10 ms·

LOL. I had to drop out of (MIT, not BU, but w/e) due to not being able to get financial aid (even though I think it was technically during the "we will give you

• LigmaYC 4y ago
  Agreed. The financial aid also fools people into believing 80k per year is not insanely greedy pricing.
• silisili 4y ago
  Similarly, I didn't attend some schools I was accepted to because the debt would have crushed me. That's why I don't get the big push for canceling student loans. It feels like rewarding people for irresponsible behavior, and ultimately punishing those who acted responsibly. Further, I expect it would drive tuitions even higher. Who cares what it costs if you don't have to pay...
  • dgfitz 4y ago
    Canceling student loans is purely a political play. I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion. I worked my way through school, granted it was 50k all told over 4 years instead of whatever the hell it costs now. Maybe my ignorance is showing, but putting a cap on loan amounts for undergrad would probably protect the student quite a bit.
    • rdl 4y ago
      I'd rather just make student debt "regular" debt, i.e. dischargeable through bankruptcy. Maybe secured by the actual diploma, so you can't claim to be a graduate if you default on the debt, but you'd obviously have the education. This changed in 2005, under GWB, and was not the worst thing he did (screwing up Afghanistan, invading Iraq, PATRIOT, TSA, ...) but was still a bad thing he did.
      • justahuman74 4y ago
        Australia has an interesting system, the government owns the student debt and once you earn above a certain amount it raises your tax rate slightly until the debt is paid off. Those who can earn enough money eventually pay it off, but they're not worried about debt collectors if they're not earning any money. People who don't ever earn enough simply don't pay it off and it's not a problem. To prevent abuse from the universities raising costs too much, if they want to participate they have to adhere to set rates for degrees. There are a couple of universities that don't participate in the system but they're no-ones first choice
      • tfigment 4y ago
        I really like the diploma idea. Its mostly reasonable to me but not sure its enough. Lots of people leave before getting degree. After first job the degree doesnt really matter that much.
      • jonas21 4y ago
        The point of a secured loan is that if you don't pay, the creditor can sell whatever is securing it and recover some or all of what is owed to them. Taking away someone's diploma because they defaulted on their loan would just be destroying value. It's the equivalent of a bank foreclosing on your house and then burning it to the ground.
    • piperswe 4y ago
      I agree with capping loan amounts on future undergrad loans, but there's a whole generation of people who were encouraged into predatory tuition & loan combos under the promise the degree would get them a job which would make it easy to pay off the loan. This was (and still is, though Gen Z seems to be catching on to the scam) a systemic issue with predatory lending, and since the federal government has control over many of these predatory loans I think the political push to cancel them is entirely understandable. It may be a largely political play, but then again nearly everything the government does seems to be due to largely political reasons. I understand the idea that these loans are predatory might be controversial, but this idea comes from the fact that going to expensive universities and paying for it with loans is pushed by high schools, parents, universities, and society alike as the sure-fire path to success. To an 18-year-old with no way to really comprehend the amount of money they're spending on education or what life looks like after university, they likely will take much of this at face value.
      • dgfitz 4y ago
        I distinctly remember back in school one of my friends got a loan check and said “oh wow this is 2.5k more than I need, I’m gonna buy a new (second and unneeded) laptop!” I was so stunned I couldn’t come up with the words to say. Maybe the real issue is teaching kids the value of money.
        • andirk 4y ago
          Giving an 18 year old a bunch of money who has never lived a day of their life outside of their parent's supervision will always have its issues. Personally, I liked when my friends would get their student loan checks. It meant they were about to buy a bunch of beer and weed for all.
      • MisterBastahrd 4y ago
        I find this "whole generation of people who were encouraged into predatory tuition & loan combos" thing to be incredibly unconvincing. College tuition rates started skyrocketing largely AFTER Google became a thing. There's no excuse for refusing to put in the research into wages and how long it would take to pay off these loans. There were decades of people before internet searches were available who decided to prioritize a lack of debt over going to the absolute best school they could. The most expensive school any of my classmates went to was Tulane, and the kids who went there almost all went on GI bills. Now, across the river, where the people were more affluent... those folks definitely spent more money on their college educations. Can't say I've seen their investments reflected on their Linkedin profiles, though.
    • 4oo4 4y ago
      Not cancelling student loans is also a political play, because of the securities that depend on this unpayable debt (SLABs). https://www.natlawreview.com/article/rmbs-to-slabs-history-repeating-itself https://www.natlawreview.com/article/rmbs-to-slabs-history-r... So right now we are prioritizing SLAB investors' profits over giving consumers more spending power. If college graduates suddenly could spend their loan payment money on other goods and services, it would be great for the economy. Loan repayments have been frozen for years now and nothing bad economically has happened. But instead we're just protecting the rent seeking of the wealthy, which isn't really worthwhile economic activity. Personally I think SLABs are extremely unethical, but even if you disagree with that, SLABs are unsustainable and look a lot like the subprime mortgage bubble. I agree that there needs to be something to drive the cost of education down, but I don't know if a tuition price ceiling is the way to go. I think a good start would be punishing schools that spend elaborately on buildings, athletics and excess/overpaid administrators while also paying their grad students doing a lot of the teaching work starvation wages (or if you're UCLA, don't even pay them at all!) and neglect spending directly on education and tuition. I think an endowment cap is a great idea in this area, to force schools to lower tuition by having to spend a certain part of their endowment, rather than letting them hoard money. Some other things that are extremely good ideas is letting the interest rate be renegotiable/refinancible. For example, why did I have to continue paying 6.5% on my loan when rates everywhere else were near zero? And also letting people discharge loans in bankruptcy like pretty much every other debt. The bubble will burst any day now, since enrollments have been declining for years at this point. Until then, the only people benefiting are student loan servicers, useless and overpaid administrators, plutocratic athletics departments, and investment bankers, NOT students or people doing the actual educating.
      • TimPC 4y ago
        You need something SLAB-like because otherwise everyone declares bankruptcy between finishing their degree and getting a first job. Congratulations you just cancelled all new student loans. Something like dischargeable in bankruptcy after 15 years could work though.
        • rdl 4y ago
    • formerkrogemp 4y ago
      I agree with capping costs. However, not cancelling loans for a small sum of, say, 5-10k per person wouldn't be so bad. Just as you or I had to work through school and scrimp and save doesn't mean we should make others suffer that same way. The logic seems reminiscent of hazing to me.
  • lumost 4y ago
    I know someone who attended the public university in Mass for English. They graduated in 2010 with 100k in loans as the first college graduate in their family. Owing to the job market for the last decade, they primarily worked in the service sector and never made a dent in the student loan principal. How many decades should we punish people for?
    • silisili 4y ago
      It's a really tricky problem to solve, granted. I feel like student loans should be treated more like FHA loans, who generally do more to make sure the loan is worth it. If loan givers had a vested interest in the success of the grantee, they'd do far more due diligence than they do today. They'd not give someone 100k for an English degree, for example. That said, some of the diligence is expected from the borrower as well, IMO.
    • volak 4y ago
      100k in loans for an English degree Demand a refund not a handout
    • dgfitz 4y ago
      Why would you take out 100k in loans for a degree that can’t pay for itself? The real crime here is charging 100k for an English degree. People should be allowed to pursue whatever interests they want, no question. Why would someone spend 100k on an English degree they can’t possibly hope to have bear financial fruit? The scene from good will hunting comes to mind…
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • lumost 4y ago
        Someone who's only exposure to education included 4 years of English, 3 years of math, and 2 years of science could rationally conclude that English is a valuable skill. Particularly when they don't have familial connections with degrees.
      • 4y ago
  • sli 4y ago
    > It feels like rewarding people for irresponsible behavior, and ultimately punishing those who acted responsibly. Keep in mind that most (nearly all) of the people you're talking about were minors less than a year prior to getting these loans pushed on them by people with a lot of experience convincing very young people to take loans. It's disingenuous to act like they aren't easily preyed on due to their inexperience.
  • diob 4y ago
    At the very least we need to limit interest rates on loans. Folks shouldn't be debt slaves for the rest of their lives.
    • sfe22 4y ago
      Interest rates should depend on the market. Why you want to artificially meddle in everything? Solutions for student loans is simple. Stop government guarantees, and get rid of the government law that makes it not dischargeable. Government caused the problem and you ask for another government “solution”
      • diob 4y ago
        This is pretty extreme take on me suggesting limiting predatory rates on loans.
      • boardwaalk 4y ago
        Hah, everything is the government and government is bad when people want it to be. The government is the thing that makes bankruptcy possible in the first place, and if it didn't exist you'd just have someone hunt you down for repayment and torture you until you comply.
        • sfe22 4y ago
          You make the weird assumption that any law requires a big monopoly that meddles in everything. Not true. Anti-slavery law covers the ability to discharge with bankruptcy.
    • MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      I'm fine with the federal government servicing 100% of student debt and for that debt to be completely interest free. But that's as far as I'm willing to go on the issue. If it were up to me, I'd have the feds regulate university expenditures the same way that they regulate insurance companies. You get X% of tuition and fees to go towards construction, overhead, and administration. Everything else is for educator salaries.
  • heavyset_go 4y ago
    > Similarly, I didn't attend some schools I was accepted to because the debt would have crushed me. Same here. However, I don't think other people should have to suffer through what I suffered just because I had to go through it myself. I want society to improve and for others to receive the benefits of those improvements, even if I myself will never get to enjoy them. It's like getting upset at the development of a cheap cure for cancer, because it would seem like a slap in the face to all of the people who suffered and beat cancer themselves, were bankrupted by it or died because of it. I never smoked cigarettes, for example, am religious about sunscreen, and I take care of my body and health to avoid threats like cancer, and I've lost loved ones to the disease. Just because I "did everything right" and still suffered through the loss of loved ones to cancer, doesn't mean that I'd be upset if there were suddenly a cheap cure for it, and I wouldn't be upset if it benefited everyone who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for the last 3 decades, either.
    • pb7 4y ago
      This analogy doesn't hold up. A cheap new cure doesn't help those who struggled in the past but they can still cut me a fat check for the money I paid back and I will benefit from it all the same.
    • coryrc 4y ago
      > It's like getting upset at the development of a cheap cure for cancer No, it's like taking my taxes and giving them to someone else instead of services which benefit many people.
      • coryrc 4y ago
        I'd also like to eliminate "charitable" tax deductions (handouts to the wealthy) and tax-sheltered retirement accounts with millions in them (like Mitt Romney's Roth IRA), and would support UBI and basic free healthcare (if it came with eliminating a lot of bureaucracy), in case you just think I "hate the little guy".
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
      > However, I don't think other people should have to suffer through what I suffered just because I had to go through it myself. I want society to improve and for others to receive the benefits of those improvements, even if I myself will never get to enjoy them. The right way to do this is giving everyone the same amount of cash and increasing marginal income tax rates. It would be politically stupid to reward a small amount of people who have low voter participation rates and instead earn the ire of many who have high voter participation rates. Simply stopping government funded higher education loans would be a better move that actually addressed the root problem with higher education costs. If the goal is to help poor people, then help all poor people. Not just a subsection of the poor that happened to borrow money for overpriced signaling mechanisms.
  • DevKoala 4y ago
    Same boat. I got into CalTech, and instead went to CalPoly SLO because I was afraid of the debt. Things worked out fine tbh.
    • selimthegrim 4y ago
      What year? I went 05-09 and it wasn’t bad but it was getting steep towards the end.
      • DevKoala 4y ago
        I won’t share my class year, but the tuition definitely spiked towards the end.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • testbjjl 4y ago
    Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood and your initial apprehension eventually becomes a valuable asset. I wonder if the same holds true for college. This was certainly my experience.
  • beowulfey 4y ago
    The most likely reason that these tuition costs go so high is because the government is basically willing to give as much money as is needed to get them there. Over the past 50 years, for every dollar given by the government in funding average tuition increased next year by $0.60 [1]. The trouble is, if you take away the student loans the cost of tuition will drop but a lot fewer people will be able to go. 1. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year
  • crysin 4y ago
    Cancelling student debt would only be rewarding irresponsible behavior of the US government by relieving the pressure to change how loans are issued in the first place. The news/ press would mostly stop reporting about it once the initial loans are forgiven since there'd be no pressure anymore to fix the root of the problem which is issuing non-dischargeable unsecured loans in the 10s of to 100s of thousands of dollars. The US allowed those non-dischargeable loans to be issued in the first place with little to no way of knowing if the value provided by the student's desired educational program justified the price it was billing. Students may bare some responsibility here but expecting all 18 year olds who have gone through the traditional US education system to have any resemblance of financial literacy is asking a lot given there seems to be no focus on requiring income management, retirement savings, and debt awareness classes in any US High School tract. What I'm trying to say ultimately is in my opinion most High School graduates are to naive to actually realize how bad of deal they may be getting themselves into and the US government is actively encouraging that reckless behavior by allowing these federal loans to be issued.
• telchior 4y ago
  So many people are screwed by cutoffs and rules. My parents had assets on paper but were going through a messy divorce and bleeding cash; they refused to give me anything at the time I was in need of tuition money. I got two jobs, but that didn't cover it. Many, many visits were made to the financial aid and advising offices -- every time the answer was the same. The only way out of the requirements is to prove you're fully alienated from your parents, and that's really hard to prove. But if you turn 24, poof, you magically no longer have parents and can get any loans / aid / whatever based on your own income. I get why the rules exist but still kind of feel like I got scammed, just due to the endless brainwashing kids get that you must graduate from college at any cost. (I ended up taking some 20%+ interest rate loans.)
• catilinam 4y ago
  Damn, yeah I took a full ride instead of paying the 70k back when I was deciding for college…agree would feel a bit miffed if everyone suddenly was forgiven all debt
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    I never really understood this kind of jealousy because other people are given a break. It doesn't make your situation any worse and it makes theirs better.
    • LigmaYC 4y ago
      Everbody's paying for it in the form of tax, I would rather not bail out universities/banks that prey on the financial illeteracy of high school graduates.
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        > illeteracy :) Indeed! But that aside: forgiving this debt is not about bailing out universities or banks, it is to help those individuals. That the banks get the money doesn't really matter in the longer term, the quality of life improvement for the individuals affected more than offsets that and if this didn't happen they would still have to pay the banks.
        • LigmaYC 4y ago
          I think it would improve everyones quality of life if they suddenly didn't have to pay back their loans, however there is also the downside where the rest of society now has to pay for your mistakes.
          • jacquesm 4y ago
            Student loans are not always mistakes and quite a few people who are in trouble with debt are not in that situation due to things they themselves controlled (such as, but not limited to medical issues, divorces, natural disasters etc).