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US Student Loans Exceed $1 Trillion
sycodon writes "Politico reports that student loan debt now exceeds one trillion dollars, an amount that should impress even Dr. Evil. Politico further reports that this is one of the more concrete issues driving the OWS protests and provides some enlightening examples of their particular gripes."
Just wait until you see what happens if THIS group starts going en masse into default. At least with houses, there is some collateral there. What are you going to foreclose on when little Johnny goes into default on his $100,000 loan debt because he can't find a job? You going to foreclose on and resell his worthless degree?
And, sadly, this is only going to get worse. Tuition has been going through the roof at universities in the U.S., even as wages for the jobs post-grads get afterwards have remained stagnant. The wages of parents and post-grads have stayed the same, but they're having to fork out more and more for tuition--driving them to even more debt. So it's hardly surprising to find out that student loan debt has increased over 63% in just ten years.
So what do you think the end result is if this trend continues? Either large segments of the population are going to have to give up on college or they're going to have to put themselves in a position where default is almost an inevitability. I guess that could actually have one positive effect. It could finally dispel the idea that everyone can or should go to college (or that a college degree should be considered a prerequisite for any white collar job).
And, BTW, you know who pays when someone defaults? The U.S. government foots the bill, since these loans are federally guaranteed. So Uncle Sam gets to fund the bailout on that one too, just like he did with the banks and domestic car industry.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I can't get a job with a degree in philosophy???
We have a bad habit in this country of letting sales figures and the profit incentive "make" decisions for us. In this case, college is a huge business. We can promise people more income if they get a college degree, so everyone wants a college degree.
Educators will tell you that perhaps college should be reserved for those with the ability and initiative to do the work. Not everyone is ready for a college education, or able to engage in the rigorous critical thinking required. That's not popular with the salespeople, who want to sell college to everyone.
The result is that college has become more like another four years of high school. The classes are easy and emphasize memorization instead of developing critical thought. Expectations are low. It's not a time of great discovery, but of people pushing through because if they just get that piece of paper, they get richer.
Through this process, we have cheapened education for everyone. High school is now four years of day care because those teachers figure the kids will really learn to spell in college. College is now like high school, a dreary period of drudgery. All of it is motivated by money, not a desire to learn or to help the truly exceptional students get ahead.
By trying to sell education to everybody, we have cheapened it and now to get anywhere in this world, you need a graduate degree. When they cheapen those, too, we're going to have to cut out the middleman and bribe our way into careers.
Don't think you can place the blame on banks this time since it's the colleges that set the limit. Might be the case that the easy credit allowed colleges to push up their tuition knowing students could take out loans. I don't see any reason why tuition rates need to grow as fast as they have.
Anyone that still believes that America's colleges and universities are "non-profit" institutions, should think again at this. For two of the most obvious examples, I cite you the "Bowl Championship Series" and most college sports in general (namely football and basketball), as well as the fact that student dormitories and student unions have largely been turned into country clubs, with just about every one of them having a Starbucks (heck, that's in the library now, too), and having such amenities as rock climbing walls, gyms with workout equipment that rival Gold's Gym, and many schools are giving every student their own iPad these days. Plus, when most schools in Division I pay their football or basketball coach twenty times the salary of the average professor, and four times the salary of the university president, you know something's fouled up,. . .
I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt
With almost any decent job these days requiring a 4-year college degree, what the hell do you expect? Unless your parents are upper-class or have had the foresight to save up the money (with no intervening crises to eat it up), your only hope to get anything better than slave wages at some manufacturing plant (that's probably going to China at any minute) is to get a highly-competitive scholarship or take out a student loan. And there are only so many scholarships to go around.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Agreed, actually this is what I was typing before I previewed the post and saw you posted something similar:
It's very difficult to feel sorry for some of them when I see them going for degrees that I know there are no jobs for and they don't go on a job hunt BEFORE choosing that major to see if there are any jobs available.
Choosing a major before making sure there's jobs available is like going treasure hunting after finding a buried map, if you have the cash available that's great, but don't go borrowing $100,000 to rent a boat and dig up some island only to find nothing is there.
Also I'm sick of this excuse "but the recruiter said I could find a job!" So? Why didn't you search yourself to see if there were jobs in that field? Is it that hard to go on craigslist and type "programmer" or "RN" or "CPA" and look at the salaries be offered and see if it's worth 4 years of college loans to make that much?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
1) Why the hell is this a topic for Slashdot? Has Slashdot given up all pretense of being either unbiased, or a tech news site?
2) If that were truly the thrust of OWS, then shouldn't they be "occupying" a university parking lot protesting the absurd prices of tuition?
3) How are student loans a problem? If you make good choices, you will choose a major which will provide you with the skills/qualifications to get a job which will more than pay for the loans. If you choose a worthless field of study, or go to an Ivy League schools with ridiculous costs (when you can't afford it), then that was your choice, and you deserve the consequences of that stupid choice.
4) The US Government has all but taken over the student loan process. This is Fannie and Freddie 2.0. There is no accountability or recourse when the government is running something. It's the fox in charge of the hen house. The rules don't apply. If OWS really wants to make a difference, then they need to be demanding that government get out of Student Loans, and get out of bailing out banks. They would be far more effective "occupying" a capitol building.
5) Let's not forget the historical context of "college" education. Even 50 years ago, your average person could not afford to go to an institute of higher learning. It was completely impractical unless you were rich. In modern times college is actually feasible for every one. You might have to go to small, no-name college, and you might have to take out some loans, but you can do it. That is incredible progress. Sometime a little perspective is useful.
With almost any decent job these days requiring a 4-year college degree, what the hell do you expect?
That is why high school is worthless now days. You might as well drop out with a GED and go to community college. High school and GED gets you the same job now days, there's no need to waste those 4 years when you could go to college and at least get an associates and move on to bachelors at a real school.
Of course this only applies to the 99%, the 1% go to Ivy League high schools and Ivy League colleges so they don't need to worry about community college.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
There are plenty of students who majored in very reasonable and marketable courses of study and came out with a mountain of debt and dramatically worse job prospects than what were available when they began their studies. These people have a very real complaint.
However there are also people out there who went to college and majored in drama, or comparative literature, or film studies, or any of a number of other fields that have very marginal job prospects even in a good economy. They are carrying debt because they took a foolish risk with 4 years of their lives. Of course, some of them may have been poorly informed by their college with regards to what they could do with their degree. Others didn't give a damn and set off determined to "study what I want" or whatever. This latter group dug their own hole and I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.
In short, if you majored in engineering and then couldn't find a job after the economy went down the toilet while you were in school working your ass off, I feel for you. But if you spent four years in a field with ordinarily terrible job prospects and now you are shocked that you have no job prospects, I don't have much sympathy for you as you took a great opportunity and managed to squander it.
However, those who excel at taking great opportunities and squandering them may yet have a future in American politics.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yeah but US tax payers repay the banks when the original loan recipient stops paying.
gg college
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Just wait until you see what happens if THIS group starts going en masse into default. At least with houses, there is some collateral there. What are you going to foreclose on when little Johnny goes into default on his $100,000 loan debt because he can't find a job? You going to foreclose on and resell his worthless degree?
With that said (and something that should be said more often), even with rising costs in education, one should only get over $60K in student loans if you get a degree in medicine or law or STEM degree (in particular from a private university.) If you have $40K or more in student loans with only a B.A. degree in History from a public university, there is something fundamentally fucked up with you - that Mac laptop wasn't something you really, really needed, for example. Or you really, really, really didn't need to go to a university in another state (and rack up dorm expenses) when a suitable university was closer by and you could have stayed with your parents. And so on and so on.
Personal responsibility is something not being considered, with the assumption that all expenses covered by student loans are/were legitimate educational expenses.
Just as with the real state bubble, there is also a lot of personal responsibility lying out there when it comes to student loans. The current situation is untenable, and there needs to be a solution. What a solution might look like? I don't know. But whatever shape a solution takes, I sure hope that it does not involve extrication of an individual's financial responsibility.
I wont be the first or last to say it, but I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt and doesn't understand that they made a poor choice.
OK, let me get this straight:
1. Don't go to college, can't find a job. Poor choice.
2. Go to college, can't find a job. Poor choice.
What we have here are a bunch of people willing to work, but the market is unable to find work for them. You blame the people, when the market is what's causing the problem.
but maybe you should have gotten a degree in something other than Elizabethan poetry. There's some legitimacy to OWS but there's also an awful lot of whiners which shouldn't be a surprise since we are largely a nation of entitlement.
See here for the data:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/10/19/fact-and-fiction-about-student-loans/
The one thing that kills people with student loan debt (or mortgage for that matter) is the high interest rates. If banks can get near 0% loans why can't those with student loans (or again mortgages) refinance to a much lower % (say 1.5% which would more than cover admin costs if you get the money at 0%). While this wouldn't solve the amount of debt someone as it would at least help lower the monthly payments and take some pressure off. It would also help if student loan interest was allowed to be deducted no matter how much you make. I hate seeing that I cannot deduct student loan interest because I make too much money.
But on the other hand the unemployment rate for those with college degrees is about 4.5% which beats the national average ~10%.
First, there is usury. Student loans are unsecured, but federally backed. There is very low risk to the bank. Yet interest rates charged tend to reflect that of high risk loans. Further, while payments are deferred, interest isn't. Not all of this is fully disclosed to the borrower. For instance, do all students know that they are payig interest rates comparable to normal loans, yet with normal loans a borrower can default on a loan. With student loans the must must be paid back, and garnishment of wages and other restrictions on one's livelihood are very easy. Unlike most loans, which are regularly renegotiated, the student loan, with exorbitant interest given the level of risk, is not.
Then there is collusion in the defrauding of the american public. Much of the loan money goes to private distance Universities. These Universities are well known for having very high default rates, and are well known for being victims of straw men loans. In any other financial process, the banks would conduct due diligence to minimize exposure. However, as this is a way to transfer taxpayer money to private banks, there is almost no due diligence. The money is handed out. Banks know or should know the forms are fraudulent. There was one reported case of many forms asking for money to the same address. However, as there is no real risk, and it free money for the bank, no such diligence is performed and banks happily take tax payer money. Unfortunately, all risk and blame is placed on the university and student. While this is appropriate, more blame must be placed on the people who are fundamentally profiting from the fraud. The bankers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
When I graduated college I found a job right away. A friend of mine who graduated the semester after me couldn't find a job and has since given up on working in our field. I had a A average, she had a C average... sometimes the people ARE to blame.
This is retarded. You expect an inexperienced, 16-18y/o KID to know in advance where all the jobs are gonna be, sort through employment statistics and guess correctly? 4 years ago they probably would all go into real estate. The education is pretty cheap and you could make bank. Or how about finance, another 'great' pick. How would that work out now? (and while some finance people are still making money hand over fist many have been laid off). It is hard to predict the future AND not everyone is well suited to the few career choices that have any decent wages (mainly IT). And those (IT again) keep seeing news stories about offshoring. Couple that with every adult, administrator, and advisor to this KID telling them BS like "follow your dreams" and there is NO WAY it is reasonable to expect any kid going into college to magically be 'responsible' and pick the perfect major.
Inflation causes education costs to rise. Students flooding the job market roll the dice and take out loans to try to improve their chances. The economy crashes, jobs are even more scarce, students delay leaving college, loans get bigger, they realize they're in deep poo and decide 'the man' and his want to be paid back on the loans is holding them down. OWS people. Don't trust anyone over 30 (which is now 40 because, it's the new 30). We need a good war to thin out their ranks, only now war is fought with expensive toys that rack up the national debt. And tomorrow the world ends - it must be Thursday.
I did it the stupid way I guess - I worked a ton and paid my own way through college. I also chose a college I could afford. I even had a credit card from one of those predatory credit card companies and, after paying off the balance every month, got enough rewards points to treat myself to a Starbucks every once in a while.
Sorry, zero sympathy for anyone taking out stupid loans. It's not rocket science. There are tons of organizations, books, magazines, and counselors out there to help you figure out what you can afford.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
My knee-jerk reaction is the same as yours. "Why did you take out loans you can't afford? Regardless of why, it's your fault for doing it."
However, looking at the times we live in, I have a lot of sympathy for the OWS movement. I recently got my PhD in Physics from a top university, and was a triple major as an undergrad. All of this happened without a single penny of student debt, and in fact I was actually supporting one of my parents on my grad student stipend. While I was in school, employers were often contacting me with offers of, "Please quit! Come work for us at Facebook!", and "Please quit! Come work for us at Hedge Fund!" I flew out to a few of the places to interview just because I wanted to see the city. Now that I'm done, the job market has since collapsed. It's hard to even get a call back, even with a decade of programming experience, several publications in an emerging field a PhD, and international recognition for my programming abilities. My university is balking at paying me a $2150/month stipend for me to continue doing research there as a postdoc.
I'm left thinking that leaving the good thing I had in high school and undergrad, a well-paying job in a contracting collective, was a big mistake. A huge mistake. Because even the opportunity cost of going to university for 10 years for free was greater than the value of the education. Now imagine you're one of the 99% who took out loans on the promise that they'd get a better paying job that would cover them in the future, and you're thrust into a workforce that doesn't want you. You can't bankrupt your way out of it. You can't take a job at McDonalds because the student loan payments are more than you'd be making. You feel like going to university in the first place as opposed to working a McJob was a mistake.
So, I do have a lot of sympathy for them. I can't imagine being in that position, and the promises they were given by their institutions are worth about as much as the paper the diploma was printed on. Their student debt has them saddled for life--they can't default or bankrupt their way out of it. They'll be paying until they die. I wish I could do something to help them, but until someone will call me back for something other than evil (damn you hedge funds), I'm out of luck too.
AC because this is embarrassing. I support you OWC. :(
Perhaps the issue is that the inflation rate for college tuition is well above the general inflation rate, that states are contributing a far lower percentage toward operating state unis and community colleges than they have in the past, and that more and more employers are requiring a 4 year degree for positions which don't really need one in the first place.
Perhaps they're not protesting their own debt. Perhaps they're protesting the current situation -- created by banks, governments, universities, and employers -- which has helped foster the enormous tuition rates being charged for students *today*, thereby necessitating massive student loans or a society in which upward social mobility is unnecessarily reduced.
Perhaps there's more to a strong and diverse society and culture than engineering. Perhaps your $USELESS_DEGREE has tremendous social value, and the real problem is that our current economic structure doesn't reward the people working in job($USELESS_DEGREE) well enough. Perhaps they think the problem is that we're simply not funding enough social workers and teachers and the arts -- not that there are too many young people with those degrees.
Look -- I earned a whole bunch of college degrees on full scholarship in tUSA, in fields which pay reasonably well. This isn't about me. Yet, I do agree with the OWS protesters. College debt is too high. Sure, it was all taken voluntarily, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't change the circumstance for future high school graduates. I believe that the Federal Gov't should open more universities at free/low tuition, and not require military service to be admitted -- and focus on areas where we have a national interest. Health care, energy, infrastructure, etc. I believe that state governments should pour far more money into their state universities. I believe that both Fed and state gov'ts should hire more teachers and fund more arts. I support raising taxes on folks with more money [both income and wealth] to pay for it. I think that if we moved in that direction, we'd have a safer, healthier, *better* society.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The way to cut the head off the snake is to only fund degrees useful to society and let hobbyists find money for their amusements.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
>I spent my college years getting a useful degree and paying for it by working during the year and the summer
Yeah, you can't do that anymore. You'd have to have a full time minimum wage job to even come close to paying for college now.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
All the non-manager IT related job posting I see say 4 year degree or equiv. experience..
The thing I've noticed from regularly perusing We Are the 99% is that most of them feel entitled to a good job. You are screwing them over and stealing their American Dream if you don't recognize the Awesomeness(tm) that is their Political Science, Art, Psychology, Sociology, General Business or Women's Studies degree. You are just a sympathizer with the 1% if you don't support bailing them out, even if you're part of the 53% and still pissed that your tax money went to Goldman Sachs and Co.
They're going to demand a bailout and probably get it at some point. What is needed is for someone to actually tell them the truth. When blue collar workers with actual marketable skills can barely feed their families, a fresh-faced Psychology graduate ought to consider herself lucky she is a waitress with enough hours to feed herself, even if she doesn't have health insurance.
My wife is currently looking for a job after a decade off to raise 3 kids. She doesn't have a degree and doesn't have much current, relevant experience for anything specialized or an in-demand position. She's using a variety of job posting boards including Craigslist for a receptionist, office admin, etc type of job. She's found job postings from anywhere between $8/hr to $48k/year. So hey, attending a business college or similar to get a basic advanced education degree would be worth it to make $48k! In reality though, 90% of them turn out to be spam or phishing attempts and the remaining 10% that pay the much more realistic $8-10 usually are filled by people with 4 year degrees who take anything just to have some income.
Well, for-profit private schools should be blamed. Using car-salesman tactics they managed to convince students from low-income areas to go to their private, non-accredited school to be able to obtain a career that is most likely non-existant.
These schools take the maximum amount the student can borrow and they don't give a cent back to the student for what's left-over after tuition/books because they take care of everything for the student. The student doesn't realize how much they borrowed until AFTER they graduate.
Of course, you also have the poor art/sociology/psychology (anything non-engineering or science related) students who want to have a $5,500 apple laptop to facebook and twitter while they rack up a $100,000 student loan debt...
Combine those things together and you have a trillion dollar student loan debt...
I'm actually paying a bit more on my minimum loan payment as I only borrowed less than $26k for my college education. I went to school full-time and worked full-time, so those who decided to borrow to live off of it, then they should pay it back, no matter what.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt
With almost any decent job these days requiring a 4-year college degree, what the hell do you expect?
1. Not buy brand new Macs (really, you don't need them to do your studies.)
2. Not go to a distant university if there is one within commuting distance.
3. Not go to a 4-year university for your freshman and sophomore years if there is a community college near you.
4. Get a A.S. degree first (what I should have done.) Then go to a 4-year university, even if it takes you an additional year to get your B.S/B.A degree. That will better prepare you for eventualities.
5. Not go to a dorm if you can live with your parents (yes, there will be less booze and less sex, but you get the drift, plus that's not the reason to go to a university anyways.)
6. Not live solely on student loans if you have a chance to work part-time in school or flipping burgers.
7. Don't get any degree just because you don't know what you want. Due your due diligence in your freshman and junior years to find out what you want. IT CAN BE DONE. And if you can't, then take a break, possibly study part-time and go to work. Allow yourself time to explore and understand what you want out of life (economically and emotionally.)
8. Don't get a B.A. degree in History or Psychology (or similar degrees) and stop there. You might as well go to grad school (as B.A. degrees in those fields are pretty much worthless.) If you are going to invest in an education, you might as well go to a level that gives a better chance to get a job with it.
9. Don't use money of student loans and pell grants to finance a Spring Break trip to Cancun (I've seen it happening, and it is not a rare occurrence... sadly.)
That's just off the top of my head.
If you can't afford it, or aren't talented enough to get scholarships, or won't serve your country to get funding in return, too bad.
These people would probably be marching in Germany, where college is free. Only there, not everybody gets to go. You actually have to be relatively intelligent to get into college. In the US I've seen a college teaching number lines, normally taught in grade school, to incoming students. So they'd be marching for the right of everyone to go to college, even the dumb ones.
Also, don't expect sympathy when a degree in underwater basketweaving won't land you a job.
I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt and doesn't understand that they made a poor choice.
Well having no sympathy is a staple of political discussion in the US, no surprise there. Personally I'm not happy with young people no longer being able to afford a good education. That alone I'd already consider an important issue.
That's not all there is to that story though: if it's no longer viable for many US citizens to get a degree, then the US economy will find it hard to get access to a skilled work force in the future. That's a pretty bleak outlook for your country.
apprenticeships / more trades based IT schools will help with the part of going to school and having little to no idea about doing the job in the real world and by moving people in a system like that it will free up room in college as well letting CS be more about the high level stuff and less about how to work the help desktop / desktop / system admin. I have seen to many story's about people with 4 year CS being very clue less when it comes to basic IT stuff / lacking needed skills that if you went to a tech school or had a IT apprenticeship you would know. Also 4 years in the class room is to long it should be a 2-3 year mixed class room / apprenticeship on the job plan.
Ordinarily I'd be inclined to agree with you but this is a case where GOVERNMENT gave people little choice. College tuition has gone up because there was money available to pay it. A school on the short term can't increase supply, only so many seats in class rooms, so faced with all the demand raised prices. Now college tuition has increased in great excess of inflation. Why because student loans were to easy to get.
Now ordinarily student loans would not be easy to get; you'd have to either have some collateral assets you'd earned from working for some years or be able to make a powerful good case why a lender should expect you will succeed in school and then be successful after. The free market would probably only provide loans to people who have some work history and assets or are absolutely the top of their class.
Now comes along dear old Uncle Sam, who does two things. He first makes it very hard to default on Student Load debt, even a declared bankruptcy won't do it, and he secures the loans. Now suddenly as lender my principle is mostly safe the government will re-reimburse me if nothing else I'd be fool not to lend it to practically any kid who will take it. Hell I might borrow some money form someone else at even lower rate and then turn around and lend that...
So now the kid graduating from high school looks at the job market. He finds there is little or know hope of securing white collar work without a degree. Why? Because government has made it possible for just about anyone to be able to afford to make an investment in higher education immediately post high school. Employers have basically decided to use under graduate college as a per-screening process for employment. Which they might as well do because there is now an artificially large pool of potential workers with degrees to select from, so they can fill there needs, and lets be honest while its not all the difficult obtaining an undergraduate degree does prove you are able to understand direction, and self manage a bit. Those are usually desirable qualities in employees.
Now if fewer young workers had degrees then employees would have to do what they used to do. Actually interview people themselves, take some chances on young workers, and develop talent. Prove yourself in the mail room and you might be able to move into the accounting department. Now you can't get in the door without a degree and even if you do somehow get into the mail room HR won't interview you for any other position no matter how long you have been a reliable employee because they have binary test, requiring you have a degree. You can thefefore never earn enough money to get a secured loan to go back to school and earn a degree.
Government has left kids today only one real option if they want a desk job, and that is post secondary education either payed for by their family or they go into debt. They don't really have a choice.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This is the key misunderstanding here. It's not a "free market" question. It's ultimately a question of the same corruption that has infected other segments of our system. No matter how many students attend, all of them will have their future earnings taken. Tuitions will not drop in proportion to attendance, they will only rise or fall in proportion to the expected future earnings of their students.
Schools expect you will earn money, so they justify higher tuitions (which they then spend profligately on salaries and expansion projects while monetizing every aspect of the "academic" process). Banks expect you will earn money, so they lend in proportion. The banks and the schools have rigged the game.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Bank of America’s holding company -- the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit -- held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.
That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
Could someone call me when the 99%/1% meme blows over?
I call BS. Statisticians frequently recommend against going with the trends, because they change so quickly. When I started out in college, IT was going crap, just after the dotcom bubble burst. These days, IT is doing rather well. Financial analysts can't see 5 years into the future, how are kids at age 18 going to do that? Of course, it's no surprise that an arts degree is going to get you unemployed, but that's a different story imho.
Yes, people who take out $100,000 in student loans without job prospects may be seen as not too bright, but the people lending them money can't be too bright then either (see Robert Deniro, Mean Streets) unless they think the govt. is going to bail them out - unless of course you are the govt in which case you can just raise taxes, and finally why the heck does college cost so much anyway? The rate of inflation is criminally insane. Batman needs to kick Bruce Wayne's @ss. The whole system is screwed. You take out huge college loans to get a job b/c you can't get a job w/o a college degree, then you graduate and there aren't any jobs so you take out even more student loans to go to grad school, after which you just become a college professor for all the incoming college students. And tuition keeps going up and up and up and up... How many colleges have lowered their tuition since or b/c of the 2008 recession? And people can't work to pay their own college tuition, if they could find jobs to begin with they wouldn't need to go to college. Wrapping gifts at ToyRUS over the holidays isn't even going to buy you a textbook. The system is screwed and I really really hope they fix it within the next 10 years before my kids hit college.
Let's review every decision you made at 17 years old and see if it was smart. Overborrowing towards an education and supposed better life sounds not so bad to me.
NIA today officially released the most comprehensive documentary ever produced about higher education in the U.S. NIA's hour-long documentary called 'College Conspiracy' exposes the facts and truth about America's college education system. 'College Conspiracy' was produced over a six-month period by NIA's team of expert Austrian economists with the help of thousands of NIA members who contributed their ideas and personal stories for the film. NIA believes the U.S. college education system is a scam that turns vulnerable young Americans into debt slaves for life.
It also remind us:
After the burst of the Real Estate bubble, student loans are now the easiest loan to receive in the U.S., and total student loan debts now exceed credit card debts.
It was written May 16, 2011 ...
Unfortunately, in Colorado at lest, you can't take the GED exam until you are 17. I was actually talking with someone about this the other day. Both of us are very smart students in pure math programs, ranked at the top of our class. However, both of us almost failed out of high school because it was so worthless. We both considered dropping out after freshman year and getting GEDs, then going directly to college. Unfortunately, that was not an option, and since you're there till halfway through your senior year anyways, you might as well just stay the extra semester, since spring admissions at a lot of schools don't really happen as far as I can tell.
It's a driving issue in the protests because one of the often repeated demands if the forgiveness of the loans.
It's also a driving issue concerning the jobs because one of the stories we hear quite a bit is I have this degree but I don't make enough to pay off the loan.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Precisely. If the number of jobless degree-holders teaches us anything, it should be that the current supply of them far exceeds the demand. There's no reason for a young person to saddle him or her self with a pile of debt when there are few prospects of an eventual payoff.
People can still make good money in a trade, and get started with a significantly smaller investment in training/education.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
No.
The problem is that there aren't jobs ANYWHERE. The US was sold on education and white-collar jobs being the way forward in the 'globalized economy'.
It was a lie, of course. As usual.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
It also is a replay of the mortgage market.
When consumption of goods becomes third party in nature the costs explode. This happened in medical care when employers and the government started to pick up the tab. People didn't realize the costs of services and they have become used to not caring. As a result the services got more expensive over time, usually outstripping inflation.
Student loans and student aid did the same thing. They separated the costs of education from the student. Oh sure the student knew they were going to pay but they didn't have to pay NOW and that was key. They had to make installment payments. That reduces the psychological sting all that money made.
Schools then abused that through incredible marketing both direct and indirect. By having all sorts of support industries to include the press and such espouse all the benefits a high dollar education conferred. The one fact they left out was, the majority would never succeed. Everyone is not equal and the same education does not mean all parties have the same out come.
As for the OWS, go read their site. If that doesn't frighten off people here then I would be shocked. It all centers around having GOVERNMENT become more oppressive. They want, want, want, want, and want. There is no talk about what they will do for others only what others should be compelled to do.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why does everyone assume that no job is because of worthless degree?
You going to foreclose on and resell his worthless degree?
There have been plenty of articles about folks with law degrees who can't get jobs. In my wife's nursing journal it stated that this is the worst job market for nurses ever - so much for the nursing "shortage", eh?
Accounting? New accounting grads are having a horrible time too.
And even if great times, I can't tell you how many aerospace engineers took jobs as programmers - business applications - because they couldn't get a job as an engineer - and they were grads from pretty good schools too like GA Tech.
And then, I constantly see posts from engineers (EEs and CEs) who brag about their job prospects. Really? I bet they're under 40 and have yet to have their departments sent overseas.
If you or anyone thinks that there's a certain degree that makes you immune from shitty job markets; either now or in the future, I will just point you back to the nursing profession. And no, it won't get better for nurses because, with this downturn, people flooded into the nursing schools (my local school has a waiting list!) and there will be a glut of nurses for a long time.
Nurses retiring? Ha! Most can't afford to retire!
There is no Market. There is only a generation of car salesmen, making a complete mess of everything they administrate.
May the Maths Be with you!
There are several variables at play here...
As pointed out in earlier comments, college tuition has gone up faster than inflation and wages
In my experience, the career advice you get is crap. Job boards/recruiters are mostly worthless once you get out of college, since these avenues are mostly looking for people with specific experience, even if you have a technical degree. Employers/HR/Recruiters are generally unwilling to use unorthodox ways of finding people and unwilling to hire/train new grads.
I also think college may not be as rigorous as it once was. But, it's a fine line between "rigor" and "trade school" in many cases.
I'm in college right now and have a few things to say about these comments.
First off keep in mind that college is likely the most confusing time of our young lives, even now earning the title of quarter life crisis. We essentially become half adults, who have total responsibility over their finances and future, but we have no experience doing so whatsoever. We realize we don't have much money but financial aid keeps getting shoved in our faces fine print and all. If bankers can't understand the risk of their own loans I guarantee that 18 year old high school grads can't either.
Couple this with another HUGE dilemma. Steve Jobs and many tell us to follow our heart, do what we love and I couldn't agree more. We should all be allowed the chance to do what we love. However as many have pointed out your love for dance and theater might not be worth 100k in loans. So now we just abandon our dreams to "invest" in a career we might hate simply because it pays more? I'm lucky enough to like profitable engineering but many of my friends who love Fine Arts are facing this dilemma, to sell their lives for a salary.
This emotionally charged situation is bad enough for an adult making financial situations. When a poor student is given a flyer showing another smiling student, usually black or latino, "achieving his dreams" if he signs the fine print, it becomes very clear why students rack up so much debt.
I can't find the exact image -- it's a Facebook photo of a friend-of-a-friend (possibly visible here) -- so this Tumblr image will have to suffice. Lately I saw a college professor complaining about how badly in debt his students are and how their lives will start with crippling burdens. Yet for all that, I heard no consideration for the part they played in this drama. Did they offer to take a pay cut? Find a more economical way to teach? The college-for-all movement has heightened costs (expanded the number of instructors required, added facilities and administrative staff) while not materially changing the overall worth of a degree.
Supposedly, the main reason for getting a college degree is the bump in lifetime earnings, but not all degrees are created equal. Engineering, math, and the hard sciences dramatically pull up the averages for everyone, while the humanities languish. It was this way when I was in college back in the 80's, and it's only gotten worse since. If you're slaving away to get that PhD in medieval literature and racking up $150,000 in debt, you might want to revisit that life plan.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Students not bothering to read the terms, or not bothering to get help understanding terms they don't understand, does not equal a lack of full disclosure.
Good reason to get the government out of the loop. If the banks must fully accept all risk, no loan guarantees or possibility of bailout, then they will perform all due diligence.
Government meddling very often invokes the Law of Unintended Consequences. Our recent housing meltdown was started by the government meddling in the markets. Student loans haven't fared well either.
the high costs as well.
Like forced meal plans that cost a LOT for meal times that do not always fit in with class times for any from sub par to good cafeteria food. Some places even forced cash cards that time out so you are in a use or lose it so some people buy a ton of candy just to drain the cash from the card before it times out and is lost.
Also room and board with (room mates) can cost more more then renting a apartment on your own. Can take the same room mate rent apartment and pay less.
Now a dorm may have stuff like high speed networking but that may be part of added tech fee on top of the room and board costs. Now most dorms have some kind of cable system but that can be a old analog only system like you see in hotels, a system with some channels but you have to buy the cable box, to like some apartment where a cable system like Comcast gives you basic / starter is part of rent and you can add on any pack that you want.
Now in a apartment you can get full digital cable or satellite tv and get the tv that you want and not be stuck with what the dorm has.
Debtors are "it" and have to tag the debt on non-debtors. Banks fail? Well, people who save money can pay more taxes have to bail them out. People with lot's of debt get tax breaks, and don't have any money anyway. So anyone with visible money ends up paying for those in debt.
So my advice is, dig yourself as deep into debt as the silly financial system helps you to. You will never have to pay for it. Someone with no debt will.
As the economist John Maynard Keynes said, "If I owe the bank 100 pounds, I have a problem. If I owe the bank 100,000 pounds, the bank has a problem."
Oh, and for US students with too much loan debt, that would be deducted from your paycheck? Flee the country, for the off-world colonies.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt
With almost any decent job these days requiring a 4-year college degree, what the hell do you expect? Unless your parents are upper-class or have had the foresight to save up the money (with no intervening crises to eat it up), your only hope to get anything better than slave wages at some manufacturing plant (that's probably going to China at any minute) is to get a highly-competitive scholarship or take out a student loan. And there are only so many scholarships to go around.
I expect them to try something novel like work for it! I paid for my own education by joining the military and going to school while working. I ended up with 3 degrees and working for NASA. The Air force paid for 70% tuition and I paid for the rest and books. No loans! My parents wouldn't even pay for community college. But guess what I did just fine! I have 2 daughters that I have paid the first two years of college. They are now working and paying for the rest! My oldest daughter has a loan for $5k and graduates next spring. That's called being responsible!
well CS is theory and IT should be on it's own without all the theory and math.
Yah because so many careers that don't involve fries are available to non-degreed kids.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
For every open job right now, there are about 5 people looking for work. Assuming normal distribution of ability, 1 of those people is stellar, 3 of those people are about average, and 1 is an idiot. Now, that stellar person is likely to be hired (unless one of the others benefits from some inappropriate factor like nepotism). Great for him/her. But the difference between a healthy economy and a depressed economy is that in a healthy economy, those 3 average people, who are perfectly capable of usefully contributing to productive enterprise, are hired, whereas in the current economy they are not.
You're demanding a statistical impossibility, namely that all people are above average.
I am officially gone from
Start a business, join the military or peace corp. Sell viagra via online spamming. It may not apply to you, but saying, "I can't find a job so I'll just sit here and blog all day." rubs me raw. Seriously, if your "suffering" and "can't find a job with a college degree", join the military, instant officer. Room/board/income PAID. Or you could just blog about your hardships.. Most people look for jobs they WANT, not the jobs the can get. 20 Million illegals are working just fine...
You sir, are an example that more should follow.
Now comes along dear old Uncle Sam, who does two things. He first makes it very hard to default on Student Load debt, even a declared bankruptcy won't do it, and he secures the loans.
This obscures certain important details. It wasn't some hypothetical Uncle Sam that made it very hard to default on student loan debt, it was a whole bunch of Congressmen and women - and the reason they did it was because the banks providing student loans lobbied them to do it, no doubt with a few generous campaign contributions thrown in. Why do you think the OWS protesters are so angry?
And I don't just mean straight money. Housing? Washing? Mom bringing food? Old washing machine?
Mind you, as a European your story is proof that it can't be done. Do I really want my doctor to do 12 years over his story (6 years study, 6 years working for each study year)? Seems a bit wasteful.
But Hey, I am from Holland, the country whose economy isn't down the drain. What do know.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.
As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,
Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.
- Barlow S. Vode
Unfortunately, in Colorado at lest, you can't take the GED exam until you are 17.
This is a scam run by schools to keep kids in school so the schools can keep getting state funding. Some crazy states don't let you get your GED until 19 years old unless you have superintendent permission.
I'd try traveling to a neighboring state where the requirement is 16 and getting an address there (just have your mail forwarded). State I'm in is 16 and I know several people who have brought their kids from neighboring states to get their GED.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I think there is also a reasonable number of these liberal arts students that began their college career in a marketable subject, like science or engineering, and realized quickly how difficult it was when they found out that they actually had to study instead of partying at the bars and frat houses every night.
I'm sure there might be a few like that but when I was in school (80s) just about everyone tried engineering school because that was THE way to a nice middle class living. Getting into any engineering school was extremely competitive - if you didn't have calculus in high school or got a 700+ on your math SATs, you were pretty much SOL. I couldn't get in and I tried the back way - BS Physics transfer program. As much as I tried - even at 9 credit hours - I couldn't keep up. I literally got physically ill from working all the time - barfing, shingles, etc .... My school put my on academic probation and switched to the business school to get some sort of marketable degree.
Secondly, I kind of smirk at the smug engineers who think they're better than the party guys. I know of a few "party guys" who made the contacts and have to social skills to be making 8 figures as sales people - yes they make 10 million+ in commissions every year selling services to other businesses. Their major? BS in something "easy" and they were on a sports team.
Anyway, college is supposed to be about education, not learning a trade like engineering, accounting, medicine, law, nursing, etc ....
Got to stop now, Ubuntu Unity is totally flakiing now .
A lot of people are going to school now because they can't FIND a job. How are you supposed to pay your way through school if there's no work available to help you pay?? I mean, really, how?
--PM
To many required classes and fillers classes are pushing the 4 year degrees out to 5 years.
Due to classes filling up, classes only being offered only at some times and the high number of credits needed a 4 year degree used to be 120 credits and now Colleges want more for the 4 year degree. Also the X credits to be a full time student should also be cut down or have some kind of fill in that force people to take stuff like art history.
Now some filler is ok but other times it's a waste that can be better spent and there are ways to make it better like say cut back on some of the math classes or make some of them no logger required, let people take some side classes in other ares with not having to meet all the prerequisites for that class, on the job training, work study, and so on.
The government helps students take on loans -> colleges increase tuition because students can afford more thanks to the loans -> there is societal and economic pressure to help people go to college -> the government helps students take on loans ...
The three sectors that increased much faster than inflation (housing, health care, higher ed) all have their cost subsidized by government. Is this a coincidence?
And this is the relative size of the higher education bubble: http://www.di.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/tuition-housing-cpi1.jpg
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Oddly enough - my parents are not upper class, I received no scholarships, and no funds from my parents or other relatives. I completed a 4 year degree with no debt.
The idea that school loans are inevitable unless one wants to be a part of the poor downtrodden masses is false.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
And it is completely possible to get a degree without taking on crushing debt. I'm not sure how what you are saying relates to what I posted.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It's interesting that you equate not taking out huge loans with not going to college at all. Can't imagine something else - like going to college without huge amounts of debt? I know too many people who've done it, including myself to buy into this idea that getting a degree absolutely requires giant loans.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I really resent this pervasive attitude that anyone who complains about being saddled with student loans is some kind of jobless hippie with a philosophy degree and a total lack of judgement.
I studied Electrical Engineering at an in-state public university. For 3.5 years of my student career I was on a "full" ROTC scholarship. I worked full-time every summer, and spent the last several semesters of school working 25 hours a week. When I wasn't able to complete the ROTC program and commission as an officer, I was called up for 2 years in my enlisted grade, 6 months of which I spent getting shot at in Kandahar, and upon my return to school to finish my degree, I had 80% eligibility for the GI Bill. I shouldn't have any student loans, right? Except I managed to rack up about $45k in student debt after all the interest capitalization.
How, you ask? Well for one, the "full" ROTC scholarship only covers tuition and fees, but not room and board. Which was actually more than half of the cost of college for the 3 years or so. I was required to be part of a full-time, on campus senior military college, and thus on-campus room and board was not an optional cost. I got jack-diddly squat from my parents, since my father had managed to bury himself under ill-advised consumer debt. I also got nothing in Federal aid beyond minimal, unsubsidized stafford loans since my father, despite being debt-poor, had a high income on paper. Tuition and fees alone, during my time as a student increased from about $2200/semester as a freshman in 2003 to about $4000/semester in Spring 2011. And let's not forget the costs of books, software, computers, equipment for labs, etc.
Thankfully, I was able to relatively quickly find a decent paying job, which in this economic climate is difficult even with a BS in Electrical Engineering. However, my finances still feel the drag of tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. This is money I could be spending, that my home state could be collecting sales tax on.
But I guess it's a waste of tax payer dollars to make higher education affordable. After all, anyone with $50k in student loan debt is obviously a lazy, liberal hippie wasting their time pursuing a worthless degree and will never contribute anything to economic growth.
Well, we know what percentage you're in, eh?
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
You just spent the last ten years working your ass off after an engineering degree to pay off $100K in student loans, and the recent no-talent, jobless graduate with a master's in Elbonian Mud Art gets his $100K in loans written off?
We're rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior. Same with the proposed mortgage forgiveness over the housing crisis.
but I feel a need to express my indignation at the thought that many students will have their loans forgiven, but mine won't be because I've already paid them. I've aggressively paid down my debt because it was supposed to cost me less in the long run, and because I don't like being in debt to anyone. Now I learn that I could have been spending that money on entertainment, a better home, or whatever else I wanted, because the loan will be taken care of by dear old Uncle Sam? That is the opposite of fair. I understand that some people are stuck in debt, and they need help. I just want credit for working my ass off in order to not be stuck. It's not fair that all my planning and sacrifice will be useless.
If this is really what the OWS movement is about, I am against them.
We should also look at the debt levels of the non-profit and for-profit colleges. Even the most expensive "non-profit" private univs graduate students with an average debt of about 20K, and they are in very good position to snag the few jobs that open. But the for-profit colleges lure the people who can least afford and pile them on with so much of debt, and graduate them without much skills to get them any better jobs. We have to separate the debt load from for-profit college grads and the debt load of nominally non-profilt college grads.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I didn't say I don't have sympathy for the OWS movement. I said I have a difficult time being sympathetic with people who take out loans in the amounts stated in TFA. That's it.
There are so many things wrong that are out of the control of the normal person. Taking out school loans is not one of them.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
He dropped out college due to getting board with all of the required classes and dropped out. But he did not levee he dropped in to class he wanted to take.
But that high lights a problem there are people out there who want take some classes but can't handle all of the required classes so the required classes are getting dumped down / passing people on so that others are forced to get higher level degrees to get stuff that the required classes used to have.
Maybe a drop in based track is needed that can take some load off all the of required classes can get started so the required classes can return what they used to be a 4 year degree can be more like what it used to be about.
Took the first programming job he could find by mid Jan. 06 - 11$ an hour
- 9 months Kept it moving
- 1 year Kept it moving
- 1 year begins contracting, Keeping it moving
- Summer 2008 finds Big Corp Home, continues moonlighting, moving.
He rationalizes out of high school, if I can't afford a 100,000k investment now(2000-2001), he also can't afford those 100k+ homes, or nice cars to ride around in one day. ( Making the big show would have made it all a wash )
Life remains a plan from start to finish. If you choose that investment you must adhere to the pressures of the investment. Stay mobile, know you can't plant roots until you've paid your dues and debt, and know your choices for leveraging debt will change the whole frame of your family, life, and career aspirations from the years 20-40. Pressure busts pipes, so debt like that hanging over his head kept the pressure up to NOT EVER SETTLE. The jock in me had a use afterall. Pain and pressure works, use it.
A pirate's life for us who chose to become wage slaves for compound interest. :)
28 years old here...sorry my peers, but we're not entitled to shit and no one will give a damn about the decisions we make.
Sid Meier's Pirates! helped this mindset a lot as a youngster too
Finding it hard to sympathize != no sympathy.
I'm not disagreeing that there are significant issues at play. I'd like to see the educational system change significantly and I'm a part of doing things that I hope will make that change come to be a reality. (Mostly focused around mobile learning systems with free/open content)
That said - there are so many routes to a good job that don't include huge amounts of student debt. Many, many routes. So while I do have some sympathy, it is hard to come by and limited.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
As the PHD system needs work
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472261a.html
MBA? that is a masters but do you realty want a work place there the basic jobs needs Business Administration skills?
It doesn't need to be a free market. The colleges are in the game to make money*. If they price too high they'll make less money because student numbers will drop. Since they'd rather have more money they'll lower prices in order to attract more students. That's why it doesn't cost $23 million per year to attend college - the reduction in student numbers would cause them to make less money. The existance of easy to get student loans means students can pay more and hence the colleges will happily charge more.
* There are other reasons, but I'll just ignore them for the purposes of a discussion about pricing.
at interest that varies between 6.5 and 8.5%. The government sure likes to say that education is the future of this country, and that everyone who wants to should be able to go to school, but what does charging 6.5-8.5% on the loans say? Mortgages on houses can be had for 4% interest, and we've all seen how safe an investment a home is (thanks 1%ers for demonstrating it to us!). If getting an education is so important and means so much to the future, why is the interest charged so damned high? What investment is more secure than education? The interest rates for student loans should reflect the underlying security of that investment.
I think this sums it up: Not Everyone Gets To Be Astronaut
Go ahead and forgive the debt...but also, garnish their wages until we collect $1,000,000,000 total. That would be called paying your fair share.
YES! But something needs to be done about the very real 'employment stigma' of not having a degree.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Wow, way to spread misinformation. I can assure you that while there are biases toward the wealthy in the Ivy League (mainly due to inequities in access to primary education, though a small part is due to legacy/connections), there are no financial barriers to entry into these schools for students who are willing to work hard and apply themselves. Most of the people I knew who went to these schools are firmly in the 99%, and many of them in the bottom 50%.
Watching OWS protests, where we have largely a population of educated middle-class or higher kids (who are staggeringly wealthy by any world standard), who have spent their lives:
- getting everything they need, and pretty much everything they want
- have never known hunger
- have always been basically healthy
- have never seen war except as volunteers, which is pretty damn unlikely anyway (more importantly, have never faced the ravage of war across their homes)
I recently graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, easily one of the most "Useful and Marketable" undergraduate degrees you can have. I am also a veteran who spent 2 years serving his country, 6 of them getting shot at in Kandahar. I have relocated to the DC-Metro area, one of the areas of lowest unemployment in the country. I BARELY found a job, and at a significantly lower salary than what my peers were being offered in 2007. My tuition costs more than doubled while I was in school. All the while, we've been dumping trillions of dollars to cover the asses of bankers and insurers underwriting ridiculous risks in order to make a quick buck.
But sure, OWS is a bunch of whining leftist hippies. Seriously dude, get fucked.
First, Felix Salmon says USA Today's numbers are wrong, and student loans are around $600 billion: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/10/19/fact-and-fiction-about-student-loans/. But it still is a big number.
Here's the current system: if someone with a pulse wants to go to a for-profit school, he will get in. He will pay high tuition, almost all covered by student loans. He gets a worthless degree and cannot get a job. But federal student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, so his life is now ruined.
There's some blame to go to the student, he should have known better. But chances are this is a young kid, and his first exposure to the adult world is a recruiter telling him he's smart, he's going places, he just needs to graduate college, preferably this really expensive for-profit school. He's been preyed upon as well. And this used to be considered fraud, preying on vulnerable people. If a guy went around to old ladies selling them useless junk, we used to toss him in jail. I'm not sure why our attitudes have changed.
I think federal student loans need a major overhaul--right now, it's a huge giveaway to the banks and for-profit schools with students as victims. Limit federal loans to for-profit institutions to 50% of non-profit tuition (it can go higher based on merit), and force for-profit schools to be accredited every year. Just somehow change the incentive system to reduce the number of non-qualified kids funneled into expensive and useless programs. Change the law so that student loan defaults impact the school they went to: say, reduce loans in the future, with no more student loans to that school if the default rate tops 15% (or whatever number makes sense).
This is another bubble, and the popping of it will be another huge blow to the economy.
Also, kids need to told loudly: getting a degree from a school not competitive in the field is not worth anything more than going to your closest state school. Expensive schools that aren't competitive to get in are just a place for rich kids to go get drunk. Don't take out loans to go to those schools!
There are alternatives to ridiculously priced, private 4-year colleges. How about spending your first two years at your local community college?
My son is doing exactly this right now, taking 14 credit hours this semester while working 20 hours a week changing oil and tires. For added fun, he lives with his Grandmother and his Aunt, because they are close to the college.
In another 18 months, he will graduate with an associates degree and credits that will transfer to any college in the state, for a total student loan debt of about $14k. If he wants to, he can go on to a four year school and still save a boatload of money versus the people borrowing $20k or more a year for 4+ years.
It amazes me that more people don't do this. I wish I had done it myself.
Necron69
Successful, unchallenged capitalism makes the population so safe, so indolent, so comfortable, so well-off that it literally breeds away ambition, determination, and self-reliance.
To put it even more briefly, capitalism is its own worst enemy...
Because its easy to make bad decisions regarding debt, especially when you're 18 years old and don't know the long term consequences. There's a reason we have bankruptcy now instead of debtor's prison they had a couple hundred years ago. But student loans are exempt from bankruptcy, so even if you can afford to pay them, they just eat away part of your life every month, sometimes for decades.
Also, student loans are for college. Kids are "supposed" to go to college. It's not like they were borrowing to buy a nice car or something fun.
And there's the amounts of money involved: $100K to $200K or more.
I wont be the first or last to say it, but I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who has voluntarily taken on large amounts of debt and doesn't understand that they made a poor choice.
I feel a lot more sympathetic bailing out -- for $1 Trillion -- a bunch of people who believed what they were told about a college degree when they were 18, than I do bailing out -- for $2 or $5 or $12 Trillion -- a bunch of professional money people who screwed over the economy because they knew they could get away with it.
I am not a crackpot.
This is the age of information. A good education is as free as a computer and an internet connection.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Some high schools have a dual enrollment program where you go to the local community college for class and get both college and high school credit, graduating on time with a couple of years worth of college credit.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
dent loan debt is nondischargeable in bankruptcy unless the debtor can meet a very high burden of proving hardship.
It's no wonder that lenders lend insane amounts, when they can hound their borrowers for years and years.
No way is this in the long term interest of business, but since when has business ever cared about the long term. They buy their congressmen and this is what they get.
Same thing for the goddamn mortgage industry. Banks get super-protection for their residential mortgages in bankruptcy, so they can write stupid mortgages without fear that the mortgage will be modified in a Chapter 13. This is a contributor to all the stupid loans.
Then business sells us on the idea that it's all the debtor's fault. That's the stupidest thing of all. Sure it's the debtor's fault. When the moron takes the stupid home loan or the stupid mortgage, he has only himself to blame. But business interests want us to think: Fuck him. He can sort his own sorry shit out. And we're morons if we agree with that. If our stupid ass neighbor goes down with a bad mortgage--our property values suffer, our banks suffer, and we all suffer. We're all interdependent. Looking out for other people is looking out for ourselves. The frontier ethic doesn't work anymore when we're jammed together in cities.
Enough of a rant. Now I'll get flamed by the small government people who would rather be governed by banks than by elected representatives.
State schools for the win! But not for long...
No, not for long. Maybe even not anymore -- my state school's tuition is about 6 times higher than it was when I graduated 20 years ago. That's a 10% inflation rate. And that's far from the worst case.
I am not a crackpot.
You nailed it. We are becoming a third world nation.
1) Huge wealth disparity between the rich elite and everyone else. (check)
2) Decreasing access to health care for the masses. (check)
3) Little social mobility. (check)
4) Decreasing access to education for the masses. (check)
--PM
A lot of people are going to school now because they can't FIND a job.
Why does it not strike you how stupid is is to have no money, no job, and then pile on more debt?
Why are you not angry at the real criminals here, college programs pushing horribly expensive degrees on people that cannot afford them. Something has to give because the prices they are charging are absurd and un-substainable, the debt incurred by people treating college as a waiting room for jobs is worse than any other kind of debt you can acquire.
You wouldn't advise the jobless to buy a new porsche every year, right? Yet that is what they are doing by throwing money down the education hole with just as poor job prospects coming out of a degree as in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Everybody's supposed to be equal. That creates a two-class system.
Why do I have go learn to be a construction worker (as a German friend of mine happily did) when that guy gets to go to university (as other friends of mine did)? They would still protest over the perceived injustice.
Making assumptions and being rude really wont make you right. I'd recommend some deep breaths and thinking if all the things you've assumed about me are true. I'm going to posit that they aren't.
I just went on-line, chose in-state tuition from my home state Arizona and looked up what it costs to attend business school at ASU. Total for a full year, this year is 10k. That means someone who can transfer 2 years in from a community college should be able to finish up in another 2 with 20k or so in debt. This assumes all they do is work to cover their living expenses.
It doesn't take 7.5 years to get a teaching position in the public school system in the US. I'm not sure where you got that number but it can be done with a 4 year degree - student teaching being a part of the program. I am qualified to teach secondary ed. social studies - I know what it takes. You'd have to be a bit crazy to try and do it right now as teaching jobs are crazy hard to come by but spending 7.5 years to do it is doing it wrong.
I'm unaware of any school district that requires new hired teachers to hold a masters. Usually you are required to work towards it after being hired and their are programs to make it affordable and to fit it into your schedule.
I'm doubtful about the 100k on top of a degree to get an HR job. You'll need to give me a source before I'm going to be able to buy that. I've worked in a number of places with HR people that didn't hold any kind of a certification. I don't think they made 40k starting but over 30 for sure with room to move up, make more, etc.
Finally, I'm not angry with anyone. I'm unsure what I said that made you think I'm angry. I just don't understand why people can't do the math. You make it sound like there are no choices but that isn't accurate. There are many choices. Taking on huge amounts of debt with no real prospects to turn that debt into even more profit is never a good idea.
Just because I didn't graduate from college last week doesn't mean I don't understand what's going on. It doesn't mean I don't have experience in dealing with the kind of issues that I think are worth protesting. But I think standing around saying "I took on obligations I can't meet and I blame everyone else" is not a good platform. I can think of others that make more sense.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It doesn't cost $23M/year to attend college only because banks don't expect students to repay a $24M/yr loan. However you'll notice that med students pay a lot closer to $23M/year than history PhD students.
The vast majority of students aren't saying "gee, $20K/year is too much, but I'm all in at $19.5K". They are simply applying for loans at whatever the cost, and if they get them they're in. It's a different twist on the free market dynamic you're imagining. The price is tied to what is lendable, which is determined by the banks based on how much of a students future expected earnings they believe they can grab. Schools are happy to go along for that ride.
As an aside on the relationship of school price to the actual cost of education, schools will claim (and feel) the need to pay competitive salaries to high level administrators and profs in demand. This is partly how the max the bank will lend is ultimately laundered into the "cost of education".
It's still greed all the way down.
took out loans on the promise that they'd get a better paying job
Nobody promised you anything. And even if they did, promises are worthless by definition. Now, a contract...that's another thing. But snake oil is snake oil no matter who is selling it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Johnny is 18 years old. Where did he learn about the real long-term consequences of debt?
Debt is dangerous. Student loan debt is especially dangerous because there's no second chance by declaring bankruptcy. Did anyone warn Johnny?
You give a grenade to someone. He doesn't know what it is. You tell him it's useful. He examines it and tries it out. It blows up and he's injured. Who is at fault?
One of the big problems I've heard lies with the for-profit universities. These schools actually seek out the kids who would not have likely gone post secondary, then sign them up with these big flipping loans. The for-profits are well known for having piss poor degrees that aren't nearly as respected as your regular universities, and employers don't want the second rate graduates they turn out. So in the States you get this horrible cycle of kids who need a post secondary education, are recruited by these shitty schools, sign up for these big loans and then after their program is over they get dumped into the real world where nobody wants them. The American school system is broken. Frontline has two great documentaries called "College Inc." and "Educating Sergeant Pantzke" - both are must-sees if you are interested in this issue.
Ok, so all the people that can't get into the military due to physical reasons, or don't believe in being part of killing are just fucked? You helped your daughters, many people don't have that. I didn't. You also went to college in a time of A) significantly lower tuition rates B) higher income and C) people didn't expect college degrees for good paying jobs. Nice work! It was easy for you because it was fucking easier back then.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Want to see a real uprising? Watch what the hard working middle class who already paid off their own student loans do when their earnings are taken away to forgive some occupy-wall-street-dirty-hippie's B.A. Art History debt.
I remember how you guys rose up over the Wall Street bailout. Boy are those guys reeling from how you gave 'em the scowling of a lifetime.
I am not a crackpot.
I'd like to echo a little of what you said. I've spent the better part of the last decade in university, first as an undergraduate and then on to graduate school. I've been to many universities across the country, both public and private, prestigious and ordinary. It never ceases to amaze me the kind of conspicuous consumption I see on college campuses. Everyone has a brand new macbook pro, brand new high end smartphone, and the student parking lots are filled with BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and cars from at least 2008. Not to mention dining out for every meal (that's pretty much what a meal plan is). Pretty much everyone at my school is in a Frat or Sorority, which on top of outrageous rent for small rooms, costs an extra $700 per semester in dues and fees. Oh and of course going out drinking 5 days a week is not cheap.
Now, I don't know how many of these kids are receiving financial aid, but since at least my school grants aid to over 75% I'd wager a good deal.
So when you get down to it, the cost of tuition is almost dwarfed by the cost of living on a college campus. If these kids simplified their lives a little, they would save tens of thousands of dollars.
If done right you can go to a top tier university, finish in 4 years, get two degrees, have tons of job and grad school offers when you graduate, and leave with maybe $20k in debt. But to do this you need to treat your education seriously, network and study instead of party, and spend only what you need to. Maybe even god forbid get a part time job!
Work to support yourself. I did. Started 3 years before graduating. Was it hard? Sure. Did it affect my grades? Maybe, though I still graduated with honors. I was debt free a couple of years after getting my M.Sc. Quit blaming your parents for "not teaching you money management skills". You're adults. You're supposed to think for yourselves, and money management is not something that's impossible to learn.
I have no idea what the crap your talking about. Net worth = assets minus liabilities — so this is their final/total/ultimate worth —this is different from gross worth which would not subtract or consider their liabilities. So according to what you have said here, that after you subtract their liabilities, they still own 50% of the countries wealth.
Citation?
I've read several times (here's an example citation: http://ctsportslaw.com/2008/05/22/ncaa-study-shows-that-most-athletic-programs-lose-money/ ) that all but the most well-known universities actually lose money on their sports programs as a whole. Football brings in a lot, at least at more well-known schools, but think of all the other sports few give a shit about but cost money to get uniforms and equipment and pay a coach. On the whole, sports lose money at all but the top universities. That's money taken away from educational programs just because a couple people want to play cricket or whatever in college. I would feel better just giving out scholarships with that money rather than buying unnecessary sports equipment, stadiums, etc. Money much better spent.
Make all education free for all. That's what Finland is doing, and it works brilliantly: the scientific output of this small (by population numbers) country is extremely high, as well as the effects of it on industry.
Now the UK has introduced tuition fees that are, in most cases, about GBP 9000/year. Many universities in The Netherlands (where education is free for all, as well) are now marketing all-English language master programmes to UK students that cannot afford the tuition fees. That will cause an influx of people who will, by studying in The Netherlands, contribute to the science in that country, and most likely stay as PhD students, contributing even more.
By the way, in addition to free education for all, the US should really introduce single payer, too. A system where children (as well as adults) are left without health insurance should alarm you.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I don't see the OWS crowd giving me a lot of indication they against rent seekers. I agree with you though the banks did indeed engage in lots of rent seeking behavior, and Congress did abdicate their responsibility to the good of nation and sold out the bankers.
I have no respect for rent seekers. They are the worst kind of thief.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I agree with this. If they would just cut down the requirements for college so that science majors don't have to take 30 credits of gen ed's it would temporarily solve a problem. The main fix for the problem would be to mandate colleges reduce tuition. Universities have become swollen inefficient institutions. Having worked at 2 of them, both had redundant employees, some employees that didn't do anything for over half their day, people skipping out of work and taking half days twice or more a week, endless meetings that served no purpose, and ridiculous wages for upper level personnel. One university President was making 500,000 a year and actually had the nerve to petition for a wage increase when the tuition was going up. That is ridiculous.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Some universities also force students to live in dorm rooms for at least a year. It boggles my mind why dorm rooms are so expensive. I had an apartment 5 blocks from campus for 600 a month that was 4 times bigger than a dorm room, yet the dorm room charged 800 and I had to share a room? This didn't even include the meal plan.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Actually, that 600 dollar apartment was shared with a room mate so I paid 300 + utilities. We each had our own room. We also had a kitchen, a bathroom that we don't share with 100 people (i.e. just the two of us), and access to common areas with grills and trees, etc.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Please give an alternative to how wealth should be calculated!
3.87%
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
In the following categories, the top 1% owned (as of 2007):
Business Equity - 62%
Financial Securities - 60%
Trusts - 39%
Stocks and Mutual Funds - 38%
Non-home real estate - 28%
Total Investment Assets - 50%
(Source)
In terms of actual investment vehicles, it's pretty bad looking. Of course, it's kinda hard for the poor the invest in anything when they're barely paying down 30% interest on credit cards and endless car payments.
* You die or become totally and permanently disabled.
* Your school closed before you could complete your program.
* For FFEL and Direct Stafford Loans only: Your school owes your lender a refund, forged your signature on a promissory note, or certified your loan even though you didn't have the ability to benefit from the coursework (failed an aptitude test required to get in, like going to law school with a 120 LSAT or college with a failed GED).
* You work in certain designated public school service professions (including teaching in a low-income school).
* You file for bankruptcy. (This cancellation is rare and occurs only if a bankruptcy court rules that repayment would cause undue hardship. According to my district's bankruptcy trustee, she has seen it once in the 13 years since this was instituted in '98 and that person's life was basically destroyed due to TBI that didn't result in total and permanent disability but was darn close.)
* There are other, and much more unlikely, situations that are not even worth covering they are so rare.
well CS is theory and IT should be on it's own without all the theory and math.
I disagree. CS students should all learn a little about IT (so they don't try stupid crap that overtaxes a system), and also because IT people should come from the realm of CS. Sure, the math is partially irrelevant, but the theory makes a miserable IT button pusher into an IT wonder.
not just the stigma but IT needs trades or tech degree that have a good 1-2 years on the job part of them CS is to much high level theory and is lacking alot of the hands on skills with more the real work part of IT.
Plumbers and electricians have apprenticeships that do have class room but also have real work based training as well.
CS degree just don't tech the skills needed most IT jobs. Tech schools due but they have some employment stigma to them and even with them 2 years should be the max and they you should go to and do real IT work before coming back to the class room.
The generation which has had the good life and currently has money (the 50+ years old, I'm 52) has been collectively piling up private and state debt (to be repaid by the younger) and arranged to avoid what should be its burden: the education of the young. Yet we are the children of the 60s, times of dreams of brotherhood, universal love, and selflessness. One really has to wonder what went wrong.
Many US schools are terribly over priced. Why do the children go there? Running up huge study debt is simply irresponsible. Let the idiots suffer and learn a simple economic lesson.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yeah...I can empathize, but still...a sales pitch is a sales pitch whether it comes from a university admissions officer or a used car salesman.
Buyer Beware eh?.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So you want people to do a 4 year CS and then a 2 year tech school?
The hard part is setting how much theory that IT people need and much how a IT a CS students should get also IT people need a good hands on part that is way better then theory.
While that is a huge number, and certainly a lot of it is not terribly secure, I have to wonder how much of it is very secure? Though I went to an instate school & worked 3 jobs my last few years to try & minimize debt, I still took out some student loans. I think in total maybe $11k. I've been out for over 10 years & employed the whole time. I still owe about $5000. At numerous times I've considered paying it off but the rate is so low it's just never made financial sense to do - I've always had better places to put the money.
Put me on the side of believing too many people go to college when a trade/tech school would be a better choice. I have a tough time feeling much sympathy for those who voluntarily took on huge debts without consideration for how they were going to pay it off. I worked my tail off, had a ton of fun & drank plenty of beer, but never did the tropical spring break thing and don't regret it at all.
Vote Quimby.
Student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy - Congress, a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Banking, Inc, wrote that provision into the new bankruptcy law a few years back. So this is another way that the student loan issue is even worse than the real estate issue - once you have this debt, there is literally no way to escape it. In this environment, you can't get a job, can't pay the loan, and go into default. If you ever do become gainfully employed, Uncle Sam will garnish your wages to pay for your rapidly increasing interest, penalties, and fees.
It's a mess, and I'm not at all surprised that people are fed up with it.
"Tuition costs have "risen" basically on par with how state funding has fallen"
Then how do you explain private university tuition going up.? Just like with housing, it's all the federal student loan money thrown at education that has caused tuition to rise way past inflation. Eliminate that boondoggle, and colleges wouldn't be able to raise tuition every year. The money would dry up. What would they do, close their doors, or cut expenses and lower tuition?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem that doesn't have a good solution: there are many more people than there are useful things for people to do. Eventually this will correct itself -- people will have fewer children because they have less money, but the time lag involved (~20 years for the kids already in the pipeline to get out) could mean unpleasant times ahead.
The fact of the matter is that lots of jobs are being automated away, from lawyers to factory workers. In the past, a field being automated meant people moved to working in an unautomated field, but we're out of them. Even many of the unautomated jobs could be automated. The only reason a person scans and bags your groceries is because people are still cheaper at doing that job than a machine. If the minimum wage gets raised too much, or those workers are required to have expensive health benefits, then machines may well be the cheaper option.
Apologies for going somewhat off topic, but I've become convinced by this pessimistic view, and I don't see any good solutions to the symptoms because I don't see a good solution to the problem -- barring some technological breakthrough that makes everything so cheap that it doesn't matter what people do.
No, its not possible these days on average. The average public university costs close to 11034 a year according to the census. The average minimum wage is 7.35. That comes out to a 35 hour workweek alongside being a fulltime student (1823 hours).
11034 / 7.35 = 1501.22
1501.22 / 50 (2 off for vacation) = 30.02 hours per week
So it seems 30 hours per week. Note that this is with an *equal* number of hours all year and two weeks off for a vacation. In reality the student would work extra hours during the summer, and possibly during breaks. However for now lets just assume two months full time in the summer.
7.35 * 40 * 10 = 2940
11034 - 2940 = 8094
8094 / 7.35 = 1101.22
1101.22 / 40 = 27.53 hours per week
Again note that this assumes the student does not increase hours during christmas and spring breaks, plus the summer period used is only the length of an academic quarter so it is abbreviated. Lets go for a more aggressive student who only works part time while classes are in session (30 weeks), but still has their two weeks of vacation.
7.35 * 40 * 20 = 5880
11034 - 5880 = 5154
5154 / 7.35 = 701.22
701.22 / 30 = 23.37 hours per week
So 24 hours per week while school is in session, plus full time during breaks, while still taking off two weeks per year for vacation can pay for school. I worked 25-30 hours a week while earning a BS in Computer Science and it was not a hardship.
... on Slashdot, and that's saying something.
Well, how the hell ELSE would you define wealth? Is your point that people with a negative net worth shouldn't count? Of course, everyone is pretty rich... as long as you exclude everyone who's, you know, not rich.
WTF does this even mean?
Dude, seriously, think before you post. I know, this is Slashdot, I must be new here, etc.
Want me to dissect your whine?
1) Considering you say you "spent 2 years serving my country, 6 of them getting shot in Kandahar" I'm going to guess your math skills might be why had trouble finding a job.
2) You relocated to DC Metro...for why? Lowest unemployment not quite - US average 9.1%, Washington DC is 10.9%. Assuming you meant Arlington, etc sure, the unemployment rates are low, but there are a lot of reasons for that that have nothing to do with availability of jobs - could be that it's so damn expensive, the unemployed are forced out quickly. Personally, considering how easy the internet has made wide-ranging search and communication, the idea of moving to a place and THEN expecting to find a job there is fairly retarded. There are GIANT sections of this country between the Rockies and the Mississippi where unemployment is far below national average. Hint: jobs are in the blue states. I wonder why?
3) according to indeed.com, here's the breakdown of available EE jobs, and salaries -
$40,000+ (42273)
$60,000+ (29111)
$80,000+ (13183)
$100,000+ (4918)
$120,000+ (1839)
Those are pretty damn good salaries. I don't give a flying shit what your peers were offered 5 years and a different economy ago, and honestly, it shouldn't matter to you unless your main goal is self-pity.
4) I don't disagree with you about the bullshit bailouts. So why are you protesting Wall Street? We have elected representatives and big fat books of laws that were supposed to be regulating this. You're protesting wolves being wolves, when the guys we elected to watch the wolves are either entirely asleep (or worse, mating with them). Point your anger at the problem.
I respect your service. I think your choices so far (aside from an EE degree) sucked. That's not Wall Street's fault.
-Styopa
I was just reading yesterday about how the severe problems in the job market are driving illegals back over the border in massive numbers.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Tuitions will not drop in proportion to attendance, they will only rise or fall in proportion to the expected future earnings of their students.
If demand actually dips below supply, prices will fall considerably. It will take time though.
The real value of wages has dropped over the last few decades, so clearly tuition doesn't rise and fall in proportion to expected future earnings.
The college has fixed costs that don't scale with the size of the student body. That gives them incentive to maximize the size of the student body within the limits of what is supported by their fixed costs. Just as airlines will sell a $10k ticket for $100 a university will give an education away for a fraction of the current tuition if that is the only way to fill their seats.
Here's another sob story, I squandered my talent.
I got my AA at a community college on a full ride scholarship, then I went to a state level school instead of ivy league so I could pay in state tuition. On purpose. Most of my teachers at the Jr College had MS level degrees and cared about teaching, so the quality of education wasn't really an issue. I then transferred the AA to a state level (but private) university to get my BS, so I have the same exact state level degree on my resume as anybody else. When I graduated with my BS, I had $10k in student loan debt, no assets of significance, and I never worked more than 30 hours a week at an easy retail job. I got right about the industry average wage for an entry level position, and it was at a position and company I wanted to work for. I guess these kids would say I squandered my talent since I could have gotten in at MIT or Standford, but I got the same job, same degree, and same pay, so I couldn't care less. Now my employer is paying for my MS (part time), so that one will be free.
Why people are getting press making such a big deal about this blows my mind. Honestly, the minimum monthly repayments from student loans just aren't that bad even if you do take way too much money, provided you get an economically useful degree.
Perhaps that's the problem--students are taking too much money at high dollar schools and then doing useless degrees. And the key argument seems to be--and it may be true, I'm not trying to be rude here--that the college students are too dumb to figure out they're paying tons of money on credit to earn a degree that's worthless in the economy. Well, yeah, if that's the issue, I'll admit it's a problem. But ignorance or recklessness are the drivers there.
So how about teaching high school students the right way to do things to stamp out the ignorance? Why sit around Wall Street whining--what does that do?
That's government collusion with the industry. If it were purely industry, it could be discharged through bankruptcy like any other debt. But then good luck getting one for anything other than a hard-core, money-earning degree since the risk would be too high for the lender. After several years, the standard pattern for underwater basketweaving degrees will be loan - degree - bankuptcy - continue with life. It's easier to live under seven years of bankruptcy than to pay off $100K in loans.
But you know that will never happen. Those people wanting forgiveness for subprime mortgages weren't adovcating that responsible mortgage holders get a break on their mortgages too. Obama and his ilk aren't exactly receptive to the idea of fairness applied to responsible people.
Face it, in this culture, a man who stays out of trouble, doesn't get anybody pregnant out of wedlock, studies hard, gets a good degree, works hard, lives frugally, saves, pays his debts, and makes sound financial decisions is a cow to be milked for the benefit of those who did none of the above in order to get their votes.
So that's a no?
I do pretty well for myself, thanks for caring, but no way I'm in any 1% bracket.
Not that reality matters to anyone anymore.
But will never happen in the current USA. USA is "ME ME ME, why should I have to pay for someone else's health care or schooling????". IMO they are very short sighted because when it's their turn to need health care and it's not there, they sure would wish it was like it is in other countries.
That isn't what Occupy Wall Street is protesting at all.
I'm sure it's a contributing factor for many, but for most of them, they're protesting (get this) Wall Street's existence. They're protesting against the existence of capitalism, as evidenced by the placards and battle cry.
Let's not be confusing what's actually going on by falsely attributing motivations.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Actually, my 1 year of film school and the excellent training I received has been the most valuable single year of education I ever had! It got me my first job out of college. In grad school I got to work with google video because of my video experience. Now i work in advertising as a web dev and my film background meant I was more valuable than a raw CS person.
Want me to dissect your whine?
I wasn't looking for pity, I was just trying to provide a dose of perspective. Supporting or taking part of the OWS protests does not automatically make you a whining leftist, nor even significantly increase the probability that you ARE a whining leftist. There are plenty of productive, hard-working people that are pissed off too.
1) Considering you say you "spent 2 years serving my country, 6 of them getting shot in Kandahar" I'm going to guess your math skills might be why had trouble finding a job.
Sorry, that was a typo. It should read "6 months of them"
2) You relocated to DC Metro...for why? Lowest unemployment not quite - US average 9.1%, Washington DC is 10.9%. Assuming you meant Arlington, etc sure, the unemployment rates are low, but there are a lot of reasons for that that have nothing to do with availability of jobs - could be that it's so damn expensive, the unemployed are forced out quickly. Personally, considering how easy the internet has made wide-ranging search and communication, the idea of moving to a place and THEN expecting to find a job there is fairly retarded.
I relocated when I received a job offer, which happened to be only a few hours away. My job search was nationwide, and relocation was pretty much inevitable as I attended a rural and remote campus.
And I used the term "DC Metro area" which would imply, yes, I did mean "Arlington, etc." The DC-MD-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area has an unemployment rate of 6.1, well below the national average.
Those are pretty damn good salaries. I don't give a flying shit what your peers were offered 5 years and a different economy ago, and honestly, it shouldn't matter to you unless your main goal is self-pity.
My whole point was the fact that the economy is totally different, I'm not interested in pity. I'm thankful to have a job that affords me a comfortable standard of living. But that doesn't diminish the fact that over the last 5 years, wages have shrunk while inflation has barely slowed. Look back further, and real wages have been dropping for decades.
4) I don't disagree with you about the bullshit bailouts. So why are you protesting Wall Street? We have elected representatives and big fat books of laws that were supposed to be regulating this. You're protesting wolves being wolves, when the guys we elected to watch the wolves are either entirely asleep (or worse, mating with them). Point your anger at the problem.
It's not about "protesting Wall Street." Protesting on Wall Street is a symbolic gesture, but the anger is directed at politicians more concerned about campaign donations and lobbyist bribes from the financial sector than the interest of the American middle class. The wolves were able to eat the sheep because the shepherd was more interested in the stripper that the wolves hired than watching his flock.
Make NEEDED secondary education free. Engineering and Computing Sciences of all stripes; Math, Physics, Biosciences definitely.
The degrees that shouldn't be free? non-General Practitioner medical degreees. We need family doctors (especially in rural areas), not another Vagainal Reconstructionist to the Stars.
And the most expensive degrees of all? Accountants and MBAs. Given that these have turned out to be society-destroying licenses to steal, they should be as pricey as possible to help offset the inevitable damage and theft.
Law degrees should be awarded as freely as nuclear power plant operating licenses.
Assuming a job at the same time is not doable due to the course or actual complete lack of even minimum wage jobs, how is one supposed to succeed?
You mean the baby boomers who had their education paid for by the state, i.e. their parents' tax money? If tuition wasn't ridiculous, we wouldn't have this student loan problem. If we paid for university through taxes like we used to, tuition wouldn't be ridiculous.
Actually, there are plenty of jobs in North Dakota, if you're willing to move there and take the type of job that's available.
I lost my leg to cancer when I was 12. I went to college, thinking I could make it through, but eventually the pain from my leg started taking a strong enough mental toll that I stopped going after 4 years. I started working at Target for minimum wage when the hydraulics on my knee went up. But I was making too much to fix it. But I have student loans. But my body didn't want to keep up for 40 hours a week.
That is why I came to the conclusion the only way for change is to hang myself. It is the only way for change in this society. I am in Seattle now homeless. I just dropped everything in New York to come here. I am waiting for the rain season to come so my spirits can become low enough to do it.
That is what student loans are about. Driving handicapped young men in their 20s to hang themselves. Fuck you America.
The thought of hanging myself at my student loan organization doesn't bug me as much when I think it might make a differ
Education is SUPPOSED to be an investment, you've presumably heard the 'you have to spend money to make money' line?
Yes, but you inadvertently hit the nail on the head with the single word "INVESTMENT".
Just as I would not by a stock in a company with a horrible P/E ratio, I would not spend 30k+/year for the INVESTMENT of education with little chance of earning enough to make back what I had spent - ESPECIALLY when alternative forms of education (like cheaper community college programs or simply internet learning) are available.
Just because something is an "investment" does not make it a WISE investment. Currently colleges offer a terrible value; I would advise against people coming out of high school attending unless they had a very focused degree in mind for a profession of obvious worth. Otherwise you can get a lot of partying done for far less than $30k in a year.
Learning a new skill to seek new jobs? Great idea. Paying to much to learn it and in the process incurring debt that you cannot shed even via bankruptcy? REALLY BAD IDEA.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To get a job above minimum wage with some form of security or practical use in the real world, you need to go to school. At least, these days. So, yes, getting a decent job is voluntary. But through this you also admit that debt is required to not have your family live on 14k and below.
Maybe Little Johnny shouldn't borrow $100,000 if he doesn't have a reasonable plan for a career after graduation.
Maybe the banks shouldn't loan little Johnny $100,000 if he doesn't have a reasonable plan for paying it back. Oh, what's that? The federal government guarantees all student loans? And the banks take advantage of that by loaning money to anyone and everyone who can claim to be studying, without performing any reasonable due diligence or oversight, because the banks know that one way or another, even if they bankrupt the student, they'll still get their money back? Come on, who do you think is at fault here - the young teenager taking the easy money being offered? Or the multinational corporation with packages designed to temp said teenager, and profit massively out of the situation?
Government has a far greater influence than you suggest. When I was an undergraduate in the University of California (UC) system Bank of America and Citibank offered credit cards to students, even freshman. As an computer science major I was given a card with a $1,000 credit limit. This was typical for engineering, science and math type majors. Liberal arts majors were declined cards, presumably due to their lower expected earning potential. The liberal arts majors complained to the UC and the UC (emphasize its an arm of the California state government) then told the banks that if they did not offer cards to all majors they would not be allowed to market their cards on campus. So the banks started issuing cards to liberal arts majors.
Notice that something similar happened in the housing market. Government, both republicans and democrats over many decades, decided that home ownership would improve society and came up with various ways to encourage banks to make loans to individuals that they would not otherwise make loans to for credit risk reasons.
Would you like to bet that something similar occurred with respect to student loans? That banks may have been inclined to make loans to medical, law, business, engineering and science majors but much less inclined to make such loans to liberal arts majors. And that at some point there was government pressure on banks to not discriminate based upon area of study?
I would say that the government backing these loans (home or student) was part of the deal made to get the banks to make loans to people they would have otherwise been considered higher risks of default. So the government seems to be at fault to a some large degree here. Like so many government programs and incentives with noble and honorable intent the unintended consequences undo a lot of the good.
Not baby boomers. 30 somethings who worked hard, budgeted, and paid off their debt. It's not like it was that hard to do, but damn, I could have bought some nice stuff if all I had to do was sleep in a park for a few weeks and whine until the government paid off my loans.
And you do know that tax dollars subsidize a large part of tuition? Look at the out-of-state rates that are 4x higher. The difference comes from state taxes.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
Funny how I get modded 'troll' whenever I post anything advocating personal responsibility.
Fuck it. I'm going to go buy a new car and that Mac laptop I've always wanted. There's probably a government program that'll pick up my mortgage because, you know, times are tough.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
... on Slashdot, and that's saying something.
Well, how the hell ELSE would you define wealth? Is your point that people with a negative net worth shouldn't count? Of course, everyone is pretty rich... as long as you exclude everyone who's, you know, not rich.
WTF does this even mean?
Dude, seriously, think before you post. I know, this is Slashdot, I must be new here, etc.
My point was that some (I suspect most) of the debt in this country is voluntary. I had a student loan at one point in my life, but I made sure it was relatively small because the terms sucked. I paid it off quickly after graduating. I sympathize with people who are not able to pay theirs off as quickly, but that is a risk you take in getting a loan. I believe most Americans could live just fine without getting mortgages and loans and incurring credit card interest. I even believe most people would EVENTUALLY have a better standard of living by doing so - they just have to accept a lower standard of living up front. I include myself in this - I hope I don't sound like I'm talking down. I also know I would be healthier in the long run if I ate less and exercised more.
Regarding my math, I'll try to explain what I mean. I'm not suggesting they define wealth differently, I'm just trying to interpret the numbers. When I drive down the road and hear that 1% of people own 50% of the wealth, I look around and think ... they surely don't own 50% of the cars. 50% of the land? 50% of the money in banks? It just doesn't sound very plausible. I don't have the data from the study but yes, I would like to know how the numbers come out if they count negative net worth as zero because including negative numbers can give weird results.
For example, let's say your wealth is $900,000 and mine is $100,000. Between the two of us, then, you have $900k/($900k+$100) = 90% of the wealth. But if you have $900k and I have negative $100k, I *could* say you have $900k/($900k - $100k) = 112.5% of the wealth, but to me it would make more sense to just say you have 100%. They do a similar thing when calculating Gini coefficient - they throw out negative incomes.
Now in the 1% study, maybe they did zero out negative wealth. I don't know for sure one way or the other (If anyone knows for sure, I'd like to hear).
There, I took some more time to think and as a result I'm posting later in the day and probably no one will ever read this.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
A student can only do oh so much research, and the facts (i.e. "post-grad employment rates") are usually exceptionally skewed if not downright lies, information that people often don't discover until partway through a degree, if not after. And then you have the government and every influential factor in their lives - their friends, parents, coworkers at minwage jobs, managers, etc. - and their teachers from elementary and up - telling them that the only way to succeed is to go to college. That they need to do it some day; that it's what every student should, must do. They are pushed hard and with good intentions, even when they shouldn't be. Hindsight > foresight and all that jazz. Anyways, the main problem is that they often "made the choice" because societal factors forced them to.
Living with relatives is often not an option, and reeks of the "just live with your rich parents!" response to unpaid internship criticisms. Community College is also often just as expensive, sometimes moreso than similar University level programs. The problem is, your "exceptions" are actually the majority of cases, and "Beyond your means" is anything other than "working at minimum wage for the next 65 years".
Personally, I would rather those who are out of work and can't find work go to school for retraining (even if that means debt) to improve their job prospects later rather than one of:
You are presenting things as if the nay choice besides expensive debt is doom or despair. There are many other options:
* Free training in field of choice via internet learning or unpaid internships (unpaid beats incurring debt).
* Moving to place with jobs in what you know.
* Starting your own business.
Given the nature of stunt loan debt I would honestly say they might well be better off turning to crime, which at least might lead to free room & board and even ironically free training!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Tax dollar subsidize a lower and lower portion of tuition every year. The university I graduated from in 2005 has more than doubled their tuition since then. In that time, wages have been stagnant or in many cases dropped. If you're over 30, you had a much, MUCH easier time than these kids today. And for the record, I'm one of those people who worked during school, got a nice scholarship, and graduated with zero debt. But not everyone is that fortunate.
"an amount that should impress even Dr. Evil" [citation needed]
Maybe it's not the biggest component, but college text book publishers are pulling a lot of shady tactics.
I'm in school now, and had to get a newer edition of a math book I already had. Yet when I compared the two editions the only changes were new chapter introductions and the homework problems had been rearranged in a different way for each chapter. Nothing new had been added, explanations and examples were all the same, but now you can't answer your homework correctly without buying the newest $180 edition . For that price the class, as a whole, could have contracted someone to write a damn math book for us
Then there are the "online access" classes. In which, to turn in your homework, you need to buy an additional $80 pass to the publisher's online content. Which is often looks like a third rate KhanAcademy knock off. So, especially in math, you end up paying $200+ for 1000+ year old information that is available for free.
Where God fails to provide, society must take up the slack.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
"Well having no sympathy is a staple of political discussion in the US, no surprise there. "
Hey, you can always go to the military. There's no problem you can't solve with guns!
Or, perhaps $22,900.
Psst, I am GP ;) The source is http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp.
Been there, done that. The article you originally cited offered that link when they stated $11,034 as tuition. Notice they misquoted that figure as tuition rather than tuition+room+board. Perhaps that is the source of your misunderstanding.
The second column (in state public institution and required fees) is without room and board, which for for years is 11338 for 2006-2007 school year. The first column is with room and board, and comes out to 19232. I must have typo'd the original number, sorry about that.
Actually you are having the "typo" right now. Originally you quoted the tuition+room+board *public* university figures, now you are quoting all universities and including private into the mix. Note that your original claim was specifically about public schools. If you scroll down to the public section you will find the number is $14,203.
Why 14K rather than 11K, well you have also moved from the all institutions column to the university only column. This ignores the other 4 year schools, colleges presumably, and the 2 year schools. If you look at the all institutions column you will find the exact number you had quoted previously. You did not previously quote the second tuition only group.
So the only thing you can really claim is that 2 years schools should not be included. So lets rerun the number with that figure from the tuition+room+board all-4-year public institution column: $12,805.
7.35 * 40 * 20 = 5880
12805 - 5880 = 6925
6925 / 7.35 = 942.17
942.17 / 30 = 31.41
31.41 * 1.0765 = 33.81
Quite doable (approx 5 hours mon-fri and 8 on sat). Note this includes one day off a week and two weeks vacation per year. Again I found up to 30 not a hardship while earning a BS in Computer Science. I'd say 34 hours at a job may be diligent hard work but I don't think we are in hardship territory.
Note again that we discarded 2 year schools. I accepted this for the sake of argument but in reality I think doing so is a bit disingenuous. In reality a person who is going to have a hard time paying for a 4 year school may very well, or should, do their general ed classes at the 2 year as much as possible. Here in California the community colleges are excellent at making all the general ed type classes meet the transfer requirements of all the California state colleges and universities. Going this route would allow a student to graduate some number of quarters earlier and/or knock 4 units of coursework off many quarters.
This.
Keeping students from eating on the cheap is an obnoxious abuse of power by the housing & food department. The dorms are a trap.