QuoteStudent loan debt a growing threat to the economy
$870 billion in outstanding balances exceeds credit card, auto obligations
By Becky Yerak, Chicago Tribune reporter
10:49 p.m. EDT, April 12, 2012
Move over, mortgages. Get out of the way, Greece. Another economic doomsday scenario is emerging.
Student loan debt has reached about $870 billion, exceeding credit cards and auto loans, and balances are expected to continue climbing, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said last month. In February, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys referred to a "student loan 'debt bomb'" and wondered if it was shaping up to become "America's next mortgage-style economic crisis." Such a burden could crimp an already weak economy.
"Student debt poses a large and growing threat to the stability of our economy," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified March 20 before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing in Washington on the looming student debt crisis.
"Just as the housing crisis has trapped millions of borrowers in mortgages that are underwater, student debt could very well prevent millions of Americans from fully participating in the economy or ever achieving financial security," Madigan said.
In January, Madigan's office sued for-profit Westwood College, claiming it misleads students enrolled in its criminal justice program, puts them deep in debt and awards a nearly worthless degree. She told the Senate last month that since filing the suit, 1,000 former and current Westwood students have come forward to complain about their experiences.
A spokesman for Westwood said Thursday that a motion to dismiss the case is pending.
The hearing was convened by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is pushing legislation, the Fairness for Struggling Students Act, which would allow students who borrowed from private lenders for their education to wipe out that debt in bankruptcy proceedings, just as credit card borrowers and many other unsecured debtors may do. In 2005, Congress changed bankruptcy laws and made private student loan debts nondischargeable in bankruptcy, with few exceptions.
"It's clear that too many students have been steered into loans that they will not be able to repay and that they will never be able to escape,'' Durbin said.
Private student loans often carry higher and variable interest rates and fewer consumer protections than government loans, which are more likely to offer interest rate caps, loan limits, income-based repayment plans and forbearance in times of economic hardship.
"While the overall growth in student indebtedness is troubling, the most pressing concern is private student loans," Durbin said. "Private student loans are a riskier way to pay for an education than federal loans."
Under Durbin's legislation, students would remain responsible for repaying government-issued or guaranteed student loans and would be unable to discharge those in bankruptcy.
Current bankruptcy law treats financially distressed students the same way as people trying to wiggle out of child-support debts, alimony, overdue taxes and criminal fines, Deanne Loonin, lawyer for the National Consumer Law Center, said at the hearing.
Danielle Jokela, 32, who lives in Rogers Park, testified that having the option to clear away student debt in bankruptcy would give borrowers a chip to negotiate with lenders. Currently, she said, there is no incentive for lenders to work with financially strapped borrowers.
Jokela said she does feel she bears some responsibility for her student debt of $98,000. :lol:
"I don't want someone to wipe my debt clean, but I just want my lender to be reasonable and work with me,'' she said in an interview.
Others argue against allowing student borrowers to discharge their private loan obligations in bankruptcy court. For one thing, if lenders knew borrowers could escape repayment through bankruptcy, they might raise interest rates to account for that risk and lend to fewer people.
It would "result in a dramatic increase in the cost of student loans for all borrowers, ultimately drying up the availability of such loans for those who need them most," testified Marcus Cole, a Stanford University law professor. He called it an "unjust transfer from innocent lenders who did nothing more than give money to people in hopes of being repaid someday."
It could also encourage students to be careless about the debt they take on, said Neal McCluskey, associate director for the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.
"Students might be more apt to take such loans if they think that they will be able to unload their debt without repaying it," he said.
However, student lender Sallie Mae supports reform that would allow federal and private student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good faith effort to repay their loans over a five-to-seven-year period and still experience financial difficulty, agency spokeswoman Martha Holler said.
Holler acknowledged that the economy poses a significant challenge for many of its student borrowers but said only 3.5 percent of Sallie Mae's private loans are in default, a percentage that has declined six quarters in a row. Sallie Mae has a portfolio of private loans of about $36 billion.
Variable interest rates on Sallie Mae's private education loans range from 2.25 to 9.37 percent annually, with no fees. Half of Sallie Mae's private loan portfolio have interest rates below 6.75 percent.
Holler said Sallie Mae does offer modified loan terms and lower interest rates and will offer good faith catch-up programs and temporarily suspend the requirement to make payments.
The Project on Student Debt, in a study released in November, said 33 percent of bachelor's degree recipients graduated with private loans.
In 2010-11, according to the College Board, nonfederal loans, which usually have less favorable repayment terms than federal loans, constituted 7 percent of education borrowing. From 2005-06 through 2007-08, nonfederal loans accounted for about a quarter of this borrowing.
"The private student loan market has consolidated in recent years, with a number of smaller lenders leaving the business and some larger lenders selling their loans to others," the College Board said. "Education loan borrowing from private sources declined for a third consecutive year and totaled about $6 billion in 2010-11."
Mega-bank Chase will stop providing student loans to people who aren't customers, Bloomberg News reported this week.
"The private student loan market has continued to decline, and government programs have expanded to help more students and their families," the bank told Bloomberg.
Riverwoods-based Discover Financial, best known for its credit cards, is becoming a bigger player in the private student loan industry.
"Our customers value higher education, and we believe that with our approach, student loans are a stable, profitable and growing" business, Chief Executive David Nelms said last month.
A major factor in student loan debt is escalating pricing. During Durbin's hearing, Cato's McCluskey said the federal government, as the primary supplier of aid to students, has a critical role to play in restoring sanity to college pricing. He said it must greatly reduce student aid to combat the root cause of rampant tuition inflation.
"Subsidies drive increased demand, which increases prices," McCluskey said. "Colleges raise their prices if they know students will be able to pay them."
They still call me every once in a while. The collecting agency knows me as "The guy who said he can't pay because ghosts steal his money".
Easy solution: let private lenders offer two types of student loans, dischargeable and nondischargeable.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 15, 2012, 06:52:39 PM
Easy solution: let private lenders offer two types of student loans, dischargeable and nondischargeable.
What would be the parameters to make dischargeable ones profitable for lenders, as opposed to the other non-ones?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2012, 06:54:32 PM
What would be the parameters to make dischargeable ones profitable for lenders, as opposed to the other non-ones?
Mongo fucking interest rates.
Goddamn I am stupid. I was the idiot who found a way to pay my student loans...
Maybe people should stop trying to have things they can't afford.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 15, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2012, 06:54:32 PM
What would be the parameters to make dischargeable ones profitable for lenders, as opposed to the other non-ones?
Mongo fucking interest rates.
23% interest rates on loans during law school would certainly cull the herd. :lol:
Quote from: PDH on April 15, 2012, 06:56:52 PM
Goddamn I am stupid. I was the idiot who found a way to pay my student loans...
Shockingly, the world is different than it was in 1975!
But yeah, the aggregate student debt, brought on by a shitty educational policy to put everyone in school through indirect funding instead of centralized state control over the educational apparatus, is pretty monstrous. It's unfortunate that the government is not in a position to efficiently breach its guarantees to the scum who've profited off this.
What are thoughts on the cost of college? Seems far to expensive to me, with kids graduating with 40k to double that in debt. Just seems way too much for college. Even if the government paid for it, it would still be ruinously expensive. Massachusetts state colleges, the cheaper alternative to private college, have been going up in tuition quite a bit, probably same as many other states.
QuoteIt would "result in a dramatic increase in the cost of student loans for all borrowers, ultimately drying up the availability of such loans for those who need them most," testified Marcus Cole, a Stanford University law professor. He called it an "unjust transfer from innocent lenders who did nothing more than give money to people in hopes of being repaid someday."
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Whenever I want to laugh, I listen to a law professor talk about economics.
OK, Marcus Cole, guess what happens when student loans become dischargeable? Market forces come back into play and America's clown colleges and clown law schools (not Stanford, I suppose) STOP CHARGING TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR (OR SEMESTER) TO ATTEND. And maybe law profs won't be getting those sweet six figure salaries anymore to teach three classes a year. And maybe marginal schools would close. And this would be well.
Oh, and here's a fun fact: you know where many, if not most, law profs come from? Schools of Stanford's stature--that is, all three of them. In other words, even though Stanford is not some shitty law school that would go out of business if half the law schools in the country closed (quite the contrary), but it's still in Stanford's interest that its graduates have the ability to pursue highly-remunerative academic jobs in the inferior tiers. So, no, he's not stupid; he's better than that; he's a complete fucking liar.
Also, garbon sucks.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 15, 2012, 06:52:39 PM
Easy solution: let private lenders offer two types of student loans, dischargeable and nondischargeable.
Spain tried that with mortgages. It doesn't work. The interest difference was so big nobody went for the "hand your keys over and we're even" kind.
So you'd still end up with the same situation you're in now.
20k/yr? That sounds like a discount price, no? :huh:
Quote from: Iormlund on April 15, 2012, 08:18:32 PM
Spain tried that with mortgages. It doesn't work. The interest difference was so big nobody went for the "hand your keys over and we're even" kind.
So you'd still end up with the same situation you're in now.
You mean the other way around, don't you? Nobody went for the "we will hound you until death" type, no?
That's the whole point of my proposal, an object lesson for borrowers.
Quote from: KRonn on April 15, 2012, 08:01:02 PM
What are thoughts on the cost of college? Seems far to expensive to me, with kids graduating with 40k to double that in debt. Just seems way too much for college. Even if the government paid for it, it would still be ruinously expensive. Massachusetts state colleges, the cheaper alternative to private college, have been going up in tuition quite a bit, probably same as many other states.
It's ridiculous, like a mortgage with no alienable property and or an investment with a highly speculative, often entirely fanciful ROI. The cost of higher education persists solely because of government funding without government control.
P.S.:
QuoteHoller acknowledged that the economy poses a significant challenge for many of its student borrowers but said only 3.5 percent of Sallie Mae's private loans are in default, a percentage that has declined six quarters in a row.
Note that true default rate is widely considered to be far, far higher, and that programs such as deferement and IBR mask it.
Never mind Iormlund, I tripped myself up. :Embarrass:
Boo-hoo.
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 06:57:43 PM
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.
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 08:18:55 PM
20k/yr? That sounds like a discount price, no? :huh:
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.
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? :)
Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. :hmm:
If enrollments dropped drastically, they might have to lower them to attract students.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 15, 2012, 08:56:38 PM
Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. :hmm:
If enrollments dropped drastically, they might have to lower them to attract students.
Yeah, that's what I tend to think also.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 15, 2012, 08:56:38 PM
Actually, I wonder if all that easy credit is exactly the reason college tuitions are so high. :hmm:
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.
I could also say something about the average salaries of university administrators...
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...
If Obama took all my loans and debt away, I'd probably vote for him in November.
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on April 15, 2012, 09:37:05 PM
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.
Quote from: Jaron on April 15, 2012, 09:41:45 PM
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!
Quote from: Habbaku on April 15, 2012, 08:26:14 PM
Boo-hoo.
Indeed. It will be quite sad when this bubble also pops and the economy suffers again.
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.
You expect private companies and the government to pay for four years of binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex? :rolleyes:
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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.
This 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.
All of that sounds awful.
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2012, 09:46:04 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on April 15, 2012, 08:26:14 PM
Boo-hoo.
Indeed. It will be quite sad when this bubble also pops and the economy suffers again.
Habby's a Republican. They live for this shit.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 15, 2012, 09:57:02 PM
You expect private companies and the government to pay for four years of binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex? :rolleyes:
How aren't they already? Where do account-current student loan payments come from, then? Where do the funds for IBR and deferment come from? The ether?
Besides, forcing schools to march to the beat of private business--i.e., actually having them face market pressure--will turn schools into training programs for careers, rather than small cities where everyone somehow has money but no one has a fucking job. Besides, binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex costs, at most, $150 a week, and can be easily purchased with part-time employment.
Why exactly do we want higher education to be completely enslaved to capitalism? :unsure:
It's not. The government can still send people to school if it wishes.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:15:46 PM
It's not. The government can still send people to school if it wishes.
Now that's comforting...
And like I said, a perfectly fine alternative would simply be significantly greater state intervention. What I just can't abide are these half-measures; it's stuff like that that gives socialism a bad rap, because "it doesn't work," and more insidiously, it creates niche spaces where predatory capitalism thrives ("Wait, they guarantee the loans? Fuck yes!").
I like the idea. The first one, that is.
The second is dreadful. "Free" high education is what we have here and it doesn't work. It only results in severe degree inflation.
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 10:18:02 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:15:46 PM
It's not. The government can still send people to school if it wishes.
Now that's comforting...
The existence of the public sector discomforts you? :unsure:
Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:21:48 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 10:18:02 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:15:46 PM
It's not. The government can still send people to school if it wishes.
Now that's comforting...
The existence of the public sector discomforts you? :unsure:
Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?
Can I choose both, Alex?
Quote from: Iormlund on April 15, 2012, 10:20:50 PM
I like the idea. The first one, that is.
:)
QuoteThe second is dreadful. "Free" high education is what we have here and it doesn't work. It only results in severe degree inflation.
Well, degree inflation in itself isn't
necessarily an evil, unless it puts to waste a great deal of resources. It certainly does under the current system, because it imposes the costs of higher education on kids as individuals and then provides them with high school returns on investment. And there's a huge generational gap in inputs and outcomes, to the extent that a lot of Boomers don't realize what a bill of goods they've sold their children, nor that the cost of the investment has something like dectupled, if that's a word, over the past three decades, even as returns have gone down--even as they, as hiring authorities, treat the very same college degrees they received thirty years ago as worthless today because of their overproduction.
Arguably, even if that cost was borne by a nation as a whole, instead of by individuals, four years more schooling after K-12 (o lo que tienen en Espana) would still
be a waste, but it probably has some upsides to it, too (as noted, subsidizing young men in their most robust years; also, even shitty programs like history probably do manage to educate people and make them marginally better for it, even if there is no strictly economic ROI; and perhaps such schooling could pay for itself as a "last chance" sorting mechanism for people who aren't stupid but were late bloomers and are worth either sending to real school for real training, or hiring outright).
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 10:23:19 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:21:48 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2012, 10:18:02 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 10:15:46 PM
It's not. The government can still send people to school if it wishes.
Now that's comforting...
The existence of the public sector discomforts you? :unsure:
Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?
Can I choose both, Alex?
No. How do you expect to escape enslavement by capitalism without the government? Do you think there's some invisible left hand of fairness and egalitarianism that rescues people from being crushed in the grip of the invisible right hand of free markets and profit-maximization? I mean, yeah, they usually come in pairs, but it's a metaphor, dude.
One problem that I fear must be addressed is the high ratio of useless degrees being offered. A lot of people take loans, shell out thousands of dollars to earn a degree that doesn't teach them how to DO anything. They graduate, go to job interviews and are asked what they can DO and they've got NOTHING.
I spent a year in school studying secondary education, for example - I learned a lot of theories but very little practical application. I studied history in my undergrad years and that certainly hasn't helped me find work except for the fact it tells people I have a degree. I could tell you oodles about French and English history or the Roman Empire, but that hasn't really helped me. I rely more on my work history than my so called higher education.
Compare that to the experience of some of my friends in the sciences who were learning lab work and how to actually do things. They graduate and jump into high paying jobs that help justify their expenses for school.
We need to discourage people from studying anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy and the rest of that Socratic crap. They can take night enrichment classes at the community college if that interests them. We should be firmer in just saying "If this is what you want to study, you don't need to attend a university."
We should encourage those seeking higher education into sciences and skill oriented degrees like sciences and technology.
Stop telling young people they need to go to college to succeed. In most cases, it's a waste of fucking time and resources. But since colleges are now in the business of selling degrees, it is a vicious circle.
Quote from: Jaron on April 15, 2012, 10:44:57 PM
One problem that I fear must be addressed is the high ratio of useless degrees being offered. A lot of people take loans, shell out thousands of dollars to earn a degree that doesn't teach them how to DO anything. They graduate, go to job interviews and are asked what they can DO and they've got NOTHING.
I spent a year in school studying secondary education, for example - I learned a lot of theories but very little practical application. I studied history in my undergrad years and that certainly hasn't helped me find work except for the fact it tells people I have a degree. I could tell you oodles about French and English history or the Roman Empire, but that hasn't really helped me. I rely more on my work history than my so called higher education.
Compare that to the experience of some of my friends in the sciences who were learning lab work and how to actually do things. They graduate and jump into high paying jobs that help justify their expenses for school.
We need to discourage people from studying anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy and the rest of that Socratic crap. They can take night enrichment classes at the community college if that interests them. We should be firmer in just saying "If this is what you want to study, you don't need to attend a university."
We should encourage those seeking higher education into sciences and skill oriented degrees like sciences and technology.
I think the problem is with education in general, and specifically that it is not adapting to changing times - it is not possible today to know everything there is to know (as it was, say, in the 19th century) but education is still kinda geared towards that thinking.
Likewise, with most jobs, you are highly unlikely to do the same job (less alone for the same employer) for your entire life.
So throughout high school people get that kind of general education that has very little to do with actual jobs they are going to do (unless someone wants to be a scientist I guess) and it does not really offer them any taste of what they are good at, in terms of their eventual job. So people go into college, not thinking in terms of what they want to do in future, but what kind of stuff they liked to learn about during their high school years - and you end up with people in degrees like history or literature (which is fine, as long as you want to do it, but most people won't end up doing it). For example, my main motivation when going into law was that I liked history and there was a lot of connection - but I had very vague idea about what lawyers actually do (except from films and the like, which is rarely true).
Instead, at least 1 or 2 last years of high school should be devoted not to teaching people the same stuff, but giving them samples of various professions out there (I am not talking a vocational school, but rather classes which show them what kind of stuff you do when you do certain jobs). So that people going into college may make more informed choices, and not end up with a useless, costly degree.
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2012, 01:33:08 AM
Stop telling young people they need to go to college to succeed. In most cases, it's a waste of fucking time and resources. But since colleges are now in the business of selling degrees, it is a vicious circle.
This.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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.
+1?
I mean, there isn't a lot more to say after that.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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
Crazy idea. An MD goes to work for a hospital. Hospital pays for 8 years of school. MD leaves after a year to set up private practice. End result: no recently graduated MD ever gets hired.
I cleared my private loan a few months ago :rock:
It wasn't anywhere near $100,000 though....jesus....
Quote
Crazy idea. An MD goes to work for a hospital. Hospital pays for 8 years of school. MD leaves after a year to set up private practice. End result: no recently graduated MD ever gets hired.
Surely such an idea would have stuff in the contract about the guy then having to pay for much of his education if he breaks the deal.
Quote from: Tyr on April 16, 2012, 08:20:40 AM
Surely such an idea would have stuff in the contract about the guy then having to pay for much of his education if he breaks the deal.
We did at the police department. In fact, most do.
Wyoming pays about 3/4 of the cost of the University of Wyoming to instate students. All a kid needs to do is gradumicate from a Wyoming High School with decent grades.
Socialism, for the win. (they didn't have this back in the day, this is a recent - last decade - program)
Quote from: PDH on April 16, 2012, 08:37:00 AM
Wyoming pays about 3/4 of the cost of the University of Wyoming to instate students. All a kid needs to do is gradumicate from a Wyoming High School with decent grades.
Socialism, for the win. (they didn't have this back in the day, this is a recent - last decade - program)
It has a few decades worth of run in it then.
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2012, 01:33:08 AM
Stop telling young people they need to go to college to succeed. In most cases, it's a waste of fucking time and resources. But since colleges are now in the business of selling degrees, it is a vicious circle.
Yeah I scandalized the older generation when I told my cousin's kid to not go to College. I mean he didn't want to go to college he wanted to be a mechanic, but for some reason everybody was pressuring the poor kid to go waste his time for four years.
Quote from: Tamas on April 16, 2012, 09:41:55 AM
Quote from: PDH on April 16, 2012, 08:37:00 AM
Wyoming pays about 3/4 of the cost of the University of Wyoming to instate students. All a kid needs to do is gradumicate from a Wyoming High School with decent grades.
Socialism, for the win. (they didn't have this back in the day, this is a recent - last decade - program)
It has a few decades worth of run in it then.
It is actually a big trust fund that was paid in full from mineral royalties.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2012, 07:55:34 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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
Crazy idea. An MD goes to work for a hospital. Hospital pays for 8 years of school. MD leaves after a year to set up private practice. End result: no recently graduated MD ever gets hired.
Responsibility for payment is assigned to his employer, the partnership or sole proprietorship he has created; when or if he fails or tires of running his own business, he crawls back to the hospital scene and responsibility for payment is reassigned back. (Or, if the hospital has paid in lump sum, he owes the hospital. But what hospital will pay in a lump sum when they realize there is a flight risk of talent?)
I'm not sure this is an objection with meat on its bones.
Btw, I've heard it's M.D.s fault that student loans are nondischargeable now, as they'd come out of med school, BK immediately, then build a practice and get rich without a hundred thousand or so in debt. Not sure if that's true or just lawyers complaining.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2012, 07:55:34 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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
Crazy idea. An MD goes to work for a hospital. Hospital pays for 8 years of school. MD leaves after a year to set up private practice. End result: no recently graduated MD ever gets hired.
Then the MD has to pay the costs instead.
The Armed Forces and the NHS pay for a lot of students over here. Also all dentists have to do a number of years as NHS dentists before going into private practice. It's the norm for law firms to pay the costs of law school. I don't see why this is entirely implausible in vocational subjects.
I support free higher education.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2012, 09:47:18 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2012, 01:33:08 AM
Stop telling young people they need to go to college to succeed. In most cases, it's a waste of fucking time and resources. But since colleges are now in the business of selling degrees, it is a vicious circle.
Yeah I scandalized the older generation when I told my cousin's kid to not go to College. I mean he didn't want to go to college he wanted to be a mechanic, but for some reason everybody was pressuring the poor kid to go waste his time for four years.
Yeah this is so annoying here as well. A craftmanship can end up being lucrative, is almost always needed to a degree, unlike the filler college degrees, and can give a decent living, with an honest work.
We had that topic recently about liberalism devaluing societal stuff and whatnot. That was bollocks. The real devaluation problem we have been facing is the devaluation of non-fabolous jobs.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2012, 07:55:34 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
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
Crazy idea. An MD goes to work for a hospital. Hospital pays for 8 years of school. MD leaves after a year to set up private practice. End result: no recently graduated MD ever gets hired.
Medicare is the one who is paying all resident salaries to the tune of 40-60 grand a year for up to 7-9 years. Medical school (4 years) is from loan money.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 15, 2012, 09:29:44 PM
I could also say something about the average salaries of university administrators...
Those are an effect of the tuition that universities can charge, not a cause, IMO.
Bottom line is that, when the government gets involved in the economy, the results are guaranteed to be hilarious. In this case, the joke tuition rates are not a price that has actually bought us anything. Only the gubmint can afford to pay something for nothing.