Student loans - good or bad?

[ZombieNixon]

[solinvictus]

1. Good..

because it's the only way people like me can go to university.

[ZombieNixon]

2. Me, too, but my parents are adamant about not taking one.

Without it, my options are severly limited.

[SmokingJacket]

11. Your parents have a good point.

Loans can be a noose around your neck for a long time. They can make you think you need a really lucrative job when you get out of college in order to pay them back. I've seen students drop Shakespeare, take Accounting instead. Tragic!

And... after going to a semi-pricey school, having a husband who was Ivy League, teaching at various state and private colleges, I've come to the conclusion that you can get a good education almost anywhere. You might have to hunt down good professors, but they're out there -- even at state schools. You don't have to go hugely into debt for a good education.

I think the worst deal is an expensive private school with a mediocre reputation. A state school is a much smarter choice.

[Endangered Specie]

3. If they are your only choice: VERY GOOD.

[Fovea]

4. Usery.

In an information economy driven world, good education is like good bridges and lighthouses were in Adam Smith's day.

To make a worker pay for education is like putting up toll booths at every intersection. Soon you can't find smart enough workers, and would have to outsource to countries that provide free education, and we wouldn't want that...

[oscar111]

10. realpolitik, good post

i liked it a lot.

keep posting.

[atommom]

5. Good, because they help people pay for college. But bad when

college graduates still have grave difficulty making the payments. I'm lucky enough to have paid mine off. We're still working on DH's ....

[rucky]

6. ask me again when my deferrment is up. n'/t

[oscar111]

8. free college is better. I hear Europe has that, CA did befor RR governor

RR ended free college in CA.

I read some countries have free college and even pay students a salary. Called a living allowance.

Since we at long last, see free schooling as reasonable for hi school now {before 1900, hi school was not free}..

we should come to our senses and make college free as well.
ALL college, up to PhD.
With that living allowance, too.

what takes folks so long to expand the framework of their thoughts?

[JDPriestly]

21. Agreed!

[AP]

24. IMO, UK has the best system: tuition is an interest free loan you only pay

back if your salary is above the median income, and you never pay more than a fixed % of your income. You pay until you finish paying, so you'd have your whole life to pay back.

I think that system creates all the right incentives. Most importantly, the government only gets paid if they provided a economy that produces good, well-paying jobs for college graduates. They can't charge whatever they want for college and then say fuck you, good luck getting a job one you're finished.

That system also shifts the burden of paying off of people at the moment when they're least able to afford paying for college: when they're in school and should be studying and only working part time if at all, and when they're in the early years of their career.

[high density]

7. Overall they're pretty good

Interest rates are usually not too bad on them and I didn't have to make any payments on my student loans until I was out of school (though the interest was accumulating during that time.)

Now if I could just put my education to work at a good job, I'd be all set.

[K-W]

9. Better than nothing, but not good. EOM

[AP]

23. Exactly. They're mostly used to make money for Wall St, but you're so much

better off going to college than by sticking it to Wall St by not going.

You actually make more money for Wall St by not going since you'd become cheap labor for them that way.

[Mike Niendorff]

12. bad:

Student loans allow politicians to get away with radically underfunding education and shifting the resulting shortfall onto students in the form of personal debt.


MDN

[oscar111]

14. "to be competitive", FREE colleges. Use the RW phrase against them

they are fond of saying

to be competitive.

Well, with europe training all their best minds with free college, we ought to do the same.

to be competitive.

[IndianaGreen]

13. College should be free to all

Student loans force the graduates to whore for corporations in order to pay the banks back.

[oscar111]

15. FREE college is the best idea eom

[oscar111]

17. National wealth: can we afford free colleges? Anyone know?

I know the number, wonder how widespread the knowledge is. I have the impression mighty few know it.

[Radical Activist]

20. Easily. Kucinich proposed something close to free college.

It could be paid for with Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy.

[IndianaGreen]

27. Can we afford an Empire and an Imperial Army?

The answer is NO!

We must put people before profits.

[AP]

26. I don't agree with that. Something that has always bugged me: rich kids

who take up a place at an Ivy League school and then graduate to live off their trust fund or marry someone rich and not do anything productive. I think of all the middle class and poor people who would have been willing to work hard, graduate, and then contribute to society if they had taken that rich kids place.

I think if college were tuition free, a lot of people would behave like those rich kids. There'd be a lower incentive to graduate and work hard.

That's not saying that I don't think poor kids shouldn't be able to get grants, and that's not to say that I don't think the 1300 buck tuition at the UC schools (among the best schools in the world) isn't brilliant.

But I do think that for a lot of middle and upper middle class students, it's important to make sure that the costs and benefits of education are allocated properly -- if you're going to benefit hugely from school, you should be willing to pay a little for that school (partly, so that it's there for the next person who comes along).

That's why I think the way they pay for college in the UK (which was a Blair reform) is brilliant. Up above I describe it.

[Swamp Rat]

16. They are the BANE of American society!

University should be FREE for all!

[Undercover Owl]

18. a little help is better than no help.

Grants would be a whole lot better.

[Radical Activist]

19. Bad because higher education should be free.

[laura888]

22. Good. Education is a good investment

While I agree with a previous poster about finding a good education at state schools.

Also, that higher education SHOULD be free.

If loans are the only way to get that degree, JUST DO IT.

[bush_is_wacko]

25. Good that they are available for those that wouldn't otherwise be able to

college. IMO, very BAD that we have to pay so much to get a decent education so as to be able to make much over minimum wage. I can assure you though, college used to mean a REALLY good job, now it only means a job slightly better than McDonald's!

Try raising a family on $13.00 an hour after paying $30,000 for an education! I know of several people doing this right now.