Read responses “Student loans throw us further into debt” (Daily Titan, Cal State Fullerton)

[jody]

Student loans throw us further into debt

Why do students need enormous loans to go to college in the first place? Could it be because the government has taken over the education industry? In California, tuition rates have soared – almost the same way corporate health insurance premiums have soared – because our dysfunctional, gerrymandered legislature can’t balance a budget. At a time when CSUs and UCs are raising tuition to ghastly heights, many students are wishing there were private colleges that would come in and compete with the government.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The student loan system setup, as it was, allowed banks to lend to students with the explicit guarantee from the government that if those students defaulted on the loans, the American tax payer would pay the difference. The consequences were predictable: Banks lent to just about any unemployed 18-year-old with no assets without fear of default. It was a sweetheart deal for bankers, bad for tax payers and raised the cost of tuition by allowing everyone to pay for college no matter how insane the costs already were, as it eliminated normal market forces that would force colleges to compete for students’ money.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The new government loan program may look attractive to students – and will probably help in buying their vote – but it’s a disaster for tax payers. First, it caps the amount a borrower has to pay each year to 10 percent of their income. After 20 years, regardless of how much is left on the balance sheet, the loan will be forgiven forcing taxpayers to swallow losses on the very same loan they just provided.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

All this and no one has even explained how the United States government, now roughly $13 trillion in debt, can provide loans when they have no money. The same students who get government backed college loans will really be getting a loan from China – or worse, phony money off the Federal Reserves printing press. It’s likely students will have to pay back the interest not just on their loan, but the interest the government has to pay for the money they borrowed to make that loan. This of course means higher taxes.

[customerserviceguy]

1. Name another thing that the government lends money on

that is solely directed by individual citizens, without any solid plan as to how to pay the loan back. If student loans were subjected to half the scrutiny that SBA loans were, a goodly proportion of them wouldn't even be made.

[jody]

2. Should govt. focus on reducing education cost as it did with health care as part of an ed loan

program?

IMO most professors/instructors are not getting wealthy and many colleges are using a high percentage of adjunct instructors who are paid almost minimum wage.

[customerserviceguy]

32. I don't see where HCR did diddly-squat

to try to reduce health care costs. Unless you're counting the "Cadillac tax" in several years, that will probably be repealed or delayed.

Staff pay is not the issue here. It's people directing government funds to pay for educations that are worthless in the job market. Again, I can think of nothing else where Joe Average Citizen can direct the government to loan money for some expensive thing that there is no solid plan to be able to pay it back. Even Fannie Mae guaranteed home loans were theoretically secured by an asset that was believed to have possessed an inflated value, and at the time the borrower contracted for the loan, he/she had a job to pay it back.

Stop government financing of educations that have little or no chance of generating enough income to pay back the loans, and you'll see educational costs drop.

[sandnsea]

3. What the fuck is this shit??

The entire point of federal education assistance is so poor 18 year olds can have access to economic security.

Of course they're unemployed at 18, they're in fucking school. And of course they have no assets, they're 18!!

If you're point is to show what asswipes Republicans are, you succeeded. If not, then whack yourself on the side of the head or pour a cup of coffee, because your brain isn't in gear yet.

[proudohioan]

16. Thank you!!!

That's the usual reason for kids to go to college; so they DON'T HAVE TO SPEND A LIFETIME WORKING AT MICKEY D's.......

Maybe the fucken colleges out there should be the ones to show "assets", as in the ability to actually help obtain sustainable employment after graduation; you know, like a job that will pay enough to support themselves AND pay back those student loans......

Just a thought.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

30. This is teabagger bullshit. Check the author's other nuggets of wisdom.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. When this has come up on my campus, I suggest people check the cost differences

between states like CA and MD. Scary

[T Wolf]

5. Suggest people check the difference between what Americans pay for university and

what (if any) Europeans do.

That is the real lesson...

[jody]

7. Do European leaders tout college for all as do US presidents? n/t

[jody]

6. Is 4 yr: private $26,273, public $7,020 and 2 yr: public $2,544 reasonable?

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

[Romulox]

9. Sure, if you count University of Phoenix. Real colleges cost more than that 20 years ago. nt

[jody]

12. UP has perhaps 500k students so it is serving students who expect to get jobs upon graduation. n/t

[Romulox]

8. College cost is not justifiable by the jobs it qualifies one for.

A liberal arts degree from a major university can cost north of $50,000 without qualifying one for any particular vocation. Fine for the children of the rich, but the days of "college for everyone" appear to be at a close.

[jody]

10. Agree and traditional university degrees in high tech areas, e.g. IT, rarely prepare a grad for work

in high tech fields.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Really? Have to wonder why the tech graduates have the highest salaries and are sought after.

Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575116170339369354.html

[Romulox]

17. Poster means "INFORMATION technology". Engineering numbers are a red herring. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. Actually they said high tech areas like IT

IT is also not all that high tech...

[jody]

19. Computer science is a special case of IT as you know. Other cited degrees with high salaries

do not indicate that all grads in those fields can expect to find jobs in their chosen fields.

The stats are for those who found jobs.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

21. You have that backwards...

Comp Sci was the first after the big three in engineering (AE/ME/EE). IT came later and is at times derided as being for those who could not handle the math and science associated with Comp Sci or Comp Engr. Comp Engr is the newcomer, often described at a mix between EE and CS.

At my campus, few students have a hard time finding jobs after graduation in those fields, including IT.

[jody]

26. Many colleges offer IT degrees outside of schools of engineering and many of those programs are not

separately accredited by CSAB.

From my experience graduates from IT programs that are not accredited have trouble finding decent jobs.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

40. People who buy into unacrreditied programs should know better

A friend's wife recently got and unaccredited "doctorate" in Business (DBA not PhD) and is annoyed that no one takes it seriously.

[jody]

41. Good point but an unaccredited DBA from Harvard is a key to tenured faculty positions. n/t

[KansDem]

15. Read all about it...

The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'

--excerpt--
But the system over which the privileged preside does not ultimately depend on them for the daily functioning of higher education (which is now, as we all know, drifting toward a part-time, no-benefit business). The ranks of new Ph.D.'s and adjuncts these days are mainly composed of people from below the upper-middle class: people who believe from infancy that more education equals more opportunity. They see the professions as a path to security and status.

Again and again, the people who wrote to me said things like "Nobody told me" and "Now what do I do?" "Everybody keeps saying my doctorate gives me all kinds of transferable skills, but I can't get a second interview, even outside of academe." "What's wrong with me?"

The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)

[Romulox]

23. Wow. Very powerful story. Thank you for sharing.

My sister is about to embark on a PHD program that I tried to (gently) persuade against. I simply don't have the heart to forward her this story after her die has been cast...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

25. I got mine while I was fully employed. Took much longer, but there were no loans

[sandnsea]

31. No, that article is the big lie

I know people with those stupid HVAC certificates and they all fell back on whatever skills they had before they got sucked into one of those dumb-ass for-profit schools. And once the Phd does find a job, I guarantee it will be at least 3 times as much as the HVAC repairman.

This is so stupid and exactly why we have an ignorant population that buys into these right wing lies, one after another. They so desperately want to believe they don't have to stretch their mind that they'll let anybody tell them anything to avoid it.

[KansDem]

33. PhD and two Masters here...

Completed my PhD 14 years ago. Worked adjunct for two years while applying to every opening for which I was remotely qualified. No luck.

If you know of some opening, please post it! :hi:

[sandnsea]

34. And you still probably make more

than a $12 hr HVAC repairman. The repairman doesn't get the $45 hr, or $60 or whatever. The business owner does.

[jody]

35. IMO the only degree that counts for teaching full time is a PhD from a reputable residence program

at a known university in a field with few applicants supplemented with a few referred publications.

Other than that, PhDs can expect few openings in colleges and few of them will actually lead to tenure.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. Liberal arts majors are in for a long drought

I have argued for years that for many people trade school is a much better answer.

You spend 5 years getting a liberal arts degree and your employment possibilities are poor and if you get a job its at low wages. You will have loans to pay as well. If you spent the same time in an electricians apprenticeship program not only would you have no loan debt you would be making more than the person with the liberal arts degree, both short term and long term.

[jody]

24. Given limited govt funds, should we subsidize degrees for which jobs are available before we fund

degrees for which jobs are nonexistent?

[tonysam]

36. Why don't we just limit college access altogether since education is all about job training?

That appears to be what you are arguing, which is World Bank bullshit.

Why you are quoting right-wing nonsense on a democratic board is a mystery to me.

[Jello Biafra]

11. Number One....

I paid my student loan off IN FULL a long time ago. Number two, wouldn't it help, just a little, if there were decent paying jobs available for these graduates instead of outsourced jobs and the leftover service jobs that are in demand? Wow, have our priorities gotten foo bar'd.

[jody]

14. Prompts question, should govt subsidize degrees for which jobs are not available? n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. Should the government subsidize individual degrees at all

Perhaps subsiding the school based on enrollment would be a better way to lower overall cost and still allow student choices

[jody]

27. But subsidizing individual degrees makes it easier to meet social egalitarian goals.

:shrug:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

38. I support empowered choice by adults not social egalitarian goals or government based

social engineering.

[jody]

42. I also support individual freedoms.

:toast:

[tonysam]

37. College isn't necessarily about vocational training.

n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. Some college courses are not, but some need to be professional preparation

[and-justice-for-all]

28. unbelieveable...

These are loans, student loans, that have to be paid back and one can not file bankruptcy on. These loans will be granted at more affordable rates and will then be paid back faster, the Government will in return earn a profit on the loans and will also have a more intelligent work force.

I for one am happy to see the Government lending the people THEIR money to use for higher education. The national debt does not mean shit to me, I really do not care about it at all and taxes need to be increased, primarily on the wealthy who have had it more than easy as well as corporations that make record profits need to be taxed more aggressively.

"...explicit guarantee from the government that if those students defaulted on the loans, the American tax payer would pay the difference." I can defer my loan, pay a bare minimum every month or pay an arranged amount but I can not default on them or have the tax payers big up my remaining balance. I am a current student who had payed cash to attend an entire year for tuition and books, I also have some student loans, which I am responsible for repaying. All of this I am sure applies to the new Government lending program and I do not feel at all threatened by this, but I am happy to see it.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

29. So now you're reduced to posting Teabagger nonsense?

Wonderful.


No, I am not exaggerating, this guy is an actual, proud teabagger.

Lovely.