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An alternate headline for this story might be 'Students temporarily relieved of crushing lifelong debt slavery actually able to get mortgages and achieve a basi

An alternate headline for this story might be 'Students temporarily relieved of crushing lifelong debt slavery actually able to get mortgages and achieve a basic level of human dignity that would have been commonplace 50 years ago'. The education system needs a stupendous amount of reform, not the least of which is the ridiculous debt load we put on young adults in what should be the years they're laying the foundation for a productive, happy life.

j_walter 3y ago
To be fair this is debt they take on willingly. Now if the government should be letting 18-year olds take on huge amounts of debt without understanding the long term consequences...thats a different story.
- willis936 3y ago
  This seems like a result of Sallie Mae going private. Can someone explain the reason why Sallie Mae is no longer a GSE?
  - j_walter 3y ago
    There are many reasons, but mainly that we are letting people take loans for significantly over what tuition is. When you write a check to an 18-year old for $5-10K every 3-4 months above and beyond what tuition costs...they aren't always the best at spending it wisely. Certainly government ownership and distribution of student loans that changed in 2009 was also a driver of the huge increase in loans, people going to college and thus rising costs.
  - adventured 3y ago
    It's not. The US student loan debt explosion began in the 1990s. It's a result of the US Government guaranteeing loans of ever greater sums regardless of the ability to pay them back. It's an extraordinarily obvious outcome to that foolish approach. Try it in real-estate or any other sector and see what happens. If they tried it in healthcare, a new US Government guaranteed healthcare loan program (need a $1 million loan (at 9% that you can't discharge) for your surgery? step right up), it's similarly obvious what would happen. The only solution being offered by the left is to generate a lot more debt in one of a few different ways (and the right is largely proposing no solutions at all; both sides are captive morons (to their dogma) when it comes to solving the student loan mess that the government created).
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      You can only get so much in government student loans before having to go to the private sector for student loans. For private student loans there is no federal guarantee, but there is the inability to discharge them in bankruptcy (a frankly right-wing position that adds to the problem, but that the right doesn't want to admit does so). https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/how-much-money-can-i-borrow-federal-student-loans https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/how-much-... > If you’re an undergraduate, the maximum combined amount of Direct Subsidized and Direct Unsubsidized Loans you can borrow each academic year is between $5,500 and $12,500, depending on your year in school and your dependency status. > If you're a graduate/professional student, you can borrow up to $20,500 in Direct Unsubsidized Loans each academic year. Most people aren't going to graduate school, and the full amount of government loans one can get for undergraduate don't make most private schools in any way affordable to those without jobs or family support. On the left a potential solution is to increase the share of corporate profits going to workers. On the right (and part of the left) a potential solution is the reduction of credentialism.
- mikestew 3y ago
  To be fair this is debt they take on willingly. How "willing" are the debtors when the whole system seems to built around the idea that a student will take out a loan to pay for the education, an education which is priced around the idea that anyone that isn't wealthy takes out a loan? I mean, yeah, I guess they willingly went to college...
  - j_walter 3y ago
    Lots of people take out loans and do so responsibly. I had 2 jobs in college and it helped pay for my room and board so that my loans were relatively small when I was done ($30Kish). It wasn't easy, but college is not supposed to be. I had classmates that did the same but used loans for room and board, spring break vacations, summers off and then were $100K+ in loans at the end. Now tell me I'm responsible to pay for their decisions...
    - earthling8118 3y ago
      I worked 2 jobs basically the entire time I was in school. At one point it was 3 jobs. I was also a reservist in the military. I didn't go on any vacations, I worked through the summers, and I spent very little on joyous things. It was mostly just on school. I have $70k in loans. I also paid a boatload of cash directly to my tuition so my loans weren't even the full price. I don't care if it isn't supposed to be easy. It wasn't and to the day I am struggling with it. Something has to change. You can act like its a moral failure on the students' part all you want but that doesn't make this system sensible or sustainable.
      - j_walter 3y ago
        I would be a lot more for reducing the interest rate to 1% on all of these loans. You should not have money forgiven that you used, but also shouldn't be subject to interest rates that make paying off your debt that much harder. If we discharge a loan on a house or car your possession is confiscated no matter how much you had paid off...should the same go for your degree if you want to get out from under your student loan?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
1shooner 3y ago
I'd encourage looking at actual average student loan debt, which in my reading is significantly different than the typical online narrative. According to the DoE[1], in 2018 the average debt of a public university Bachelor's degree completer was $26,100. That's not 'lifelong debt slavery', that's a Toyota Corolla. 1. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=900 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=900
- EA-3167 3y ago
  It's also beyond nuts to compare debt that people voluntarily took on with slavery. The desire for people to avoid the consequences of their own actions as a political stance is a non-starter.
- secabeen 3y ago
  Yep, the nameplate tuition number is paid by a vanishingly small number of students, and average Tuition and Fees net of aid for the 75% of students attending public four-year institution is $2,500. https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-student-aid-2021.pdf https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-p... (pg 18) There are lots of influential professional students (doctors and lawyers) who want $100k+ handouts, but they are a loud minority.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  2021 numbers [1]: Average Student Loan Debt: $39,351 Median Student Loan Debt: $19,281 Average Student Loan Payment: $393 Median Student Loan Payment: $222 Half of student loans are $222/mo or less. I'd also like to mention that if student loans became a lot harder to come by, people like myself could not have afforded college. [1] https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-debt-by-year/ https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-de...
  - WithinReason 3y ago
    > if student loans became a lot harder to come by, people like myself could not have afforded college. Yes but why is that? all I paid for 5 years of university education was about $30 in administrative fees, and I have no complaints about its quality.
rootusrootus 3y ago
> would have been commonplace 50 years ago 50 years ago was a pretty special time, if we're being honest. The ratio of home prices to income was an all time low. Go back to the 50s and it was the more typical 4x ratio. Clearly the 6x and 8x bubbles we've recently experienced aren't sustainable, but we're also probably not going back to the relative utopia that was 1970s house prices.
- 908B64B197 3y ago
  > we're also probably not going back to the relative utopia that was 1970s house prices. What did the people in the 70's do differently?
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    Probably benefiting from a number of things coming together, is my guess. Not that I'm an economist, or even pretending to be one. But birth rates dropped precipitously throughout the 1960s, marriage was more common than in recent years, and mortgage rates were higher than in recent years (nothing like the 1980s, of course, but still, 7-8%). All of these, to my lay understanding, would tend to put downward pressure on house prices by reducing demand. Since then we've ratcheted up expectations for what minimal housing should be, which raises the price floor. Dropped interest rates, which pushes up demand. People not getting married need their own home, pushing up demand some more. Forcibly constrained sprawl, pushing down supply. Zoning, etc. It's hard to imagine how we actually lower prices significantly (aside from the bubbles, which I'd guess have as much to do with interest rates as anything else).
thx-2718 3y ago
Universities are part of the problem in my opinion. With enrollment trending down many colleges appear to focus on making up the loss through raising tuition. To attract students the universities invest in prettier buildings and more "college experiences" to attract students. Meanwhile information is cheaper and more easier to replicate than ever in human history. Books ought to included in tuition, a good professor can note any updates needed. Lectures ought to be digital. Let classroom time be for students to work or ask questions or discuss. Saves both students and professors money. Integrate and use/teach open source software. This would lower costs to students and long term lower the technology costs to the university (especially if universities are aiding each other in development). That's three core parts of modern college that can and ought to be reduced in costs. There's no (good) excuse for academia to not do this in my opinion and if they (universities) fail to keep up with the rate of opportunity sadly I believe we'll see a lot of knowledge lost.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  >> Lectures ought to be digital. We shouldn't have lectures at all, IMO. They arose in medieval times before the printing press, when the lector (which means "reader" in Latin) would read a book, very slowly, while the students copied it down verbatim. At the end of the course, you'd have your own copy of the book. Of course, this actually made sense at the time. You couldn't pop down to Barnes and Noble and get your own copy of Aristotle, after all. The fact that we're still doing this in the 21st Century has more to do with the ego of academics who like to hear themselves talk than it does with any bona fide educational purpose. We already have technology that can help tailor instruction to individual students, and that capability is only going to get better with time. The university as we know it is doomed, IMO. The corpse just hasn't stopped twitching yet.
  - thx-2718 3y ago
    That's interesting. I really like the idea of having a personalized copy of your class/book once you're end of term. Universities function far beyond just teaching undergraduates. They often function as essential research hubs, protect & disseminate knowledge. However I agree we having technology that changes the need for traditional college lectures. Though I struggle to see how to adapt the need for accreditation & proving someone is qualified, which is a nice function of colleges.
surgical_fire 3y ago
> ridiculous debt load This debt load is also voluntary, is it not? I mean, when I went to college, I went to one that I could afford.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I'm not going to argue with your alternate headline. Whether its yours, or the one in the article, or something somewhere in between doesn't change from the fact that we have people who took on debt because another debt is paused. And that's where I have a problem. If I pay $613 per month for the next 10 years (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-payment/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student...), and all of the sudden that gets paused, I will not go out and think: oh let me get a new car with on a 5 year, $400 / month note.

j_walter 3y ago

To be fair this is debt they take on willingly. Now if the government should be letting 18-year olds take on huge amounts of debt without understanding the long term consequences...thats a different story.

willis936 3y ago
This seems like a result of Sallie Mae going private. Can someone explain the reason why Sallie Mae is no longer a GSE?
- j_walter 3y ago
  There are many reasons, but mainly that we are letting people take loans for significantly over what tuition is. When you write a check to an 18-year old for $5-10K every 3-4 months above and beyond what tuition costs...they aren't always the best at spending it wisely. Certainly government ownership and distribution of student loans that changed in 2009 was also a driver of the huge increase in loans, people going to college and thus rising costs.
- adventured 3y ago
  It's not. The US student loan debt explosion began in the 1990s. It's a result of the US Government guaranteeing loans of ever greater sums regardless of the ability to pay them back. It's an extraordinarily obvious outcome to that foolish approach. Try it in real-estate or any other sector and see what happens. If they tried it in healthcare, a new US Government guaranteed healthcare loan program (need a $1 million loan (at 9% that you can't discharge) for your surgery? step right up), it's similarly obvious what would happen. The only solution being offered by the left is to generate a lot more debt in one of a few different ways (and the right is largely proposing no solutions at all; both sides are captive morons (to their dogma) when it comes to solving the student loan mess that the government created).
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    You can only get so much in government student loans before having to go to the private sector for student loans. For private student loans there is no federal guarantee, but there is the inability to discharge them in bankruptcy (a frankly right-wing position that adds to the problem, but that the right doesn't want to admit does so). https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/how-much-money-can-i-borrow-federal-student-loans https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/how-much-... > If you’re an undergraduate, the maximum combined amount of Direct Subsidized and Direct Unsubsidized Loans you can borrow each academic year is between $5,500 and $12,500, depending on your year in school and your dependency status. > If you're a graduate/professional student, you can borrow up to $20,500 in Direct Unsubsidized Loans each academic year. Most people aren't going to graduate school, and the full amount of government loans one can get for undergraduate don't make most private schools in any way affordable to those without jobs or family support. On the left a potential solution is to increase the share of corporate profits going to workers. On the right (and part of the left) a potential solution is the reduction of credentialism.
mikestew 3y ago
To be fair this is debt they take on willingly. How "willing" are the debtors when the whole system seems to built around the idea that a student will take out a loan to pay for the education, an education which is priced around the idea that anyone that isn't wealthy takes out a loan? I mean, yeah, I guess they willingly went to college...
- j_walter 3y ago
  Lots of people take out loans and do so responsibly. I had 2 jobs in college and it helped pay for my room and board so that my loans were relatively small when I was done ($30Kish). It wasn't easy, but college is not supposed to be. I had classmates that did the same but used loans for room and board, spring break vacations, summers off and then were $100K+ in loans at the end. Now tell me I'm responsible to pay for their decisions...
  - earthling8118 3y ago
    I worked 2 jobs basically the entire time I was in school. At one point it was 3 jobs. I was also a reservist in the military. I didn't go on any vacations, I worked through the summers, and I spent very little on joyous things. It was mostly just on school. I have $70k in loans. I also paid a boatload of cash directly to my tuition so my loans weren't even the full price. I don't care if it isn't supposed to be easy. It wasn't and to the day I am struggling with it. Something has to change. You can act like its a moral failure on the students' part all you want but that doesn't make this system sensible or sustainable.
    - j_walter 3y ago
      I would be a lot more for reducing the interest rate to 1% on all of these loans. You should not have money forgiven that you used, but also shouldn't be subject to interest rates that make paying off your debt that much harder. If we discharge a loan on a house or car your possession is confiscated no matter how much you had paid off...should the same go for your degree if you want to get out from under your student loan?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

1shooner 3y ago

I'd encourage looking at actual average student loan debt, which in my reading is significantly different than the typical online narrative. According to the DoE[1], in 2018 the average debt of a public university Bachelor's degree completer was $26,100. That's not 'lifelong debt slavery', that's a Toyota Corolla. 1. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=900 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=900

EA-3167 3y ago
It's also beyond nuts to compare debt that people voluntarily took on with slavery. The desire for people to avoid the consequences of their own actions as a political stance is a non-starter.
secabeen 3y ago
Yep, the nameplate tuition number is paid by a vanishingly small number of students, and average Tuition and Fees net of aid for the 75% of students attending public four-year institution is $2,500. https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-student-aid-2021.pdf https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-p... (pg 18) There are lots of influential professional students (doctors and lawyers) who want $100k+ handouts, but they are a loud minority.
ProfessorLayton 3y ago
2021 numbers [1]: Average Student Loan Debt: $39,351 Median Student Loan Debt: $19,281 Average Student Loan Payment: $393 Median Student Loan Payment: $222 Half of student loans are $222/mo or less. I'd also like to mention that if student loans became a lot harder to come by, people like myself could not have afforded college. [1] https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-debt-by-year/ https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-de...
- WithinReason 3y ago
  > if student loans became a lot harder to come by, people like myself could not have afforded college. Yes but why is that? all I paid for 5 years of university education was about $30 in administrative fees, and I have no complaints about its quality.

rootusrootus 3y ago

> would have been commonplace 50 years ago 50 years ago was a pretty special time, if we're being honest. The ratio of home prices to income was an all time low. Go back to the 50s and it was the more typical 4x ratio. Clearly the 6x and 8x bubbles we've recently experienced aren't sustainable, but we're also probably not going back to the relative utopia that was 1970s house prices.

908B64B197 3y ago
> we're also probably not going back to the relative utopia that was 1970s house prices. What did the people in the 70's do differently?
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  Probably benefiting from a number of things coming together, is my guess. Not that I'm an economist, or even pretending to be one. But birth rates dropped precipitously throughout the 1960s, marriage was more common than in recent years, and mortgage rates were higher than in recent years (nothing like the 1980s, of course, but still, 7-8%). All of these, to my lay understanding, would tend to put downward pressure on house prices by reducing demand. Since then we've ratcheted up expectations for what minimal housing should be, which raises the price floor. Dropped interest rates, which pushes up demand. People not getting married need their own home, pushing up demand some more. Forcibly constrained sprawl, pushing down supply. Zoning, etc. It's hard to imagine how we actually lower prices significantly (aside from the bubbles, which I'd guess have as much to do with interest rates as anything else).

thx-2718 3y ago

Universities are part of the problem in my opinion. With enrollment trending down many colleges appear to focus on making up the loss through raising tuition. To attract students the universities invest in prettier buildings and more "college experiences" to attract students. Meanwhile information is cheaper and more easier to replicate than ever in human history. Books ought to included in tuition, a good professor can note any updates needed. Lectures ought to be digital. Let classroom time be for students to work or ask questions or discuss. Saves both students and professors money. Integrate and use/teach open source software. This would lower costs to students and long term lower the technology costs to the university (especially if universities are aiding each other in development). That's three core parts of modern college that can and ought to be reduced in costs. There's no (good) excuse for academia to not do this in my opinion and if they (universities) fail to keep up with the rate of opportunity sadly I believe we'll see a lot of knowledge lost.

Turing_Machine 3y ago
>> Lectures ought to be digital. We shouldn't have lectures at all, IMO. They arose in medieval times before the printing press, when the lector (which means "reader" in Latin) would read a book, very slowly, while the students copied it down verbatim. At the end of the course, you'd have your own copy of the book. Of course, this actually made sense at the time. You couldn't pop down to Barnes and Noble and get your own copy of Aristotle, after all. The fact that we're still doing this in the 21st Century has more to do with the ego of academics who like to hear themselves talk than it does with any bona fide educational purpose. We already have technology that can help tailor instruction to individual students, and that capability is only going to get better with time. The university as we know it is doomed, IMO. The corpse just hasn't stopped twitching yet.
- thx-2718 3y ago
  That's interesting. I really like the idea of having a personalized copy of your class/book once you're end of term. Universities function far beyond just teaching undergraduates. They often function as essential research hubs, protect & disseminate knowledge. However I agree we having technology that changes the need for traditional college lectures. Though I struggle to see how to adapt the need for accreditation & proving someone is qualified, which is a nice function of colleges.

surgical_fire 3y ago

> ridiculous debt load This debt load is also voluntary, is it not? I mean, when I went to college, I went to one that I could afford.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

I'm not going to argue with your alternate headline. Whether its yours, or the one in the article, or something somewhere in between doesn't change from the fact that we have people who took on debt because another debt is paused. And that's where I have a problem. If I pay $613 per month for the next 10 years (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-payment/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student...), and all of the sudden that gets paused, I will not go out and think: oh let me get a new car with on a 5 year, $400 / month note.