25 years old and deep in debt

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T24DPU-hkJM#t=158

Honest university commercial.

[Phillip V]

Student Loans Entice Borrowers More for Cash Than a Degree

Some Americans caught in the weak job market are lining up for federal student aid, not for education that boosts their employment prospects but for the chance to take out low-cost loans, sometimes with little intention of getting a degree.

Take Ray Selent, a 30-year-old former retail clerk in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was unemployed in 2012 when he enrolled as a part-time student at Broward County's community college. That allowed him to borrow thousands of dollars to pay rent to his mother, cover his cellphone bill and catch the occasional movie.

"The only way I feel I can survive financially is by going back to school and putting myself in more student debt," says Mr. Selent, who has since added $8,000 in student debt from living expenses. Returning to school also gave Mr. Selent a reprieve on the $400 a month he owed from previous student debt because the federal government doesn't require payments while borrowers are in school.

A number of factors are behind the growth in student debt. The soft jobs recovery and the emphasis on education have driven people to attain more schooling. But borrowing thousands in low-rate student loans—which cover tuition, textbooks and a vague category known as living expenses, a figure determined by each individual school—also can be easier than getting a bank loan. The government performs no credit checks for most student loans.

College officials and federal watchdogs can't say exactly how much of the U.S.'s swelling $1.1 trillion in student-loan debt has gone to living expenses. But data and government reports indicate the phenomenon is real. The Education Department's inspector general warned last month that the rise of online education has led more students to borrow excessively for personal expenses. Its report said that among online programs at eight universities and colleges, non-education expenses such as rent, transportation and "miscellaneous" items made up more than half the costs covered by student aid.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304585004579415022664472930

[CountDeMoney]

You design an economy that suppresses wages, actively pursues the elimination of jobs as a business strategy, jack up "preferred qualifications" like Masters degrees for what few jobs do exist, and you get what you get:  people will adapt, improvise, overcome in order to survive.

Hey, it's not our predatory capitalist Yi Market economy, we're just living in it--Livin' la Yida loca!

non-education expenses such as rent, transportation and "miscellaneous" items made up more than half the costs covered by student aid.

Yeah, some people call that "food", "diapers for infants" and "healthcare."

[Admiral Yi]

lalalalalalalalalalala

[CountDeMoney]

Save it for the sheep, Wolf of Wall Street.

[garbon]

From that article I got that Selent's mother is heartless.

[Admiral Yi]

Save it for the sheep, Wolf of Wall Street.

Save it for a board that doesn't find your screed ridiculous.  What's that commie board we trolled way back?  They'd eat that shit up.

[CountDeMoney]

Save it for a board that doesn't find your screed ridiculous.  What's that commie board we trolled way back?  They'd eat that shit up.

This board is full of suckers, and the 1% likes it that way.

And I don't remember the commie board, just the Islamic one.  Bastards kicked me for using "hamsausageandbacon" as a greeting. 

[crazy canuck]

Here is an editorial piece in the Globe by Reich

He hits on some of the issues we have discussed in this and other threads regarding mobility.  On those points I agree with him.  Where I think he falls down in indentifying causes which he says are largely related to race relations.  If that were true then Canada should not have similar problems of income equality.  Its not as bad here but it is similar and we dont have anything like the race relations issues present in the US.

His other big issue is the rich not wanting to pay tax.  I am not saying the US tax system coudnt be improved but  I dont think it is a fundamental cause either.  Here in Canada we still have a fairly progressive tax system and yet we still see similar problems of income inequality.

What is the fix?  I wish someone actually knew the answer to that question.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/its-the-inequality-stupid/article17294105/

U.S. President Barack Obama calls income inequality the "defining challenge of our era." Polls show that a majority of Americans believe inequality has grown over the past decade, and that they favour tax increases on the wealthy to help the poor. The non-partisan Pew Research Center recently found that six out of 10 Americans believe their system unfairly favours the wealthy.

And yet the reaction of U.S. conservatives has been to change the subject. Those with presidential ambitions say the focus should be on poverty, not income inequality. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida points to the poor's "lack of mobility" as the core problem. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin blames their isolation from mainstream America.

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that the "interrelated social problems of the poor" have nothing to do with inequality. Even some Democratic operatives are worried that talking about the wage gap will turn off voters.

This is rubbish. The widening income gap is making it harder to escape poverty and thwarting equal opportunity, in both the United States and Canada.

Let me explain. When almost all the gains from economic growth go to the top 1 per cent of income earners, as they have for 30 years, the middle class is left without the purchasing power to keep the economy growing and generate jobs.

Once the middle class has exhausted its coping mechanisms – wives and mothers surging into paid work (as they did in the 1970s and 1980s), longer working hours (which characterized the 1990s) and deep indebtedness (2002-present) – the inevitable result is slower growth and fewer jobs.

This hits the poor especially hard, because they're first fired, last hired and bear the brunt of declining wages and benefits. A stressed middle class also has a harder time being generous to them.

Helping America's poor presumably requires money, but the U.S. fiscal cupboard is bare, and the only way to replenish it now is through tax increases on the wealthy.

The shrinking middle class also hobbles upward mobility. There is less money for schools, training and social services, and the poor face a more difficult challenge moving up – the income ladder is far longer and its middle rungs have disappeared.

U.S. conservatives also don't want to acknowledge any connection between inequality and political power. But it's precisely the concentration of power at the top – which flows largely from the concentration of income and wealth there – that has prevented Washington from dealing with these problems.

As wealth has accumulated at the top, it has reduced taxes on the wealthy, expanded loopholes that benefit the rich, deregulated Wall Street and provided larger subsidies, bailouts and tax breaks for large corporations.

Unequal political power is the noxious end game of widening income inequality. Big money has all but engulfed Washington and many state capitals, drowning out the voices of average Americans.

The final reason conservative Republicans would rather talk about poverty is because they can then characterize the poor as "them" – people who are different, who have brought their problems on themselves, who lack self-discipline or motivation. So any attempt to alleviate poverty requires that "they" change their ways.

Indeed, the question "Why should we pay for them?" is being asked with increasing frequency. It underlies the U.S. debate over unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. It's in the resistance of some young people to buying health insurance. It can be heard among residents of upscale neighbourhoods who don't want their tax dollars going to poorer neighbourhoods nearby.

Conservatives understand that "we" and "they" are the most important of political words. They demarcate who's within the sphere of mutual responsibility, and who's not – and so have been used to separate the middle class and wealthy from the poor.

The middle-class and wealthy citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish, La., for example, are trying to secede from the school district they share with poorer residents and set up their own district funded by their property taxes. Similar efforts are under way in Memphis, Atlanta and Dallas.

"Why should we pay for them?" is also reverberating in wealthy places like Oakland County, Mich., that border devastatingly poor places like Detroit.

"Now, all of a sudden, they're having problems and they want to give part of the responsibility to the suburbs?" says L. Brooks Paterson, the Oakland County executive. "They're not gonna talk me into being the good guy. 'Pick up your share?' Ha ha."

Why are the conservatives succeeding?

One obvious explanation involves race. Detroit is mostly black; Oakland County is mostly white. The secessionist school districts are almost entirely white. But race alone can't explain it.

Another culprit is the economic stress on the middle class. It's easier to be generous about the sphere of "we" when incomes are rising and future prospects seem even better, as after the Second World War, when America declared war on poverty and expanded civil rights.

Yet this doesn't explain America's wealthy. They've never been richer, but most adamantly refuse to pay anything close to the tax rates accepted 40 years ago.

Perhaps it's because America's wealthy no longer have any idea how the other half lives. Being rich today means not having to come across anyone who isn't. Elite schools, private jets, gated communities and vacation homes all insulate them.

Conservatives have it wrong. Poverty isn't separate from widening inequality. In fact, no country can do anything significant about poverty without addressing these wage gaps.

The first step for Americans is to break down the barriers of race, class and segregation by income that are pushing them apart. Canada would be well advised to watch for the same symptoms, and take similar steps

[Barrister]

Save it for the sheep, Wolf of Wall Street.

Save it for a board that doesn't find your screed ridiculous.  What's that commie board we trolled way back?  They'd eat that shit up.

Ah, those were the days.

For some reason I lasted a day or two longer than everyone else before I was banned, despite rolling with a Pinochet avatar.

[Ideologue]

I think,on average, it's a pretty moderate board.

[Savonarola]

Report: State higher education cuts fuel student debt crisis
by Patricia Sabga @patriciasabga March 6, 2014 9:15PM ET
A new report argues that tighter state budgets have triggered higher tuitions


Indiana University senior Randall Burns holds a sign during a protest, Thursday, April 11, 2013 in Bloomington, Ind.Jeremy Hogan/Bloomington Herald-Times/AP Photo

Biola Jeje, 22, graduated Brooklyn College last May with a degree in political science and a mission: Force lawmakers to address the $1.2 trillion student debt crisis.

"It's unfair that it's happening to us, and we're even being sort of blamed for the amount of debt that we're being put in," she said from the offices of New York Students Rising, where she serves as statewide coordinator.

Jeje left college with $9,500 in student loans, less than half the $29,400 national average for four-year college graduates. She and her fellow activists are mobilizing support to march on Albany, New York state's capital, to deliver a message to legislators.

"We're demanding an immediate freeze on tuition, and then we're also demanding restoration of at least one and half billion that's been cut from state higher education," she said.

The march is part of Higher Ed Not Debt, a nationwide campaign launched Thursday to focus attention on the student debt crisis that affects 40 million Americans.

"Students are just being forced to borrow in ways and percentages and amounts they weren't even 10 years ago," said Robert Hiltonsmith, a policy analyst at the liberal think tank Demos, which released a study Thursday on the relationship between state funding cuts to higher education and soaring tuition.

Demos found that higher education cuts since the Great Recession correlate strongly with state budget gaps. In 2010 for example, Arizona had a 65 percent budget deficit and 51 percent decrease in higher education funding, while California's 53 percent budget gap was accompanied by a 28 percent cut to higher education.

Demos argues tighter state budgets have triggered higher state tuitions. Nationwide, state higher education funding has declined an average of $2,394 or 27 percent since the Great Recession, while tuition at four-year public universities has increased 20 percent. Factor in hikes to room and board fees, and total student charges at four-year public universities have risen an average of $2,292.

"When you look at the magnitude of these higher education cuts, especially even just since the Great Recession, and then you line that up kind of with the increases in tuition you can see they have to be closely linked," said Hiltonsmith.

According to Demos, when combined with stagnant wages, a college education — historically viewed as the price of admission to America's middle class — is also commanding a larger portion of the average American household budget, with tuition at four-year public colleges and universities consuming 15 percent of the median household income in 26 states.

"We're not arguing for free higher education," said Hiltonsmith. "We're arguing for a debt-free higher education where students contribute as much as they can; families contribute as much as they can, and the rest is appropriately funded."

For Jeje, no less than the future of the nation hangs in the balance. "A lot of public colleges used to be free, and a lot of public colleges in other countries are free," she said. "A lot of other places think it's smart to invest in higher education and this country needs to follow suit.

I was in student government in college; (I fell in with the wrong crowd  ).  One of our representatives addressed the board of trustees in order to ask that tuition be raised no more than the rate of inflation.  The meeting went:

Student Government Representative:  Hardship!  Students at risk!  Longstanding debt!
Board of Trustees:  Look, a student, how precious.     Can he do tricks?

Best of luck, student activists!

[Ideologue]

And that's why violence is awesome.

[MadImmortalMan]

Getting out of debt is the number one factor for social mobility.


David Brooks is wrong about it not being a problem of inequality but not for the reasons given by the G&M. That girl in debt $27k won't be able to buy a house or start a business or begin seriously investing in her future to get to a higher class until she's finished getting that off her back. The people benefiting from the inequality are the ones who only paid eight grand for their degrees and could pay that by working after school.
Now, not only does college keep getting more expensive, but you have to be in it longer. And every job requires it now when before nearly none did. And once you're done with it you still have to spend the rest of your life chasing various certifications just to stay on par. Now one dollar in every 14 our civilization produces each year is spent on it, and all we're getting for it is more barriers to advancement.

[Ideologue]

Have I told you lately I love you?