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Let Them Eat Teslas
theodp writes "If you're a bright kid who wants to prepare for the 21st century workforce (PDF) by studying engineering at Purdue, the government will help your parents pay the $100,000 or so tuition tab with a 7.9% interest loan (plus 4% fees) that's likely to be non-dischargeable in bankruptcy and paid back with after-tax money. If, on the other hand, you want to buy a tricked-out $100,000 Model S, Tesla has teamed up with the government, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank on what it calls a 'Revolutionary New Finance Product' that enables those who play the game right to avoid paying sales tax, get the government to pick up the first $15,000 (no down payment needed!), and also receive a 2.95% bankruptcy-dischargeable loan for the balance, the payments for which could be tax-deductible. Yep, 'Revolutionary' may be about right!"
They can always repo your car.
This is why Education should be funded where the risk is borne by the one making the loan. The repayment terms should be based on a percent of the students income for a fixed number of years.
These guys are trying to do it.
https://www.upstart.com/
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I don't really have a problem with this. Everyone knows that a car, even considering that they quickly depreciate, is much more valuable to the average person than most college degrees.
:|
I defy you to prove me wrong.
Sell Tesla.
Use funds for college.
Our government is being managed for the benefit of corporate elites. It's the simplest and most reasonable explanation for what looks like total idiocy from the outside.
While it would be easy to say Government just prefers the sheeple broke and stupid... These really aren't the same. Cars can be repo'ed.. Your education can't be repo'ed.. Further from a Govt perspective the return in tax income from your education is risky.. You might never finish school. Might end up working in India and not paying taxes.. You might never repay those loans if given the choice because you won't lose anything.. The car might seem like a loss, but you will definitely pay taxes on stuff for the car like tires, registration and property taxes etc the employees who built the car will pay income tax etc. Plus there is the political side of green jobs.....
Nissan took 1.4 billion from the feds for the Leaf and produced laughable results. Tesla took a third of that and produces the Motor Trend car of the year, and is set to pay off the loan early. I don't blame the DOE for wanting to help them out some more. Note: from a student with a non-dischargeable 7.9% loan.
Is this energy efficient spam??
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
It's always funny to hear your illiterate, anti-education rants. Maybe if you had taken some of those "fluff and filler" classes that maybe you could form cogent sentences?
Man geeks are drinking the Tesla Kool-Aid.
The Tesla program costs about $1,100/mo even for their cheapest model and the $15,000 only applies for people in West Virginia.
The $500/mo pricing they keep quoting is a huge fabrication based on "total cost of ownership". Even with their calculator, and assuming the lowest model, you would need to drive that sucker to it's max range 5 days a week every week for three years to actually make the ownership cost $600/mo less than a gas car.
Apparently you have never financed a vehicle. The bank holds the actual title, you only get a certificate of registration. You cannot sell the car without the title, and the bank will not release it without the loan being paid off.
So if you tried to sell the car, the bank would take the money and you'd end up with nothing.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
I was with you until the end, I have seen tech school output and it sucks.
Sure they know a couple software products, but nothing of what is going on under the hood. They can tell you what a subnet mask is but not why or how it works. They think packet captures are black magic and that reboot is the solution to all tech problems. They have no idea at a basic level. I had one recently try to claim his network speeds to a host on the same subnet and the same switch changed when he changed the gateway. He had no concept of why that is. That is the difference between knowing what button to push and why you would push that button. A few years down the road and they are totally useless since the products they learned on are now out of the market. Since they have no basic understanding moving on to the next product is a huge struggle.
Dammit slashdot let me edit!
"He had no concept of why that is" should have been "He had no concept of why that is wrong."
Maybe if you had taken some of those "fluff and filler" classes that maybe you could form cogent sentences?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
From the outside?
College isn't a scam, but you have to know what you want out of it. If you don't know what you want to do yet when you graduate high school, you should probably get some employment experience in fields that interest you. You should still take some base level courses at a community college (and do well in them)... all of the 101 courses will probably transfer into whatever you end up doing - but there's no sense in going into deep debt without a clear goal in mind.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Our entire economy and society is being managed for the benefit of corporate elites. It's the simplest and most reasonable explanation for what looks like total idiocy from the outside.
FTFY
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
That likely invalidates the loan note and it would come due the minute the sublease starts. Car loans are different based on if this is your personal car or to be used as a business tool/asset.
The education loan is a tax. The only reason it is not called a tax is because you can't collect taxes when people leave the country, but you are still in obligation to a debt.
They still aren't really comperable. Even with this sweeheart loan deal, you are going to be out 85 grand in an "investment" that will depreciate down to nearly $0 in 10-15 years. In the mean time you get transportation that you could have had with a couple of $5-10K used cars. That's a whole lot of money down the toilet.
For the student loan, you get an education, which cannot be taken from you by a bankrupcy court either, and is a ticket to the upper 60% of the job market, culminating in 1.6 to 3 times the expected lifetime earnings (depending on how much education you get).
If you have to pick only one, take the student loan.
Disclaimer: I would love a Tesla model S, but even with the mentioned loans could not possibly justify buying one over saving up for my children's education.
It is ridiculous to try to prop up the success of a company by government backed loans. If electric cars will succeed, let them do so on their own. I personally hope they do, but think that X-Prize style awards for better batteries/chargers is the best way to do that.
However, I think student loans are one of the worst things our government has ever backed(worse than the Tesla loans). By providing them we encourage an already existing problem of people getting degrees when they should be learning a trade instead, and mounting up debt that will take them twice as long to pay back. Scholarships and Pell Grants already exist as an excellent tool for providing assistance to the most needy, and the most deserving. Furthermore, working your way through college is not only doable, but builds character while reducing the amount of trouble students get in to. For those instances where there is a real need for a loan, such as medical school, the government isn't really needed. In addition to grants, the government already provides assistance for those who have served (GI Bill) and those who will promise to serve (ROTC Scholarships). There is some of that in the private sector (hospitals, chick-fil-a, etc.), but I'm all for the government encouraging more of it.
Finally, if we did a better job at the grade school level we wouldn't be trying to squeeze unprepared students into college curriculum while they are building up tremendous debt attending institutions they won't be able to graduate from. The real problem with government assisted student loans (and most risky/payday loans in the private sector, but that is a separate gripe) is that they are an attack on those the current system has already failed while giving an empty promise of an easy out.
I am biased as I already have a Purdue degree, earned 12 years ago. It was far cheaper back then - tuition and fees were less than $7500 per year. Add in the cost of housing and food and I was all in for around $50000. My first job after college paid more than that per year.
Now, 12 years later, I have three quarters of a million dollars in the bank and a six-figure job. I can write a check for a Tesla sedan without flinching. And as the years pass, I will continue to increase my financial standing.
On the other hand, if I were to buy a Tesla sedan and use it for 12 years I would have an obsolete car with a severely diminished battery. Now, don't think that I dislike Tesla. I have high hopes for them. I made a lot of money buying long-term call options several years ago - in fact it was when the Model S was announced and everyone thought they would be out of business in a year. I put my own money on the line, in the face of overwhelming negative opinion.
I think that electric cars will prove to have far lower operating costs than IC cars - and the benefit gets larger the longer you own and the more miles you drive. But let's be perfectly honest. A degree helps you make money. A car costs you money.
... even more stupid people going to college to get degrees in things they have no talent for. I see them all the time, developers with 'degrees' who can only code if you put a spec in front of them, they are incapable of creative thought and have no real-world experience to pull from.
.. I'm not saying that some truly great people have not come out of college and done great things. I know some people far smarter than me that have degrees and will always make more than me. And no matter how much college I had, I would never have been them. They had the talent already.
.. go to college.
I went for a job interview last week, and the hiring VP said their biggest problem is finding developers who know how to program instead of just knowing how to code. Programmers who actually understand things like operations and systems. Programmers who are capable of seeing the big picture and coding at the systems level instead of at the method level.
These days that type of programmer is hard to find, because the days of becoming a computer programmer by starting as an operator or trainee are over. No one will hire anyone without a degree now. And no developer with a degree is willing to start as an operator, they all want $100k/year to pay off their debts. And of course, no one will hire a programmer with a degree as an operator because they are overqualified.
Yet some of the brightest programmers I know don't have degrees. They started at the bottom and worked up. They attended classes here and there, either at school or online, to learn what they needed to learn. They bought books and learned new tech.
But back when I started, companies were willing to hire someone simply because they were smart, creative, and had a great curiosity about how things work. People with good work ethics that worked smarter, not necessarily harder, than their peers.
And we do none of it now because we have been lied to that programming requires a degree. Bullshit. Programming is one of the easiest things in the world to do. I've seen 10 year old kids write code without ever having been to a class. Simply because their brain works a certain way. I've seen programmers learn new styles of programming over a weekend simply be reading a book. Their biggest stumbling block wasn't not going to college, they understood how to do things. But they didn't know the fancy words for everything. They just programmed and got the job done without worrying about technical mumbo-jumbo that really doesn't mean jack squat. Like how 'initialization' was change to 'instantiation'.
If all we want is code monkeys who need a complete spec before writing anything, go ahead. Keep sending them to school. Continue to let the government subsidize people who really have no business writing code because their brain just doesn't have the spatial aptitude that is required for programming. Because they thought it was just a great way to make a buck. Continuing only hiring people based on a piece of paper that only says they know how to pass tests.
Now
It wasn't college that made them successful, it was themselves. College was just a tool they chose to use because it served a purpose. They already had the ability, college was a different way of getting the information.
Starting at the bottom is not a bad way to learn. Sure, it sucks at first. But in 3 or 4 years, you get 3 or 4 years of experience and little or no college debt. Many companies will help with tuition. Granted, it cuts out a lot of companies that will only hire if you have a degree. And it can take a lot of time to find someplace that will do it. But someone that has been writing code at home or part-time for friends and family, and knows how to write a resume, should be able to find something if they truly have talent and interview well. If you don't interview well
But really, do you want to work for a company that is so procedure oriented that they won't look beyond the resume to what a pe
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I just bought a Tesla. I paid sales tax (a lot). I got a 1.9% loan from BofA that wasn't subsidized by anybody. My accountant would laugh if I suggested that this would be deductible. The federal grant is $7500, there may be a little more from Illinois. From what I understand, what is "revolutionary" is Tesla and Elon Musk personally guaranteeing the resale value of the Tesla as part of their new financing plan. The taxpayer isn't on the hook for that - Elon Musk is. Frankly, if I wasn't planning on keeping the car for 8 years with it's "everything but tires" warranty option, I'd jump on this new deal if I could. As for the subsidy, I suppose that's a matter of opinion. Any reasonable person has to agree that we cannot burn gasoline in our cars forever. But there is a chicken and egg problem. A completely free market will likely fail to protect the environment for our children. Alternative fuel cars are prohibitively expensive and always will be without the economy of scale. The government's role is to to serve the long term public good and the tax break's intent is to resolve the chicken/egg problem.
Greed is the root of all evil.
The correct solution is to strip that power from government rather than imagine it will never happen.
"Vox populi vox dei" is the servant of corruption, yet as a meme it turns said masses into useful idiots. Politicians seek power for the purpose of getting in the way of things, for the purpose of getting paid to get back out of the way. This is endemic and obvious in most countries. It is just hidden a little better in some.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No, you won't. That's the Big Lie: if you put up with being shat upon for now, you get to do the shitting one day. You won't. It's just a lie to keep you sitting there in a shower of shit rather than fight those who shit on others. It's that simple.
Besides, if by some miracle you actually became an elite yourself, is getting to shit on others really such a desirable goal? How about you grow up, or at leat try to get past your anal stage?
And that's another lie.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Yes, my school had a co-op program, and I think it was a fantastic experience. While it was great to get money, the real benefit was finding out that I wanted to change majors after the first co-op! Since the co-op program was baked-in, we got three 6-month co-op terms starting our sophomore year.
I agree that it can be difficult to find work in a relevant field before you have a college degree. However, agreeing to do some unpaid intern work while enrolled in a community college is something that many companies would be amenable to. You'll come out ahead in the end, since I made nowhere near enough during my co-op to cover the costs of school.
Of course, if you are smart or athletic enough to get a free ride, the economics change :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I also have quite favorable loan terms on my house - better than my girlfriend has on her student loans. I'm not going to go pound on my credit union's door and demand social justice. The problem is with the education loans, not the home or car loans. Demonizing Tesla or the auto industry for striving to provide a means of buying their products is asinine and childish.
Education finance has some serious issues that need to be addressed. We aren't going to solve them by crying about auto loans. This entire discussion is flamebait - just fishing for angry rants.
+1 Disagree
"if parents don't want their children to be educated, that's child abuse."
When well funded school systems 'pass' students that cannot read or write, that's child abuse.
When well funded school systems refuse to use standardized tests because their students always fail them, that's child abuse.
Yes, I know what teachers and administrators get paid, that data is freely available.
Claiming that the education failures in the U.S.A. are because there isn't enough funding is like listening to the alcoholic complain that she just needs more booze.
No brain, no pain.
I'm not arguing that education loans should have lower interest rates - just pointing out that the submitter (and maybe the article, but who RTFAs anyway) is specifically picking on Tesla when his beef is with education. Hell, I could walk down to the Subaru dealership and get at worst a 2.9% rate loan with no money down. In any case, I don't think you and I really have differing opinions on the interest rates for school loans and car loans because you are spot on about the investment risk and options in the event of default.
However, I stand by my main point that this summary is written just to rile up the masses.
Nobody here is demonizing Tesla. We are demonizing the government. It is not Tesla's responsibility to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely.
The only federal government involvement here is a $7500 tax credit. This is the same type of credit that's been around for hybrid vehicles for years. You may not agree with them - I don't - but enough people have decided they're worthwhile, so they stick around. Sales tax exemption and state tax credits are the state's issues, write your (much more local) state legislator about those. I know I'd pay full sales tax. TFS is making it sound like everybody's going to run out and get a check from Uncle Sam for $15k and dodge sales tax just for buying a Tesla, but that's a stretch at best and - depending on the tax credit situations in Washington and New Jersey - a outright lie at worst.
Anyhow, I think it's important to talk about the costs of education. People talk about education loans these days as if they're mandatory - ignoring options like scholarships, grants, less expensive school choices, or part time work during college. But this Tesla thing is just an attention grab.
+1 Disagree