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Did anyone force all those students to take student loans?
by c_crank 3y ago
Did anyone force all those students to take student loans?
- voisin 3y agoEducation has traditionally been a primary method for upward economic mobility. Once student loans became a thing, colleges jacked up tuition to put it out of reach of anyone but the super wealthy unless student loans were used.
- c_crank 3y agoBut no one forced those people to take on those loans.
- voisin 3y agoNot explicitly but the choice is “stay in your economic class or invest in the only thing reliably proven to improve your future”.
- c_crank 3y agoAnd those who do not want to deal with the risk of going through school and not getting a better job to pay for the onerous loans can just remain in their economic class.
- HPsquared 3y agoPeople basically did remain in the economic class though. The school doesn't have much to do with it. Has class mobility significantly increased since the adoption of mass tertiary education?
- slt2021 3y agoand why people invested noname colleges with degrees in psychology, english lit, gender studies? and then act surprised when they get out with zero useful skills
- Daishiman 3y agoNo one forced me to not try the one thing everyone says will keep you out of poverty.
- c_crank 3y agoDid you consider that everyone might have been making a mistake when they equated taking on large loans with getting out of poverty?
- ohyes 3y agoYes. They literally have to or they’ve got no chance at competing in the job market. They’re screwed either way, might as well get 4 years of college out of it.
- c_crank 3y agoAnecdotally, I can name plenty of people near me who hold full time jobs without needing a four year degree.
- ebiester 3y agoCertainly. I see them around here too. They make 12-15 dollars an hour. That's 2400 dollars a month. That means at 30% of income (rental maximum in most areas), they can afford $720. (This assumes that they can work 40 hours. Their hours are often variable because they need two jobs - places mostly hire part time to avoid needing to give out health care.) There are only a handful of apartments in the area that will rent a two bedroom for 1400. (I assume a roommate.) So, considering a moderate cost of living area, you are unlikely to ever make it out of sharing an apartment as nearly every job paying more than $30 an hour in this city requires a bachelor's degree. Look around your job. How many people don't have a four year degree? It is near impossible to make it up the ladder without one.
- c_crank 3y agoThe people I know making lower wages typically rent or live in places with not such a high expense. Their apartments are not as upscale as others are, but they are certainly livable.
- ebiester 3y agoI live in one of those places. This is a medium cost of living area. That's how much rent has gone up in the past decade in most places that they've raised the de facto minimum wage to 11 bucks, and I wasn't even counting those who live at the real edges. I'm talking about people who are doing reasonably but not excessively well for themselves with high school degrees.
- scottLobster 3y agoUh, in my upper middle class DC suburb you were socially looked down on if you didn't go to college, and no one taught us even basic finance. I have friends who's parents literally put the forms in front of them, told them to sign it so they could go to college. They didn't know what they were signing, now they're possibly on the hook for the rest of their lives So "forced"? Not with a gun to their head, but when every authority figure, parent and friend you've ever trusted tells you to do the thing at 17...
- c_crank 3y agoThe parents knew what they were getting into, still. They were making a decision knowing the consequences.
- wibbily 3y agoSo, if the parents are at fault, how is it appropriate to let the children shoulder the consequences?
- c_crank 3y agoIf one could make a case for it, I wouldn't mind in these specific scenarios of parents coercing their children to sign contracts that the financial burdens be transferred to their parents (parents who often tend to help pay such bills anyway). But is that what people generally propose as a solution?
- unethical_ban 3y agoTheir parents, society, etc. I won't convince you because you've got your anecdotes. Though I'd say if a public school counselor, parents and teachers all tell a 17 year old it's "college or bust", it's laughable to argue "ah, those teenagers should have been rational, informed consumers of professional training and eschewed the advice of every trusted adult in their life".
- c_crank 3y agoIt does not take professional training to see the price tag of a student loan and to question if one can reasonably pay it off in the future. Certainly, someone equipped with the skills needed to be accepted into a college that costs so much should be able to do the math required on that calculation.
- unethical_ban 3y agoI disagree.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoCovering compound interest isnt even a requirement in high school
- c_crank 3y agoCompound interest shouldn't be the primary factor in rejecting a four to five digit loan when you have low or zero income.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago> four to five digit loan Bro, when did you last look at the cost of college, the 70s? I went to a community college and then transferred to a state college that was also in my town, so I didn't have to pay absurd dorm expenses. I worked 30-35 hours a week while going to college. I still came out with ~$45K in loan debt. And you're proposing even the possibility of a four-digit loan? > when you have low or zero income. Have you missed the part where adults are lying to children and telling them that the high salary their degree will earn them will pay for the loan?
- jklinger410 3y agoThey absolutely did. And once you realize that, you will have reached a new level of emotional and intellectual maturity.
- c_crank 3y agoWho forced these students to take the loans, exactly? Do you have a list of names?
- jklinger410 3y agoTheir parents and an entire propaganda machine coming from the school system, local, and federal governments. Children were told "you can be anything you want to be" and also "in order to get a good job you have to go to college" which, in effect, forced children who otherwise didn't need to go to college, to go to college. In the same way a child cannot consent to sex, a child cannot fight social pressure coming from every institution they have access to. Your insistence on the word force is manipulative, pointless, and in bad faith. It's like birthing an animal in captivity and setting up a snare trap outside the only exit to their cage and then claiming you are hunting when they step on it. Truly disgusting.
- c_crank 3y agoI was told such things too. I also can process numbers. I knew that taking on an extra cost I could not pay would not be worth it without a guarantee of a high paying job, which is not something offered by going to school. The younger generations certainly seem capable of that reasoning. They aren't taking on nearly as many student loans.
- jklinger410 3y ago> I knew that taking on an extra cost I could not pay would not be worth it without a guarantee of a high paying job, which is not something offered by going to school. Except this was exactly what was offered. Schools used to brag about placement rates. This message came from your parents, the staff at your school, etc. Setting up, I repeat, a literal trap for children to fall into, and then getting on this stupid high horse about how you didn't fall for it. I cannot begin to express how depraved that concept is, and I know you can't begin to comprehend it. Maybe one day you will. > The younger generations certainly seem capable of that reasoning. They aren't taking on nearly as many student loans. That is because they have the mistakes of 2 previous generations as an example and the rhetoric has died down dramatically. Grow up.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoThis is a bad faith question. Sure, nobody forced them to take out loans, but for me, the propaganda all throughout high school was "If you want a high paying job, you need to go to college!" and then was told not to worry about the costs and student loan payments, the higher paying job will pay for itself. Four years of every adult you trust. Your parents, teachers, counselors, and other school faculty. The same message. Go to college. Go to college. Go to college. Don't worry about the loans, the higher salary will pay for it. It's an investment. It doesn't even matter what you get a degree in, employers just like to see you had the discipline and sense of responsibility to complete it. And then we get out of college, and then we find out we've been lied to. We were children and the adults that we were supposed to trust were lying to us. The degree didn't guarantee a job by any means. Worse yet, many jobs require the degree, but then pay $20/hr, while you're trying to pay $700+/month in student loan payments. And then dickheads like you come in and pour salt on the wounds. In short, people with an attitude like yours need to get fucked. Children are being lied to by the adults they trust, and then getting blamed for not being able to handle the responsibilities they took on based on the lies.
- c_crank 3y agoWhy keep calling these people children past the age of twelve? There's a term for that period. Adolescence. It's supposed to imply some level of growth in independence and the ability to discern reality. Yes, these adults gave these teenagers terrible advice. But the fact of the matter is, they can see exactly how much they would have to pay, with a job that they had no guarantee of. Teenagers of the current age have stopped listening to that advice. If you are stuck with the loans now, all you can do is call out mom, pop, and teachers for misleading you, but also yourself for believing them.