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> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that i

by gwd 7y ago

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; and it's the same reason we have bankruptcy laws. None of those reasons somehow go away just because it's a student loan -- on the contrary, an 18-year-old thinking they're buying a ticket to a better life is far more vulnerable than the vast majority of people who will ever be seeking a loan. All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan.

brownbat 7y ago
> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, I thought so too. This always made me so angry. Last time I posted a rant about that here someone urged me to read the REPAYE Act, and it completely changed my mind. Under REPAYE, students get income based repayment, even down to $0 payments if you're anywhere near poverty level. After a certain number of years of repayment, the government just pays off your entire balance. This solves the same problems bankruptcy is designed to solve without ruining people's credit. It also prevents doctors from declaring bankruptcy right after medschool -- I'm honestly unsure whether that was a real or just anecdotal problem, but income based repayment for a fixed term seems like a better way to let people escape debt while still expecting them to pay what they can.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  This program only applies to federal student loans. Anyone with private student loans (before ~2010 IIRC) is SOL.
  - wegs 7y ago
    I went to MIT. MIT is corrupt as !@#$. The amount of money flowing into private pockets at the higher levels is insane. Corrupt isn't the same is criminal -- most of the activity goes through networks of lawyers and loop holes (although criminal activity happens too). My opinion is that to be eligible for federal financial aid, there ought to be some cap on tuition+expenses at a level students can afford. Subsidizing $200k tuition makes no sense to me. Either students are already very rich, or they'll end up with a painful amount of debt. I'd much rather have an MIT with old, rundown buildings, low-paid professors, few administrators, and a focus on science and learning (rather than a focus on $300 million buildings, yachts, fancy faculty dining clubs, and increasingly creative ways to funnel money into people's pockets).
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  Be aware REPAYE can be voided if your loan is resold (which you have no control over) and any missed payments or extra payments or any changes to your program (ie, if you apply for lower interest, your REPAYE is reset).... this has occured to people who go through the public service path.
  - salawat 7y ago
    Personally, this right here is the crux of the problem. Debts should not be resaleable. Loans are supposed to be about risk-sharing first, profit-taking second. However, seeing as that will never happen I would settle for no resale without a meeting of seller, buyer, and borrower, with right of refusal of transfer of service by the borrower. to ensure that any changes/terms associated with the initial debt contract are properly transferred and honored; and no resets of timers as long as your account is in good standing. I.e. your debt holder selling your balance should still qualify as the same fundamental debt you originally entered into. I don't particularly give a damn if that ruins/misses the point of securitization.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
      I wish... there are people who have been on the public servant program for 8 years and had their timers reset by a resale... without any missed payments.
- graeme 7y ago
  This still inflates the cost of university for everyone. Basically the govt is taxing society to funnel the money into student loans which are then ploughed into college facilities and administration staff. It’s a massive misallocation of societal resources. And I suspect many people earning a mediocre wage are still stuck repaying, and would have been happier had loans not existed and college have been forced not to be bloated.
  - seiferteric 7y ago
    Exactly, we need cost pressure. Not to mention the fact you would still have to go into debt and live with that psychological pressure until the government so generously decides to forgive you...
  - surfpel 7y ago
    An obvious solution would be a comprehensive tuition cap for public institutions. Financial aid makes college more affordable, but allows colleges to raise tuition. Getting rid of financial aid could lower tuition cost due to market pressure but bring back the problem of affordability that it intends to solve. I would like someone to point out why a tuition cap would be a bad idea, since regulation often carries unintended consequences.
    - sgerenser 7y ago
      one immediate unintended consequence I can think of is flattening the distribution of net tuition paid. For example, a 40k sticker price University might cost 40k to a wealthy foreigner, 25k to an upper middle class student, and be practically free to a poor student (after need based grants and scholarships, not loans). Tuition is capped at 20k, so suddenly everyone has to pay 20k, at least if the university wants to maintain the same income. Of course, the numbers are already flatter than that at most public institutions but the general effect could still occur. Not saying tuition caps are necessarily a bad idea, but I can see potential downsides.
- MrMorden 7y ago
  Doctors declaring bankruptcy to get out of medical school debt sounds like anecdata. If student loans were dischargeable, that would change nothing for MDs because they're still going to make enough money to service the debt after residency/fellowship.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    Even if you're going to be making $200,000 a year after your residency, why not declare bankruptcy as soon as you graduate. It'll save you $200,000 which is totally worth a 10 year hit to your credit
horsemessiah 7y ago
I appreciate this perspective. So many people have no sympathy towards young people, who have been told their whole life that college is the path success.
- eldavido 7y ago
  Maybe that belief isn't wrong, but outdated?
ge96 7y ago
Personally still owing some debt(that was pretty much wasted since I didn't finish school, my own fault) debt was handed out easily/same with credit cards. I think it's a great opportunity if you use it right(follow through in my case). I didn't understand money though at that time, wasted it/killed my credit score. I was lucky though I have federal loans and they do a pay as you earn type plan where you can pay nothing if you don't make enough granted it still builds interest. Overall my debts aren't bad since I had some grants/went into engineering/physics not a doctor or lawyer. I at least made it into software so if my life continues to pan out I will get out of debt within two years at best. But yeah, at that time though(in school) I was really scared because I was not doing well in school and I was like "how will I pay this back"...
mrguyorama 7y ago
>This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. It's because one generation ago, college was a great way to access a pretty good life for most people, and was affordable on an average person's income.
- optimiz3 7y ago
  > access a pretty good life for most people Depends on the degree, school, and student. Still true for STEM and medicine.
  - panzagl 7y ago
    You mean 'still true for a small selection of engineering degrees/CS and pre-med'
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tharne 7y ago
> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; It's sad that most cultures understood the danger and fragility that debt brings, and yet we've all somehow how forgotten it. We even have terms like "good debt".
- justAnotherNET 7y ago
  Yep. We created a society where everyone pays 150%-250% for everything over time just to fund a parasitic banker class
- xmprt 7y ago
  Debt is good. It's what enables people who don't have the money up front to start businesses or buy houses. It becomes bad when people are relying on it to finance small purchases or when loans have predatory terms (like credit card payments, payday loans, etc.)
  - vkou 7y ago
    > Debt is good. It's what enables people who don't have the money up front to start businesses or buy houses. The reason people go into debt to buy houses is because everyone is using debt to buy houses, thus driving the prices up. If mortgages were capped at 5-year terms, the price of houses would be a lot lower, which would be great for society - for the same reason that having cheaper electricity is great for society.
    - asdfadsfgfdda 7y ago
      Prices wouldn't significantly change. You still have people/pension funds/governments with lots of money to invest (the people who currently buy mortgage debt). How would you prohibit this money from just buying houses and renting them out? And even if you could lower prices, how would you compensate the current homeowners for destroying the value of their largest asset?
      - vkou 7y ago
eli_gottlieb 7y ago
> Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. Well yeah, because us "adults" don't wanna pay the state and local taxes necessary to keep public universities affordable.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Attitudes such as this are the problem. Civilization has a cost, that cost is paid with taxes. Edit: I didn’t pickup in the sarcasm. Mea culpa.
  - Gollapalli 7y ago
    The guy was agreeing with you.
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    You know I sarcasm-quoted "adults" to indicate the immaturity of not paying for civilization-upkeep costs, right?
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  Why is this downvoted? In the European nations (with the notable exception of Britain), university is free or nearly so.
  - pmorici 7y ago
    It's not 'free' it's paid for through taxes.
    - HarryHirsch 7y ago
      Good point. The rich need to pay taxes, else there is civilization only for the rich. Consider Alabama, a lowtax state, thanks to the 1901 constitution that the landowners and industrialists wrote to protect their wealth and look what shape the state is in.
jedberg 7y ago
> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be discharged at bankruptcy. That being said, I actually think that's a good thing, because it would force colleges to charge reasonable tuition rates and also offer scholarships if they want to get the best students. But barring shifting to a European model of college funding, I don't see the US allowing dischargeable loans, nor do I think they should, because the reality of it is that colleges won't reduce their rates nor increase their scholarships, they would just be completely out of reach of poor and middle class students.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >colleges won't reduce their rates nor increase their scholarships, they would just be completely out of reach of poor and middle class students. If you let that run its course for a couple years then either the employers will have to relax their degree requirements or colleges will have to relax their price requirements. It'll be a game of chicken.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    Or maybe they won't. Chronic underemployment has been a thing since at least 2008. Given a reality where there are simply more people than jobs that need doing, shutting the poor out of the education system seems like just another way to increase wealth inequality.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Do employers have degree requirements? A 1970 SCOTUS case put strong constraints on what employers could require, at least with respect to high school diplomas. The same logic would apply to college degrees. Unless a direct link to a job (not just a general linkage) could be demonstrated, if there is a de facto racial discriminatory effect (and there would be, just from different rates of graduation from college) then the requirement would be illegal. I've been waiting for someone with a bone to pick against higher education to file a lawsuit over this. It could devalue college degrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
cableshaft 7y ago
Colleges should be shaking in their boots for the next generation, because there's going to be a whole generation of parents that suffered terrible college debt they couldn't pay off and will likely be telling their children it's just not worth it (as opposed to the previous generation that had cheap college and a great economy and pressured all their children to go for that 'guaranteed better life'). I made it through relatively okay because STEM and some scholarships, but I'm not even sure I'll recommend my children go to college. Especially with online courses (not talking about college, just courses) becoming more viable and useful. I definitely won't for some pursuits, like art. I'd rather they live at home with me for four years, doing self-study and putting their art out there online and developing a following rather than spend $200,000+ on college that will likely not result in anything afterwards (hell, as a semi-professional game designer myself, I'd happily work with them to get their art into published games).
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Also a generation of potential parents who won't be having kids because they can't afford to, largely because of student loan and housing costs. That's already hitting - the incoming class of 2023 (matriculating 2019) is the first cohort born since 9/11, and is tiny. A number of colleges are facing bankruptcy because there just aren't enough students to go around. And it'll only get worse. Birth rates were depressed from 2001-2009, but they fell off a cliff after 2009.
  - staticassertion 7y ago
    Can I read more about these statistics somewhere?
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      Big WaPo feature story on Hampshire's bankruptcy and the impending demographic apocalypse for colleges: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/10/21/downfall-hampshire-college-broken-business-model-american-higher-education/?arc404=true https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/10/21/downfall-... Fertility rates by year in U.S: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... Births per year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-in-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-... I was wrong about the start date, BTW. I'd thought that fertility started dropping after 9/11 (which also roughly coincides with the children of the 70s having kids instead of baby boomers, a smaller cohort), but it really didn't peak until 2007-2008. Then there's a double-whammy: there are fewer women of childbearing age (coinciding with Gen-Xers born in the 70s and early Millenials), and the fertility rate among women who are of childbearing age has fallen off a cliff. Births are down about 15% since 2007; when you think about what that means for a typical classroom (where you might've had 24 kids, now you might have 20), that's pretty huge.
vkou 7y ago
> This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". That's because it is a ticket to the good life if you are of average intelligence, average ability, average connections, and average parents. Or, more specifically, it is a ticket to a less bad life. Not everyone can go into trades. Not everyone should go into trades. If you are an average person, and you're not working trades, and you don't have a college degree, you're going to be capped out at waiting tables and flipping burgers. At least these masters-degree holders can apply for crappy low-end office jobs. You actually get evenings and weekends off with most of those, and you're unlikely to get a chef screaming at you while you're holding a pot of hot oil.
WalterBright 7y ago
> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy That'll just make loans even more expensive for everyone else.
abnry 7y ago
The government will give out a loan to students for basically any reason, as long as their family doesn't make too much money. Think about the insanity of that kind of investment practice. No "business plan", no estimates of ROI, no collateral, little to no grade submissions. It's a bad way to invest. If a student is going to get a loan, what I think the government and banks should do is require them to file a proposal explaining how they plan to recoup the cost of their education using real, hard market data. If you want to become a archaeological historian, you need to research what sorts archaeology jobs are in your neighborhood and what they will make.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  Sounds good in principal, but would require a very large investment in a bureaucracy to carefully evaluate and vet the load applications of every student in the country.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > The government will give out a loan to students for basically any reason, as long as their family doesn't make too much money. The only bearing family income has is whether you get the lower subsidized rate or not. Anybody can get unsubsidized loans.
mercer 7y ago
While I think things could be a lot better, I like how college loans work over here in The Netherlands. Regardless of whether they're a 'golden ticket' or not (times are changing?), the student loan is something one doesn't have to worry about too much. Not only is/was a big part of it considered a 'gift' (up to half when I was studying, depending on my parents' income), but the entirety of the loan left over is low-interest and has no real demands. Basically, you're asked to pay off x amount per month based on the total loan, but if x amount exceeds 10% percent of your income, you can ask to pay (potentially much) less. If you don't make any money, you pay off nothing. My income is rather irregular, but for close to a decade I've been paying off the amount suggested. It's partly laziness, and partly a desire to be a good citizen that makes me not bother to ask to pay less based on my income. Anecdotally I know many people like myself who basically pay more back than they strictly have to. All in all I suspect the system not only works well, but ultimately is a net benefit to the entire country. A well-educated individual over here makes 10x times that of a low-wage workers, and the taxes are significantly higher too. While it could take 20+ years to pay off the student debt, much of it is probably paid off in increased taxes in the interim. Also I imagine the student debt not being a sword of damocles has a not insignificant effect on our general state of wellbeing and a reduced number of heart attacks, burnouts, and the like.
- eldavido 7y ago
  American here - The Netherlands is a pretty small country (population wise) but the more I learn about it, the more impressed I am. Low public debt, sophisticated commercial culture, great education system, very cosmopolitan, and sensible. Good job, guys.
slg 7y ago
>All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. Why would anyone lend money to someone with zero credit history, zero income, zero collateral, zero prospects of repaying the loan for at least 4+ years, and has the ability to immediately declare bankruptcy as soon as it comes time to start paying you back? What would the free market interest rate be on that type of loan? Allowing loans to discharged is nothing but a band-aid on a broken system. We need to work to make college cheaper. Building the entire system around loans is the problem, not one specific feature of those loans.
- lostcolony 7y ago
  I'll go one further. Education is not an asset you can take away. Houses and cars can be foreclosed on; you can't take and resell education as a good. It either needs to be kept as a pure luxury commodity, or it needs to be valued societally and not require an individual to pay for. Even if college is 'cheaper', if it prices some people out, it can't be viewed as a necessity to be able to get a good job (not saying it is, but society certainly tries to push that viewpoint).
  - jackcosgrove 7y ago
    Lots of credit card debt is unsecured because the purchased goods are consumed, but that is dischargeable.
    - slg 7y ago
      Which is why credit card interest rates are so high and why you can't get a credit card with $100,000+ limit as an 18 year old with zero income or credit history.
      - lostcolony 7y ago
        And also why credit card debt is not concerned a necessity for 'making it' in society.
- 7y ago
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
those loans shouldn't be allowed in the first place. There should be some kind of cap on the loans in the first place. Perhaps, create a ceiling of something manageable say 5k. At that point, colleges will have no choice but to start cutting costs and make college more affordable.
happythomist 7y ago
> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; and it's the same reason we have bankruptcy laws. The Catholic Church condemns usury as intrinsically evil because, in the words of Aquinas, usury is to "sell what does not exist". [1] Aquinas observed that some goods are consumed by their very use, such as food or drink. Allowing someone to use such a good is equivalent to transferring the ownership. You cannot "rent" a sandwich or allow someone to "borrow" a bottle of wine, at least not if they intend to eat or drink it. Once the ownership is transferred, you have no basis to charge for its use. He argued that money was an example of such a good. The only way to use money is to spend it, and it is consumed by that use. Therefore, loaning money at interest is an attempt to "rent" money that you no longer own, which is unjust. Today, there is much greater access to profitable investment opportunities. It is even possible to obtain a guaranteed rate of return on money through CDs and GICs. It is therefore licit to reflect this in the "price" of money that is lent, but this is not usury. The Church cannot change her definitive teachings of faith and morals; usury has always been and will always be a grave sin. [2] [1] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm [2] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm
- eldavido 7y ago
  In my view, this is a situation where technology changed our understanding of morality. When Aquinas was alive, there was nothing remotely similar to modern banking. Money was lent at punitive rates of interest (20% or more/year), with very little regulation concerning what rights creditors had if debtors couldn't pay. As an example, look at mortgages today; in many states, these are non-recourse, meaning the law limits the borrower's liability to the mortgaged property (the house), and nothing more. People aren't sold into slavery, there are no debtors prisons, and we have a sophisticated system of personal bankruptcy that lets people start over. In short, if you can't pay a loan, you aren't getting your kneecaps broken or getting sold into slavery. In my view, that's a game-changer.
  - apta 7y ago
    This doesn't change the fact that lending with interest is inherently evil and parasitic, even in modern times. It is completely prohibited in Islam, and Jews don't lend each other with interest.
yowlingcat 7y ago
That colleges still get to win when their students graduate into economic destitution is a moral hazard of American society that we will inevitably look back upon as a great stain on history. I think a lot of people agree there. While I don't argue it would solve the entirety of the problem, I think a great first step would be to change the financial product itself. The code academy's tuition deferment until employment model seems a lot more sane than what we currently have. If every educational institution had to take this approach, would we still see the same kind of bureaucratic overreach, feudal approach to tenure, and debt slavery that we currently see? I'd love to know.
eldavido 7y ago
I have this evolving metaphor of the US as a financially overextended household or business. We've lived large since WWII. Bought new cars every few years, built the suburbs, provided quality education to a lot of people, etc. Is it all that surprising that people want to "go back" to this? For many people in the US, it was GREAT. But it's all been at great cost. The '60s through the '90s were a time of huge debt accumulation at every level of society, from the US Treasury borrowing, to state and local governments underfunding their pensions, even down to households, with ballooning credit card balances and ever-greater levels of mortgage debt. Now we get to pay for it. Partly that means higher taxes, so we can finally properly fund social security and medicare, and repay the literal trillions of dollars we just borrowed in the past few weeks. Partly taking better care of the environment, which let's be honest, is going to cost a ton of money. It also means some hard choices about what we aren't going to pay for anymore. An entitlement that one should be able to study pretty much anything, for four years, with world-class experts, as a national birthright -- maybe something we can't afford? In my view, we need to start being a bit -- not a lot, just a little more -- economic and practical in how we think about education. Maybe night school or Khan Academy is a better place to study medieval history, or divinity, or any number of wholesome, life-enhancing subjects, than a four-year liberal arts college. Maybe more people should think a little harder about how their investments -- let's face it, that's what they are -- into education, will transform into marketable skills. And maybe the government should stop subsidizing all this, so that colleges will trim down what it costs so that it's actually affordable. We can fix this, it's just going to take a while, and a lot of long, slow, not particularly newsworthy or sexy, adjustments.
- yellow_lead 7y ago
  > Now we get to pay for it. Partly that means higher taxes, so we can finally properly fund social security and medicare, and repay the literal trillions of dollars we just borrowed in the past few weeks. Sounds like a great deal for those who were alive then. I don't think it's as simple as you suggest.
  - eldavido 7y ago
    I'm not saying borrowing for the stimulus was necessarily a bad idea. Only that, unless you think the current level of debt is either sustainable long-term (maybe?) or that it can continue to rise, that the only rational conclusion is that our material standard of living has to decrease. That seems to be the only rational conclusion when you see 25% increases in US national debt in an environment where GDP is growing 1-2%/year. We've made a lot of "promises" in this country in the past 50 years. Senior healthcare. Education. Old-age pensions. Government worker pensions. Being the world's police force. I'm only saying that if you take a hard look at all this, and we can't or won't continue to afford it, some things have to be cut. Will it be four-year college for everyone? Or will it be granny's healthcare? Anyone who says "we have to continue to do all if it" is just kidding themself. We just don't have the money. I'm not long-term optimistic about what it means that the US isn't funding NATO as heavily as it used to be, but I do have to give Trump credit for making this a kitchen table issue. Being the world's police force is damned expensive and I wouldn't mind if we cut that back a bit if that's what it takes to balance, e.g. social security.
maximente 7y ago
no need for lobbying, apparently: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-o...
cmurf 7y ago
One party stood vehemently, unmoving, in 2005 to change the law in order to make it more difficult for student loans to be subject to bankruptcy, based on false pretences. And quite literally no one cared. There's no political will to make student loans more easily dischargeable, even merely repealing the 2005 law. Just like there's no political will to consider education a right, let alone higher education. In the U.S. education is a product you buy, rich people get more and better versions of it. But as it turns out, an infinitesimal number of students even try to have these loans discharged.
JamesBarney 7y ago
> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. Because if that was the case no one would lend them money, and there wouldn't be any student loans. Also there is a repayment system where you only are required to pay a percentage of your income above the poverty line..
wolfgke 7y ago
> Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". That's called "marketing".
heavyset_go 7y ago
> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely There's also the jubilee[1] concept when it comes to debt, property rights and slavery. It's interesting that even in ancient times, both debt and property were recognized as forms of power and control similar to slavery. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
ngold 7y ago
This is a 15 year experiment signed by gw jr. and cheerleaded by biden. It is debt slavery to turn college kids into conservatives. On the other eND of the spectrum was no child left behind to makes kids dumber and conservative. Trump is a direct result.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; and it's the same reason we have bankruptcy laws. I don't think the case has been made for this, unless the reason is "things started that way and developed from there", with "that way" and "there" referring to two different things in the two different examples. Brotherhood of Kings has an interesting discussion of an ancient Mesopotamian moneylender, whose documents are preserved today. He became very rich by making loans without charging interest. It worked because if you defaulted on a loan, the moneylender took title to everything you owned. This could be worth more than the value of the loan. (Indeed, for moneylending to be profitable on these terms, you must be able to recover more than the value of the loan.) So the system at the time didn't charge interest, but it would have completely fallen apart if it had also allowed for bankruptcy.
ekianjo 7y ago
> Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life" It is still true, based on statistics of college graduate vs non-college graduates, that going to college brings much better odds in your favor to get a "good life". As usual, it's about odds, nothing is guaranteed in life.
Mirioron 7y ago
Why do so many people need to go to college? Especially before they even know what life is really like. Couldn't they work a year or two and then decide to go to college?
christophilus 7y ago
> This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. I think the shameful thing is how college is such a waste of time for most folks. I think the money would be better spent traveling and learning on your own for a small fraction of the cost.
blackrock 7y ago
The thing that gets me, is why can’t that student loan be tax deducted? If I pay $20k in taxes, then take that money to pay off the student loan first. I don’t care about tax revenue to the government. And the federal government has the power to just print new money to pay off all their old debts anyways, like they are doing now, so they don’t really need my tax money.
notechback 7y ago
Or just fix the incredibly high fees. In many European countries (not the UK) public education is incredibly affordable, in some like Germany and Denmark even free. It's a choice to make fees so high, it's not really necessary for the product. What do US universities spend their money on? Admin, sport stadiums and famous professors that then barely teach because what makes them famous is their research. You'd go cheaper traveling to Europe, studying for three years at a German or Danish university, learning the language as a bonus, and come back afterwards with no debt. Some even have English courses.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  I understood that countries with 'free' education, had a high bar for entry. So not really open to the public; open to the top 10% or whatever. If you pay (in the USA) you can get in somewhere, guaranteed. Because there's a spectrum of institutions, so you can find a place that will take you where you are educationwise, and pull you up from there. Some start at IT college, move to a Community College, then a State or private one, then graduate. Cost-effective and you ultimately get to advertise the place you ended at.
poilcn 7y ago
>All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. They were at some period of time, which allowed colleges intentionally bankrupt students and get paid by the government. Universities and colleges are cancer of education, we have opportunity to naturally get rid of them, at least in their current form.

by gwd 7y ago

brownbat 7y ago

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, I thought so too. This always made me so angry. Last time I posted a rant about that here someone urged me to read the REPAYE Act, and it completely changed my mind. Under REPAYE, students get income based repayment, even down to $0 payments if you're anywhere near poverty level. After a certain number of years of repayment, the government just pays off your entire balance. This solves the same problems bankruptcy is designed to solve without ruining people's credit. It also prevents doctors from declaring bankruptcy right after medschool -- I'm honestly unsure whether that was a real or just anecdotal problem, but income based repayment for a fixed term seems like a better way to let people escape debt while still expecting them to pay what they can.

elliekelly 7y ago
This program only applies to federal student loans. Anyone with private student loans (before ~2010 IIRC) is SOL.
- wegs 7y ago
  I went to MIT. MIT is corrupt as !@#$. The amount of money flowing into private pockets at the higher levels is insane. Corrupt isn't the same is criminal -- most of the activity goes through networks of lawyers and loop holes (although criminal activity happens too). My opinion is that to be eligible for federal financial aid, there ought to be some cap on tuition+expenses at a level students can afford. Subsidizing $200k tuition makes no sense to me. Either students are already very rich, or they'll end up with a painful amount of debt. I'd much rather have an MIT with old, rundown buildings, low-paid professors, few administrators, and a focus on science and learning (rather than a focus on $300 million buildings, yachts, fancy faculty dining clubs, and increasingly creative ways to funnel money into people's pockets).
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
Be aware REPAYE can be voided if your loan is resold (which you have no control over) and any missed payments or extra payments or any changes to your program (ie, if you apply for lower interest, your REPAYE is reset).... this has occured to people who go through the public service path.
- salawat 7y ago
  Personally, this right here is the crux of the problem. Debts should not be resaleable. Loans are supposed to be about risk-sharing first, profit-taking second. However, seeing as that will never happen I would settle for no resale without a meeting of seller, buyer, and borrower, with right of refusal of transfer of service by the borrower. to ensure that any changes/terms associated with the initial debt contract are properly transferred and honored; and no resets of timers as long as your account is in good standing. I.e. your debt holder selling your balance should still qualify as the same fundamental debt you originally entered into. I don't particularly give a damn if that ruins/misses the point of securitization.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
    I wish... there are people who have been on the public servant program for 8 years and had their timers reset by a resale... without any missed payments.
graeme 7y ago
This still inflates the cost of university for everyone. Basically the govt is taxing society to funnel the money into student loans which are then ploughed into college facilities and administration staff. It’s a massive misallocation of societal resources. And I suspect many people earning a mediocre wage are still stuck repaying, and would have been happier had loans not existed and college have been forced not to be bloated.
- seiferteric 7y ago
  Exactly, we need cost pressure. Not to mention the fact you would still have to go into debt and live with that psychological pressure until the government so generously decides to forgive you...
- surfpel 7y ago
  An obvious solution would be a comprehensive tuition cap for public institutions. Financial aid makes college more affordable, but allows colleges to raise tuition. Getting rid of financial aid could lower tuition cost due to market pressure but bring back the problem of affordability that it intends to solve. I would like someone to point out why a tuition cap would be a bad idea, since regulation often carries unintended consequences.
  - sgerenser 7y ago
    one immediate unintended consequence I can think of is flattening the distribution of net tuition paid. For example, a 40k sticker price University might cost 40k to a wealthy foreigner, 25k to an upper middle class student, and be practically free to a poor student (after need based grants and scholarships, not loans). Tuition is capped at 20k, so suddenly everyone has to pay 20k, at least if the university wants to maintain the same income. Of course, the numbers are already flatter than that at most public institutions but the general effect could still occur. Not saying tuition caps are necessarily a bad idea, but I can see potential downsides.
MrMorden 7y ago
Doctors declaring bankruptcy to get out of medical school debt sounds like anecdata. If student loans were dischargeable, that would change nothing for MDs because they're still going to make enough money to service the debt after residency/fellowship.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Even if you're going to be making $200,000 a year after your residency, why not declare bankruptcy as soon as you graduate. It'll save you $200,000 which is totally worth a 10 year hit to your credit

horsemessiah 7y ago

I appreciate this perspective. So many people have no sympathy towards young people, who have been told their whole life that college is the path success.

eldavido 7y ago
Maybe that belief isn't wrong, but outdated?

ge96 7y ago

Personally still owing some debt(that was pretty much wasted since I didn't finish school, my own fault) debt was handed out easily/same with credit cards. I think it's a great opportunity if you use it right(follow through in my case). I didn't understand money though at that time, wasted it/killed my credit score. I was lucky though I have federal loans and they do a pay as you earn type plan where you can pay nothing if you don't make enough granted it still builds interest. Overall my debts aren't bad since I had some grants/went into engineering/physics not a doctor or lawyer. I at least made it into software so if my life continues to pan out I will get out of debt within two years at best. But yeah, at that time though(in school) I was really scared because I was not doing well in school and I was like "how will I pay this back"...

mrguyorama 7y ago

>This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. It's because one generation ago, college was a great way to access a pretty good life for most people, and was affordable on an average person's income.

optimiz3 7y ago
> access a pretty good life for most people Depends on the degree, school, and student. Still true for STEM and medicine.
- panzagl 7y ago
  You mean 'still true for a small selection of engineering degrees/CS and pre-med'
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tharne 7y ago

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; It's sad that most cultures understood the danger and fragility that debt brings, and yet we've all somehow how forgotten it. We even have terms like "good debt".

justAnotherNET 7y ago
Yep. We created a society where everyone pays 150%-250% for everything over time just to fund a parasitic banker class
xmprt 7y ago
Debt is good. It's what enables people who don't have the money up front to start businesses or buy houses. It becomes bad when people are relying on it to finance small purchases or when loans have predatory terms (like credit card payments, payday loans, etc.)
- vkou 7y ago
  > Debt is good. It's what enables people who don't have the money up front to start businesses or buy houses. The reason people go into debt to buy houses is because everyone is using debt to buy houses, thus driving the prices up. If mortgages were capped at 5-year terms, the price of houses would be a lot lower, which would be great for society - for the same reason that having cheaper electricity is great for society.
  - asdfadsfgfdda 7y ago
    Prices wouldn't significantly change. You still have people/pension funds/governments with lots of money to invest (the people who currently buy mortgage debt). How would you prohibit this money from just buying houses and renting them out? And even if you could lower prices, how would you compensate the current homeowners for destroying the value of their largest asset?
    - vkou 7y ago

eli_gottlieb 7y ago

> Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. Well yeah, because us "adults" don't wanna pay the state and local taxes necessary to keep public universities affordable.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Attitudes such as this are the problem. Civilization has a cost, that cost is paid with taxes. Edit: I didn’t pickup in the sarcasm. Mea culpa.
- Gollapalli 7y ago
  The guy was agreeing with you.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  You know I sarcasm-quoted "adults" to indicate the immaturity of not paying for civilization-upkeep costs, right?
HarryHirsch 7y ago
Why is this downvoted? In the European nations (with the notable exception of Britain), university is free or nearly so.
- pmorici 7y ago
  It's not 'free' it's paid for through taxes.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Good point. The rich need to pay taxes, else there is civilization only for the rich. Consider Alabama, a lowtax state, thanks to the 1901 constitution that the landowners and industrialists wrote to protect their wealth and look what shape the state is in.

jedberg 7y ago

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be discharged at bankruptcy. That being said, I actually think that's a good thing, because it would force colleges to charge reasonable tuition rates and also offer scholarships if they want to get the best students. But barring shifting to a European model of college funding, I don't see the US allowing dischargeable loans, nor do I think they should, because the reality of it is that colleges won't reduce their rates nor increase their scholarships, they would just be completely out of reach of poor and middle class students.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>colleges won't reduce their rates nor increase their scholarships, they would just be completely out of reach of poor and middle class students. If you let that run its course for a couple years then either the employers will have to relax their degree requirements or colleges will have to relax their price requirements. It'll be a game of chicken.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Or maybe they won't. Chronic underemployment has been a thing since at least 2008. Given a reality where there are simply more people than jobs that need doing, shutting the poor out of the education system seems like just another way to increase wealth inequality.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Do employers have degree requirements? A 1970 SCOTUS case put strong constraints on what employers could require, at least with respect to high school diplomas. The same logic would apply to college degrees. Unless a direct link to a job (not just a general linkage) could be demonstrated, if there is a de facto racial discriminatory effect (and there would be, just from different rates of graduation from college) then the requirement would be illegal. I've been waiting for someone with a bone to pick against higher education to file a lawsuit over this. It could devalue college degrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

cableshaft 7y ago

Colleges should be shaking in their boots for the next generation, because there's going to be a whole generation of parents that suffered terrible college debt they couldn't pay off and will likely be telling their children it's just not worth it (as opposed to the previous generation that had cheap college and a great economy and pressured all their children to go for that 'guaranteed better life'). I made it through relatively okay because STEM and some scholarships, but I'm not even sure I'll recommend my children go to college. Especially with online courses (not talking about college, just courses) becoming more viable and useful. I definitely won't for some pursuits, like art. I'd rather they live at home with me for four years, doing self-study and putting their art out there online and developing a following rather than spend $200,000+ on college that will likely not result in anything afterwards (hell, as a semi-professional game designer myself, I'd happily work with them to get their art into published games).

nostrademons 7y ago
Also a generation of potential parents who won't be having kids because they can't afford to, largely because of student loan and housing costs. That's already hitting - the incoming class of 2023 (matriculating 2019) is the first cohort born since 9/11, and is tiny. A number of colleges are facing bankruptcy because there just aren't enough students to go around. And it'll only get worse. Birth rates were depressed from 2001-2009, but they fell off a cliff after 2009.
- staticassertion 7y ago
  Can I read more about these statistics somewhere?
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Big WaPo feature story on Hampshire's bankruptcy and the impending demographic apocalypse for colleges: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/10/21/downfall-hampshire-college-broken-business-model-american-higher-education/?arc404=true https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/10/21/downfall-... Fertility rates by year in U.S: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... Births per year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-in-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-... I was wrong about the start date, BTW. I'd thought that fertility started dropping after 9/11 (which also roughly coincides with the children of the 70s having kids instead of baby boomers, a smaller cohort), but it really didn't peak until 2007-2008. Then there's a double-whammy: there are fewer women of childbearing age (coinciding with Gen-Xers born in the 70s and early Millenials), and the fertility rate among women who are of childbearing age has fallen off a cliff. Births are down about 15% since 2007; when you think about what that means for a typical classroom (where you might've had 24 kids, now you might have 20), that's pretty huge.

vkou 7y ago

> This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". That's because it is a ticket to the good life if you are of average intelligence, average ability, average connections, and average parents. Or, more specifically, it is a ticket to a less bad life. Not everyone can go into trades. Not everyone should go into trades. If you are an average person, and you're not working trades, and you don't have a college degree, you're going to be capped out at waiting tables and flipping burgers. At least these masters-degree holders can apply for crappy low-end office jobs. You actually get evenings and weekends off with most of those, and you're unlikely to get a chef screaming at you while you're holding a pot of hot oil.

WalterBright 7y ago

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy That'll just make loans even more expensive for everyone else.

abnry 7y ago

The government will give out a loan to students for basically any reason, as long as their family doesn't make too much money. Think about the insanity of that kind of investment practice. No "business plan", no estimates of ROI, no collateral, little to no grade submissions. It's a bad way to invest. If a student is going to get a loan, what I think the government and banks should do is require them to file a proposal explaining how they plan to recoup the cost of their education using real, hard market data. If you want to become a archaeological historian, you need to research what sorts archaeology jobs are in your neighborhood and what they will make.

jimbokun 7y ago
Sounds good in principal, but would require a very large investment in a bureaucracy to carefully evaluate and vet the load applications of every student in the country.
vonmoltke 7y ago
> The government will give out a loan to students for basically any reason, as long as their family doesn't make too much money. The only bearing family income has is whether you get the lower subsidized rate or not. Anybody can get unsubsidized loans.

mercer 7y ago

While I think things could be a lot better, I like how college loans work over here in The Netherlands. Regardless of whether they're a 'golden ticket' or not (times are changing?), the student loan is something one doesn't have to worry about too much. Not only is/was a big part of it considered a 'gift' (up to half when I was studying, depending on my parents' income), but the entirety of the loan left over is low-interest and has no real demands. Basically, you're asked to pay off x amount per month based on the total loan, but if x amount exceeds 10% percent of your income, you can ask to pay (potentially much) less. If you don't make any money, you pay off nothing. My income is rather irregular, but for close to a decade I've been paying off the amount suggested. It's partly laziness, and partly a desire to be a good citizen that makes me not bother to ask to pay less based on my income. Anecdotally I know many people like myself who basically pay more back than they strictly have to. All in all I suspect the system not only works well, but ultimately is a net benefit to the entire country. A well-educated individual over here makes 10x times that of a low-wage workers, and the taxes are significantly higher too. While it could take 20+ years to pay off the student debt, much of it is probably paid off in increased taxes in the interim. Also I imagine the student debt not being a sword of damocles has a not insignificant effect on our general state of wellbeing and a reduced number of heart attacks, burnouts, and the like.

eldavido 7y ago
American here - The Netherlands is a pretty small country (population wise) but the more I learn about it, the more impressed I am. Low public debt, sophisticated commercial culture, great education system, very cosmopolitan, and sensible. Good job, guys.

slg 7y ago

>All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. Why would anyone lend money to someone with zero credit history, zero income, zero collateral, zero prospects of repaying the loan for at least 4+ years, and has the ability to immediately declare bankruptcy as soon as it comes time to start paying you back? What would the free market interest rate be on that type of loan? Allowing loans to discharged is nothing but a band-aid on a broken system. We need to work to make college cheaper. Building the entire system around loans is the problem, not one specific feature of those loans.

lostcolony 7y ago
I'll go one further. Education is not an asset you can take away. Houses and cars can be foreclosed on; you can't take and resell education as a good. It either needs to be kept as a pure luxury commodity, or it needs to be valued societally and not require an individual to pay for. Even if college is 'cheaper', if it prices some people out, it can't be viewed as a necessity to be able to get a good job (not saying it is, but society certainly tries to push that viewpoint).
- jackcosgrove 7y ago
  Lots of credit card debt is unsecured because the purchased goods are consumed, but that is dischargeable.
  - slg 7y ago
    Which is why credit card interest rates are so high and why you can't get a credit card with $100,000+ limit as an 18 year old with zero income or credit history.
    - lostcolony 7y ago
      And also why credit card debt is not concerned a necessity for 'making it' in society.
7y ago

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

those loans shouldn't be allowed in the first place. There should be some kind of cap on the loans in the first place. Perhaps, create a ceiling of something manageable say 5k. At that point, colleges will have no choice but to start cutting costs and make college more affordable.

happythomist 7y ago

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; and it's the same reason we have bankruptcy laws. The Catholic Church condemns usury as intrinsically evil because, in the words of Aquinas, usury is to "sell what does not exist". [1] Aquinas observed that some goods are consumed by their very use, such as food or drink. Allowing someone to use such a good is equivalent to transferring the ownership. You cannot "rent" a sandwich or allow someone to "borrow" a bottle of wine, at least not if they intend to eat or drink it. Once the ownership is transferred, you have no basis to charge for its use. He argued that money was an example of such a good. The only way to use money is to spend it, and it is consumed by that use. Therefore, loaning money at interest is an attempt to "rent" money that you no longer own, which is unjust. Today, there is much greater access to profitable investment opportunities. It is even possible to obtain a guaranteed rate of return on money through CDs and GICs. It is therefore licit to reflect this in the "price" of money that is lent, but this is not usury. The Church cannot change her definitive teachings of faith and morals; usury has always been and will always be a grave sin. [2] [1] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm [2] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm

eldavido 7y ago
In my view, this is a situation where technology changed our understanding of morality. When Aquinas was alive, there was nothing remotely similar to modern banking. Money was lent at punitive rates of interest (20% or more/year), with very little regulation concerning what rights creditors had if debtors couldn't pay. As an example, look at mortgages today; in many states, these are non-recourse, meaning the law limits the borrower's liability to the mortgaged property (the house), and nothing more. People aren't sold into slavery, there are no debtors prisons, and we have a sophisticated system of personal bankruptcy that lets people start over. In short, if you can't pay a loan, you aren't getting your kneecaps broken or getting sold into slavery. In my view, that's a game-changer.
- apta 7y ago
  This doesn't change the fact that lending with interest is inherently evil and parasitic, even in modern times. It is completely prohibited in Islam, and Jews don't lend each other with interest.

yowlingcat 7y ago

That colleges still get to win when their students graduate into economic destitution is a moral hazard of American society that we will inevitably look back upon as a great stain on history. I think a lot of people agree there. While I don't argue it would solve the entirety of the problem, I think a great first step would be to change the financial product itself. The code academy's tuition deferment until employment model seems a lot more sane than what we currently have. If every educational institution had to take this approach, would we still see the same kind of bureaucratic overreach, feudal approach to tenure, and debt slavery that we currently see? I'd love to know.

eldavido 7y ago

I have this evolving metaphor of the US as a financially overextended household or business. We've lived large since WWII. Bought new cars every few years, built the suburbs, provided quality education to a lot of people, etc. Is it all that surprising that people want to "go back" to this? For many people in the US, it was GREAT. But it's all been at great cost. The '60s through the '90s were a time of huge debt accumulation at every level of society, from the US Treasury borrowing, to state and local governments underfunding their pensions, even down to households, with ballooning credit card balances and ever-greater levels of mortgage debt. Now we get to pay for it. Partly that means higher taxes, so we can finally properly fund social security and medicare, and repay the literal trillions of dollars we just borrowed in the past few weeks. Partly taking better care of the environment, which let's be honest, is going to cost a ton of money. It also means some hard choices about what we aren't going to pay for anymore. An entitlement that one should be able to study pretty much anything, for four years, with world-class experts, as a national birthright -- maybe something we can't afford? In my view, we need to start being a bit -- not a lot, just a little more -- economic and practical in how we think about education. Maybe night school or Khan Academy is a better place to study medieval history, or divinity, or any number of wholesome, life-enhancing subjects, than a four-year liberal arts college. Maybe more people should think a little harder about how their investments -- let's face it, that's what they are -- into education, will transform into marketable skills. And maybe the government should stop subsidizing all this, so that colleges will trim down what it costs so that it's actually affordable. We can fix this, it's just going to take a while, and a lot of long, slow, not particularly newsworthy or sexy, adjustments.

yellow_lead 7y ago
> Now we get to pay for it. Partly that means higher taxes, so we can finally properly fund social security and medicare, and repay the literal trillions of dollars we just borrowed in the past few weeks. Sounds like a great deal for those who were alive then. I don't think it's as simple as you suggest.
- eldavido 7y ago
  I'm not saying borrowing for the stimulus was necessarily a bad idea. Only that, unless you think the current level of debt is either sustainable long-term (maybe?) or that it can continue to rise, that the only rational conclusion is that our material standard of living has to decrease. That seems to be the only rational conclusion when you see 25% increases in US national debt in an environment where GDP is growing 1-2%/year. We've made a lot of "promises" in this country in the past 50 years. Senior healthcare. Education. Old-age pensions. Government worker pensions. Being the world's police force. I'm only saying that if you take a hard look at all this, and we can't or won't continue to afford it, some things have to be cut. Will it be four-year college for everyone? Or will it be granny's healthcare? Anyone who says "we have to continue to do all if it" is just kidding themself. We just don't have the money. I'm not long-term optimistic about what it means that the US isn't funding NATO as heavily as it used to be, but I do have to give Trump credit for making this a kitchen table issue. Being the world's police force is damned expensive and I wouldn't mind if we cut that back a bit if that's what it takes to balance, e.g. social security.

maximente 7y ago

no need for lobbying, apparently: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-o...

cmurf 7y ago

One party stood vehemently, unmoving, in 2005 to change the law in order to make it more difficult for student loans to be subject to bankruptcy, based on false pretences. And quite literally no one cared. There's no political will to make student loans more easily dischargeable, even merely repealing the 2005 law. Just like there's no political will to consider education a right, let alone higher education. In the U.S. education is a product you buy, rich people get more and better versions of it. But as it turns out, an infinitesimal number of students even try to have these loans discharged.

JamesBarney 7y ago

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. Because if that was the case no one would lend them money, and there wouldn't be any student loans. Also there is a repayment system where you only are required to pay a percentage of your income above the poverty line..

wolfgke 7y ago

> Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". That's called "marketing".

heavyset_go 7y ago

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely There's also the jubilee[1] concept when it comes to debt, property rights and slavery. It's interesting that even in ancient times, both debt and property were recognized as forms of power and control similar to slavery. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)

ngold 7y ago

This is a 15 year experiment signed by gw jr. and cheerleaded by biden. It is debt slavery to turn college kids into conservatives. On the other eND of the spectrum was no child left behind to makes kids dumber and conservative. Trump is a direct result.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; and it's the same reason we have bankruptcy laws. I don't think the case has been made for this, unless the reason is "things started that way and developed from there", with "that way" and "there" referring to two different things in the two different examples. Brotherhood of Kings has an interesting discussion of an ancient Mesopotamian moneylender, whose documents are preserved today. He became very rich by making loans without charging interest. It worked because if you defaulted on a loan, the moneylender took title to everything you owned. This could be worth more than the value of the loan. (Indeed, for moneylending to be profitable on these terms, you must be able to recover more than the value of the loan.) So the system at the time didn't charge interest, but it would have completely fallen apart if it had also allowed for bankruptcy.

ekianjo 7y ago

> Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life" It is still true, based on statistics of college graduate vs non-college graduates, that going to college brings much better odds in your favor to get a "good life". As usual, it's about odds, nothing is guaranteed in life.

Mirioron 7y ago

Why do so many people need to go to college? Especially before they even know what life is really like. Couldn't they work a year or two and then decide to go to college?

christophilus 7y ago

> This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. I think the shameful thing is how college is such a waste of time for most folks. I think the money would be better spent traveling and learning on your own for a small fraction of the cost.

blackrock 7y ago

The thing that gets me, is why can’t that student loan be tax deducted? If I pay $20k in taxes, then take that money to pay off the student loan first. I don’t care about tax revenue to the government. And the federal government has the power to just print new money to pay off all their old debts anyways, like they are doing now, so they don’t really need my tax money.

notechback 7y ago

Or just fix the incredibly high fees. In many European countries (not the UK) public education is incredibly affordable, in some like Germany and Denmark even free. It's a choice to make fees so high, it's not really necessary for the product. What do US universities spend their money on? Admin, sport stadiums and famous professors that then barely teach because what makes them famous is their research. You'd go cheaper traveling to Europe, studying for three years at a German or Danish university, learning the language as a bonus, and come back afterwards with no debt. Some even have English courses.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
I understood that countries with 'free' education, had a high bar for entry. So not really open to the public; open to the top 10% or whatever. If you pay (in the USA) you can get in somewhere, guaranteed. Because there's a spectrum of institutions, so you can find a place that will take you where you are educationwise, and pull you up from there. Some start at IT college, move to a Community College, then a State or private one, then graduate. Cost-effective and you ultimately get to advertise the place you ended at.

poilcn 7y ago

>All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. They were at some period of time, which allowed colleges intentionally bankrupt students and get paid by the government. Universities and colleges are cancer of education, we have opportunity to naturally get rid of them, at least in their current form.