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The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. As with homes, people will pay as much as institutions are willing to loan t

The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. As with homes, people will pay as much as institutions are willing to loan them. In both cases the currently low interest rates allow the loan principal to be much higher (given that folks calculate cost based on recurring payments). If you remove the student loan system then tuition would become cheaper. However that does unfairly impact those from economically disadvantaged households. Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less than $50k/yr so try going to Cal and/or your best local public school and supplement with self teaching (e.g. via public/free lectures from MIT)? The self directed learning/motivation is the hard part for many people of that age, but few have said living frugally should or would be easy.

lumost 5y ago
Would it really penalize disadvantaged households? I’d imagine that many such students lack a co-signer for these predatory loans, or would be further disadvantaged by a 200k degree that doesn’t meaningfully change their economic outcomes in 2022. To make college work you need to pick a dwindling number of high leverage disciplines such as CS, even picking something technical like Chemistry won’t yield a return on a 200k degree.
- yxwvut 5y ago
  I think the only tenable solutions are 1) a ceiling on the loan amount tethered to public college costs to increase price elasticity and prevent runaway costs, along with a quota on loans to address the 'future ability to repay' issue with many majors/low caliber schools 2) free public college (or equivalent private college voucher) Giving out loans with no cap on how much schools can charge and with no ability-to-repay check is a recipe for catastrophe. I think option 2 is the best equitable outcome but is probably politically unsavory given the heterogeneity in public school costs/quality across states (which typically aligns with political divides).
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Option 2 is the only tenable solution. Option 1 is just more of the same we have now. Either society puts their money where their mouth is and actually pays for people to be educated, or they can choose to keep taxes lower and let people fend for themselves. Either of these options is fine, but the bullshit blank check taxpayer funded loans non dischargeable in bankruptcy is only good for politicians and taxpayers today at the expense of taxpayers and members of society tomorrow.
    - lumost 5y ago
      The pertinent question of where the money goes needs an answer. Afaict universities are simply spending money on more things because they can or taking on debt to drive prestige projects. We know college can be cheaper, Brigham young goes for 5k/yr, European and Canadian schools still charge less than 10k/yr.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        The answer would be investigated and evident if proper underwriting had to be done and there was not an unlimited guarantee from future taxpayers to make good on the debt.
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        Brigham and Women’s will be delighted to know they acquired a university. Didn’t know they turned Mormon though.
        lumost 5y ago
        Oof updated, should be Brigham young
    - ryan93 5y ago
      What do you mean educated. Like 80% of degrees are useless. My Econ degree is a primary example of useless degrees.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  From what i hear you need at least a Masters degree in Chemistry to get lab assistant style jobs at entry level now :( And no, they do NOT make good money.
HWR_14 5y ago
It's not just loans, it's COVID. If I were college-age and I were planning on going to college I would certainly do one of two things. I would postpone college until the COVID issues died down -or- I would use the fewer applicants to get into a more prestigious school banking on a better 3 year experience (out of 4) starting in the fall of 2022 and more impressive degree going forward. Either way, I can imagine admittance numbers falling off.
- merolish 5y ago
  I do applicant interviews for my alma mater (MIT). The number of students applying has skyrocketed, and it sounds like it's the same for peer schools. https://thetech.com/2021/03/18/regular-admissions-2025 https://thetech.com/2021/03/18/regular-admissions-2025 Tuition has doubled since I went there, but at least they can afford good financial aid for those who can get in.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Yeah I suspect people have wised up to the fact that the alumni base of a program matters more than pretty much anything else. So unless you’re at a prestige program at a prestige school, college probably isn’t going to pay off as well. Thus the piling in to elite universities while overall enrollment drops off.
    - magicloop 5y ago
      You've hit the nail on the head here. Education is primarily a prestige product. Secondarily, the social and alumni effects of the network around you when you attend. Thirdly, it is the college campus experience. Fourthly, it is what you actually learn. If you just price the value of each of these four pieces, the dynamic in the market is completely explained. Community college still provides learning, but not much on the other three factors. That is, it has become poor value for the fees it charges despite them being lower in absolute terms than prestige schools.
      - 5y ago
VampireWillow 5y ago
Here in Canada the government simply dictates to universities how much they can charge. It seems beyond insane to me to do it any other way, seeing as our entire societies are dependent on getting enough people educated to perpetuate a service economy. To be fair, this kind of means that universities should be completely public. And although they are for all intents and purposes, in theory they are still non-governmental entities. And that's strange as well.
- chasd00 5y ago
  with federally backed student loans the US government has told universities here they can charge as much as they want.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  The department of education in the USA kind of does that too. The amount of government-backed loans a student can receive for undergrad is capped at ~$35,000 (it's unlimited for graduate school). It's also graduated, so a freshman can only receive ~$4,000 their first year, and it goes up from there. Grants are given to freshman to cover the shortfall. Also, students/parents are expected to contribute, based on household income. Most public state schools keep their pricing in line with these caps ($35k in loans + ~$5k in grants). I just picked on Iowa because, and here's a list I found: https://www.universityreview.org/iowa-colleges/ https://www.universityreview.org/iowa-colleges/ You'll notice that in-state tuition for all public state schools is around $8k a year. Here's the same for Tennessee: https://www.universityreview.org/tennessee-colleges/ https://www.universityreview.org/tennessee-colleges/
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    > The amount of government-backed loans a student can receive for undergrad is capped at ~$35,000 (it's unlimited for graduate school). It's also graduated, so a freshman can only receive ~$4,000 their first year, and it goes up from there. I believe this only applies to the subsidized federal student loans that don't collect interest while you're in school. The limit on unsubsidized federal loans that start collecting interest right away is much higher. When I started college in 2009, I got $9,000 in federal student loans for my freshman year.
VikingCoder 5y ago
Here's what I don't get - Where the hell is the money _going_? Are Colleges and Universities pocketing the money? Are they publicly traded and distributing dividends? Are they building rockets? I know some of it goes back to financial aid, and some goes to football coaches... But we're talking about so much freaking money, and I just can't visualize where it's going.
- roody15 5y ago
  It is indeed interesting. Most major universities look to maximize adjunct faculty and honestly new professors make much less than you think. My point is I don’t think the money is going to university teaching staff at least…
  - ejb999 5y ago
    Can't speak of all schools, but at my local state school (which I attended) - which as far as sports teams is way down on the list of being considered important (i.e. you'll never see them on TV), they constantly bringing in coaches making $1M/year, who then hire a bunch of assistant coaches making $200K a year etc - and then when the teams don't do well - like losing 80% of their games - they fire the coaches (paying out the rest of their contracts) and hire the next million dollar coaches, rinse and repeat - and this is at a state-run school; I would imagine at private schools with top tier teams, its even worse. There is so many overspending problems its not even funny - and yet the people actually teaching the classes are TA's, probably getting $20K/year, while the professors work on their 'research' and are rarely available to students. Starting to think the whole higher-education model is hopelessly broken.
    - nyolfen 5y ago
      this is a conscious calculation to attract alumni donations — people who are into their college teams donate more than others, and even more when the teams do well
    - ryathal 5y ago
      Sports are generally separate from the rest of the university budget. It's not tuition dollars that are paying the coach, it's season tickets, TV contracts, and donors. Men's football/basketball makes obscene money for the big schools, and the little schools get paid to be beat up by the big schools. The reports that sports don't make money are like how movies don't make money, it's largely creative accounting not actual losses.
throwaway5752 5y ago
That completely shifts the blame to bureaucracies, and that isn't fair. Loans are where they are because students prefer newer dorms, amenities, programs, and research opportunities. Student competition leads to prestige, leads to demand from employers for graduates from a specific institution. It is a self-reinforcing dynamic. The fact student loads have special bankruptcy treatment is bad. But absent Sallie Mae (or Navient, whatever it is now) students would be paying whatever Harvard or Stanford asked, and that would determine pricing for the next tier of schools.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Students don't usually get a choice of dorm, it's often a lottery program. Research is usually grant funded.
  - throwaway5752 5y ago
    Students tour campuses and look at facilities, including dorms, and that factors into their decisions. Research may be funded. But research salaries are high as are facility costs and upkeep. There are numerous costs to support a top tier research program and maintain it that are not covered by grants.
- malfist 5y ago
  It's a little rich to blame 18 year olds for college costs skyrocketing don't you think? Of course students prefer newer dorms, amenities, programs and research opportunities. But asking someone who might have been getting $5/week allowance to figure out how much a newer dorm is worth when the prices are in the 10s of thousands is an impossible task. They don't know how much money is worth. And then to tell them that they can't discharge it in bankrupcy because they knew what they were getting into is very much bullshit. And I don't say all this because I have student loans. I was very lucky, I went to a state college with a full tuition scholarship. But I've seen a lot of my peers struggle with student loans because teenagers don't understand fiscal policy, and shouldn't be expected too.
  - 5y ago
ashtonkem 5y ago
> given that folks calculate cost based on recurring payments That’s very true for mortgages, but in my experience this isn’t how student loans work. Nobody I knew before college had any idea what their loans would cost on a monthly basis once they went into repayment, and I don’t think it was disclosed to me (or I forgot). Also unlike my mortgage, my loans have trivially changed repayment plans. I changed some of them several times based on my economic circumstances without refinancing, which makes nailing down a single payment kind of hard, even if the interest rate hasn’t changed.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I wonder what would happen if banks could deny student loans. Students would need to prove that they are a good investment but it also means that colleges would have to prove they are good investments as well.
mdavis6890 5y ago
Yes, exactly. One way to help college-age kids go to college if they want to without having the impact that you describe is to just give everybody ages 18-22 $20k per year in cash to do what they like with it. This still preserves their incentive to choose wisely, compare prices and consider alternate options.
honkycat 5y ago
> The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. This is partly true. The US also DID use to subsidize more University tuition. However: Agreed. The loans are dumb. They feed into the issue in exactly the way you describe. They should be interest free as long as you are making regular payments.[1] > Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less... This is so thorny... I have a younger cousin, and what he ended up doing was going to a community college for two years, then transferring. It worked out well for him! But it was a gamble. When I was in school my parents were very obsessed with me "having the college experience" even though we were much less well-off than they were in uni and were not able to support me financially[0]. I say this to point out: I am not advocating for this. College should not be fun! If it is: Great! Glad you had a good time. But that is not necessarily the reality you should expect. However: I have noticed a lot of people made a lot of friends in Uni, and those develop into professional relationships later in life. Additionally, if you are an ambitious person, going to community college has the risk of failing to prepare you for higher level university teaching. Finally: I am an extremely extroverted person. I found the community aspect of going to class, studying with friends, etc. extremely helpful in my motivation and understanding of the material. I've tried to do the MIT classes and such, but it rarely sticks. 0: Not their fault, not whining. Shit happens! EDIT: 1: AS A VERY MODERATE ACCOMMODATION. I'm not advocating for this policy as the end-all-be-all, but I feel like this is a very reasonable suggestion.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  The issue with student loans no one talks about is that the interest collected on them is already earmaked to help pay for Obamacare and Pell Grants. If you wonder why Democrats get so hesitant to do anything about the situation there is one of your reasons why. (there are alot more reasons but thats a decent reason)
zip1234 5y ago
At least in a house loan they will check your income and job before giving you the loan. For college they will give anyone a loan for an immense amount of money without verifying anything.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  The problem comes in when you try to verify someone's ability to repay the loan. It's not just one's choice in major — for example, the graduation rate for Historically Black Colleges & Universities is only 35%. There are significant deltas between GPA, test scores, and college success rates between various ethnicities. Further, there are significant differences in the repayment of student loans between various ethnicities. I would not want to be on the team that does a risk assessment with these facts as inputs, because the results would be politically untenable.
  - hooande 5y ago
    - aerostable_slug 5y ago
      That's out of line and I'd appreciate an apology. I was simply pointing out the most politically hot topic that such a risk assessment would run into, but if you prefer to put class first that is your prerogative. Of course, with even a small amount of research you might find that these issues tend to collide and ethnicity is what gets talked about the most. You might also find out that the disparate rate of repayments between ethnicities is perhaps the leading issue for those who favor debt forgiveness, many of whom frame it as a civil rights issue [0][1][2][3]. That said, it's perhaps a moot point because Biden's not forgiving anything, and the way things are looking I don't imagine Congress will any time soon either. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/20/us/black-borrowers-debt-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/20/us/black-borrowers-debt-study... [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/black-student-loan-crisis/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/black-student-loan-crisis/... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-20/calls-for-biden-to-cancel-50-000-student-debt-could-boost-black-wealth-by-40 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-20/calls-for... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/66percent-of-black-borrowers-say-they-regret-taking-out-student-loans.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/66percent-of-black-borrowers...
joconde 5y ago
> Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less than $50k/yr so try going to Cal and/or your best local public school and supplement with self teaching (e.g. via public/free lectures from MIT)? Unrelated question: does "Cal" mean Berkeley here? Do you really need to "supplement it with self-teaching"? I don't really understand why state schools are viewed that way, since Berkeley consistently ranks world top-10.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  Right, that suggestion was more for folks in states with lesser public school systems.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  Yes, "Cal" means UC Berkeley, the first University of California.
wheelinsupial 5y ago
Also AP classes and dual enrollment while in high school. You can knock off 1 - 2 semesters of college level coursework in high school that way. I’m not American, but there are lots of stories on here I’ve seen of people being able to dual enroll in a local community college or university in grades 11/12 and shorten the time spent in college.

lumost 5y ago

Would it really penalize disadvantaged households? I’d imagine that many such students lack a co-signer for these predatory loans, or would be further disadvantaged by a 200k degree that doesn’t meaningfully change their economic outcomes in 2022. To make college work you need to pick a dwindling number of high leverage disciplines such as CS, even picking something technical like Chemistry won’t yield a return on a 200k degree.

yxwvut 5y ago
I think the only tenable solutions are 1) a ceiling on the loan amount tethered to public college costs to increase price elasticity and prevent runaway costs, along with a quota on loans to address the 'future ability to repay' issue with many majors/low caliber schools 2) free public college (or equivalent private college voucher) Giving out loans with no cap on how much schools can charge and with no ability-to-repay check is a recipe for catastrophe. I think option 2 is the best equitable outcome but is probably politically unsavory given the heterogeneity in public school costs/quality across states (which typically aligns with political divides).
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Option 2 is the only tenable solution. Option 1 is just more of the same we have now. Either society puts their money where their mouth is and actually pays for people to be educated, or they can choose to keep taxes lower and let people fend for themselves. Either of these options is fine, but the bullshit blank check taxpayer funded loans non dischargeable in bankruptcy is only good for politicians and taxpayers today at the expense of taxpayers and members of society tomorrow.
  - lumost 5y ago
    The pertinent question of where the money goes needs an answer. Afaict universities are simply spending money on more things because they can or taking on debt to drive prestige projects. We know college can be cheaper, Brigham young goes for 5k/yr, European and Canadian schools still charge less than 10k/yr.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The answer would be investigated and evident if proper underwriting had to be done and there was not an unlimited guarantee from future taxpayers to make good on the debt.
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Brigham and Women’s will be delighted to know they acquired a university. Didn’t know they turned Mormon though.
      - lumost 5y ago
        Oof updated, should be Brigham young
  - ryan93 5y ago
    What do you mean educated. Like 80% of degrees are useless. My Econ degree is a primary example of useless degrees.
namelessoracle 5y ago
From what i hear you need at least a Masters degree in Chemistry to get lab assistant style jobs at entry level now :( And no, they do NOT make good money.

HWR_14 5y ago

It's not just loans, it's COVID. If I were college-age and I were planning on going to college I would certainly do one of two things. I would postpone college until the COVID issues died down -or- I would use the fewer applicants to get into a more prestigious school banking on a better 3 year experience (out of 4) starting in the fall of 2022 and more impressive degree going forward. Either way, I can imagine admittance numbers falling off.

merolish 5y ago
I do applicant interviews for my alma mater (MIT). The number of students applying has skyrocketed, and it sounds like it's the same for peer schools. https://thetech.com/2021/03/18/regular-admissions-2025 https://thetech.com/2021/03/18/regular-admissions-2025 Tuition has doubled since I went there, but at least they can afford good financial aid for those who can get in.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Yeah I suspect people have wised up to the fact that the alumni base of a program matters more than pretty much anything else. So unless you’re at a prestige program at a prestige school, college probably isn’t going to pay off as well. Thus the piling in to elite universities while overall enrollment drops off.
  - magicloop 5y ago
    You've hit the nail on the head here. Education is primarily a prestige product. Secondarily, the social and alumni effects of the network around you when you attend. Thirdly, it is the college campus experience. Fourthly, it is what you actually learn. If you just price the value of each of these four pieces, the dynamic in the market is completely explained. Community college still provides learning, but not much on the other three factors. That is, it has become poor value for the fees it charges despite them being lower in absolute terms than prestige schools.
    - 5y ago

VampireWillow 5y ago

Here in Canada the government simply dictates to universities how much they can charge. It seems beyond insane to me to do it any other way, seeing as our entire societies are dependent on getting enough people educated to perpetuate a service economy. To be fair, this kind of means that universities should be completely public. And although they are for all intents and purposes, in theory they are still non-governmental entities. And that's strange as well.

chasd00 5y ago
with federally backed student loans the US government has told universities here they can charge as much as they want.
mywittyname 5y ago
The department of education in the USA kind of does that too. The amount of government-backed loans a student can receive for undergrad is capped at ~$35,000 (it's unlimited for graduate school). It's also graduated, so a freshman can only receive ~$4,000 their first year, and it goes up from there. Grants are given to freshman to cover the shortfall. Also, students/parents are expected to contribute, based on household income. Most public state schools keep their pricing in line with these caps ($35k in loans + ~$5k in grants). I just picked on Iowa because, and here's a list I found: https://www.universityreview.org/iowa-colleges/ https://www.universityreview.org/iowa-colleges/ You'll notice that in-state tuition for all public state schools is around $8k a year. Here's the same for Tennessee: https://www.universityreview.org/tennessee-colleges/ https://www.universityreview.org/tennessee-colleges/
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  > The amount of government-backed loans a student can receive for undergrad is capped at ~$35,000 (it's unlimited for graduate school). It's also graduated, so a freshman can only receive ~$4,000 their first year, and it goes up from there. I believe this only applies to the subsidized federal student loans that don't collect interest while you're in school. The limit on unsubsidized federal loans that start collecting interest right away is much higher. When I started college in 2009, I got $9,000 in federal student loans for my freshman year.

VikingCoder 5y ago

Here's what I don't get - Where the hell is the money _going_? Are Colleges and Universities pocketing the money? Are they publicly traded and distributing dividends? Are they building rockets? I know some of it goes back to financial aid, and some goes to football coaches... But we're talking about so much freaking money, and I just can't visualize where it's going.

roody15 5y ago
It is indeed interesting. Most major universities look to maximize adjunct faculty and honestly new professors make much less than you think. My point is I don’t think the money is going to university teaching staff at least…
- ejb999 5y ago
  Can't speak of all schools, but at my local state school (which I attended) - which as far as sports teams is way down on the list of being considered important (i.e. you'll never see them on TV), they constantly bringing in coaches making $1M/year, who then hire a bunch of assistant coaches making $200K a year etc - and then when the teams don't do well - like losing 80% of their games - they fire the coaches (paying out the rest of their contracts) and hire the next million dollar coaches, rinse and repeat - and this is at a state-run school; I would imagine at private schools with top tier teams, its even worse. There is so many overspending problems its not even funny - and yet the people actually teaching the classes are TA's, probably getting $20K/year, while the professors work on their 'research' and are rarely available to students. Starting to think the whole higher-education model is hopelessly broken.
  - nyolfen 5y ago
    this is a conscious calculation to attract alumni donations — people who are into their college teams donate more than others, and even more when the teams do well
  - ryathal 5y ago
    Sports are generally separate from the rest of the university budget. It's not tuition dollars that are paying the coach, it's season tickets, TV contracts, and donors. Men's football/basketball makes obscene money for the big schools, and the little schools get paid to be beat up by the big schools. The reports that sports don't make money are like how movies don't make money, it's largely creative accounting not actual losses.

throwaway5752 5y ago

That completely shifts the blame to bureaucracies, and that isn't fair. Loans are where they are because students prefer newer dorms, amenities, programs, and research opportunities. Student competition leads to prestige, leads to demand from employers for graduates from a specific institution. It is a self-reinforcing dynamic. The fact student loads have special bankruptcy treatment is bad. But absent Sallie Mae (or Navient, whatever it is now) students would be paying whatever Harvard or Stanford asked, and that would determine pricing for the next tier of schools.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Students don't usually get a choice of dorm, it's often a lottery program. Research is usually grant funded.
- throwaway5752 5y ago
  Students tour campuses and look at facilities, including dorms, and that factors into their decisions. Research may be funded. But research salaries are high as are facility costs and upkeep. There are numerous costs to support a top tier research program and maintain it that are not covered by grants.
malfist 5y ago
It's a little rich to blame 18 year olds for college costs skyrocketing don't you think? Of course students prefer newer dorms, amenities, programs and research opportunities. But asking someone who might have been getting $5/week allowance to figure out how much a newer dorm is worth when the prices are in the 10s of thousands is an impossible task. They don't know how much money is worth. And then to tell them that they can't discharge it in bankrupcy because they knew what they were getting into is very much bullshit. And I don't say all this because I have student loans. I was very lucky, I went to a state college with a full tuition scholarship. But I've seen a lot of my peers struggle with student loans because teenagers don't understand fiscal policy, and shouldn't be expected too.
- 5y ago

ashtonkem 5y ago

> given that folks calculate cost based on recurring payments That’s very true for mortgages, but in my experience this isn’t how student loans work. Nobody I knew before college had any idea what their loans would cost on a monthly basis once they went into repayment, and I don’t think it was disclosed to me (or I forgot). Also unlike my mortgage, my loans have trivially changed repayment plans. I changed some of them several times based on my economic circumstances without refinancing, which makes nailing down a single payment kind of hard, even if the interest rate hasn’t changed.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I wonder what would happen if banks could deny student loans. Students would need to prove that they are a good investment but it also means that colleges would have to prove they are good investments as well.

mdavis6890 5y ago

Yes, exactly. One way to help college-age kids go to college if they want to without having the impact that you describe is to just give everybody ages 18-22 $20k per year in cash to do what they like with it. This still preserves their incentive to choose wisely, compare prices and consider alternate options.

honkycat 5y ago

> The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. This is partly true. The US also DID use to subsidize more University tuition. However: Agreed. The loans are dumb. They feed into the issue in exactly the way you describe. They should be interest free as long as you are making regular payments.[1] > Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less... This is so thorny... I have a younger cousin, and what he ended up doing was going to a community college for two years, then transferring. It worked out well for him! But it was a gamble. When I was in school my parents were very obsessed with me "having the college experience" even though we were much less well-off than they were in uni and were not able to support me financially[0]. I say this to point out: I am not advocating for this. College should not be fun! If it is: Great! Glad you had a good time. But that is not necessarily the reality you should expect. However: I have noticed a lot of people made a lot of friends in Uni, and those develop into professional relationships later in life. Additionally, if you are an ambitious person, going to community college has the risk of failing to prepare you for higher level university teaching. Finally: I am an extremely extroverted person. I found the community aspect of going to class, studying with friends, etc. extremely helpful in my motivation and understanding of the material. I've tried to do the MIT classes and such, but it rarely sticks. 0: Not their fault, not whining. Shit happens! EDIT: 1: AS A VERY MODERATE ACCOMMODATION. I'm not advocating for this policy as the end-all-be-all, but I feel like this is a very reasonable suggestion.

namelessoracle 5y ago
The issue with student loans no one talks about is that the interest collected on them is already earmaked to help pay for Obamacare and Pell Grants. If you wonder why Democrats get so hesitant to do anything about the situation there is one of your reasons why. (there are alot more reasons but thats a decent reason)

zip1234 5y ago

At least in a house loan they will check your income and job before giving you the loan. For college they will give anyone a loan for an immense amount of money without verifying anything.

aerostable_slug 5y ago
The problem comes in when you try to verify someone's ability to repay the loan. It's not just one's choice in major — for example, the graduation rate for Historically Black Colleges & Universities is only 35%. There are significant deltas between GPA, test scores, and college success rates between various ethnicities. Further, there are significant differences in the repayment of student loans between various ethnicities. I would not want to be on the team that does a risk assessment with these facts as inputs, because the results would be politically untenable.
- hooande 5y ago
  - aerostable_slug 5y ago
    That's out of line and I'd appreciate an apology. I was simply pointing out the most politically hot topic that such a risk assessment would run into, but if you prefer to put class first that is your prerogative. Of course, with even a small amount of research you might find that these issues tend to collide and ethnicity is what gets talked about the most. You might also find out that the disparate rate of repayments between ethnicities is perhaps the leading issue for those who favor debt forgiveness, many of whom frame it as a civil rights issue [0][1][2][3]. That said, it's perhaps a moot point because Biden's not forgiving anything, and the way things are looking I don't imagine Congress will any time soon either. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/20/us/black-borrowers-debt-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/20/us/black-borrowers-debt-study... [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/black-student-loan-crisis/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/black-student-loan-crisis/... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-20/calls-for-biden-to-cancel-50-000-student-debt-could-boost-black-wealth-by-40 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-20/calls-for... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/66percent-of-black-borrowers-say-they-regret-taking-out-student-loans.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/66percent-of-black-borrowers...

joconde 5y ago

> Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less than $50k/yr so try going to Cal and/or your best local public school and supplement with self teaching (e.g. via public/free lectures from MIT)? Unrelated question: does "Cal" mean Berkeley here? Do you really need to "supplement it with self-teaching"? I don't really understand why state schools are viewed that way, since Berkeley consistently ranks world top-10.

bagacrap 5y ago
Right, that suggestion was more for folks in states with lesser public school systems.
aerostable_slug 5y ago
Yes, "Cal" means UC Berkeley, the first University of California.

wheelinsupial 5y ago

Also AP classes and dual enrollment while in high school. You can knock off 1 - 2 semesters of college level coursework in high school that way. I’m not American, but there are lots of stories on here I’ve seen of people being able to dual enroll in a local community college or university in grades 11/12 and shorten the time spent in college.