Haven't had a debt thread in a while

[Admiral Yi]

Never mind Iormlund, I tripped myself up.

[Habbaku]

Boo-hoo.

[Tonitrus]

Maybe people should stop trying to have things they can't afford.

Indeed, it's all these college debtors that have made just having only a BA nearly worthless nowadays.

[stjaba]

20k/yr? That sounds like a discount price, no?

That would be on the low end, so yeah. No private schools charge that low, and only some public schools charge that amount. There are scholarships available, but law schools play a lot of games with them.

[Ideologue]

All you have to do is maintain a 3.0 GPA!  You had a 3.7 coming out of undergrad, so that should be no problem, right?

[Tonitrus]

Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. 

If enrollments dropped drastically, they might have to lower them to attract students.

[KRonn]

Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. 

If enrollments dropped drastically, they might have to lower them to attract students.

Yeah, that's what I tend to think also.

[Ideologue]

Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. 

If enrollments dropped drastically, they might have to lower them to attract students.

Stop wondering.  It's just price elasticity.

Anyone who claims school has to cost as much as school does will, with almost no exceptions, be employed by the Combine.

[Tonitrus]

I could also say something about the average salaries of university administrators...

[Camerus]

Part of the problem is that many young borrowers simply don't understand the implications of borrowing large sums of money. 

For example, borrowing $50K or whatever to finance university may not seem like a lot, because you may expect to get a job that pays $40-50K within a couple years of graduating.  However, what they don't realize of course is how much of that salary is eaten up by other costs, and how little they will have left over to pay back the loan each year.  And the problem is compounded by a bad job market and klown kolleges.

I think there needs to be more done in terms of educating the young on money management, and the implications of borrowing and being in debt.  But then, it's not in the bank or the academic institution's interest to do this...

[Jaron]

If Obama took all my loans and debt away, I'd probably vote for him in November.

[Tonitrus]

and klown kolleges.

I especially agree on this part.  If there is one thing we might do well to have, it is a single, effective system of higher education accreditation.

But then, like most things, we'd probably find lots of ways to fuck it up.

[katmai]

If Obama took all my loans and debt away, I'd probably vote for him in November.

Liar, you've drank the KoolAid mormon boy!

[Valmy]

Boo-hoo.

Indeed.  It will be quite sad when this bubble also pops and the economy suffers again.

[Ideologue]

Crazy idea:

Students are no longer allowed to pay for higher education, and in order to hire anyone, employers--private, gub'mint, charitable, whatever--must pay for their new employee's training; crucially, schools only get paid when they produce hireable graduates.  Schools can still let in anybody, I guess.  That's their own business.  But they receive funding only equal to their outcomes.

And this therefore requires schools to actually vet and educate their matriculants, and leaves students with either a guaranteed job or only out opportunity cost.

It would also destroy all but the essential college degrees, as I expect businesses would suddenly realize that, hey, you don't need a B.A. to answer a fucking telephone.

I'm sure you'll all object that this is retarded, but the public at large--which includes employers--is already paying for massive degree overproduction and the unbridled greed of the educational system.  They may think they aren't, because these costs are externalities, but between higher salaries for professionals who made it (and need huge incomes to service their loans) and paying the taxes that permit the government to guarantee loans, the only sector to which all these problems are truly external is the source of the problem, the schools themselves.

A less convoluted alternative is straight-up free (compulsory?) post-secondary education; since we've evidently decided as a society that this is beneficial--and perhaps it is, I attribute a great deal of the reduction in violent crime to the pacifying of young men in their formative years with the college experience as funded by student loans--why not simply make it High School-Plus?  Then everyone shares in the potential problems, and the fedgov has the power to exercise centralized control.