wrong to create a system where only those of means can enjoy public education. If the states adequately funded their universities, the universities held their tuition costs down, and either the state or the feds provided loans, then this wouldn't be an issue. However, this requires all of these institutions to agree on the principles of access to education and this isn't happening. I don't know how to fix this. If the Feds eliminated their loan and grant programs, I personally believe that tuition costs would go down or stabilize because a large-section of the population would not be able to afford the current prices, so the universities would be forced to reduce tuition. This would benefit middle class families who have saved for education. I also believe this would prevent low income families from attending college and I'm not fine with this prospect.
honkycat 7y ago
I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growing up. But then I grew up, and now I am a pretty successful computer programmer making a lot more than that, for way better perks and less dangerous, damaging work. You can make that kind of money as a manager at Walmart and you do not run the risk of getting your arm fried off or falling off a telephone pole. And where does a few years as an electrician leave you if you don't end up liking the career? "Sorry son, the internet told me trades were a good idea. Maybe go back to school now that you are an adult with a family?" Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  > Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    My wife went to art school and is (somewhat embarrassing to me) supporting our family with her job at Amazon while I (a CS PhD) am looking for work. We even qualify for a mortgage with her income. (Lesson: UX designers are as important as programmers)
    - seibelj 7y ago
      That’s surprising to me. Why is it so hard to find a job with your CS PhD? Are you trying to get a specific research-oriented job?
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
NPMaxwell 7y ago
The issue with bankruptcy is not "excluding" students from bankruptcy. It's applying bankruptcy law fairly to every debtor.
lsc 7y ago
>Some of my kids seem like they enjoy academics, but others do not. I'll be pushing the latter toward trade school. Average IBEW (electrical union) pay is about $20/hr for an apprentice and $33 for a journeyman. $40,000 to $66,000 with ZERO DEBT right out the gate is nothing to ignore (and that pay can easily double -- especially in your younger years -- if you're willing to travel and put in those extra hours). It sure beats minimum wage at a crappy service job. so, uh, I guess I'm the modern equivalent of those trades. I mean, I don't have a union, but I fix computers and make a whole lot of money doing it, without any education. It is a lot like a trade, 'cause essentially I'm infrastructure for industry. I mean, instead of maintaining electricity at a factory, I'm maintaining servers in a build farm, but it's still infrastructure. On the individual level you have a point. I mean, as a sysadmin, I do make like 30% less than a SWE, but I still make a whole lot of money, and I started when I was 17. On a societal level, though? when you don't have a degree, the amount you make is dramatically dependent on how productive the people around you are. Because I live in silicon valley and manage infrastructure for (mostly highly educated) engineers who are incredibly productive, I make a lot of money. A huge amount for someone who isn't educated or born rich. If I was in a rural area, I'd be fighting for a job at geeksquad. I mean, I'd handily win that fight, but if I'm maintaining infrastructure for people who aren't very productive, I'm going to make... not very much money. My point here is that if the US continues this trend of not educating it's children and excluding foreign educated people? Jobs like mine, for uneducated maintainers of infrastructure follow the jobs for the more productive people. If those people start working from china? They're probably gonna go find locals to do my job. What I'm saying is that it is very much in my interest to do what needs to be done (mostly, I think, pay taxes) to see to it that kids go to college, even if I don't have any children of my own.
- hajile 7y ago
  College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in childhood. Unfortunately, dollars spent on early education don't seem to have much of a correlation with success later in life.
  - 7y ago
pastor_elm 7y ago
>If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll be in demand and getting a decent wage. Banks understand this fact and will do the math to give a loan anyway. Why doesn't it make economic sense to declare bankruptcy in any situation, even if you're a CS major from Stanford, at 22 when you have nothing if you've got a loan in the six figures and IF you're allowed to do so, which is what you're implying (loans that aren't guaranteed)?
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Peter Schiff has a great video on YouTube about how these “well intentioned” subsidies have done the opposite and have inflated the price of college in the last few decades. It should be cheaper now due to economies of scale, computers, etc. Not when the government is involved.
fhostghost1989 7y ago
Trades. What a pile of crap. Trades went to hell in 90’s with global trade. I have 6 trades now anyone with half a brain can babysitting operators and facilities. Service is same pile of steaming horse crap. Skill level went from about a 7 to a 3 all across the board. School is a cash grab ,training is high school at best. Manufacturing or servicing or doing what. Only tech that matters China is doing. Quantum computers graphene tech or AI what. Capitalism is on its way out. Making junk for pennies and selling it for hundreds. People are waking up. Cars are made for 3000 sold for 25000. Phones 125 sold 1450. Most of the trash made is just that garbage. Cant upgrade it cant do anything with it but toss it which created the mess we are in now. Innovation change and time to take it all back. That is the future to clean the earth not destroyed to unite in a goal to advance for all life not just to make a few hundred thousands mega rich. Education is needed. Control over everyone by keeping ppl uneducated and busy working so they cant ever have time to fight back against all the crap in the world , thats over. Day of greed and evil and ignorance is gone. You have 6 trades 2 diplomas and working on degree. Probably not. I haven’t stopped a day of school. Trades your a slave just as always. People who have no idea boss you around. Main goal is huge profits at any cost. Look at airbag company who sold garbage then everyone hid all the info. That is the world u want. Ppl will sell you crap that kills you never get punished. Must be a babyboomer. The generation of sociopaths is done. Make 3d printers good enough everyone can print anything at home. Open source everything. Pcp the whole industry metal plastic alloy This world isnt ours to destroy but protect and feudalism 2.0 is finished. No more slaves and child labor no more scams and frauds for billions. Equality for all not just one. Era of ignorance greed is done. Slavery is done. Education should never stop and it should be fun and ppl should have free time. 40 hr work week was 1920. This is the new world. Education that has no limits is key. Devaluation currency backing it by lies injecting printed money from nothing. This is what u support. Nit even about skill or knowledge is about kissing ass. Falsifying reposts, lies, scams, bullcrap, pretending your busy, hide and seek and throwing ppl under the bus. What a joke. Tell it how it is. Worked for 60 companies all top employers. Mines total scam many are welfare system. Hell the entire thing is a scam. Give you money so you give it back. You buy what u made then taxes and fees and middle men and shipping. I pay u a dollar you give me back 2 take a debt in the end u think u win but lose everything your families ever had for generations. Rightwingers and babyboomers what a combo.

by hajile 7y ago

mmmBacon 7y ago

Additionally student loans should be something you can refinance. When I took out loans in the early 90s, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans were about 8%. As interest rates dropped during the course of my education, I was locked into that interest rate and the only way to get a lower rate on those high interest early loans was to consolidate loans. Loan consolidation doesn’t get you a market rate new interest rate instead you get the average of the 2 interest rates.

teddyc 7y ago
My student loans have auto re-financed to lower interest rates with no action on my part. But I got them in the 00's, maybe the rules changed.

newguy1234 7y ago

Military is also a good option to college, especially if your specialty is a skilled trade. My brother did this straight out of high school. Spent a few years overseas and then eventually changed his specialty to biomedical equipment repair. When he left the service he made 60k/year and after 5 years he is at 125k/year. Also when you are in the service, you are getting paid and if you are overseas, all your bills are paid too. He never had any student loans ever or school expenses. When he was young he just saved most of his money....most of which has doubled or tripled in value due to how good the stock market has been.

mnm1 7y ago
Yeah, but you're gambling that you will survive and that you will survive intact. A life full of PTSD or without legs or arms or eyes isn't worth a million a year, let alone $60 to $125k. Then there's the very real possibility of dying. Not to mention the high risk of suicide afterwards. Given those risks, I can't see how the military is a good option.
- jki275 7y ago
  Extremely low probability of any of those happening. Besides, military service changes you. It gives you perspective you will never get anywhere else.
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Maybe the percentage is low but it's still plenty high to be a deterrent and much, much higher than at any educational institution and most jobs. You bring up another excellent reason to avoid military service. I'm sure there are plenty more.
  - standardUser 7y ago
    Extremely high probability compared to any other developed nation. The US fights foreign wars with alarming regularity, We are currently fighting several.
    - jki275 7y ago
      That’s because other developed nations barely have militaries. Of those who actually do and deploy and do the things we do the numbers are probably about the same - very low.
  - btilly 7y ago
    I have 3 nephews who served in the military. 2 have PTSD, one severe. The one with severe PTSD also got to spend 6 months in a hospital after being shot out of the air in a conflict that we are theoretically not involved in. Given their other options, military service might have been a good thing. But the odds of PTSD or injury are much, much higher than I would like.

penagwin 7y ago

I struggled with college and don't know if I'll be returning... I made it over a third of the way to a CS degree but had to take a break from school. I got a job while in college as a programmer - and work full time making around the 50k range. I feel that I self taught myself the necessary technical skills for my job, and that the biggest places for self improvement aren't acedimic but business/relationship related. I have less then 5k in school debt left, and I already have the job I wanted, my only fear is when I eventually look for a new job, how well they'll consider me without a degree. I strongly feel my technical skills are at least up to par, meanwhile in school I watched classmates copy answers off YouTube...

shantly 7y ago
1) look into transferring your credit while it's still good (it can expire) to some place with a fairly cheap online CS program. Most degree programs, including most CS degree programs, are the "do the work, get the degree sort", not the (good) kind that'll run you ragged trying to do 20 hours of math and algo homework a week or whatever, so you can knock them out about the same speed as normal as long as you use the Summer sessions (you'll still have tons of weeks a year without any classes). No one who isn't already (more or less) filtering out non-top-tier school graduates cares where you got your degree or how rigorous the program was, unless the interviewer happened to go there—they aren't getting many candidates from top-tier schools, even at pay much higher than $50k, so they can't be that picky. Just sit down and force yourself to do whatever school work you have for the day before doing anything else, after work. Most days it likely won't really be that much. Every now and then you'll have a 3-hour night of school stuff. 2) make sure the program you're transferring to accepts a bunch of CLEP tests for credit and then pass those for anything you haven't already taken that qualifies—a book, a couple weekends of hard study, and a (relatively) cheap test beats paying for a class and taking all that time. These will mostly be 100-level courses, including and especially "gen ed" classes. Maybe you don't have any of those left, but if you do, CLEP right the hell out of them. If you can get it cheap enough IMO it's definitely worth some money and some effort not to have questions about why you didn't go to or finish college, in interviews. If nothing else the confidence not having that stuff come up gives you frees you to ask for higher salaries. One 20k bump (not a crazy number for a jump with one job move, if you're at 50k, even if you're in like a 3rd- or 4th-rate city for tech) that otherwise would have taken a couple years longer to achieve, and that degree's a hell of a long way toward paying for itself. You could probably have one in under 3 years, maybe around 2, without taking on too much stress. [EDIT] oh and ask your employer to chip in for tuition. Can't hurt to ask.

david38 7y ago

This. Pushing college the way we do helps to stigmatize the trades. Why don’t we push the trades? We give the impression they are “lesser”.

smnrchrds 7y ago
I have a feeling that trades are paying well because a generation of pushing people away from trades has created a shortage. Now that people are rediscovering this career path and just do trades is becoming (and in some circles has become) the new de facto advice, the generation who all go to trades will have the same issues as the generation who all went to college: stagnating wages, insufficient opportunities, increasing difficulty of getting your foot in the door, etc. Trades aren't easier to get in and better paid because of their inherent characteristics. The supply and demand in the market has made them so. The new generation of advice is going to change the supply side. I am not sure if the advice is going to be valid for the rest of a young person's career should they choose this path. We have already done this once before with just go to college.
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
The people who work in the trades are pushing their children away from the trades. (An example is the recent HN post on Chinese restaurants closing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21871240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21871240) The hours can be long, the manual labor is hard, and the conditions are often harsh.
JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
I may live in a bubble in this scenario growing up with parents and their friends that did painting/contracting/electrical/plumbing/flooring/etc. but I don't ever hear them as stigmatized. I think a lot of people have a real solid view of these jobs; Physically demanding with low top end rewards. Few people go into those jobs or unions and make 200k a year. People def make a livable wage, but it's very demanding work physically. I have a friends that do flooring and roofing and they absolutely pay the bills but they are hurting and only just approaching 30. They have months where they have tons of work, and months where they have no work at all. So while these jobs beat entry level roles and service jobs paying 15 an hour if you're luck, they don't hold the same value as being a lawyer or a doctor or like many of us here, an engineer. My back hurts because I have bad posture and sit all day, not because I was lifting hundreds of pounds of shit all day. And my salary is higher than my buddy that is high up in his union stopping OSHA violations. Support trades, they are valuable and important. But I don't think we should praise them as the best path to securing your future. They are jobs just like any other with their own risks and rewards.

kxyvr 7y ago

I will contend that this is not the core problem, but an auxiliary one forced by the states themselves. The primary source of funding for universities is the state, which makes sense because universities rely on local infrastructure and respond to local needs. Depending on the size of the university, they can essentially be a small city within a city. At the same time, the amount of money invested in universities has dropped dramatically: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost-decade-in-higher-education-funding https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost-de... In order to stay solvent as institutions, the universities raise tuition, which is then enabled by student loans. My point isn't that student loans are blameless. They certainly are. In addition, there's a lot of blame that can be levied at the universities themselves for wasteful spending, but this itself is complicated due to donations being contingent on particular projects or buildings and competition between the universities to attract students who often choose a school based on how awesome the quad is. However, at its core, if a state like Arizona reduces its per student spending by over 50%, how is university supposed to stay solvent without dramatically raising tuition? None of this helps the family in the article. I think they did the right thing. I wish more people would hold the states accountable rather than first blaming students loans.

mnm1 7y ago
State institutions are only part of the picture and not the worst part. This might explain why they've raised their tuitions but it doesn't explain why private institutions have done so even more aggressively. It's definitely the easy, guaranteed money from student loans.
- kxyvr 7y ago
  Yes and no. Higher public tuition costs allow private entities to raise their tuition as well. While it depends on the college, I contend that most private colleges are not competing on cost. Schools like Harvard and Duke use price as a way to convey prestige, so they need to remain higher priced than their public counterparts. Schools like University of Phoenix compete on convenience, but if everyone else is charging higher tuition, then they can justify even higher tuition costs as well since everyone else is doing it and this new price is the de facto standard. Now, I agree that the Feds need to cut back on loans in order to put pressure on the states to reduce their tuition costs. Essentially, the student loan system allows the states to receive free federal money by using students as the vessel of that transaction. I find that morally wrong. At the same time, there are a huge number of students who need some kind of loan to pay for college. I believe it to also be morally wrong to create a system where only those of means can enjoy public education. If the states adequately funded their universities, the universities held their tuition costs down, and either the state or the feds provided loans, then this wouldn't be an issue. However, this requires all of these institutions to agree on the principles of access to education and this isn't happening. I don't know how to fix this. If the Feds eliminated their loan and grant programs, I personally believe that tuition costs would go down or stabilize because a large-section of the population would not be able to afford the current prices, so the universities would be forced to reduce tuition. This would benefit middle class families who have saved for education. I also believe this would prevent low income families from attending college and I'm not fine with this prospect.

honkycat 7y ago

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growing up. But then I grew up, and now I am a pretty successful computer programmer making a lot more than that, for way better perks and less dangerous, damaging work. You can make that kind of money as a manager at Walmart and you do not run the risk of getting your arm fried off or falling off a telephone pole. And where does a few years as an electrician leave you if you don't end up liking the career? "Sorry son, the internet told me trades were a good idea. Maybe go back to school now that you are an adult with a family?" Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off.

seattle_spring 7y ago
> Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  My wife went to art school and is (somewhat embarrassing to me) supporting our family with her job at Amazon while I (a CS PhD) am looking for work. We even qualify for a mortgage with her income. (Lesson: UX designers are as important as programmers)
  - seibelj 7y ago
    That’s surprising to me. Why is it so hard to find a job with your CS PhD? Are you trying to get a specific research-oriented job?
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

NPMaxwell 7y ago

The issue with bankruptcy is not "excluding" students from bankruptcy. It's applying bankruptcy law fairly to every debtor.

lsc 7y ago

>Some of my kids seem like they enjoy academics, but others do not. I'll be pushing the latter toward trade school. Average IBEW (electrical union) pay is about $20/hr for an apprentice and $33 for a journeyman. $40,000 to $66,000 with ZERO DEBT right out the gate is nothing to ignore (and that pay can easily double -- especially in your younger years -- if you're willing to travel and put in those extra hours). It sure beats minimum wage at a crappy service job. so, uh, I guess I'm the modern equivalent of those trades. I mean, I don't have a union, but I fix computers and make a whole lot of money doing it, without any education. It is a lot like a trade, 'cause essentially I'm infrastructure for industry. I mean, instead of maintaining electricity at a factory, I'm maintaining servers in a build farm, but it's still infrastructure. On the individual level you have a point. I mean, as a sysadmin, I do make like 30% less than a SWE, but I still make a whole lot of money, and I started when I was 17. On a societal level, though? when you don't have a degree, the amount you make is dramatically dependent on how productive the people around you are. Because I live in silicon valley and manage infrastructure for (mostly highly educated) engineers who are incredibly productive, I make a lot of money. A huge amount for someone who isn't educated or born rich. If I was in a rural area, I'd be fighting for a job at geeksquad. I mean, I'd handily win that fight, but if I'm maintaining infrastructure for people who aren't very productive, I'm going to make... not very much money. My point here is that if the US continues this trend of not educating it's children and excluding foreign educated people? Jobs like mine, for uneducated maintainers of infrastructure follow the jobs for the more productive people. If those people start working from china? They're probably gonna go find locals to do my job. What I'm saying is that it is very much in my interest to do what needs to be done (mostly, I think, pay taxes) to see to it that kids go to college, even if I don't have any children of my own.

hajile 7y ago
College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in childhood. Unfortunately, dollars spent on early education don't seem to have much of a correlation with success later in life.
- 7y ago

pastor_elm 7y ago

>If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll be in demand and getting a decent wage. Banks understand this fact and will do the math to give a loan anyway. Why doesn't it make economic sense to declare bankruptcy in any situation, even if you're a CS major from Stanford, at 22 when you have nothing if you've got a loan in the six figures and IF you're allowed to do so, which is what you're implying (loans that aren't guaranteed)?

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Peter Schiff has a great video on YouTube about how these “well intentioned” subsidies have done the opposite and have inflated the price of college in the last few decades. It should be cheaper now due to economies of scale, computers, etc. Not when the government is involved.

fhostghost1989 7y ago

Trades. What a pile of crap. Trades went to hell in 90’s with global trade. I have 6 trades now anyone with half a brain can babysitting operators and facilities. Service is same pile of steaming horse crap. Skill level went from about a 7 to a 3 all across the board. School is a cash grab ,training is high school at best. Manufacturing or servicing or doing what. Only tech that matters China is doing. Quantum computers graphene tech or AI what. Capitalism is on its way out. Making junk for pennies and selling it for hundreds. People are waking up. Cars are made for 3000 sold for 25000. Phones 125 sold 1450. Most of the trash made is just that garbage. Cant upgrade it cant do anything with it but toss it which created the mess we are in now. Innovation change and time to take it all back. That is the future to clean the earth not destroyed to unite in a goal to advance for all life not just to make a few hundred thousands mega rich. Education is needed. Control over everyone by keeping ppl uneducated and busy working so they cant ever have time to fight back against all the crap in the world , thats over. Day of greed and evil and ignorance is gone. You have 6 trades 2 diplomas and working on degree. Probably not. I haven’t stopped a day of school. Trades your a slave just as always. People who have no idea boss you around. Main goal is huge profits at any cost. Look at airbag company who sold garbage then everyone hid all the info. That is the world u want. Ppl will sell you crap that kills you never get punished. Must be a babyboomer. The generation of sociopaths is done. Make 3d printers good enough everyone can print anything at home. Open source everything. Pcp the whole industry metal plastic alloy This world isnt ours to destroy but protect and feudalism 2.0 is finished. No more slaves and child labor no more scams and frauds for billions. Equality for all not just one. Era of ignorance greed is done. Slavery is done. Education should never stop and it should be fun and ppl should have free time. 40 hr work week was 1920. This is the new world. Education that has no limits is key. Devaluation currency backing it by lies injecting printed money from nothing. This is what u support. Nit even about skill or knowledge is about kissing ass. Falsifying reposts, lies, scams, bullcrap, pretending your busy, hide and seek and throwing ppl under the bus. What a joke. Tell it how it is. Worked for 60 companies all top employers. Mines total scam many are welfare system. Hell the entire thing is a scam. Give you money so you give it back. You buy what u made then taxes and fees and middle men and shipping. I pay u a dollar you give me back 2 take a debt in the end u think u win but lose everything your families ever had for generations. Rightwingers and babyboomers what a combo.