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I cannot imagine a more sinister, callus, and destructive way to punch down on some of the most vulnerable people. 18 year olds did not elect any of the people

by samtho 3y ago

I cannot imagine a more sinister, callus, and destructive way to punch down on some of the most vulnerable people. 18 year olds did not elect any of the people making these laws, every adult before them parrots “go to college”, financial aid offices don’t care what people do as long as they pay tuition, etc. But grants, you say! We can avoid loans. Not so fast. If your parents made a certain amount, they are fully expected to pay a certain amount for their now adult children to go to college. To qualify for any aid, you need your parents’ income, demanding that A middle class family may still be fully expected to pay multi-thousands of dollars. The student must then take out loans to pay for the rest, which might be the full amount. This is certified, nonsensical, bullshit. No credit system in history has been given the grace to royally fuck over generations of students, saddling them with loans that cannot be discharged, whose amount is effectively dictated by the institution that is charging tuition. This is a scam at the highest level, sanctioned by the federal government, and perpetuated by every adult figure in the students’ life.

hibikir 3y ago
True, although I expect that the US healthcare system is more than competitive if we consider its bad outcomes and overall inefficiency per dollar spent. Systems where there is competition, but where efforts are made to make the service providers not really have big advantages for cutting costs, will get you bad outcomes. It's just unfortunate that avoiding needing healthcare, or going into many careers without paying for the very expensive college degree, is such a big gamble. A fully public system would be very different. An unsubsidized market system would also be very different. Either one would be dramatically cheaper than what we have, which gives us the worst incentives of both worlds.
- samtho 3y ago
  I’m very pro-free market but I would be happy to see this structure replaced with almost anything else. We chose the worst possible combination/bastardization of systems: colleges are given a massive amount of funding by the federal government and the same government guarentees student loans via a debt shackle, lenders are incentivized to lend to students, colleges are incentivized charge exactly what the market will “tolerate” which is horribly skewed due to the abundance of money available to be loaned. This is a losing system for students, even for those who don’t take on debt are spending an absolute insane amount tuition, books, housing, and other living expenses.

by samtho 3y ago

hibikir 3y ago

True, although I expect that the US healthcare system is more than competitive if we consider its bad outcomes and overall inefficiency per dollar spent. Systems where there is competition, but where efforts are made to make the service providers not really have big advantages for cutting costs, will get you bad outcomes. It's just unfortunate that avoiding needing healthcare, or going into many careers without paying for the very expensive college degree, is such a big gamble. A fully public system would be very different. An unsubsidized market system would also be very different. Either one would be dramatically cheaper than what we have, which gives us the worst incentives of both worlds.

samtho 3y ago
I’m very pro-free market but I would be happy to see this structure replaced with almost anything else. We chose the worst possible combination/bastardization of systems: colleges are given a massive amount of funding by the federal government and the same government guarentees student loans via a debt shackle, lenders are incentivized to lend to students, colleges are incentivized charge exactly what the market will “tolerate” which is horribly skewed due to the abundance of money available to be loaned. This is a losing system for students, even for those who don’t take on debt are spending an absolute insane amount tuition, books, housing, and other living expenses.