Slashdot Mirror
Writer: "Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans"
schwit1 writes: There are some valid points raised in Lee Siegel's 1,100 word rant against college loans (if not so much against college education). There are also some bad ones. But two things are clear: the words "personal" and/or "responsibility" were used precisely zero times. Siegel, who described himself as "the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money," is hardly a glowing advertisement for the return on nearly a decade in university just to achieve a Master of Philosophy degree.
Siegel says, "As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example. It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. ... The rapacity of American colleges and universities is turning social mobility, the keystone of American freedom, into a commodified farce. If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, 'Enough,' then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality. Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education."
Siegel says, "As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example. It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. ... The rapacity of American colleges and universities is turning social mobility, the keystone of American freedom, into a commodified farce. If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, 'Enough,' then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality. Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education."
There are plenty of groups that had vested interest in killing socio-economic mobility, but colleges weren't really one of them. While the colleges and universities in our country have plenty of faults to them, it is not their fault if students decide to major in philosophy and leave without good job prospects. What did this guy expect to find for employment?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That's what the news media said, who won't even cover the fact that he's running for President. If you want to fix this shit, VOTE SANDERS, its as simple as that.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Need money for education, need money for health, need money to not starve to death. Look at civilized countries, they better serve their population and they have less debt as a country too. Stop your silly wars on drugs and oil protection. You have enough money but you are wasting it on stupid things. No war on drugs means prices will just drop and criminals will have less money and less power. No oil means you will switch to cleaner sources of energy that you can do on your own land, keeping even more money inside your own country.
"Gimme"
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I had to laugh when the "evidence" of not talking about personal responsibility is the absence of the words personal, and responsibility. That seems more than a little narrow definition of being responsible.
Get your general education classes done at a junior college. Much cheaper. Then transfer to a 4 year school if you're career path requires it. Note the emphasis on the word "requires". Don't go to college if your career doesn't need it. There's no point in graduating with what essentially is the size of a home mortgage. You're starting in the hole and you don't need to do that. The sooner that you can get into the workforce with a good paying job, the better off you will be. You can buy a car and home much earlier in life. You can also start saving for retirement earlier which makes a huge impact on when and how you can retire.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I agree the current way of funding uni in the U.S. is bad. However, if the government guarantees a uni attempt at a degree, how does the government put a price on it? Is Harvard comparable to Ohio State University? Does a uni degree attempt become another entitlement? Entitlements are already breaking the U.S. budget.
Maybe the U.S. could fund degree attempts at state unis. The problem there is that states have been pulling money out of higher ed. then turning around and claiming their state schools are still state schools. The some of the increase in tuition at state schools is directly the result of the state legislatures pulling money out. The legislators then turn around and claim there is a crisis in higher education with ever higher costs for the average person.
...instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education.
that is what we do. Works fine, here in Europe.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Proof this guy is a financial idiot, "You might want to follow these steps: Get as many credit cards as you can before your credit is ruined." Yeah- get as many credit cards as you can, because you're so awesome at paying back things you owe. Although I might agree with the sentiment behind the article- schooling can be cost prohibitive, and rich people can make tons of money off people just trying to better themselves, I totally disagree with the author's reasoning, logic, and their lack of responsibility.
Famous for sockpuppeting his own online threads.
Scott Greenfield adds some valuable additional commentary. The horror! He had to drop out of a "small private liberal arts college" and suffer the indignity of attending a public university. And this in an era when tuition was vastly lower than it is now.
I have a fair amount of sympathy for modern college students and graduates who are subsidizing a bonanza of administrators with no attendant benefit to themselves. But for Siegel to set himself up as one with such people is deeply deceitful. He wears his deadbeat status as a badge of honor.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It wouldn't be such a problem if the interest rate wasn't 8%. That's a rate for an unsecured loan, not a government backed loan.
We moved a family members student loan onto a HELOC at 3%. Now she can make progress paying it off.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
We made a deal! I got what I want. Now leave me alone.
Excuse me, I have to go watch Crossroads again.
I agree that the cost of education has gotten too high, but making a deal to get it and then reneging on it is just bad character and blaming others for your own decisions.
I think many people who read Slashdot likely went to college, so I would still say relevant.
It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college>
It strikes me as absurd that people are finishing their secondary education without understanding the fact that such school loans would be crippling. We must really be doing our high school children a disservice if they have such a poor understanding of economics and mathematics./P.
He thinks he's clever by not paying. As it currently stands the federal government can garnish 15% of his social security, federal tax returns, and other sources of income to pay for his government backed student loans. Don't be surprised if the boomers vote in politicians who change that 15% to 100% in the not so distant future when all of those pension promises go up in smoke.
Guy goes to one of the most expensive schools in the country, in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Gets an advanced degree before starting to earn a living. He doesn't have a full time job till he is 31, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... He also manages to get fired from the New Republic for doing things they wouldn't even do http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09....
But somehow Society is to blame for HIS bad decisions.
If he wants to rant against anything it should be the fact that they accept 100-10,000 Philosophy majors for every "Tenure-Track" teaching position available. I think he should shut the fuck and go teach community college students on the public dime.
If he was unemployed with a M.S. in Electrical Engineering due to an H1B visa taking his job I would be more sympathetic. Abusing his philosophy education to justify in his own mind defaulting on debt? No wonder nobody wants to hire him! He spent 10 years studying philosophy and that is his magnum opus? "I was able shirk employment for 10 years thanks to tax dollars, and now that it's time to pay the piper: I want everyone to unite in solidarity so I can put off paying back those loans perpetually/relieve the pain of default"?
Cry me a fucking river. Least sympathetic advocate for a legitimate cause EVER.
Color me "shocked" his latest scheme to avoid employment is writing books and "blogging"(not a business plan moron)...
Wikipedia's list of companies that filed for bankruptcy includes such all-American businesses as Abercrombie and Fitch, Chrysler, Delta Airlines, Macy's, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Samsonite. There should be no shame whatsoever if an individual chooses to go into default on student loans, or walk away from a mortgage. The company will not worry about their "corporate responsibility" to you when deciding to file; you should not worry about yours to them.
Also missing from the article but something potentially change your interpretation of it:
1. It's there implicitly but it's worth to make explicit: "when I was 17, I went with my mother to the local bank" means that this delightful anedote happened in 1974, a long time ago both in years and in differences in tuition prices and legislation around student loans.
2. There will be a lot of talk about federally guaranteed students loans but his loans where unsubsidized private loans with a private bank.
The whole article is flamebait because it piggybacks in the current perception that the student loan system in the U.S. is flawed but offers an anecdote from a very different time and background than ours.
You realize that no one gets to choose what "their tax dollars" are spent on, right? Otherwise I wouldn't spend a dime on things like drones and NSA data centers.
Given the option, I'd rather pay for a million people to go to college than a single Predator drone.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Easy government credit is what makes college so expensive. Colleges know that students can get the money, so there is no downward pressure on tuition and fees.
I question the choice of field of study. A Master of Philosophy isn't suited for much other than a part time teaching job. These days a PhD is important in a liberal arts field. I looked into the fields that were most likely to keep jobs in America. not replace people with robots, and make sure I'd enjoy it. It is unwise to chose a field solely on enjoyment. Employment needs to be considered if one is to make their way in the world. I went into the coatings industry and worked up the ladder. My advice is to choose wisely what you plan to do for the rest of your life. .
Many people are not aware, but it's been known for a number of years amongst physics education researchers how to actually measure the change in conceptual comprehension (actual assimilation of new concepts into the part of the mind that does real-world problem-solving) that results from a semester-long class. Force concept inventories (FCI's) can be administered both before and after a class, and these tests have already been given to tens of thousands of students. These tests have revealed very serious problems with public comprehension of science that starts on day 1 of the first mechanics physics course, suggesting that it is the lecture and problem set approach which is causing the problem. Eric Mazur has made a name for himself by discovering this problem at Harvard. What he found, by studying his own students, is that the plug-and-chuggers can ace their rote memorization exams, and yet still completely fail conceptual questions in the same exact domain/topic.
See Confessions of a Converted Lecturer, or the first two devastating paragraphs of the abstract here.
The college loans are not the only scandal happening at the universities. We should also be seeking to make sure that our straight-A students actually understand the materials they are memorizing, by instituting the FCI's. This would also help parents to determine the effectiveness of the various programs, and programs would once again compete on instruction.
It did take 16 years though, and I did make some significant life choices based on that. LOL, now I have a mortgage, I think the last time I was totally free from debt was like 1992. It probably could be seen as a social control tool, but on the other hand my ability to buy things on credit against future earnings has helped me more than hindered. Although 10 years ago when I was paying the loan and living in a crappy tiny apartment I might have felt otherwise. Its one of those things that more life experience has given me an expanded perspective on.
If you default on these loans, I think you should make a philosophical choice to never try to benefit from credit in the future.
Peace, or Not?
If you go to school for Philosophy don't be shocked when you find out the Philosophy factory isn't hiring.
Masters degree in Medieval History, bitches endlessly about the student debt she has piled up and is currently enjoying herself on a trip to Europe. It's just a shame that people have to choose between paying their bills and enjoying a few weeks in Italy.
Why should I guarantee a college education to anyone with my hard-earned tax dollars?
Now take out that "college" part and wonder why you're allowing public schools at all.
I was very fortunate -- I went to university in Canada, where university tuition is lower. The tuition for my last semester (four months, Winter '82) broke $1,000 for the first time. My parents had also taken out a Registered Education Savings Plan for me, which kicked in, I think, $800 for the last three years of my four year degree. And I had my Co-op work terms. With all that, I still needed a loan (it was around $2,500) to get me through the last year (OK, some of that may have paid for the month's vacation I took after finishing school).
I paid $500 of the loan off in my first six months after school, then a few months after that, received a notice that they'd start charging interest if the loan wasn't paid off in full by the first anniversary. I was earning $22,000 annually, but my expenses were low, so I managed to make four monthly payments of $550 per month to get it all paid off.
It didn't occur to my to skip out on the loan, although it was a relatively small amount. The only other loan I'd taken out was for a motorcycle -- four $400 payments -- and dodging those payments didn't occur to me either. I'd borrowed money, I had to pay it back.
I think the writer of TFA is in denial. They need to mend fences and start paying off the loan. You borrowed some money and promised to pay it back. Yes, it's inconvenient, but it's the responsible thing to do. Grow up.
This summary comes close to saying, but chickens out, that we should raise taxes to pay for college for all citizens. That makes sense to me because it's what we already do with school for younger people.
Until then, don't go to college if you don't intend to pay for it. It is irresponsible, dishonourable, and illegal to consume a commercial service and then refuse to pay.
Come on, OP. Just say it. Raise taxes for the betterment of society. Formally change taxation. Don't just incite theft. How is that going to help people invest in their futures?
Because I'm a victim
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
And this is part of the reason the prices keep going up. You defaulted so now we'll just pass the what you didn't pay on to others by raising the cost next year.
What I really hate about the media, they never talk about the horrible job market for nurses, electrical engineers and pretty much all new grads. This gives a false impression that the only folks who have to worry are the ones who are "unmarketable" degree programs.
We have structural unemployment in this country. Contrary to the pundits who insist that it's "government polices" (whatever those may be), there are the trends of off-shoring, the Third world catching up with us, automation, and an aging population that are all working together to lower our standards of living. The easy days are over.
Unfortunately, the rich and super rich aren't doing enough to invest in our economy. The only billionaire I can think of doing old school investment is Musk the rest stick money into a hedge fund (zero sum game), buy a sports team from another billionaires, and do reality TV shows - their qualifications for being a business genius being that they won the dot-com lottery 15 years ago.
Then I see the CEOs who offshore jobs, get their $10million bonus - even if they fuck up the economy - and I'm supposed to buy into the fact that we live in a meritocracy and all of my problems are all my fault?
I'd also like to add that the job market is totally screwed up. Being unemployed means you're damaged goods - it doesn't matter that your whole department was offshored, it's all your fault because of "personal responsibility" or some such bullshit that the elite has told us to convince us that all of our problems are our fault. Yeah, it's my fault that there are third world people willing to work for less than half of what I was making. It's my fault the businesses do not hire unemployed people (go ahead, put an end date on your current job on your LinkedIN profile watch all the recruitment emails stop coming.).
Things are much more screwed up than some liberal arts major "loser" who can't get a decent paying job.
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream is spot on - and it was written 10 years ago when things were better.
You may riding high now, but one day, you will be called into a meeting one morning and your entire department will be canned and the jobs sent overseas. You will unemployed and good luck getting another job - especially if you're over 40. If you think you got the "skills" that makes you immune, well keep telling yourself that. This profession has gone to shit. We are all disposable and unless you have some really elite skills, you're headed for the waste heap too.
Rant over. I'm outta here.
Lee: if you went to college and graduate school to learn to be a writer, and you're a writer, then you owe your career in large part in whoever loaned you the money. Pay back the money.
If you went to college thinking you'd emerge with a six-figure income as a writer, then you screwed up royally, but you still owe the money. Pay back the money.
If you went to college majoring in something practical, but decided that being a writer would be more fun, then, I've got news from you: 99% of us would rather be doing something other than what we're paid for. You still owe the money. Pay back the money.
If you can't afford to pay it back on their schedule, work with a debt-management agency to pay what you can afford. $50 a month. Anything. But this "I'm going to take the diploma and run" business is nothing more than selfishness and irresponsibility. You're no better than a deadbeat dad.
I would be happy to guarantee a college education to anyone willing to work hard for it. The community college here gives huge discounts to people with a job that are paying for school themselves, and extra bonuses to people that manage to juggle work, kids and school. These discounts only apply to people that are actually making the grade. They also don't give out largely useless degrees like "master of philosophy."
But at big universities fraternities, sports, meaningless degrees, and people simply uninterested in earning or giving an education... no wonder it seems like we need to burn the entire system down and figure out something new.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of [...] reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college"
That is a false dichotomy. For some examples of "going to college", it is exactly reckless borrowing and spending.
Doesn't that imply universities are greedily trying to suck everything they can from students? That's a bit unfair, considering the problem likely has more to do with how we drive up demand for educational resources without increasing supply. The more we subsidize the demand, the more expensive it becomes to satisfy since supply isn't growing at the same rate.
"Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school."
You want to be a writer but you can not pay off the debt you created getting a doctorate?
Really? You want into to debt getting a Phd in Philosophy?
Sorry but a lot of people have to take jobs they do not want to pay of debt or even to feed a family. You decided to spend a lot of borrowed money getting a degree and a Phd in a subject that does not pay well at all.
"Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. "
Well yes it is. State schools are a lot cheaper and community colleges even cheaper. Get your required course out of the way on the cheap and then move on to University.
" I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree."
Talk about a sense of entitlement. You did not try to turn yourself into a anything on your own. You tried to use other people's money to live a fantasy. Who needs to pay a "professional reader". Wow. I just do not know what to say except pay up dead beat.
Wow this does so much harm to the idea of student loan reform that it almost seems like a right wing plant.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Whether it is Texas A&M, MIT, CalTech or smaller schools like Oregon Inst. of Technology, get a degree where their graduates have high rates of employment within 6 months of graduation.
OIT claims to have 90+ % of graduates with full time jobs within 6 months of graduation. Lots of their graduates have job offers before they leave school.
If a student wants to "dabble" in the soft sciences, like History and Sociology and Psychology, do it at night school after you have a job!
It's easy to say "grow up" when the biggest loan you had to take out was for a motorcycle. An education in the US can cost 10s-100s of thousands of dollars not including living expenses. Couple this with low earnings coming out of college and interest rates that capitalize (interest is added to principle) which occurs during forbearance, deferment, or even while you're still in school. For the vast majority of people, repayment is not so simple when the average wage for a US employee is $45,327 as of 2012 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This doesn't take into account the costs of living, healthcare, health insurance, transportation, or god-forbid entertainment.
... where I thank god that I live in Germany. An abundance of colleges to choose from, all for free (except some trivial Semester fee that's well below 200 Euros that gets you rebated admittance to public events, a free public transport ticket and some other niceys along with it).
Fucking dig this: You actually *save* money if you are a student over here - even as a part-time student!! I'd pay less healthcare as a freelancer with cheap student rates (look up "healthcare" on wikipedia if you're from the US. ... SCNR) and my PT ticket is cheaper!
This is also one of the reasons I'm gonna get off my lazy ass and start a college CS track this year - it would be an insane freakin' waste not to. Just finished mit GED A-Levels with prime scores btw. for exactly that reason.
Tip from across the pond: You guys should help Lessig get through with his Superpac initiative and then redo some core parameters of your system - it's broken at to many places.
My 2 eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Funny how when a corporation defaults on its debt and files for bankruptcy so that it can break union contracts and pay workers less, it's seen as a sharp business move, a recognition that their expenditures have come to surpass their income in a structural and unsustainable way. But when an individual decides the same, perhaps after coming to the conclusion that an investment in a home or university education wasn't as lucrative as it seemed it would be at the time, people start thundering about the moral necessity of paying back loans.
What's your next trick, pawning a bunch of your stuff (since no one will ever give you another credit-based loan again), never paying the interest, then bitching online about how the people at the pawn shop are thieves because they sold "your" stuff?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Paying back is something far in the future of teenagers mind. Maybe you dont get the job you planned or find a finishing is not for you. There are probably a million people or more in the sme boat ast this author and they have to rationalize their life's choices.
Regardless of what has happened to social mobility in the last 30 years, it hasn't affected the author of this article because he is 57 years old. He went to college in the 80's when college was not nearly as expensive. I went to college at the turn of the century and even then it was cheap enough you could pay over half of your college expenses by working part time at minimum wage.
This guy is simply a sociopathic asshole who is just being provocative to get page views. He stopped paying his bills because he is an entitled prick, not because of the federal loan apparatus he is complaining about in the article. I have real sympathy for the problems younger millenials are having because of the rising price of college, and it is shameful for this author to exploit them like this.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
From the article: "to do with my particular usefulness to society"
It appears to me that you have none.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
His course should be mandatory to graduate high school.
I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school.
Oh, gods, the horror! Taking a job you don't want so you can live? The poor, wretched victim!
I thought this guy was yet another "B.A. in basket weaving" millenial from this whinging. Color me gobsmacked: he was born in the fucking 50s.
It's easy to say "grow up" when the biggest loan you had to take out was for a motorcycle. An education in the US can cost 10s-100s of thousands of dollars not including living expenses. Couple this with low earnings coming out of college and interest rates that capitalize (interest is added to principle) which occurs during forbearance, deferment, or even while you're still in school. For the vast majority of people, repayment is not so simple when the average wage for a US employee is $45,327 as of 2012 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This doesn't take into account the costs of living, healthcare, health insurance, transportation, or god-forbid entertainment.
The time to have grown up was the time PRIOR to making a poor financial decision and borrowing $100k on an education. Even in the poorest of states, a state run university will not run you that much money. If you can't afford to go the private school, then don't go! Problem solved.
Student loans need to be subject to bankruptcy just like any other loan and Gov loans need to be removed entirely and replaced with smaller amount grants. Grants as a compromise because progressives will never allow them to be simply be removed or reformed with reasonable controls and even if lowered it would only be a few years until the fed managed to make a mess of them again.
Taking out huge loans that you don't have a way to repay, to get a degree that has no potential for income, show a serious lack of judgement. Military service will fund education, often while drawing full pay. A trade certification from a community college would lead to a stable income that could be used to fund an indulgence degree like Philosophy. It would also allow you to eat after getting the degree, which is the big problem.
There are plenty of degree programs where the student loan problem is a real issue. Philosophy isn't one of those. If you don't have a trust fund or a rich spouse to support you, don't get it.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Until 1987 or so, the cost of college in Texas was extremely low. I was very frugal and my entire expenditures for tuition, room and board from Sept 1981 to Sept 1982 was $2500. At the time minimum wage was $3.35. A person could work a part time job (15 hours a week) and pay for this. I'll bet that most of the tuition collected by the University of Texas at the time was directly from the students or the student's parents with grants and scholarships coming next and student loans running a distant fourth. As the government made student loans more available in order to make college more available the government accomplished the opposite of the desired effect because the government ignored basic economics. Making more money available affects spending at the universities which affects costs. Universities are money spending machines. The University of Texas now has more than double improved square footage that it had in 1981. The buildings are nicer too. But the size of the student body has not increased proportionately. The university simply spends more on building and maintenance. Far more than it spends actually delivering an education. Under the current system your hard earned tax dollars are going to build monuments rather being effectively used to educate. We had a system that did the opposite quite effectively and we could have that again. Instead of being cheap with your tax dollars you should be angry with how they are being spent now.
I had already read this yesterday before seeing it on /. and liked the opinion piece as it make some valid points. That was before knowing the author's lack of credibility. I would be very concerned with this strategy as the government is almost guaranteed to collect at some point. Things like having your wages garnished. Also not mentioned in this is that, if you do have federal student loans, payments are capped at like 10% of your income. You may never pay off the debt, but you would be considered current on the loan and credit worthy. Better to make the seven years of payments equal to 10% of your income and then file for bankrupts. I'm not a lawyer and I don't look like an actor so I can't play one on TV either. This is not legal advice. But if you have high student debt and low income, you should talk to a real lawyer. Many people miss out on the chance to discharge debt through bankruptcy for a number of reasons. "Personal responsibility" shouldn't be one of them. The rates on your loans are set under the premise that some people will be eligible to discharge in bankruptcy. You've already paid for the privilege so not using it is just a waste. It isn't a moral issue.
Yes, this sounds like a brilliant plan. In the U.S., you're lucky if major social issues are resolved within a single generation of evolved thinking. Let's go ahead and shut out the vast majority of people seeking higher education, so you can watch your ignorant social experiment play out. Yes, let's rely on the vague hope that public policy will eventually correct the opportunity gap--no, canyon--that will emerge between the well-to-do who can drop tens of thousands of dollars at the snap of a finger, and those who can't.
I can't blame the universities for the mess the higher education system is in. They're just responding to market forces. Really, everybody is. It's just that the market has been circumvented by a well-meaning government.
The problem is that unlimited money is flowing into the higher educational system and there is no negative feedback loop to limit it. It's just one big positive feedback loop driving up attendance and cost.
1) Take as a given that "you have to go to college or else you'll have a shitty job." More on this later. The number of students going to college has been steadily increasing since forever. Part of this is because of the nature of our increasingly specialized and technical world, and partly due to social changes, like the progress made by women and minorities. I'm not in any way implying that's bad, I'm just saying there are more people going to school.
2) The government first issued direct loans to poor students in 1958. This method upset congress, though, because from a budgetary standpoint it showed as a loss the year the loan was issued, even though it would be paid back later. Instead, from 1965-2010, the government guaranteed student loans made by private lenders. If the student defaulted, the government would make the lender whole. This makes the rule that student loan debt cannot be discharged by bankruptcy especially petty. The lenders were at no risk, anyway. From 1993 on the government also issued loans directly. Also, as time has gone on, loans have become increasingly easy to obtain. Originally only poor students who could show financial need qualified for government-backed loans, but those requirements were dropped in the 80s.
3) Since there is no risk to the private lender, there is no incentive not to grant any loan request. As for government loans, there's no political will to deny students seeking money for education. So, there's no brake on the money flowing into the system. And the lenders aren't necessarily doing anything wrong here. There have been some scandals involving kickbacks to schools, but it's mostly unnecessary as people are lining up for these loans. Why would the lender say no? They'd just get called out for ruining some kid's dream of an education.
4) If the lender had to take a risk, they would be careful about issuing loans. Today a D student seeking a degree that might land him a $30k/year job (if he's lucky) can get a loan for $40k. With risk involved, the lender would consult actuarial tables. What are the student's chances of completing the degree? What are his chances of getting a job? What's his expected income? What's the chance of default? No such brake exists. (Note, I'm not saying degrees not tied to a high-paying job are worthless. More on this later).
5) Without the loan, the D student would go learn a trade, instead, or get a job that doesn't require a degree, like say work in a call center (yes, I'm aware of the current situation in which ads for low-level jobs like call center work have starting requiring degrees. It's part of the loop and I'll get to it later). A student seeking a degree that costs more than what's reasonable given their earning potential would also be turned away (this would be an incentive to keep tuition costs down. If liberal arts students can't get loans, your school doesn't get their money).
6) Since the number of students and amount of money they can borrow is unbounded, there's no incentive to keep tuition costs down.
7) How are students with options deciding what school to attend? We would hope they would decide based on the quality of the education, but that's difficult to measure objectively. Generally it just has to be "good." Also, many students don't know what they want to major in when they arrive, anyway, so it's difficult to make a decision based on the quality of a program. As long as they're reasonably confident in the quality of the education, they're making their decision based on amenities. How nice are the dorms? The recreational facilities? How pretty is the
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
he writes for the NY Times, lives in the same town where Tony Soprano lived in a home most likely worth over $1 million, sends his kids to some of the best public schools in the USA and doesn't want to pay back the loans that paid for the education that got him here.
i might have to restructure my loans with my wife and do the same thing and let you suckers pay them off
Not based on this guy's advice.
There are a lot of things worth discussing here: the poor quality of modern college educations, the rapacious greed that state college systems engage in so that they can offset the tax cuts their administrators are receiving, the total one-sidedness of the "responsibility" that we are expected to show toward loan guarantors. Who knows? Maybe we should all default on our student loans.
But if you were to imagine this guy's core point was a legal argument, his case would be dismissed immediately due to a lack of standing. We don't dismiss evidence based on who it's coming from, but this is not evidence. It's opinion, and we absolutely should set the value of the opinion based on the experience of the opinionator.
---don't make me break out my red pen.
It's easy to say "grow up" when the biggest loan you had to take out was for a motorcycle. An education in the US can cost 10s-100s of thousands of dollars not including living expenses. Couple this with low earnings coming out of college and interest rates that capitalize (interest is added to principle) which occurs during forbearance, deferment, or even while you're still in school. For the vast majority of people, repayment is not so simple when the average wage for a US employee is $45,327 as of 2012 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This doesn't take into account the costs of living, healthcare, health insurance, transportation, or god-forbid entertainment.
Reading numbers like that make me glad I was born in 'socialist' Europe. A two year CS masters degree cost me less than $10.000 in school related fees and I went to a privately operated school that is relatively expensive by our standards.
The major problem with student loans is that there is no longer any escape from them. Bankruptcy does not discharge them. You're stuck with them for life.
That is a major departure from traditional debt laws, and this is just wrong. People should be able to escape their mistakes after appropriate penalties.
A student, 18 years in age, cannot comprehend the gravity of the loans they are taking out. The whole situation is rotten: you are told that you MUST get a college degree, otherwise you will be a lifelong failure. You are told that IF you get a college degree, your future WILL be rosy and bright. You are told that ONCE you get a college degree, you WILL get a good job and then paying the loan off will be no problem.
That is the extent of your knowledge when you are 18. You have no idea how much your salary will be in four years, in fact, when you are 18, it is very likely you don't even know how much your parents make, or how much anyone makes beyond your knowledge of minimum wage. All you know is that you have to go to college and get that degree so you can get a good job. At least that is what my parents told me, and when I was in college, that is the same set of assumptions that everyone was operating under.
And once you get that degree and you can't get a job in your chosen field of study, or maybe you don't even get that degree (because a lot of people don't make it through college - many college programs, particularly engineering, are actually DESIGNED to weed people out), then you are sitting there with a stack of loans and no way to reasonably pay them off.
Prior to 2001, you could try to pay them for a while, but after finding that you were getting deeper and deeper in debt, you could take a deep breath, assess your situation, and then take your lumps in the form of bankruptcy - knowing that you would have a finite period of time in which you would be penalized by a bad credit rating. But at some point it would be over.
In 2001, congress changed the law to eliminate the discharge of student loans from bankruptcy. Any other financial failure is redeemable, but a decision that you made when you are 18 years old, a failure that is not easily foreseeable (because people don't know their capacity, people don't know their future earning potential, people don't know what the job market is going to do), is not forgivable. Never, until the day you die, and even then, your estate will be on the hook for them.
And the loan companies are given extraordinary power, backed by the government, to collect their debts. Hey, if someone owes me money, I can't attach someone's tax returns - but student loan companies can do this. It is also very hard for me to garnish someone's wages to collect a debt because there is always the threat that the person will file bankruptcy. The lack of that threat here gives student loans extraordinary power.
That is the problem here, and it will take people like Lee Siegel, doing what he did, to bring this to the forefront of discussion. Certainly any abuse of the student loan process should be curbed, but an iron shackle on everyone is not the right response to any potential abuse.
"It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college."
The implication is that going to college can never involve "reckless borrowing and spending," but it can. He went into debt from buying lots of books and paying lots of people to give him lessons about them -- and he never had a plan for paying the money back. This is not economically different from spending your money on other things that you find pleasurable, such as booze and fast cars. Going to college can be reckless borrowing and spending, if you are reckless in your choices.
There is an argument for subsidizing higher education because it yields positive externalities, and that is his best argument. He makes it in a silly way, opposing choices between a high-paying job he didn't want, and a low-paying job he did want. He is basing his choices on his personal preferences, and again making himself seem reckless -- as if he had spent his time on booze and cars because that's what he "wanted." Instead, he could argue that his worth to society is not correlated with his income because he creates positive externalities, and therefore he should be subsidized. This is basically saying that our economic system is seriously broken in its incentives. This is a reasonable argument, but it requires a more nuanced analysis than saying "Everyone do what you like and to hell with everything!"
His arguments could be used to justify reckless spending on anything. In order to justify subsidizing higher education in particular, he would need to make a more careful analysis of incentives and benefits. Such arguments have been made very successfully, but not by him.
No need to incur crippling debt, just attend university in Montreal. We won't let you do it as cheap as somebody from Quebec, but you'll still pay a fraction as much as in the US. McGill is pretty reputable, although we've got less pretentious options too, like Concordia.
I already read this story and a bunch of comments on it, when it was shared on a friend's Facebook feed over the weekend. When I saw it here this morning, I have to admit I suspected a lot of people would try to make arguments supporting the guy's decision. (Lots of college age folks on here, after all, presumably suffering with high tuition and challenges finding good paying jobs, fresh out of school. Also a lot of liberal thinkers on here who I imagined would be all for free, govt. funded college educations.)
But no ... I see overwhelming dissatisfaction with his article, which IMO is exactly how it should be!
If nothing else, it strikes me that early on in his article, he encourages others to consider refusing to pay what they owe, just like he did. Yet he goes on to explain his circumstances, which are probably a lot different than many students are in right now. First off, he's talking about his dad going bankrupt after his mom co-signed for his loan. An awful lot of students I know received Federal loan assistance that didn't require a co-signer at all (and actually have pretty low interest rates compared to any other unsecured bank loans you'd take out). If you go in and sign for one of those, you have nobody to blame but yourself if it turns out it's difficult to pay off afterwards! You can't really argue that your parent(s) drug you into the bank and pretty much told you to "get one of these" without you having much of a clue, as they signed along side you on the paperwork.
But second, yeah.... it's kind of tough to feel sympathy for this guy when he's complaining that paying down his loans was going to be so difficult a decision because it would require taking a job other than the one he preferred being in! Hello?! What about the college grads with PhDs in Physics who take a job at Burger King for a while, to pay the bills? You're going to discount their dedication to doing the right thing and paying what they agreed to pay in a written contract because YOU think it's better to ditch your personal responsibility if it means doing a job other than being a writer for a while? Guess what? If I was hiring for one of these career positions and had a candidate with a high level degree with work experience like that, I'd choose him/her over the candidate with nothing! It says things about the person's character and willing to follow through on what they commit to.
I got my education paid for by joining the Air Force. My kids all went to community college first and paid their own way.
I think it's important that people view college as less of a necessity, and more of a way to earn a degree to pursue a career. If the starting career salary, or salary increase long-term won't allow for a lifestyle that can pay back any money borrowed, then borrowing money to begin with is not the best idea. Some of my peers took gen-ed classes at a community college, to save on tuition. I really wish I was smart enough back then to do that, or that the college prep advisors in my high school had suggested such. I also believe that this author does have career opportunities that would allow him to pay back part of his financial obligations, and he chooses to be a deadbeat about it, and that he shouldn't have attended an expensive school.
When I graduated 14 years ago with a EE bachelors degree, that was considered all the academic base you needed to have a top career in designing cars, writing avionics software, becoming a senior level executive etc. If you wanted to become a technical specialist you might go back and do a master later in your career, but otherwise nobody cared.
Now it seems every grad needs to have a masters degree from a select range of universities just to get a job making text boxes appear in a web browser. I just find this unbelievable. Having done plenty of development and having run a business myself none of that has ever required the intellectual effort it took to understand the complex exponential or maxwell's equations. In the end most software development is just not that hard and honestly, neither is most executive business stuff.
I think we have just had a complete Bozo explosion in corporate management. It makes me sick of doing engineering really. It is like you are the guy trying to make a house while everyone around you is trying to steal the house so they can have 100 for themselves, or smash it to pieces. The pointless destruction of what they do is just mind numbing. In the end the best thing to do is just be a consultant so you can go around overcharging these idiots for stuff you learnt in first year.
I got free college education. It wasn't at a small local college - it was at Cambridge, one of the top ten universities in the world. The government also gave me a "living stipend", enough for room and board in college and a tiny bit extra. Free college education continues in Scotland today, but has been abolished in England and Wales.
Government funding for education managed to keep prices low, maybe similar to how the NHS keeps healthcare costs lower than in the US. I never had to spend any money on money-mill textbooks because in most courses the lecturers provided us with notes, and where we needed books we just worked with them in the library.
I'm deeply grateful for it all. It feels crippling for young folks today that don't have wealthy parents, to have to start out their lives burdened by crippling debt. What an awful psychological burden for the next 20-30 years of their lives. How awful that they get turned into cogs in a corporate wheel where they have to grind through functional jobs to pay back that debt. How divisive that the children of rich kids are spared this.
I think it's a mark of civilization that we can educate our children and young adults, broaden their minds, give them a liberal arts background, let their creativity fly. So what if they learn poetry or philosophy or literature. So what if 90% of these educations we give them don't show a return-on-investment? I don't care. That's what society and civilization MEANS:
“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780.
(As for me? I'm now a software engineer. Through my professional work I've given back lots to society, making lots of developers more productive through my language design work. I gladly pay the top rate of taxes, and would gladly pay more. I asked the tax office how to donate higher levels of tax, and the person was very confused, went off for thirty minutes to get help from her supervisors, and ultimately told me it was impossible. Every election, I always vote for the parties that will benefit the people worse off than me, at my own detriment, because that's how I think civilized people should behave. I've not seen a charity that manages to control overall education costs, or provide universal benefit, as well as the UK government did through taxes.)
It's enormously unfair that colleges and universities charge the same amounts for different degrees. Nothing else in life is like that. Things that are in high demand have high prices - things that are in low demand are priced lower. Simple economics.
Colleges have gotten away with charging the same for every course of study - that is absurd. A communications degree should not cost the same as pre-med or engineering.
The way we fix this is to index loan amounts to starting salaries in the field of your degree. Lower starting salaries get lower loan amounts. This market feedback will either force people to study things that can generate income, or force colleges to lower tuitions for courses of study that have low market demand.
Funding all courses of study equally is stupid policy.
"Police: Why we decided to prosecute this self-rationalizing asshole for theft and fraud."
-Styopa
It's loans at 1970's college tuition rates. And the man made an agreement to pay them back. Even today there are affordable college options. He chose to take on debt. I've seen shrewd students get through their PhD's without a loan or family help. They weren't destitute, just disciplined. (I'm not remotely that disciplined, I had a good deal of fun with loaned money, and I'm fine with paying back my loans.)
And even with all that said..
I think the nation needs to provide 4 more years of free public education. An uneducated populace is not a good future for our economy.
Just FYI, purposely transferring your debt to a credit card in order to discharge the debt in bankruptcy is fraud. Which is a criminal offense. I know it's asking a lot but think your cunning plan all the way through kids.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
The writer describes the student loan process as being "legal but not moral". Considering when he got his student loan, and how he got it, I don't understand his perception of the loan as being "not moral". I took out my first student loan about 40 years after he did, in 1984. That was a different time. College was not nearly as expensive, and paying back loans was not as difficult. All of my student loans together added up to about 40% of the annual income from my first job. These days, comparable loans would probably come to about 120% of the annual income of a first job. The first obligation is something that could be satisfied in a few years. The latter, modern obligation might well never be satisfied. One might argue that the modern system, with towering loans to complete useless degree programs is immoral, but that was not the situation 40 years ago, or even 30 years ago.
What is immoral is not paying back what you borrowed. A couple of his suggestions for handling the situation are totally outrageous, most notably, that one should marry someone who has a good credit rating. Really? His life philosophy is to burden someone else with the consequences of his bad decisions?
Proverbs 21:19
"Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education."
Uh-huh. So, if he were going to college today, I should foot the bill so Mr. Siegel can get his masters in philosophy, become a "cultural critic" as he's described, and write articles demanding that I foot the bill so he can get his masters in philosophy, become a "cultural critic" as he's described, and write articles demanding that I foot the bill so he can...
I sense a stack overflow coming on.
No. Hell no. For the most part, degrees that don't pay for themselves are degrees in things that you don't need a degree to pursue. Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken, to name just a couple critics, had rather illustrious careers without any degrees. As for philosophy, anyone with the aptitude for it would do just as well reading books on philosophy and having discussions with similarly-inclined people.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
And now I have a mortgage that's having it's 25th anniversary, and is almost twice the size it was when I started. Why? Raising a family.
I'm not bitter -- just continuing to pay it down. It might be paid off by the time I'm in my mid-70's, but the odds are I'll sell the house (a small bungalow in Toronto) before then. For now (touch wood) the real estate market is healthy, so right now I have some equity .. but not as much as you'd think after making payments for 25 years.
The last time I was debt-free was Fall, 1990. That was a long time ago.
The housing bubble that started in 2005 resulted in my purchasing a rental property precisely at the height of the market. I had to, it was part of a deal. So when the bubble burst, the market value went to about 40% of loan balance in 2008, and stayed there until 2012.
I didn't 'walk away'. I endured countless calls from the lender's 'home retention team', or 'home affordability team', or whoever if they, THEY, processed my payment either on due date or mere hours later. They were deathly afraid I would do the rational thing and walk away.
But the property had positive cash from from day one. It made business sense for me to keep it. As of this year, it has equity value. Not much, but that's pretty good.
As an aside, I could have bought the neighboring property for $50k in 2011, which at that time was really fair market value. Same layout, a mirror image, but it needed a new roof, major remodels inside, and had no tenants. It looked like 30% down (commercial loan for income property), $30k of work, about $45K cash to buy and rent out a $50k property. Not very attractive.
But back to the story, I rented to one man who bought a home in early 2005, escaped most of the bubble here, but had a 3-year ARM that drove his payment from $1,500/mo to $3,800/mo. He walked way when it adjusted. No bank could fix this in 2008, for obvious reasons, and he also was working in commercial construction, which dried up. His income plummeted, and he eventually could not even pay rent.
'Lots' of people I know walked way from mortgages that far exceeded property value. It was a business decision, prompted by both buying at inflated prices, the subsequent collapse of the market, many had ARMs that went sky-high, combined with post-2008 layoffs, credit card debt that forced them into bankruptcy, and in many cases their being given a loan for over-priced homes appraised by unscrupulous appraisers in collusion with mortgage bankers and realtors. Yes, Realtors.
For a graduate who chose a major with no job prospects, and no ability to find alternative work that can pay the bills, default may make sense. If these defaults impact certain institutions more than others, perhaps we will see market pricing for either student loans or for programs. Let me explain:
If defaults occur for certain institutions, a market pricing approach would raise interest rates for those schools that suffer more defaults. This is bound to impact enrollment for some of these.
However, if defaults impact certain majors (philosophy and art being favorite examples), perhaps then lenders inquire about the student's course of study, and price it according to experience.
There are several possible outcomes to these actions:
- Some institutions may lower tuition. Unlikely at first, but if enrollment suffers because students can't finance their tuition, they may adjust.
- Some majors may become so unpopular that tuition has to drop. Maybe.
- Lenders may be asking more questions of students - job prospects, ability to pay, blah blah.
- The government may, just may, get out of the business
Consider this. In 2005, mortgage lenders started making loans that were literally indefensible. NINJA loans, Sallie May and Freddie Mac underwriting loans with dubious or nonexistent documentation, inflated values, collusion that is obvious in hindsight. Easy money that resulted in defaults when the real estate market corrected, and the economic downturn forced borrowers to make hard choices. Many 'walked way'. Now, five years later for the last of those, they find that they can in fact get a loan - the banks figured this out. Tighter requirements now for sure, but more like normal for the long-term market.
Now we have the federal government underwriting student loans for tuition that is increasing much faster than the CPI, with less value than ever, and borrowers have limited prospects for repaying these loans. Schools claim they offer value, but even seemingly good bets like MBAs and engin
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
On my dime actually....
Who pays when the banks get stuck with this bad debt? It's customers and share holders. Who are these people? Why it's you and me of course. Don't be fooled into thinking it's some big evil corporation that's getting fleeced, it's really you and I who he defaulted on. And that's a bad thing overall.
Where this guy will pay for having NO CREDIT for the next 10 years at least.... I'm not so sure the time for the crime is long enough, but what are you doing to do? He DID pay back his loans, legally, though I'm pretty tired of bailing out the irresponsible because I happen to be responsible and pay my debts, I have to hand it to him, that was clever.
But I rest assured that if this idea of his becomes common practice, it will quickly be brought to an end. Credit card companies will simply start looking at student loans as *bad* marks on your credit, and all of you who came out of college saddled with huge debt, will be paying. You will have lower credit ratings and pay higher rates. The amounts you can borrow will be less, and you will pay more. And it's dolts like this guy who will be to blame.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If you think there's not a social stigma in this country against community colleges, you really need to spend some time around people half your age.
But there is absolutely no reason that someone should be shut out from learning about it because of money.
The fact that college courses cost money makes people more motivated to complete the course. I've read that free MOOCs tend to have a higher dropout rate because the stakes are so much lower. So how much money should college cost, in order to be A. enough to motivate completion, B. enough to cover the cost of providing the course, yet C. not enough to shut out the working class?
Not all people feel like joining the military. There's a multitude of reasons, but it doesn't mean that your method was the best way or, more precisely, that it should be the "sacrifice" made. A highly educated society benefits everyone, so there's something to be said about sharing the burdens.
I would prefer it if the vast majority of people in our society were college educated. If that means we have to change the current system so we can get people in and not extract payments out of them for a decade, then so be it.
College really should be the default choice for the millions of 18 year olds who aren't sure what they should do next. Even picking up an associates degree can help open up options for most people, because sadly not everyone is ready for a job fresh out of high school. And yes, I realize you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
(I didn't finish college, but I got lucky and have a good job)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
student gets higher interest rates on loans and refused credit. It may sounds "brilliant" at first, but if everyone were doing the same, it wouldn't work. This guy should thanks all others who will end-up paying for him.
Well sure. Hindsight is always 20/20. Although one may consider those who choose expensive professions like teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc to have made a good decision up front. And I agree, private schools aren't always the way to go. However even state schools can charge up to $40K for an education. Consider the interest, interest capitalization, and the low entry wages of college grads these days, it's not too hard to understand why some are so discouraged that they just don't even make an effort. Is it right or noble? Probably not, but then the same could be said of charging someone an obscene amount of money to do what they're told is the best way to secure a future and then be told you're a deadbeat if you can afford your bill. This is by the same generation who was easily able to afford college working part time, with massively less strenuous educational requirements, in a world where a college degree meant MUCH better job prospects and wages than is seen today. The playing field, the players, and even the game has changed...but the refs still haven't caught on yet.
Well theoretically, if people weren't paying for college out of their own pockets, costs would likely go down due to government regulation (since the government is the only body that can force institutions to accept a certain price-point), which would increase the number of people that could attend for the price of a single Predator drone...
But that's not really my point - point being, if our government didn't spend untold billions on things like Predator drones and unconstitutional surveillance datacenters, we could probably afford to send every college-age American to school with little to no out-of-pocket expense. and would likely have money left over.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The question this person should have been asking himself all these years is "if I don't repay my loan that I took out, then who should?" The nice middle-aged banker who helped him get the loan in the 1970s? The bank where he took the loan and then went under? His parents who are now deceased? The tax payers, and by extension, this /. reader who has to pay for his own mortgage and kids college? The irony is the debt is 30 years old. If the author had worked a normal job, he could have repaid the loan and had a life of his own. Instead, he's still caught up in a prision of his own making. Life is sometimes fair. Responsibility is hard. Sorry bub.
>Let's go ahead and shut out the vast majority of people seeking higher education,
By eliminating government funding of education, you eliminate the scam-schools, of which there have been thousands, that have sucked money out of people seeking a higher education, and didn't realize before they were scammed, that government approval of the school has nothing to do with the quality of service provided.
Or, if you insist of government funding, then the only schools that are allowed to receive funding, are those which can demonstrate that within 90 days of graduation, 50% of the graduates have a paying job in the field in which their degree is relevant, and within 180 days, 90% of the graduates have a paying job in the field in which their degree is relevant, and within 360 days, 100% of the graduates have a paying job in the field that their degree is in, that they would not have had, had they not had the degree.
Wind Beneath Thy Wings
Now try and figure up how many college degrees we lost when the government built those NSA datacenters.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If your mortgage is 2x the amount than what you started I'd question if it was all from raising a family. But then I've never subscribed to the belief that starting a family means you're somehow automatically contributing more to society. Put more bluntly, not everyone needs to start a family. Sometimes getting married and not having kids is a far better decision than continuing the overpopulation of this planet.
Obviously better than you did in Reading Comprehension.
You didn't really think I meant that as a literal comparison, did you?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You realize that the US is the world's largest arms dealer, right? So even if we didn't buy any of those fancy toys for ourselves, it doesn't mean that we suddenly stop selling them to governments and warlords the world over.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You don't get a degree in Art History. You go to the library.
You go to college to become a master at something useful by learning from people who have already done things and by having access to expensive toys you couldn't afford on your own.
If you just want knowledge, go to a library.
Well, there is a bigger issue at stake here. There are lots of things in this society that get paid for without public support [mostly though back room deals]. Mostly corporate subsidies and tax breaks. Even things like economic and military support for Isreal.
I think these students think that they can play the same game as the elite.
So, if Donald Trump, the Hunts brothers, American oil investors in Mexican pipelines (1990's) or major banks make bad investments [by changing regulations governing commercial investments bailouts and "antiquated" regulations enacted after the 1930's ], they get time and allowances to reorganized. But don't think that you can play that game too.
Even shit like imminent domain allows the transfer of wealth from those who don't have it to those who do [and have the political clout to keep this going on].
Whether the government pays for it, or you do directly, it still comes out of your pocket. The cost of education will not drop by shifting payment to the government (if anything, costs might go up).
Going to college in 1980s, doing some work here and there, borrowed $5K of student loans but after graduating I only had to pay off that 5K (it seemed like it took forever). I also remembered how difficult it was to get a credit card which was frustrating but looking back it prevented me from going crazy with spending.
To get a credit card you need a credit history. Credit history is data on TRW showing your credit card history. How in the hell do you get that? I remember graduating but banks would not give me a credit card because I'm not on the TRW database. OK maybe some of you are laughing at me because I didn't know how to game the system but I knew many others in my situation. One friend said I should begin buying a mattress as they give credit to anyone. Then after two years pay it off and hope that payment history is in the TRW database (yes, very common then but they've become unknown history like Soviet Union).
Eventually after two years after moving and transferring my bank account, they asked if I had a credit card which I said no because I'm not on TRW (and I never got around to buying a mattress). Lady said my employment history is good and if my application is denied then I should then see her and she will make sure it gets approved.
Fast forward to 1990s and things sure changed a lot. Tons and tons of easy credit card applications flood mailbox. I had some debt as I had to borrow money to pay for a car I smashed into. I ask the bank guy, "why do they keep sending this stuff to me when I'm already in debt?" He ran some numbers and said I can easily borrow $80K on a simple signature loan (damn, with interest I will be an old man before I pay that off). And also fees for colleges skyrocketed especially for those with 4-year degrees wanting to attend classes to keep up with technology or simply needed new skills to get a new job (many lied on their applications to avoid paying huge fees).
Continuing on with my gripe (spoiler: not much about student loans), also in 1990s it became much more easy to get mortgage loans. Before you had to have a good down payment and a sufficient salary as loan offices do calculations knowing you will need to spend significant amount on general expenses. I remember struggling to get a condo but sometimes meet people that were able to game the system and borrow a lot more than what they qualified for a house (i.e. they earn $2K a month and mortgage payments are $2.2K per month). Somehow they were able to move money around with various investments and eventually be able to pay off the house in 10 years. I see these kind of people really smart on how to do stuff like this. But later when banks made it easy for others to do this, that is when many got into trouble because they did not have the smarts to handle this type of financing. I certainly don't and I remember in late 1990s a friend said I should meet this mortgage broker that can do a really nice refinancing giving lots of extra money to buy a house. After he ran the numbers, I saw I only had about $150 take home per month that had to cover everything else besides the mortgage payment. Good thing I chickened out and not become one of the masses dumped on the streets after dot com bust.
Oh, yes I did get a mattress when I got a credit card.
mfwright@batnet.com
And that would be a good debate to have. I'm not sure honestly where I come down on what you're saying, but I get the feeling its a bad idea to put someone in charge of deciding which subjects are and are not 'worthy'. That will lead to a real swamp that nobody wants to go into. OTOH I understand where you're coming from, but then the question is aren't you putting too much value on money? I mean isn't that what it comes down to, you only want the govt to pay for the part of education that makes more money for business because its technical people that they really want. At least that's what they THINK they really want. Did you know that English Majors have a much better track record as business managers than MBAs? Yeah, the world is a funny place, we need to be pretty careful how we make these kinds of decisions.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Degrees in fields like economics and philosophy are usually intended as a path to law school. It sounds like this guy is bitter because he didn't get in.
Students shouldn't feel compelled to go to college to Play Sports. They should be gaining additional education say via Vocational Training.
Or colleges should just suck in their pride and just make a Football or Baseball Major, much like Music or Arts major where a good portion of your study is practicing. If the student is so inclined to get a traditional education they can take a double major, or get a minor in a Topic.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'd rather live my life being happy, or pursuing that happiness, than live my life pursuing an education that I cannot afford, only to obtain a job that I loathe in order to pay off the debt. I think the model in place for education serves the banks and universities far more than it benefits students. Just as an example: I was hired to replace a college educated technician at my current job. I have no formal training or certification. I am really just smart because I was interested in computers as a child and learned by doing. I didn't have to dig a hole and fill it with borrowed money. I found my interest, and pursued it. Sure, I'm not some big shot making six figures. That's not what makes me happy. I don't need credit cards to pay for things I can't afford. That doesn't make me happy. People can be happy without conforming to this horrible model of "be miserable working off debts for your whole life, then you die" is really not appealing to the up and coming generation.
Why is it that 10 years of taxpayer-subsidized higher education resulted in such a thoughtless, irresponsible, and basically just shitty column?
It would take more social unity than most Americans can muster to level that playing field.
Hence the reason it's been sitting at such a sharp angle for so long.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Which courses of study are worthy? You're going to decide that? No, no, some sort of 'board' or 'agency' is going to decide that. Do you see how bad an idea this is? How impossible for it to actually work? No, the only reasonable course of action is to make undergraduate tuition zero across the board. Maybe there can be other ways to say "OK, we can only afford to educate X number of people in subject Y" but trying to decree from on high that only certain subjects are 'worthy' is a poisonous idea, and one that will be regretted badly by all in short order.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
If you take out a loan to get a graduate degree in philosophy, you are engaging in "reckless borrowing and spending". A Ferrari would be a more worthwhile "investment" than that.
I went to college back in 2000, in Ontario, and applied for OSAP (student loan through the government). They assumed I was going in the second semester, so refused to release my money in the first semester. It took me until mid October to finally get my funding. The college refused to release my class list, until they had been paid. So when I finally got to attend class, I had naturally already failed. There went first attempt at college. But I was also on the hook for all the money lent to me, that went directly to the college. Loved that scam. Second time I went to school, my house burned down, so I was suddenly a little pre-occupied. Never paid for my last term, and the college was naturally cruel about it. I never paid that funding back. I probably still owe it to this day, I've been too busy struggling just to make ends meet, to bother looking at how in debt I even am :(
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
I'm still paying my loans. I'm more than halfway there. I live on $750 a month. What the hell is your excuse, fuckstick?
There are legitimate problems with the value of a college education, on both sides of the equation. If this is how you choose to deal with it, you're a deadbeat asshole.
When a deadbeat reneges on a student loan, it's not the lender that takes the loss, it's the taxpayers. Fuck that guy.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you want to university back in the 80s and you STILL haven't repaid your loans, well you are the one who is failing. Not only was university cheaper, and loan terms better, then but you've had like THREE DECADES to pay it back. Student loans are a bitch, and take a long time to pay back for sure. However unless you really fucked up, you can manage it in 30 years.
It's not my fault, I'm not paying it, let someone else pay for it. Hey idiot...you and your parent(s) signed on the dotted line. You want to screw your credit history, financial life up? That's YOUR business, because you are IRRESPONSIBLE. You are one of these idiots that think you are OWED something. Hundreds of thousands of people, have gone to college without loans, but, thanks to "big college" you have to give your life over to the devil to pay for an education. How come we say screw big oil, big farm, big pharma, but we never have a conversation about "big college"? Some college presidents, sports coaches & professors are making 6 & 7 figure salaries, but that's ok? Some people are just not cut out for college in the first place. Take a 2 year trade school and you'll be better off. How many people coming out of a 4 year school with underwater basketweaving, ancient religion languages do we need in this world? I went to a 2 year electronics school, got an associates degree almost 40 years ago. Never once have I been unemployed in my chosen field. What will probably happen, and what government probably wants to happen is enough idiot irresponsible kids default on their loans the government will screw investors, bankers and pretty much everyone that has a bank account and just say oh well, so sorry, just suck on it!
People without a degree tend to earn minimum wage, and people on minimum wage often can't afford rent, community college tuition, and nice food. Dave Ramsey acknowledges this and recommends a rice and beans diet for these people. But not everybody has the same luck with that sort of diet as Mr. Ramsey. Scientology tries the same diet on its Sea Org fleet, and it makes people sick.
From myself having attended a university and earned a degree less than 8 years ago, I would say about 2/30 people were serious about learning anything, or about 3-5 people per class. No one knew what they wanted to do and no one knew why they were at college. All they knew was the "pass to make my parents proud" mentality. Art, philosophy, etc, these are all the most fun classes and a lot of people tend to go that way because "art" is more and more defined as whatever monstrosity you can dream up, instead of how skilled you are at creating something. If anything is making colleges insanely expensive and at the same time useless, it is that teachers pass everyone, and when people fail, they start grading on a curve so they are guaranteed to only fail 2 or 3 people. As a student, I loved grading on a curve because it always meant my grade went up, except one or two teachers who would use an actual curve, meaning instead of saying, everyone gets 10 points more, they would try to make only 5 people get As which was pretty ridiculous. My point is colleges are now more just somewhere to get away from parental supervision and party and passing is more a formality than an accomplishment. Sure you CAN fail, but most teachers are trying to be the "cool teacher" who curves every test, gives extra credit when your behind, and ignores your absences from class.
The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans
50% of that $1 tril is owned by 10% of the students, and on average those students make less than a high school drop out. Sounds to me like for profit schools are preying on the stupid.
Here is an idea I'm sure college and universities will hate. Se the cost of the degree based on the pay of persons employed in that field. IN this system the cost of an engineering degree would be much higher than say the cost of a library science degree because the engineer is going to be payed a great deal more than the librarian. So the engineer will be much more likely to be in a position to pay off a large student loan.
Professional arts, which enabled you to earn a living through the learning were all done through apprenticeship programs, and the skills were passed down the family. Universities started teaching skills that will get you a job very late, in 18th century. Till then poor and middle class people learned some skill from father, grand parents, and uncles on the job. Rich people went to the university to learn something useless.
Rich aristocrats people also entered the government and military service as "officers" while the working masses have to start out as lowly clerks, peons and enlisted men. Thus "liberal arts" education got associated with officers and the elites, and a higher starting point into the management cadres.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"You realize that no one gets to choose what "their tax dollars" are spent on, right? "
No one does but the electorate does. Vote people.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I went to school in Georgia, so the state lottery paid for mine. When I took a second major and added and extra two years that Hope wouldn't pay for, the loans were a lot more manageable. There are a LOT of scholarships and grants available that make college almost free. People just don't take advantage of them.
To make bad loans. The fact that you cannot declare bankruptcy on them means that there is no disincentive to make shaky loans. It skews the education market. This also allows schools to develop bloated bureaucracies , see:
http://www.blacklistednews.com...
When I finished up my MS there was really no one who knew what the graduate school did. Everything, except for filing the last bit of paper signed by my committee, was done via my department.
Also, how did colleges and universities become holiday resorts? I look at the amenities offered at my local unis; gourmet meals, fitness centers, free wifi, two bedroom apartments, recreation directors etc.; and I am really annoyed. Dorms should be cramped, drafty, roommates should be, the food mediocre, etc. as an incentive for students to get their degree as fast as possible and move on. It should be like playing for the minor leagues, a stepping stone to better things.
There is a lack of responsibility on the parts of banks and schools. They need to clean up their act. Allowing students to declare bankruptcy on student loans would be a good start.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
as such, you need to consider carefully your course of study and the school you choose to attend. The fallacy in the article is that by going to college there is some implicit guarantee of a job at the end of it. There isn't.
First, the course of study. If you choose to pursue a degree in Humanities that's great. But just know that in today's job climate you will have a tougher time finding a job than an Engineering graduate. It doesn't mean that your Humanities degree is worthless, just that there is less demand for those skills. Your career options are probably limited to teaching and writing and even then you will probably need an advanced degree.
Next, the school you choose to attend. Tuition prices vary wildly from one school to the next. Attending an in state school can be much cheaper. Lots of scholarships are available.
So, in the end, it comes down to you. Before you sign up for that History degree give it an honest assessment. Will I be able to get a job at the end of it? Can I handle the debt load? If the answer to either of those questions is No then you have to consider seriously whether or not it is a good idea.
If we just got rid of Sally Mea and college loans need to be secured with some kind of collateral or simply small enough lender were willing to fork over on credit history alone, the problem would solve it self.
The problem with this, and to some extent student loans in general, is that now you are selecting university students based on wealth and not merit. If you don't have enough collateral to secure the loan - or your parents are not willing to take the risk - then you do not get to go to university no matter how intelligent you are. Society then not only potentially loses out on the next Einstein but also it also becomes less fair leading to all sorts of problems with social unrest.
There is also another issue which the UK is now facing having introduced massive tuition hikes and an increase in loans. Some essential jobs which require a university degree, like teaching, are suddenly experiencing a huge shortfall in new graduates. The reason is that a teachers salary takes decades to repay a large loan while someone going into finance can repay it in a matter of years.
This is why university education should be funded by taxes and the funded positions awarded to the best and brightest. Those who earn more will pay more for their degree through taxes while those whose earn less will pay less. The alternative is that society will need to start paying e.g. teachers a whole lot more money in order to attract sufficient numbers and to do that it will have to raise taxes so ultimately everyone will be paying anyway but in the meantime the affected professions will be in severe trouble.
This guy isn't talking about our current student loan mess. He's talking about 30+ years ago... and somehow he never got around to dealing, never mind paying, his student loans from the 80s!? What a jerk.
Steven
So, imagine a modern industry?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Every time this is brought up, the point is missed. A few decades ago, people would go to college to be educated. You left with a broader understanding of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now you are expected to graduate college, fully trained, to hit the ground running in your career. Colleges have had to follow suit so that industry would hire their graduates .. to make their numbers look good .. to market the university .. to get more students. So industry is shifting their responsibility of "training" new employees to universities.
I have a buddy who graduated with a BA in Philosophy. He is a director of application development. Why is this? He is a smart dude, and his passion is coding. He learned about life in college, got a degree, and learned to code on the side. Some company trained him and he became good and went on to bigger and better things. This is what is missing. Companies are not taking fliers on people like this anymore. They won't look at someone unless they have XYZ degree from a top 10 school, with a 3.5 GPA, etc. They want their students to come out 100% trained, to hit the ground running.
The other side is people are not willing to take a low level job to be trained. They come out of school, and expect to get this $80k a year doing their dream job, with no skills, just given to them. People have to work, pay their dues, and show they are a good employee before they can demand their dream jobs. Work in the mailroom, work in another department, etc. You graduated with an MIS degree, and cannot find a job because you have a 2.5 GPA, then work in accounting or marketing before you transfer to IT. Prove you can work a job before you expect one to be given to you.
The price of a college education -- let's just say 4-year bachelor's degree -- isn't the problem. Rather, it is a symptom of both the ability to get a large student loan, and desire for a traditional, 4-year degree.
As an analog, consider the housing market: The value of a house is what someone is willing to pay for it, and what someone is willing to pay for it is a factor of their assumption about its future value and their ability to fund the purchase with money they don't already have.
No, not all homes are equal, nor are school tuition rates. There are a relatively small number of multi-million dollar mansions, but apartments and inexpensive homes are plentiful.
The article is more like someone complaining that a Ferrari is expensive and refusing to consider the thousands of other lower-cost options.
Too many people look at costs of a single school. There are a huge number of schools, Wikipedia saying 4,726 in the US. The median cost of schooling across all schools is $5,832 per year, which is quite reasonable. Half of them cost $5,853 per yer or less. Yet the mean is $23,874 per year. Assuming you are comfortable with statistics, those two numbers mean the bulk of schools are inexpensive, and a small number of hugely expensive schools cause the average cost to skew quite high. As a parallel, it is like a middle-class neighborhood with a small number of billionaires who moved in; those few high-value individuals will dramatically shift the average wealth in a neighborhood to so the "average wealth" means everyone is a millionaire even though nearly everyone is middle class. The median cost of higher education is reasonable. Just be smart and pick a school you can afford.
Locally, my kids can go to one of several good junior colleges nearby which all cost about $1500 per semester, then move on to one of the several state universities that cost around $3500-$4000 per semester. So about $25,000 total for the four years of education. I note that for my region at least, Wikipedia lists 11 inexpensive 2-year colleges and seven state universities, all within commuting distance. Or my kids can go to one of the local private for-profit schools the whole time. One popular private school charges just shy of $20,000 per semester. That is, one semester of the expensive (but heavily marketed and popular) for-profit private school is the same rate as a full four year degree elsewhere.
I look at the author of the article, Lee Siegel, that Wikipedia says attended Columbia University. That school is a private ivy-league school currently and charges $51,008 per year. We could get two students all the way through their bachelors degrees with the funding for a single year at that school. And he went there for probably seven years. So he probably was committed to roughly $350,000 in costs when he could have chosen a similar education at one tenth the cost or less.
So really, this is is not so much a complaint about the cost of schooling generally. He is complaining that everyone should have a Ferrari they cannot afford, even though for most people one tenth or less the cost, getting a Prius or Accord or Corolla is both affordable and adequate.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, 'Enough,' then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality. Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education."
The USA provides education K-12, normally paid for by local taxes but increasingly being federally subsidized; but beyond that nothing is nor should be guaranteed.
The real problem, in this respect, is employers requiring a college level or higher degree where one is not really necessary. Yes, it's useful to help weed-out candidates, but it may also cost some really good potential employees. If students refused to play the "degree game", then colleges/etc would be forced to lower tuitions, and businesses would be forced to consider more people without degrees, and more people would get put to work.
Of course, you'd then also have a number of companies complaining that they can't get qualified workers so the H1-B visa program should be expanded...which is why this really all comes down to how do you properly help a free market regulate itself to encourage the employment qualifications that avoid all the above issues?
Not an easy question to resolve. But guaranteeing a college education will not resolve it, only make it worse as a college level education will simply become the new High School Diploma.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
The missing subtitle is, "and why it doesn't matter." You can't just "default" on your student loans. They can't be discharged through bankruptcy and the money will be taken from income tax refunds and/or wage garnishment. Also, since your mother cosigned, you just fucked your mom. The author seems to have missed that minor point.
But then, he seems to have missed the point of student loans as well, which is not to have a good time pursuing a liberal arts degree, but an investment. Like any investment, one must consider if the returns are worthwhile. That's not to say that liberal art degrees are worthless, but they're not a good return on investment. The author knowingly made a poor life choice and then thumbed his nose at the consequences. He seems to believe that he deserved to go to an expensive private school because... they exist? It's not really clear.
The insane part is that he doesn't even realize his entitled attitude. Instead of taking responsibility for his choices, and the consequences to himself and his mother, he blames everyone else. I grant that, in a capitalistic society, people want to get other people's money. That's life. But, aside from the government, nobody forces you to give it to them. But he didn't learn that lesson. He wants to walk away from his debt with the same carefree attitude that he seems to have had when he took it on. In his mind, he is a victim. Life happened to him, not the other way around.
Now, all of that said, I believe that higher education should be provided without cost wherever someone gets accepted. I would love to see that chance. Our society would benefit from more educated people without debt. But that's not the current situation. The author would have a lot more credibility if, instead of willingly accepting a student loan (and getting his mother involved to boot), he had said "I couldn't afford to go to school, and it's bullshit." Of course, he did afford to go to school, apparently, since he ended up at a public school that he *could* afford, so even that argument doesn't hold much water.
The moral of this story is: Nobody can protect you from yourself.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
"the government would have to guarantee a college education."
Statements like this are ignorant, people who assume they have the right to have whatever they want and not have to pay for it are the biggest problem this country has.
1. If you choose to borrow a given amount of money, with a given set of terms to repay that money, and you sign the contract, then YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for repaying it.
2. If you choose to spend that borrowed money to get a Degree is something that will not assist you to start a career with enough compensation to repay your contract. It does not relive YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to repay it.
3. If you choose to make poor decisions it does not make it the governments responsibility to bail you out.
WE ARE GUARANTEED CHOICE AND THE FREEDOM TO MAKE BAD CHOICES.
No we should not be guaranteed a college education, There is far too many children graduating high school with zero ambition to work, study or do more than expect things to be given to them.
If you want to fix things we need to make several changes.
1. Eliminate - hand out programs for everyone expect the disabled. "Does not include morbidly obese"
2. Put a minimum performance to continue education for all grades 9th to 12th. If a students GPA drops below a B Do not let them enroll and attend next year. Make them get a job.
3. Instate a "Work for Food" program vs. Welfare & food stamps. - Show up pickup garbage on the highway, clean gutters, paint park benches etc. Receive 1 day worth of food rations for 2 people. Maybe make exceptions for single mothers raising more than 1 child by herself.
4. Eliminate the dependent tax deduction at 2 per couple, and reduce it by the same for each additional child. Exceptions for children conceived against the mothers will.
If you want something out of life, get up and work for it, do not expect someone else to do it for you.
Dorothy, Toto's on the phone, and he wants to know how to get back to Kansas. It ain't Canada in 1982 anymore, friend.
Of course that is stealing. You also got scammed but two wrongs don't make it right.
Here is the rub - back in the '70s they started the 'open admissions' bit - anyone could get in if the government was helping fund the school. Drop-out rates were very high - but the schools REALLY like all the money coming in - the solution - lower the standards. The race to the bottom continues. The result - most degrees are worthless. (yes - new MDs scare the hell out of me)
Some examples - I just finished helping a new Mechanical Engineer fix a machine - I asked if the heater was proportional control or duty-cycle - he was actually a bright kid - just went through engineering school without learning even the basics of control loops(KU).
I told this story to a second student that is finishing up his Chemical Engineering degree - he also had no idea of even the basics of control loops (and yes real CE is all about control loops). He said he knows he is getting ripped off - non of his teachers have worked in industry - they have no idea of anything outside of academic parrot and preach. He met students from Brazil and was amazed - they were quite competent - had learned all sorts of stuff about chemical processing that he had missed out on. So now he is pissed - he realizes his degree isn't worth much - he will have to work as an intern and hopefully learn enough to keep a job. Yet, he has a massive debt.
The point is that going to school today gives one a sense of entitlement, a huge debt, and no portable skills. There is this idea of return on investment - learning to weld might be a better idea.
I was in a very similar position. Went to school at the University of Waterloo 1981-87 (took one year off in the middle), co-op engineering. My parents helped pay until I started work terms, then I paid my own way. I even ended up with money in the bank when I graduated. Tuition was, I think, about $800/semester or $2,300 in 2015 dollars, about 1/3 of what it is now.
Of course, my lifestyle fitted my income. I was below the poverty line (I earned about $9,000/year, I think, and that covered living and education expenses). No car, very little partying, fast food about once a week, ate at home the rest of the time. No girlfriend, either. Partly because I was a shy nerd in engineering, and partly because I couldn't afford to do a lot of social things to meet girls.
I got into the habit of comparing the money I had to the things I wanted, and being brutally careful about living beyond my means. That continues to this day. The only loan I've ever taken was the mortgage on my house.
Especially with something like Philosophy, you must be exposed to the information. Even though you can find Plato's Republic in the Library who introduces the person to the topic? Who do they ask for help when they don't understand something? These are not simple thoughts, and not something black or white.
Take your own question and ask it broadly. Why can't a person learn about programming, advanced mathematics, advanced physics, etc... at the library or taking a night class?
Take your ego away for a moment and consider what you have been paying to learn privately with no degree. How much of that learning has been progressive, and how well would you do if you didn't touch the subject for a few years and then went back? Further, if you go to work in that field and you have no degree how many inroads do you have?
The majority of education is about progression. You can't learn calculus based physics without calculus, but if you spend a few years away from calculus how well can you do in that physics class?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So the author should buy a car and default and then buy a house and default. He has no one to blame but himself, and we don't even know if he has a degree, they could take away - which they should do. But there is no guarantee that debt = degree. You pay for each class as you take it. In the end, he got what he paid for - the classes - one credit at a time.
There never was a guarantee of a degree or a job. Just another dead beat writer in my opinion.
I have no sympathy for the others that get degrees with limited shelf life. the person that wants to be a museum curator or archeologist - both great professions, but there are only so many jobs in the field. You can't blame the education system if you get a degree and have zero prospects for employment. You are paying for classes, not a job.
You'd think with those credentials that he could recognize the logical fallacies in his own essay.
If everyone decided to default on their student loans, we sure as hell would stop giving out loans. But we wouldn't close all the colleges. So in that sense I think he made the right move, if this is a form of protest. (I don't buy the equivocation that defaulting is stealing)
I managed to work and pay for school, and I was nearly complete before I left to start my career. My parents gave me very little money, as they did not have much to spare, and I did not have much money saved up. Those treasure bonds I got for every birthday got me through about half a semester. I did not take out any loans, I took less classes and worked longer hours. Night classes at junior college were a very good deal for me, even though I had to be at work by 7:30am to light up the factory.
What worked for me doesn't necessarily work for everyone else, and the way I did it was rather difficult. But I was able to enter my career debt free, even though I went through the worst possible situation of not even completing school. If I took a loan and didn't complete school, I would still owe the money, it doesn't ever go away.
ps - I did end up having to pay a student loan off, my girlfriend's. The loan was a real pain in the ass.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I am interesting student loan interest rate for everyone. I am wasting taxpayers money in a very pre-planned manner despite the fact that it is possible for me live decently within my means. And guess what, I am not ashamed at all. In fact, I am telling everyone who is shy of doing it to go and do it. Ain't I great? Thanks for reading this.
since the government is the only body that can force institutions to accept a certain price-point
I disagree. Remove the ease of obtaining loans in excessive amounts(however you define excessive), and the colleges would tighten their belts to offer degrees within the new reachable amounts, much like how as loan amounts increase, so don't college costs. They charge what the market will bear.
I don't read AC A human right
"personal" and "responsibility"
"It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college."
Apparently it never struck him that borrowing for a college degree with a shitty ROI _is_ reckless borrowing. This is the real problem, people going to college and getting degrees they know full well have no feasible way of paying off said debt, or don't know because they were too careless and/or stupid to look up what that career will actually pay.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
When buddy chose to sign up for the student loans, he obviously didn't spend 1 second thinking about how he was going to pay them back. His strategy was to study whatever made him happy, borrow as much money as that required, and hope that when he graduated he would land a high paying job in his chosen field. I see no sign that he ever asked himself what the starting salary in that field was, how long it would take to get to his high paying job, and based on those facts determine how long he would take to pay his loans. Now he wants to walk away from his bad decision, (which he could likely have figured out was a bad decision before he took on a penny of debt), he wants you and me to pay for it instead, and he wants to justify it to himself so that he doesn't have to feel guilty. He gets zero sympathy from me.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
You cannot accumulate assets under you name, because assets can be seized, which means you are destined to die poor once you are retired, unless you have family who will take care of you (or are competent/trusthworthy enough to hold your investments in their name).
You can hold a bank account, but you must keep the balance down where it the dollar figure is less than the hassle of the debt collector to file the paperwork to seize your account. So either you must be very exacting in your bank bookkeeping (it is easy to screw this up), or you give up on credit cards and checks entirely, and stick with cash.
Some of these things you can work around by having helpful unofficial arrangements with a roommate or spouse (e.g. how to get the phone or ISP bill paid).
It is an interesting question on how you are going to get paid, because wages can be garnished. But if you do nothing but contract work or irregularly earn commissions, it becomes very difficult for the debt collector to track down your sources of funds. "Hey, that contract is over. I do not know when I am going to get paid again."
...he's ashamed of himself, but he doesn't sound like he is unfortunately. He sounds instead like he's mad he didn't get his education for free (or at least at the "right price") and now he doesn't want to pay the bill.
I do sympathize, I really do...my parents didn't make much so I worked and scraped my way through college. Yes I did take out a couple of (small) student loans--and worked every weekend at McDonald's to supplement. Did I like it? Nope. Did I do it so I wouldn't end up with "crippling debt" (he didn't say how much he owed)? Yep.
Believe me, the day I mailed that last check was one of the best days of my life prior to meeting my lovely wyfe.
Very often, signing for a student loan is one of the first adult decisions a person makes. He reneged on his promise and all of us paid a little bit for it. That's wrong. I hope the Department of Education catches up with him eventually and starts garnishing his paycheck until the books are balanced.
Should college education be free? No--that's not how we do things here. Should we changes the system so it is? I don't think so myself; better that more people take other routes for higher education (trades, etc.). That's a reasonable debate to have as a society. There's no question that we could give everybody a free college education here in America; we're the most fantastically wealthy society ever to exist. But should we? I think not but am willing to have the conversation.
But whatever happens, deadbeats like the author should be pursued until they've repaid every penny of what they borrowed.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
OK everyone who (correctly) says that you need to consider the ROI on a degree before investing in it: be aware that in high school kids are taught DIRECTLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY that an art degree is a good and effective thing that WILL get them a job. Be aware that it is only AFTER attaining that degree, and the debt that comes with it, that they try and fail to enter the job market. Foreknowledge WOULD improve or children's lives, you're right! Too bad it runs against causality. No, they DID do their due diligence. They were simply lied to.
Bottom line: most people with art degrees spent their entire education up to college being told that they MUST attend college, but that any degree at all would be equally useful, by teachers and family and our culture in a generalized 'assumed knowledge' sort of way. They think they know exactly what they're doing.
So it is okay for him to default on paying his debtors after the fact while other people like myself paid our way through college by working our asses off both academically and for long hours. This jerk is why things cost more than they should. The rest of us have to pay for his defaulting on his debt. I hope the IRS at least charges him the taxes, interest and fines on the debt he defaulted on which counts as income.
Chart the cost of colleges against subsidy increases in the US. Just as with the housing bubble, you'll find that increases in subsidies increases the cost of college almost immediately.
The reality is that college or a house or healthcare or a lot of things costs what people will pay for it.
This is a basic economic concept that a lot of people don't seem to understand. Supply and demand.
When you give students a big bag of money that they can only spend on college the money isn't theirs. They have no incentive to economize with it or pay what something is worth. So they just take that big bag of money and hand it to the university without thinking about it. There's no point doing anything else from their perspective. It isn't their money.
Home sellers, universities, and the healthcare industry responds to this situation by increasing their prices to whatever that big bag of money is plus whatever amount of money they think you have in your pockets. So if you showed up with 10,000 in your savings... or that is what they think... and the big pile of money is 50 grand just as an example... they're going to ask for 60,000.
We've seen a lot of different things increase their costs suddenly and at a much faster rate than inflation or reductions in supply. Housing is probably the clearest example of that. Yes, space is limited but the costs of housing basically jumped up to whatever home buyers COULD sell the home for. Of course. you're going to want to sell your home for as much money as you possibly can. But that means that every time the banks or the federal government just start giving people money for home loans... nearly all that money just goes to the profits of existing home owners. And it makes it much harder for people that didn't need to the loans before to afford homes because now everything is way too expensive to buy at that rate. Which pushes people that wouldn't have needed help into the same government programs.
It is a vicious feed back loop.
Here are a few ideas.
1. With college especially, consider an investment model as an alternative. Liberal arts majors will hate this but it will deal with the feed back loop. The idea here is that rather than loaning people money, you instead INVEST in that person. You say, "in return for 10 percent of your income for 10 years, I will pay for your education." And the investment model would work like any investment. Your grades and career choice, and educational path, etc would all be factors in whether anyone actually wanted to invest in you are not. For STEM fields especially this would be very helpful and companies could even do it as a way to encourage people to get educations in things the company found useful. That 10 percent of your income could be the money they pay you to work for them. Thus it would mean a 10 percent reduction in what they have to pay you when you ultimately start working for them.
Some stem jobs pay around 80-130 grand. So 10 percent for ten years works out to 80 to 130 grand for them.... minus whatever the education cost... minus the opportunity cost... minus the interest. Whether it made sense in any given situation would be a matter of spread sheets. But what is nice is that it links what an education is paid for to something "Real".
And linking prices to anything REAL is a great way to control unrealistic feed back loops.
2. In regards to housing, the only thing you can do is have the home buyer pay a large portion of the total cost of the house upfront. Typically no less than 30 percent. That is THEIR money. Not debt money. That 30 percent figure will stop a lot of people from buying a house but it will also make them not walk away from a mortgage and it will make them not buy a house that costs too much. If a house costs a billion dollars and I have to put up none of that money upfront... then I can own a billion dollar house for at least a month. And if the interest rates are really low then who ever needs to pay it back... right? The big mistake with the fiancial cris
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It's easy to say "grow up" when the biggest loan you had to take out was for a motorcycle. An education in the US can cost 10s-100s of thousands of dollars not including living expenses. Couple this with low earnings coming out of college and interest rates that capitalize (interest is added to principle) which occurs during forbearance, deferment, or even while you're still in school. For the vast majority of people, repayment is not so simple when the average wage for a US employee is $45,327 as of 2012 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This doesn't take into account the costs of living, healthcare, health insurance, transportation, or god-forbid entertainment.
Yes, tuition in the U.S. can cost 100s of thousands of dollars, but it need not.
If you're borrowing "100s of thousands of dollars" to earn a degree to qualify you for a job earning $45,327, you're doing it wrong.
There are two things people keep teaching their children about college (by their words or actions) that are flat-out wrong:
1. Always go to whichever college you want, no matter the cost. Any degree is guaranteed to be worth any price paid.
2. In college, always pursue your dreams. It doesn't matter what you can get paid for it, because then you'll be a well-rounded individual and society will value you.
We are seriously short-changing our children by not teaching basic financial skills like loan repayment, ROI, and critical thinking about this while they are in high school. Signing up an 18 year old for $100k worth of student loans without requiring some sort of competency exam seems borderline criminal, to me.
I think if you borrow money, you should pay it back.
Now, if this is a REAL Republic, we'll have Rand Paul vs Bernie Sanders. Let the issues be clearly debated and sorted out for the next 40 years. hehe.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
This guy is off-base:
"By the end of my sophomore year at a small private liberal arts college..."
Private colleges are about 2.5 more costly than public (assuming in-state tuition):
http://www.usnews.com/educatio...
What makes this author and others like him think he is entitled to a private college education in a low-paying career? Let's face it, liberal arts degree in writing is not going to bring home the bucks. His family started out with a loan, then more, then bankruptcy. Is it any surprise there was a default? The bank should have stopped after the first one and informed he should transfer to a lower cost school before giving more money. Those who have repaid their student loans are now financing this author and others like him. It's not free, we all pay.
Perhaps degrees should have something like is on appliances for energy ratings, an average time to repay.
"This degree and this institution will take on average 20 years to repay"
Loan processors can use that to assess whether to grant the loan.
"I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans." says Siegel.
Wrong. He chose Theft.
Really? It is absurd that students that barely graduated high school can amass a quarter-million dollars in guaranteed student loans while studying anything they want with no limitations?
What boggles my mind is that the federal government puts no limits on what people study on OPM (Other People's Money).
Why aren't student loans given out based on merit, rather than ability to fill out a federal student loan application?
Ken
Declaring bankruptcy is a time honored American tradition, and a good one.
Play Command HQ online
Well sure. Hindsight is always 20/20.
The terms on those loans aren't kept secret from the students signing up for them. There's no need to rely on hindsight, just a little basic mathematics. As another poster mentioned above, the median cost of a US university education is just under ~$5800 per year. If you're racking up $40K, $50K, $100K or more of debt it's because you're making expensive choices. Go to an inexpensive school, work a part-time job during school, full-time during summers, and live cheaply, and you can graduate with minimal debt -- and learn some valuable lessons about life and responsibility while you're at it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Are you sure you replied to the correct post? I'm not a conservative, I'm not a boomer, I think the situation is terrible, and I'm just telling you how it got to be what it is.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If this were taken to court, they'd work around lack of standing by finding an appropriate plaintiff. That's what they already do in class action cases.
Housing: Section 8
From the linked article: "In many localities, the PHA waiting lists for Section 8 vouchers may be thousands of families long, waits of three to six years to access vouchers is common, and many lists are closed to new applicants." So the people you see on the streets are the ones who have been waiting for a slot to open up for possibly several years.
A lot of people went to work day in and day out at jobs they disliked or even despised, and set aside some of their meager wages in savings accounts or retirement accounts, so this asshole could live for free for ten years pursuing vanity degrees in areas of study that equipped him to do little more than better rationalize his shitty choices, and to lie to himself and others more skillfully about the meaning of that choice.
Fuck you Lee Siegel. It's one thing to fuck over the people who loaned you money; it's another to reframe your shitty actions to make you the victim, or even the hero.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
The Government has all this student aid and the Government loans. All schools make sure they maximize the amount of monies they grab from the Government. There seems to be no oversight on the schools spending habits. The schools are increasingly building building but more than just functional and grean buildings they are building them with marble and granite. No oversight on their spending on salaries. The schools spend money like drunken sailors. When I went to school the cost was like 800 dollars a year for tuition and fees. The government paid all of that and gave me 1500 dollars a semester just for showing up. Yes I was a vet and my home state of CT pays for tuition for all vets who served in a war zone to state schools. The school I went to costs now like 10K a year for tuition and fees. In 25 years it's gone up that much? Has inflation been that out of control? This is all not to mention boarding costs and food charges. (Which I did not incur) So the way I see things if the Government is subsidizing the schools they need to take a closer look at how the money is being used. One more pet peeve here. My daughter is starting college up in the fall. The federal student loan program limits the amount that kids can put in for. The limit is 5500 dollars at around 1 or 2 percent money. But the government takes 500 of that money and charges it to the kids as a fee so actually they are only getting 5000 a year from the feds and getting charged 500 right off the top as administrative fees(taxes?)
Paul E. Bahre
I agree it should be free. I don't agree you should steal it, though. Pay what you commited to, and use your degree to make sure nobody else has to bear crippling debt in future. He was perfectlly capable of following those simple rules if he authored 5 successful books.
I followed the idea of get a skill, start working, and learn on the side. I recommend it to everyone.
I started with a $4K to get my MSCE in 1999. I took 10 weeks of classes, got my MCSE exams done in three months (I was a bit of a computer guy already who'd been hacking around a PC since my Adam in 1984 when I was 7). I got a $30K a year job before I even finished my exams. The job came with tuition reimbursement. I got an English Degree with that Tuition Reimbursement. I'd have done Computer Science, but the colleges where I lived didn't have night classes for it. So I also liked creative writing (just as fun as creative coding to me). 6 years of night classes and I had my BA of Creative Writing degree, paid for by tuition reimbursement and, oh by the way, I years of experience as a Network Engineer.
Instead of a college grad with no experience, I was a college grad with 6 years experience.
I quickly got another job, that also paid tuition reimbursement. I took a few CS courses, not a full degree, just enough to qualify to get a masters of CS. Now, I have taken all the course work for a Masters of CS and just have my thesis left. I owe exact $0 in student loans.
This path is open to everyone. You don't have to do "Computers." It could be a nursing certificate. An apprenticeship for an Electrical company, and you get a degree and become a general contractor. FYI, it is best to do large companies because they are more likely to have tuition reimbursement. But even if they don't, who cares if you make enough money to afford it.
I firmly believe that 4 years of college with no work is not very beneficial for young kids when compared to working and getting your degree on the side. Sure the social life is a bit harder and there is less of it, but there I had enough of it.
Would you rather after 4 years leave college a degree and 0 years experience and 100k to 200k in debt. Or would you rather work and go to college at night for 6 years, and you leave college with a degree, 6 years experience, and $0 of debt?
My rule of thumb is never owe more than one semester of college or $3500 (whichever is less) at a time.
DO NOT GO INTO LARGE DEBT FOR EDUCATION!!!!
FYI, I didn't proofread my post. I know, I know, I have an English degree. That doesn't help me avoid typos if I don't proofread. :-)
This is News? People defaulting on student loans. I think you're preaching to the choir bud. It's not fucking news get it the fuck off slashdot and if there's anyone not smart enough to figure this out reading this site, please jam sewing pins in your eyeballs right now.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
I went this route after taking 1 year of loans. It took 10 years of defaulting and seized tax refunds to pay it off. Getting paid to study beats being a starving student and paying to study any day, any subject. Get cert, use it as a safety net, do anything you want: business ventures, self-employed projects, more school.... anything you want. Run out of money? Back to work with your cert or trade qualification. Simple. Easy. Why don't they teach this concept in school? Because then colleges and universities would go bankrupt.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
He clearly thought that going to college and getting a degree WAS a display of personal responsibility.
Rightly so. It's sold as such.
I've been slowly paying off my student loan over several years and I still can't bring myself to blame people who want out from under the debt.
It can feel quite stifling and it effectively limits what you can do with your new-found knowledge for a while. I know the idea is to do what I did, go to college for CS or something lucrative and use that privileged knowledge to make a decent wage to pay back that support.
Thing is, higher learning and especially University which is what I went for WAS NEVER INTENDED TO BE A JOB MACHINE.
Higher learning is meant to sharpen your mind and allow you to explore a subject in depth. It teaches you how to learn and how to do research. Most of the practical knowledge you learn in a higher learning situation may be obsolete by the time you graduate anyway.
College courses for practical diplomas should be subsidized. Then again I live in Canada and I'm perfectly happy paying more taxes so everyone I care about can have freely available healthcare and other socially supported systems.
We're, sloooooowly dragging ourselves into the modern era kicking and screaming all the damn way but we'll get there. Maybe some day the US & Canada will support REAL liberty, where everyone has the same opportunities because they are supported in their endeavours. The kind of liberty neocons want is the kind that makes everyone else suffer to make them comfortable. Selfish liberty. The freedom to be a selfish ass.
10 years after graduation, having paid my loan payments dutifully, I became so sick with Bipolar depression I could not work. My psychiatrist signed forms excusing me from future payments, stating that it was unlikely that I would ever be able to work again. Fortunately he was wrong, my symptoms improved after a few years. I feel no guilt, it was accurate at the time, and I have repaid society in other ways since then.
I have more of an issue with the interest rate for student loans. We should see 1-2% interest rates on student loans. You can't discharge the debt with bankruptcy. Its absolutely crazy to see 7% (I know it varies) interest rates on these loans.
I'm personally in favor of allowing tuition debt to be forgiven if needed. We allow it for mortgages, cars, and boats. Allow it for tuition but also revoke the degree that was achieved by the loans in default. People should not continue to benefit from the education certificate if they defaulted on the loans that enabled it.
Earlier generations with that qualification found roles in government and large businesses. Now an MBA is a more fashionable way to get to "officer level" but is it really any more suitable as a starting point? It's certainly far less involved yet more likely to create overconfidence that the education is enough to be effective in a role in an organization that is never quite going to be exactly as the textbooks say.
So philosophy may be a poor choice for training, but this isn't training, it's education - the sort of thing the guys who work out the standard operating procedures do as distinct from the ones that follow the procedures. It's a starting point not a list of things on a clipboard. Unlike engineering (my starting point) it's probably not bad for managing problems (eg. running a room full of telephone switchboard operators) as distinct from solving the problem (spending decades to eventually develop automatic switchboards). We need some people to handle either approach instead of purely technical folk, whether we like it or not.
Degrees donâ(TM)t matter anymore, skills do
http://qz.com/340304/degrees-d...
Casteism
Somebody is paying for that debt. If it isn't that guy, then you can bet the rest of us are footing the bill for his freeloading.
Take some responsibility for your life. Too many people out there seem to think they are entitled to things just because they exist. So you made some bad life choices. Make some better ones, do something about it.
Tuition is too high and most of the money goes to administration, landscaping, posh buildings, or money pits like college athletics (only very very few programs make money for the university). Split off college athletics, cut down admin staff, and invest tuition mainly into academia to get not only much better education, but also cheaper education. Still, students need to take care that they stay or get employable. Not sure if a Masters in Philosophy or Psychology or Art History really opens that wide field of job opportunities. Sure, many subjects are fun to learn, but do they help you earn a living?