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Commenting as an Oregonian, it isn't going to solve any problems it just makes college more accessible, allowing students to kick the can down the road. Colleg

by Zimahl 13y ago

Commenting as an Oregonian, it isn't going to solve any problems it just makes college more accessible, allowing students to kick the can down the road. College is still too expensive and costs have risen for no reason. I went to state college in Washington (Washington State, go Cougs) and when I started there tuition was $1300 (semester system, so $2600 per year). My middle-class parents were easily able to cover my full costs (tuition, room and board), with a part-time job I contributed to room and board. It's now well over $9000 (insert Dragonball Z joke here) for the year just for tuition. Now, I'd have had to graduate with student loans. There's just too much waste in the college system and I have no idea where it's going. Facilities? Sports? Salaries? Marketing? It's certainly not inflation or value since salaries are stagnant pretty much across the board.

gte910h 13y ago
I'm fine if costs stay where they are....as long as there is a mandatory forgiveness 15 or so years past graduation. Then lenders will discriminate based on major (as it should be) and not fund english degrees and other such things that we have a glut of.
- Zimahl 13y ago
  The problem is costs won't stay where they are, they just keep climbing for no reason. The quality is only marginally better, if that. It is one thing if the states are covering less tuition for their constituents that would make the cost rise make sense, but out-of-state tuition has almost doubled since I started college back in the mid-90s. Here's the problem. My alma mater is Washington State. They want to be a 'world class' college and it's a nice goal, but that's not the point of the state system. World class costs way too much money for little benefit. I'm not saying aim low, but be realistic. The job of a state institution is to provide an affordable opportunity for those who might not have otherwise. It's not Harvard or Stanford but it's accessible and it allows for upward mobility.
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    >> It's not Harvard or Stanford but it's accessible and it allows for upward mobility. Agreed. I came from a state university as well. It wasn't MIT or CalTech, but I had plenty of roommates with engineering degrees who landed gigs at LockHeed Martin, 3M, and BP. They used to tell me straight up they didn't care about their pedigree, they wanted an affordable, solid education. Once they were hired, they convinced their employers to let them go back and get their masters, all paid for of course by the company. Something a LOT of people forget about and take for granted. But it all starts with an affordable state university education.
- danielweber 13y ago
  Why 15 years? Let people declare bankruptcy and cancel all their loans. The worry back in the 70's was that people would get a lot of loans and then declare bankruptcy after graduation and then no one would lend money and no one would afford school. I can see why they were worried about that. We got something much much much worse. If students could declare bankruptcy, people would still make educational loans, but only for a few thousand dollars. Schools would have to lower prices.
  - gte910h 13y ago
    I believe that's the period Australia's program has. In addition it also caps repayment at a fraction of income. I was suggesting a system that's working. (I've had it explained to me, I'm not an Australian).
JPKab 13y ago
Wait a minute: Why won't it solve any problems??? If universities are funded by the salaries of their graduates, then 1) they have to ensure that graduates have decent earning potential, so bloated programs which are sending students to flooded markets (I'm looking at you Psychology) will have to shrink drastically while engineering, and god forbid, vocational education would grow, and 2) Colleges will no longer have a magical hat of endless, low interest, risk free (from the college's perspective) debt to draw on from each student. This, and only this, will force them to cut the bloat. The Oregon program is the only one I know of that both guarantees qualified students can go to college and simultaneously forces the universities to stop endlessly piling bloated expenses onto taxpayer financed debt. People don't seem to get this: these universities will have a fixed (but growing annually if they properly prepare graduates) cap on their operating expenses, while simultaneously being able to grow their budgets by training students in skills that the market demands.
- Zimahl 13y ago
  The problem isn't that there are student loans - people take loans out for many other things and have no problem with those. The problem is that the repayments are killing the spending power of the middle-class. Where does paying back a loan or paying back a fixed amount of income differ? Do you honestly think that the gov't is going to curb the costs of education? More than likely the gov't will just jack the repayment % on future students. So, like I said, it just kicks the can down the road. No where in the Oregon plan is an outline of how to bringing state college costs back down to a reasonable level that doesn't require loans except in extreme cases (where it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s).
  - ihsw 13y ago
    It does away with the Sword[1] and instead opts for an olive branch -- some cannot risk the sword (great debt) for a reward (greater career opportunities), and they will now have a new opportunity. By the same token, the Sword will never be held to the throat (bankruptcy). A happy worker is a productive worker. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damacles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damacles

by Zimahl 13y ago

gte910h 13y ago

I'm fine if costs stay where they are....as long as there is a mandatory forgiveness 15 or so years past graduation. Then lenders will discriminate based on major (as it should be) and not fund english degrees and other such things that we have a glut of.

Zimahl 13y ago
The problem is costs won't stay where they are, they just keep climbing for no reason. The quality is only marginally better, if that. It is one thing if the states are covering less tuition for their constituents that would make the cost rise make sense, but out-of-state tuition has almost doubled since I started college back in the mid-90s. Here's the problem. My alma mater is Washington State. They want to be a 'world class' college and it's a nice goal, but that's not the point of the state system. World class costs way too much money for little benefit. I'm not saying aim low, but be realistic. The job of a state institution is to provide an affordable opportunity for those who might not have otherwise. It's not Harvard or Stanford but it's accessible and it allows for upward mobility.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  >> It's not Harvard or Stanford but it's accessible and it allows for upward mobility. Agreed. I came from a state university as well. It wasn't MIT or CalTech, but I had plenty of roommates with engineering degrees who landed gigs at LockHeed Martin, 3M, and BP. They used to tell me straight up they didn't care about their pedigree, they wanted an affordable, solid education. Once they were hired, they convinced their employers to let them go back and get their masters, all paid for of course by the company. Something a LOT of people forget about and take for granted. But it all starts with an affordable state university education.
danielweber 13y ago
Why 15 years? Let people declare bankruptcy and cancel all their loans. The worry back in the 70's was that people would get a lot of loans and then declare bankruptcy after graduation and then no one would lend money and no one would afford school. I can see why they were worried about that. We got something much much much worse. If students could declare bankruptcy, people would still make educational loans, but only for a few thousand dollars. Schools would have to lower prices.
- gte910h 13y ago
  I believe that's the period Australia's program has. In addition it also caps repayment at a fraction of income. I was suggesting a system that's working. (I've had it explained to me, I'm not an Australian).

JPKab 13y ago

Wait a minute: Why won't it solve any problems??? If universities are funded by the salaries of their graduates, then 1) they have to ensure that graduates have decent earning potential, so bloated programs which are sending students to flooded markets (I'm looking at you Psychology) will have to shrink drastically while engineering, and god forbid, vocational education would grow, and 2) Colleges will no longer have a magical hat of endless, low interest, risk free (from the college's perspective) debt to draw on from each student. This, and only this, will force them to cut the bloat. The Oregon program is the only one I know of that both guarantees qualified students can go to college and simultaneously forces the universities to stop endlessly piling bloated expenses onto taxpayer financed debt. People don't seem to get this: these universities will have a fixed (but growing annually if they properly prepare graduates) cap on their operating expenses, while simultaneously being able to grow their budgets by training students in skills that the market demands.

Zimahl 13y ago
The problem isn't that there are student loans - people take loans out for many other things and have no problem with those. The problem is that the repayments are killing the spending power of the middle-class. Where does paying back a loan or paying back a fixed amount of income differ? Do you honestly think that the gov't is going to curb the costs of education? More than likely the gov't will just jack the repayment % on future students. So, like I said, it just kicks the can down the road. No where in the Oregon plan is an outline of how to bringing state college costs back down to a reasonable level that doesn't require loans except in extreme cases (where it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s).
- ihsw 13y ago
  It does away with the Sword[1] and instead opts for an olive branch -- some cannot risk the sword (great debt) for a reward (greater career opportunities), and they will now have a new opportunity. By the same token, the Sword will never be held to the throat (bankruptcy). A happy worker is a productive worker. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damacles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Damacles