bababouey

So what are the solutions? It seems like the young generation always blames student loans and wants relief from them, but never turns their guns on academia who has run up the cost over the years. There is plenty of blame to go around. I blame all the liberal arts schools scattered throughout this country that churn out a garbage product that doesn't do much for anybody, except the professors wallet. and yes, erau is just as guilty as anybody.

NE_Pilot

I’m saying that the problem is government issued student loans, and government backed student loans (90% of the student loan market is controlled by the government). You don’t solve that issue by creating more bureaucracy, you solve it by getting government out of the student loan business.

Duffman

I 100% blame academia, the proliferation of BS degrees, and stigmatizing trades. 20 years ago when you could just live below the poverty line for 4 years and graduate debt-free, sure major in whatever you want. But now, there's too much to lose. Advisors told me in high school and early on in college that I probably wouldn't make it through engineering so I should focus on gen eds and find myself. Take poetry, history of rock n' roll, maybe a dance class, and maybe take pre-calculus as my only math/science. My freshman orientation counselor actually 'did me a favor' and changed all my classes down a level. I immediately changed them back when I got home, but she wanted me to redo my junior year of high school. Had I taken their advice I would've spent another year in college, easily, and a lot of kids fell for that BS. Once I was in engineering the majority of my friends, most of whom were smarter than me, dropped it for easier degrees because they 100% believed any degree would pay for itself because that's what everybody told us (our parents, high school teachers, counselors, university recruiters, counselors, etc). College was sold as this big coming-of-age experience where you get to live on campus alone for the first time, sneak beer into your dorm, chase girls, go to class in pajamas, go to parties, make lifelong friends, etc, etc. Whatever it costs doesn't matter because if you do fancy stuff with math it'll definitely pay for itself in the long run, as long as you get ANY degree, which most of us believed (even me until I ran the numbers like my sophomore year when I was thinking about doing meteorology instead). My college admitted over 1,000 people into the civil engineering program every year, and graduated less than 100. The majority of those other kids ended up in degree programs where the university could shove 500 kids into a lecture hall for 4 classes a semester, give them a scan-tron mid-term and final with questions verbatim from the slides that were posted online, then after 4 years they graduate with a degree that's worth exactly as much as the effort they put into it. It was a complete scam. Meanwhile, tuition doubled from the time my step bro (4 years older than me) started until I started, then it doubled again while I was there.


I was on scholarship too, so I even paid out-of-pocket to take physics II and circuits at the local community college, because at my university it was taught be a TA who learned English as a 3rd or 4th language. And good on him for that, but he didn't exactly have the vocabulary to articulate how electro-motive force functions. The professor just showed up for the first class to read the syllabus and tell us only 1/3 would make it through with a C or better. At the community college, for the night class, we had less than 20 people and our professor was an engineer at Motorola who just liked to teach. Best classes I ever had, and ironically, half the kids I met there were my study group for upper division engineering.


So, to make a short story long, the acadmemic system is very broken, the value of many degrees have become diminished into participation trophies, but universities lean on those degrees to be their cash cows. Meanwhile, most kids think they'll be a loser in life if they don't go to college, while the trades are stigmatized even though many offer a better financial outlook. The experience is fun as hell, not gonna lie, but not worth 20 years of debt. Universities hide that well with all the buy-in from educators and parents, and they've exploited loopholes that allow them to continually race to the top with more and more outrageous tuition costs. Now a college degree is required for most entry level jobs with paychecks that don't come close to giving a decent ROI.

If I were king, I'd just adopt Europe's model and end the circus. It seems to work well and gives them a balanced work force.

PurpleToolBox

BINGO! THIS ^^^^^^^

We need to privatize as many government functions as we can, with oversight of course. Getting the government out of the student loan business would cause tuition to plummet as colleges would then need to compete instead of raising prices each year.

It is like living in a town with a large military base nearby. Every year when the housing allowance goes up, every landlord resets the rental rates. They know how much you can get, they raise the rent to match. It is the same with student loans.

Duffman

Boiled down that succinctly, that plan sounds good. Maybe I'm an idiot and read your earlier stuff wrong, but I'm just a strong proponent of changing the current mess.

PurpleToolBox

Here's a solution for America. Get on a budget, pay off your bills, cut up the credit cards, have an emergency fund and .... NEVER ... EVER ... EVER ... did I say never? Did I say ever?

NEVER EVER GO INTO DEBT !!! EXCEPT ... to buy a house with a minimum 20% downpayment where the total of your mortgage, insurance, HOA, and other fees DO NOT EXCEED 1/4 of your take home pay. Can't afford that, rent until you can. Can't afford the area, move.

STOP giving bankers all of your wealth. STOP making bankers wealthy. STOP buying crap you DO NOT NEED just to impress others or to make yourself feel better. STOP living paycheck to paycheck. STOP being house poor where the only thing you have in life is a big empty house and nothing else. STOP going into debt (which isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy) to go to college. DON'T GO INTO DEBT FOR AN AVIATION DEGREE or for FLYING LESSONS!!!!

Get on a budget. Make sure you know where every dollar you will make the following month will go.

Too many Americans make too much money to be broke.

Can't afford college without loans? Take one or two classes at a time while you work.

Can't afford a new car without a loan? Buy a clunker with cash. Keep saving up money while you drive the clunker. Then take the clunker with your saved cash and buy a better clunker. Repeat. Soon your cars will be FREE because of the interest in the car account keeps growing.

And don't tell me you can't do it. There are single moms living in the most expensive areas of the country who buckle down and succeed with this type of plan. Yes it is hard. Yes it might take you years. But it will work. And you'll be rich, not the bankers.

Duffman

Debt is a literal prison on the socio-economic ladder. It's why I'm so ****ed about the current situation with student loans.

NE_Pilot

I have been known to go off on tangents chasing squirrels, so there’s that.

I think doing this will have the least negative side effects in the long run. The main issue is that it will cause short term “pain” in making college “unaffordable” to most people as the loans will dry up faster than the prices will drop, but the prices will still drop quickly and that temporary “pain” won’t last. Universities will also protest as it means they will no longer have a source of unending funding and will have to cut budgets, but I think it will force the focus back to providing a quality education.

2StgTurbine

It's not dual income... it's median household income. I actually lived in Cincinnati and my rent for a 1 bedroom was $800. It was in one of the less desirable areas too.

And do you know what that leaves for savings? $900 a month. That has to cover retirement, medical costs, and an emergency savings fund. So, just to save up for a standard 6 months savings would take 24 months. That's 24 moths where you better hope that nothing goes wrong such as your car breaking.

And let's not forget that we are talking about the median household income. That means half of the households make less than that. I didn't exceed the median income until my late 20s. I barely had anything to show for a decade's worth of work. I had to take some big risks and make a couple of moves for work that used up all of my savings. Luck was the only thing that separated me from those in line for a payday loan. Everyone knows that the earlier you save the better, but if it takes people 10 years before they even start making a livable wage, what hope do they have?

Duffman

It sounds good to me. Every action has consequences, but the current situation is unsustainable. I can see the merits of govt-backed non defautable loans on paper; it means anyone can afford college no matter how you grew up with relatively lower interest rates. But the problem with capitalism (and for the record, I'm very pro capitalist) is that if there is a buck to be made through a loophole or unintended consequence, then survival-of-the-fittest fair competition means everyone not exploiting it goes out of business. I think that's basically what universities are doing here.