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30% of America's Student Loan Borrowers Can't Keep Up After Six Years (cnbc.com)
The IRS recently ruled that under some circumstances employers can link their 401(k) matching contributions to the amount of an employee's student loan repayments -- making it easier for recent graduates to take advantage of this employer benefit. But that's one spot of good news in a sea of bad, according to one anonymous Slashdot reader:
Two new articles criticize America's student loan policies (under both the Obama and Trump administrations). CNBC cites reports that within six years, more than 15% of student borrowers had officially defaulted, while 10% more had stopped making payments and another 4.8% were at least 90 days late. And for-profit colleges fared even worse, where nearly 25% of graduates defaulted, and a total of 44% faced "some form of loan distress."
These trends were masked by Department of Education reports which stopped tracking repayment rates after just three years (reporting defaults rates of just 10%), according to Ben Miller, senior director for post-secondary education at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "Official statistics present a relatively rosy picture of student debt. But looking at outcomes over more time and in greater detail shows that hundreds of thousands more borrowers from each cohort face troubles repaying."
These trends were masked by Department of Education reports which stopped tracking repayment rates after just three years (reporting defaults rates of just 10%), according to Ben Miller, senior director for post-secondary education at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "Official statistics present a relatively rosy picture of student debt. But looking at outcomes over more time and in greater detail shows that hundreds of thousands more borrowers from each cohort face troubles repaying."
This implies that attending college is a stupid decision. However, there is significant evidence to the contrary.
A college degree is correlated with financial success, but it is not clear if it causes that success, especially for artsy degrees. A tech degree is almost certainly worth it. A business degree is likely worth it. But not much else.
You don't say? Because I had to fish a resume out of the trash from HR because it came from a community college instead of a recognizable one.
Colleges are like brand names. You might not like to hear it but a lot of people get filtered out because of bullshit HR drones picking 4 year colleges over community colleges.
I'm always amazed at the stupidity of socialists and the general population. When you institute guarantee on stuff irrespective of reality you are going to fuck up the free market and that will have seriously negative economic impacts. It doesn't matter if we are talking health care, education, or something else. What has happened with guaranteed education and educational loans is that schools are now free to raise prices irregardless of the populations ability to repay them because governments have guaranteed the loans. The financial benefactors can't lose.
We have similar problems with health care today. Government regulations have been substantially increasing prices. Never mind that. Government regulations have substantially increased prices across the board for all sorts of products and services. Everything from internet access to vehicles cost substantially more because of socialist wealth redistribution programs.
Instituting monopolies for instance on cable or additional safety mechanisms. It is one thing if its impacting the environment and others- but things like seat belts, air bags, and similar? Let the free market decide which if any of these things are important and leave it up to individuals. This is how we can recover from a financial disaster befalling us no thanks to increasingly authoritarian and socialist policies.
The only chance we have is if people who want freedom come together like what is going on with the Free State Project in New Hampshire. A migration of individuals has helped fix major problems with bad supreme court rulings, block or undo many bad laws, and more. However we as a society never new real freedom and so it's going to be a long while before there are a sufficient number of people here to make that happen, but it can. It will. I moved in 2016 and I've seen a lot of good stuff in just the last couple years. From elimination of regulations over crypto currencies to the elimination of permission slips for concealed carry to re-instating warrants for searches that the supreme court recently decided weren't always necessary (many states now will search your home for tax reasons and similar purposes!!!!).
Solution: Go to CC for the first 2 years, then transfer to the 4 year college for your junior and senior year. Your degree is identical to those who were there for all 4 years, but it cost you much less. The tuition is much less, and you can live at home rent free, with Mom buying the groceries.
At least in California, the 2 year community colleges are set up as "feeders" to the UC and CSU systems. It is much easier to transfer CC->UC than CSU->UC.
Every syate i have lived in has guarantees about which credits transfer from a community college to a state university, will degree programs that transfer 100% of all credit. The guarantee is "if you get an associates degree in any of rhe following majors, all credit will transfer to a bachelor's degree in the same field at the state university".
If you take puppetry, ceramics, and floral design at the community college, those may not transfer toward a bachelor's in chemistry. In orser for the credit to transfer 100%, one needs to plan ahead and take appropriate courses. One easy way to get transfer credit to virtually any school is to take the core general studies courses - English, Math, History. Floral design probably won't transfer, so don't take that course expecting it will count toward your bachelor of science.
The four year colleges don't like to give credit for community college classes.
In California, it is very clear which CC credits will transfer to UCs and CSUs. The students know this information upfront. Remedial classes for stuff you should have learned in high school does not transfer. Most other credits do transfer.
CC is an especially good choice for people that goofed off in high school. After 2 years at a CC, the 4 year colleges will only look at your CC grades, and ignore your HS GPA.