What the heck to do about student debt

[Puritan Monks]

In an oligarch society, your opinion comes from your wallet, not your mouth. Understand that the only thing colleges are worth nowadays is the certificate to get a high-pay job. Nearly anything is available on the internet, or a public library. In fact, it's likely best to get your info from outside sources, so you can get a broader picture on certain issues like history or social sciences. Going to college puts faith in that the curriculum isn't biased or filtered.


These certificates are products, like anything else that requires money to attain. What do you do with a product that's overpriced? Don't buy it!


Look for literally any alternative to having to go to college. Maybe consider going to a cheap college simply for its cheapness, go find a lesser-priced trade school. If you're lucky, you can find a job that only requires an HS diploma and some apprenticeship. If you're truly desperate and willing to roll deep, as they say, well.... I don't think I'm allowed to endorse or recommend it, but "underground" jobs are an option when all other alternatives are exhausted.


If you must borrow, ask yourself if you can pay it off in five years with everything considered.


The point is, make it known with your wallet that you won't stand to become a debt serf. You can talk a big talk about how outrageous tuition fees are, but if you continue to comply with them you're only feeding this malicious system of soft extortion on young people.

[SD_Film Artists]

Actually it is, as at least part of what I call "college" is the 16-18 yr old part of American high school. As for the rest of the US college/university system, yes that's not free at all and such an unfortunate situation can and should be fixed.

No part of high school within the context of K-12 can be considered college, unless perhaps if a student happens to take AP or IB classes- in which case- it might count as college credit and fast track them into a scholarship or college education, but only to a limited extent. AP is designed to be more challenging than ordinary classes within high schools and IB in turn, is far more challenging than AP.

But presumably people in 'senior high' are learning new things that they weren't at the age of 16, yes? Otherwise it's just the same level as pre-17 education but with more revision. If the former is true then yes, it's college.

UK system:
High School: 11-16
College: 17-18
University: 18-22

French:
Collège: 11-14
lycée: 15-18
Université: 18-22

United States:
High school: 13-18
College/University: 18-22

[Nakena]

In an oligarch society, your opinion comes from your wallet, not your mouth. Understand that the only thing colleges are worth nowadays is the certificate to get a high-pay job. Nearly anything is available on the internet, or a public library. In fact, it's likely best to get your info from outside sources, so you can get a broader picture on certain issues like history or social sciences. Going to college puts faith in that the curriculum isn't biased or filtered.

These certificates are products, like anything else that requires money to attain. What do you do with a product that's overpriced? Don't buy it!

Look for literally any alternative to having to go to college. Maybe consider going to a cheap college simply for its cheapness, go find a lesser-priced trade school. If you're lucky, you can find a job that only requires an HS diploma and some apprenticeship. If you're truly desperate and willing to roll deep, as they say, well.... I don't think I'm allowed to endorse or recommend it, but "underground" jobs are an option when all other alternatives are exhausted.

If you must borrow, ask yourself if you can pay it off in five years with everything considered.

The point is, make it known with your wallet that you won't stand to become a debt serf. You can talk a big talk about how outrageous tuition fees are, but if you continue to comply with them you're only feeding this malicious system of soft extortion on young people.

This is the best post so far in this thread.

[Ethel mermania]

There isn't really any such thing as low-skilled or unskilled jobs. The skills required for those jobs just aren't valued.

Sorry to say there is, while both brain surgeons and liquor store clerks are important to society, I want my brain surgeon to be a bit better trained and paying a bit more attention to the task at hand than I require for my liquor clerk.

[Heloin]

There isn't really any such thing as low-skilled or unskilled jobs. The skills required for those jobs just aren't valued.

Sorry to say there is, while both brain surgeons and liquor store clerks are important to society, I want my brain surgeon to be a bit better trained and paying a bit more attention to the task at hand than I require for my liquor clerk.

I'd say the dustman or janitor are far more important then either of them.

[Bear Stearns]

There isn't really any such thing as low-skilled or unskilled jobs. The skills required for those jobs just aren't valued.

They're valued. People just don't like paying for them. Why pay a poor American a living wage when an illegal immigrant will do it for less?

[Bear Stearns]

There isn't really any such thing as low-skilled or unskilled jobs. The skills required for those jobs just aren't valued.

Sorry to say there is, while both brain surgeons and liquor store clerks are important to society, I want my brain surgeon to be a bit better trained and paying a bit more attention to the task at hand than I require for my liquor clerk.

If brain surgeons were paid the same as liquor store clerks nobody would go through all the trouble of being a brain surgeon and we'd have a shortage. Which means we'd either fill the shortage by lowering standards or importing foreign ones. Either way, patients lose.

[Saiwania]

If brain surgeons were paid the same as liquor store clerks nobody would go through all the trouble of being a brain surgeon and we'd have a shortage. Which means we'd either fill the shortage by lowering standards or importing foreign ones. Either way, patients lose.

People can't go to a brain surgeon anyways if they're too expensive. Going to the doctor is becoming a rich or middle class thing. In the future if not now, I think it'd be better for more people in the long run to not seek medical treatment for any reason.

Accept the risk of dying earlier because ultimately- private insurers can't be trusted to cover most procedures so having a health plan isn't a good value for your money anymore. If you survive you were meant to continue on, if you don't- you weren't. So be it.

The best approach to healthcare anyone can do: is to flat out just become healthier via a better lifestyle, exercise and sleep regularly and eat right, etc. and chances are you'll have fewer problems if any of that is within your power. And only rely on OTC medications if you have to. It is better for people to boycott the medical sector as much as possible so they have to take a pay cut, or we get single payer. It is all the better if a collapse happens.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

In an oligarch society, your opinion comes from your wallet, not your mouth. Understand that the only thing colleges are worth nowadays is the certificate to get a high-pay job. Nearly anything is available on the internet, or a public library. In fact, it's likely best to get your info from outside sources, so you can get a broader picture on certain issues like history or social sciences. Going to college puts faith in that the curriculum isn't biased or filtered.

These certificates are products, like anything else that requires money to attain. What do you do with a product that's overpriced? Don't buy it!

Look for literally any alternative to having to go to college. Maybe consider going to a cheap college simply for its cheapness, go find a lesser-priced trade school. If you're lucky, you can find a job that only requires an HS diploma and some apprenticeship. If you're truly desperate and willing to roll deep, as they say, well.... I don't think I'm allowed to endorse or recommend it, but "underground" jobs are an option when all other alternatives are exhausted.

If you must borrow, ask yourself if you can pay it off in five years with everything considered.

The point is, make it known with your wallet that you won't stand to become a debt serf. You can talk a big talk about how outrageous tuition fees are, but if you continue to comply with them you're only feeding this malicious system of soft extortion on young people.

This is the best post so far in this thread.

So do nothing at all about fees and debt, just respond as a rational consumer to the way things are.

No thanks.

[Bear Stearns]

1) Have the government stop guaranteeing student loans
2) Student loans are now much riskier investments, lenders will only lend to the students most likely to pay them back (i.e. those with good grades in fields that can yield a high return)
3) This filters out a lot of people who really shouldn't have been going to college anyways, population of college students begins to plummet
4) This puts financial strain on colleges and many smaller private colleges go bankrupt - the ones that remain have to compete for students (whether through slashing tuition or offering some perks), giving students the bargaining power in the relationship
5) As part of this scramble by colleges to cut costs, a lot of toxic culture of academia ends up getting slashed too
6) As the size of the non-college educated workforce grows, employers face a shortage of "educated workers" and have to make real decisions about whether or not the jobs they are offering actually require degrees
7) Assuming that employers can't import replacements through immigration, the economy begins restructuring to accommodate this shift in workforce demographics
8 )10-15 years on, the cottage industry of college admissions and academia is gone and colleges go back to what they used to be for 1) offering technical education in practical fields and 2) offering a liberal arts education for the rich weirdos who can afford it - everyone else gets on with their life

[Saiwania]

The plan won't work if businesses decide that they want people with degrees anyways and bring in a bunch of people from overseas instead of considering anyone local anymore because of globalization. We have to at least make sure that we're not left behind economically just because other countries are willing to do things with their education that we're not willing to do. Finland has "inclusive values" in that they make it easier for people to get advanced education and are supposedly #1 in the world.

The whole point of Common Core or No Child Left Behind was to try to compete against the education systems of China and other economically powerful countries, but anything the US has done to date on education at the K-12 level has largely failed.

[Vallermoore]

Free college education should normally be a right, just as free primary school education is a right in all Western countries.

[Bear Stearns]

Free college education should normally be a right, just as free primary school education is a right in all Western countries.

Sure, but we couldn't afford having something like 60% of all young people trying to go to college, especially when close to half of them really shouldn't. Answer: rigorous entrance exams and higher admittance standards!

[Puritan Monks]

So do nothing at all about fees and debt, just respond as a rational consumer to the way things are.

No thanks.

There are two problems with relying on the gov't to fix the issue of student loans and debt. Firstly, the loaners and the oligarch class make a lot of money off of this system of extorting young people for money. These same people have tentacles in our government, so any kind of reformist movement that threatens the gravy train will be met with a fierce possibly bipartisan opposition. We could elect Bernie to president, then what could he do without getting c*ckblocked by congress or some rando judge like Trump has?


Secondly, that debt is real money. A debt is merely a postponed transaction. The colleges do require money to maintain, and even if they now rely on taxes that's probably billions of dollars vanquished. What would be the effects of this?


I do wish there would be free state colleges as well, but the possibility for that is slim.

[Greed and Death]

The plan won't work if businesses decide that they want people with degrees anyways and bring in a bunch of people from overseas instead of considering anyone local anymore because of globalization. We have to at least make sure that we're not left behind economically just because other countries are willing to do things with their education that we're not willing to do. Finland has "inclusive values" in that they make it easier for people to get advanced education and are supposedly #1 in the world.

The whole point of Common Core or No Child Left Behind was to try to compete against the education systems of China and other economically powerful countries, but anything the US has done to date on education at the K-12 level has largely failed.

We have higher educational attainment than Finland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... attainment

We have one of the highest educational attainment rates in the world.

Looking at broken out higher education (on the same source) we see little correlation between educational attainment and economic. Countries like Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia having the highest 6 year tertiary ( masters or PHD) completion rates.

[Arkhane]

You cannot have your cake and eat it too. No matter how many solutions are provided, it just shifts the burden on who gets to pay for your education. There is no such thing as "free". Even if professors decide to teach with no pay, they are still providing their efforts, resources and time, as are the manufacturers of books, study materials, maintenance for lodging and facilities etc.

Believing that a single entity like the government or the "one percent" can effectively sustain "free" education is an impossible dream.

The solution then is not to throw the entire burden onto one group, but to find that delicate balance of necessities and gradually delegate workloads and efforts that rely on self-sufficiency instead of spending for external labor.

Cleaning and maintaining school classrooms or college facilities, for example, can easily be delegated to students. I find it odd that western schools do not assign their students cleaning duties. It effectively slashes the expenditure on maintenance and allows academic institutions to hire less, or if possible, no janitors at all.

That is only one of the things that can be implemented in order to effectively sustain and reduce tuition, there are many other tasks students can do for schools or colleges that can effectively reduce the need for expenses on external labor.

Couple that with at the very least marginal support and coverage from the government or private entities and we have the solution for a more sustainable, low-debt and affordable education in less than a decade's time.

[Big Jim P]

1) Have the government stop guaranteeing student loans
2) Student loans are now much riskier investments, lenders will only lend to the students most likely to pay them back (i.e. those with good grades in fields that can yield a high return)
3) This filters out a lot of people who really shouldn't have been going to college anyways, population of college students begins to plummet
4) This puts financial strain on colleges and many smaller private colleges go bankrupt - the ones that remain have to compete for students (whether through slashing tuition or offering some perks), giving students the bargaining power in the relationship
5) As part of this scramble by colleges to cut costs, a lot of toxic culture of academia ends up getting slashed too
6) As the size of the non-college educated workforce grows, employers face a shortage of "educated workers" and have to make real decisions about whether or not the jobs they are offering actually require degrees
7) Assuming that employers can't import replacements through immigration, the economy begins restructuring to accommodate this shift in workforce demographics
8 )10-15 years on, the cottage industry of college admissions and academia is gone and colleges go back to what they used to be for 1) offering technical education in practical fields and 2) offering a liberal arts education for the rich weirdos who can afford it - everyone else gets on with their life

Great plan.

[Ifreann]

There isn't really any such thing as low-skilled or unskilled jobs. The skills required for those jobs just aren't valued.

Sorry to say there is, while both brain surgeons and liquor store clerks are important to society, I want my brain surgeon to be a bit better trained and paying a bit more attention to the task at hand than I require for my liquor clerk.

You're really just making my point. You place value on the skills of a surgeon, but not on the skills of the retail worker.

[Ifreann]

You cannot have your cake and eat it too. No matter how many solutions are provided, it just shifts the burden on who gets to pay for your education. There is no such thing as "free". Even if professors decide to teach with no pay, they are still providing their efforts, resources and time, as are the manufacturers of books, study materials, maintenance for lodging and facilities etc.

Believing that a single entity like the government or the "one percent" can effectively sustain "free" education is an impossible dream.

So impossible that nowhere on Earth is it possible to receive tuition-free third level education. Such a thing definitely doesn't exist. Not anywhere.

[New Rogernomics]

Stop the student debt farms i.e. universities, from sucking students dry, and allow students to see that not everyone can be a lawyer or an economist. I was taught university was the only option, and lots of debt later, I still didn't know what career I wanted. There is nothing wrong with picking up a trade and being debt free, and society should take all efforts to help people into work, not just saddle students with debt if they fail at uni or can't get a job. I am in favor of debt forgiveness with conditions.

[Ultimate Destructive Fighting Nation]

Based on a long and winding post by Alien Space Bats, which I shall reprint most of without permission below: (probably a bad idea as I believe Mr. Bats is a practicing attorney).

But I think it’s an interesting topic in its own self and should be talked about in its own thread, and I don’t recall talking about this in a while

What do you Denizens of Nation states, think should be done about the college student debt issue, and lets start with what Mr. Bats has to say


Alien Space Bats....

On the issue of college, my view is that having the government pay everybody's tuition is a bad idea on so very many counts. For one thing (as I suggested), it really doesn't actually deal with the problem of making college affordable for as many people as possible. For another, it places the independence of academia at risk.

In many ways, it's like health care: If government starts paying for everything, then government will eventually want to dictate the essentials of whatever it is that they're buying. This already happens with Medicare: I struggled for a couple of years in trying to get my wife a fully-electric hospital bed when Medicare would only pay for one on which the hi-lo function was powered by a crank at the foot of the bed. Medicare's reasoning was that having the hi-lo function be powered by the same electric motor that powers everything else is a convenience for the caregiver and not a medical necessity; it was only after fumbling around through regulations and rulings in an effort to justify giving the patient (in this case, my wife) control over the hi-lo function that I ultimately found out that Medicare won't pay for a fully-electric bed because it doesn't actually recognize a fully-electric bed as being something that actually exists (they have no category for it, so they can't ay for such a bed, even if you could actually argue that the patient needed one!).

So imagine where we'll be 15-20 years after we've created a program that pays for everybody's college education. I can see public universities restricted to a set of rigidly-defined academic careers, each built around a rigidly-defined curriculum, with rigidly-defined deliverables within each rigidly-defined class that makes up a part of this curriculum. Academic freedom will be gone; academic innovation will be gone; and politics will be pervasive throughout the entire structure ("No, you can't take courses on 'Lesbian Feminism in 19th Century Literature' — but 'Post-Colonialist Global Perspectives in 20th Century Literature' is mandatory for all liberal arts students, so you'll need to take that"). No, if there's something that government should stay away from, its curriculum — and that probably rules out having it pay for tuition.

So my idea for nearly four years has been that government should pay every student a per diem living stipend based on their estimates of the cost of living in the community in which they go to school (the government already has a lot of the data needed to calculate these per diems as is) such that 80-100% of their living expenses are covered; grants, scholarships, and student loans can then cover books and tuition. This would have the advantage of allowing colleges to offer more "full-ride" scholarships, as those "full rides" would no longer have to cover room and board (or more than a fraction of room and board). I think a good conservative estimate here is that every current "full-ride" scholarship could easily become 3-4 such scholarships if room and board were taken off the table.

This would also put government in the position of dictating and/or regulation housing and dietary standards for students if (or more likely, when) the inevitable extension of payments into regulation of the thing being paid for finally came to pass. Indeed, this is something government already does with housing and nutritional assistance, and in extremis would likely involve nothing more intrusive than rent control in student neighborhoods (which many college towns already have under local authority).

Couple this with some of Elizabeth Warren's ideas for reducing interest on student loans and/or letting students refinance such loans in the same way that homeowners are able to refinance mortgages, along with some of the other ideas that are out there for making student loans more manageable, and college could very easily become more affordable across the board.

There are other advantages to such an approach. Current tax law allows for books and tuition to be written off on income tax returns, and makes effectively exempts scholarships from being treated as taxable income; unfortunately, the same cannot be said for room and board. Thus, under current tax law, when a student gets a "full-ride" scholarship that pays for room and board, technically the part that pays for room and board is considered taxable income. Having government pay for room and board eliminates this problem.

I understand that there would be a huge amount of push-back against "paying welfare" to "freeloading" college students so that they can "live for free", but it makes sense that anyone studying full-time to advance their educational prospects can't work full-time to support themselves at the same time; what we'd basically be doing is supporting students while they study in order for them to be able to focus on their education. It's not ridiculous to expect a student to take on some debt while this happens as a last resort, so long as we make sure than the final result isn't odious, as it is now. Thus, we'd be putting students in the position of (at worst) borrowing for the cost of books and tuition, and then having the most affordable terms possible for handling that debt afterward.

Thank you Mr. bats.


I think that there is a pretty decent amount of meat to what mr bats has to say in a lot of different areas.


I think he is right that education will be treated the way medicine is currently and that is generally a bad thing. As I have mentioned many many times before my objection to obama care has nothing to do with the insurance market angle, but how it has changed and standardized the practice of medicine and medical record keeping.

I think the idea we can just cancel current debt is absurd, the government doesn’t own any of that debt it is owned by the lending companies, I think that needs to be cleaned up and rates should be adjusted, but I don’t think the feds should be handing more money to the banks.

I think providing room and board at college and university is just too expensive, and impractical, there will still be no incentive for private schools to make an attempt to contain their costs.

My solution is to make public state run community colleges free. For 3 years let everyone get a 2 year degree.

Community colleges are local and run by the county and are accessible to residents in the towns.
No housing allowance is needed as they already live in the county the school is based,
We give them 3 years for the degree so if they have to work part time or take care of a sick relative they have the time to do so.

I pay for this via federal block grants to the states, that way the feds can not change the local curriculum and those schools are still only answerable to whoever accredits them, and it keeps the bureaucracy down. If a state does not want to provide free tuition they can opt out, but they don’t get the money.

Poll with hasselhoff option coming:

I won’t pay it off. By that I man I receive S.S.D.I from the government and live n what they give me. Therefore, thay can lock me up. But I can’t pa them back.

[Infected Mushroom]

you know what, this school debt thing is too complicated and it messes everyone up

...

Education has largely become an artificial barrier against entering the workplace (the vast majority of what you learned was irrelevant anyways and you start from zero anyways).

We could go back to the good old days where education was only necessary for those of high birth

Meanwhile, everyone else, as a commoner can just focus on either farming the land or entering a trade/craft.

We could do away with job interviews while we're at it, the lords/ladies could just relocate the population based on their skills

The economy would be brought back to the good old days where things were actually produced and actual physical results and goods were produced. Instead of what we have now... tons of people sitting in offices (the majority actually) and moving large piles of imaginary currency around and calling it production. God forbid the majority of the people could actually be mobilised to do Real Work and produce Real Things.

The whole world could probably be fed 20 times over just from the increased focus on farming and production (over hoarding and moving invisible things around).

...

So yes TLDR, we do away with the student debt

[Ifreann]

you know what, this school debt thing is too complicated and it messes everyone up

...

Education has largely become an artificial barrier against entering the workplace (the vast majority of what you learned was irrelevant anyways and you start from zero anyways).

We could go back to the good old days where education was only necessary for those of high birth

Meanwhile, everyone else, as a commoner can just focus on either farming the land or entering a trade/craft.

We could do away with job interviews while we're at it, the lords/ladies could just relocate the population based on their skills

The economy would be brought back to the good old days where things were actually produced and actual physical results and goods were produced. Instead of what we have now... tons of people sitting in offices (the majority actually) and moving large piles of imaginary currency around and calling it production. God forbid the majority of the people could actually be mobilised to do Real Work and produce Real Things.

...

So yes TLDR, we do away with the student debt

Alternatively, we don't recreate feudalism because that would be stupid.

[Infected Mushroom]

you know what, this school debt thing is too complicated and it messes everyone up

...

Education has largely become an artificial barrier against entering the workplace (the vast majority of what you learned was irrelevant anyways and you start from zero anyways).

We could go back to the good old days where education was only necessary for those of high birth

Meanwhile, everyone else, as a commoner can just focus on either farming the land or entering a trade/craft.

We could do away with job interviews while we're at it, the lords/ladies could just relocate the population based on their skills

The economy would be brought back to the good old days where things were actually produced and actual physical results and goods were produced. Instead of what we have now... tons of people sitting in offices (the majority actually) and moving large piles of imaginary currency around and calling it production. God forbid the majority of the people could actually be mobilised to do Real Work and produce Real Things.

...

So yes TLDR, we do away with the student debt

Alternatively, we don't recreate feudalism because that would be stupid.

as opposed to this strange economic model where everyone is expected to (99% plus) spend 4+ years paying tons of money to go to college and learn things just to overcome some barrier to entering the workplace... and then after entering said workplace, only to realise that 99% of what they learned is useless and they need to re-learn it all again to function

I mean, there's just a whole lot of economic waste

not to mention, surely you don't need 80%+ of the population providing services and moving money around... God forbid they actually be mobilised in full to collect, farm/manufacture, produce, and re-locate actual physical goods

there's just too much emphasis on the manipulation of money and you wonder why there's not enough to go around for everyone; I mean, when you base entire economies on imaginary goods and force nearly everyone to incur massive amounts of Debt just to overcome some artificial barrier to entry... it's expected

[Bombadil]

you know what, this school debt thing is too complicated and it messes everyone up

...

Education has largely become an artificial barrier against entering the workplace (the vast majority of what you learned was irrelevant anyways and you start from zero anyways).

We could go back to the good old days where education was only necessary for those of high birth

Meanwhile, everyone else, as a commoner can just focus on either farming the land or entering a trade/craft.

We could do away with job interviews while we're at it, the lords/ladies could just relocate the population based on their skills

The economy would be brought back to the good old days where things were actually produced and actual physical results and goods were produced. Instead of what we have now... tons of people sitting in offices (the majority actually) and moving large piles of imaginary currency around and calling it production. God forbid the majority of the people could actually be mobilised to do Real Work and produce Real Things.

...

So yes TLDR, we do away with the student debt

Alternatively, we don't recreate feudalism because that would be stupid.

Do we not want to return to a time when knights gambolled through the hillocks singing poetry to innocent maidens while the common folk happily ploughed the fields, doffing their caps to landed gentry in recognition of their heroic battles against evil dark magicians?