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Hilda

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on: August 26, 2022, 12:55:53 PM
I've been reading with concern the recent news about student loans in both the US and UK. I'm not familiar with current university fees, or the system of student loans, yet it's obvious that many or most students are suffering greatly from the financial and psychological burden.

I received an excellent free education from elementary school through to university. I consider myself lucky.

I feel sorry for the students who aren't so lucky, and either can't afford a good education, or shoulder ruinous debts to obtain one.



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Reply #1 on: August 28, 2022, 03:18:00 PM
I don't fully agree with loan forgiveness, just as I didn't agree with PPP loan forgiveness to businesses.

But our oldest has been sitting on $9500 student loan for the last year and she is very happy with the recent announcement.

As for the 70 year old politician s spouting off about how they paid for their college education, it's a little different.  You paid maybe $6000 over 4 years in 1972. Our oldest just paid $140,000 over 4 years.


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Reply #2 on: August 28, 2022, 06:57:22 PM
I think the cost of a college education has risen much faster than the cost of living has, which exacerbates the situation. Since state owned universities are funded through tax dollars and donors, the state should have some say as to why costs are rising.

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Reply #3 on: August 28, 2022, 07:25:12 PM
In Texas, our state Legislature has both reduced funding for higher education, and mandated automatic admission to higher education from the top 10% of all high school graduates. Including high schools that are historically under performing. So it has crammed a lot of students into our public universities, and required them to come up with creative ways to foot the bill. Unfortunately tuition increases, Pell grants, and student loans, are the way they have chosen to go. My tuition etc. was about $6,000 a year. My son’s is about $30,000 a year, at the same school.

Student loan payments can be deferred or reduced, but the loan continues to accrue interest at the highest rate. They’re not dischargeable in bankruptcy. They often require parental guarantees. And it’s a debt you carry with you to the grave. My brother has been paying on his student loans for 30 years, and he still owes roughly the same amount that he started out with.

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Reply #4 on: August 28, 2022, 07:46:39 PM
My views about to be expressed might be a bit extreme, I do apologize if I offend.

First off, one should pay their own debts. I mean what is the difference between a student loan, mortgage, car loan, or business loan? Not much, except the person's situation who borrow those.

I do not have a mortgage, but less than 3k in student loan debt, my wife has 2k in student loan debt. We have been steadily paying it off, Next month our vehicles will be paid off. I worked my ass off to maintain and repay what I owe, yet the government wants to wave my hard work away with a magic money wand. Me and my wife will not qualify for the repayment thing, because collectively we earn over 140k a year.

But, I also do not think 18 year old college students should be shouldered with a heavy burden of debt either. I would love it, if there was a program that freshmen in college would have to take to help them get their shit together, and help them avoid being put into a debt.

In the us you can buy a house at 18, if your DTI is good enough for it, but realistically no 18 year old, minus a few special cases would have a DTI that would be able to long term sustain it, without a co-signer or help. DTI is Debt to Income ratio. Basically how much you earn versus what you have to pay out.

So if you cannot drink and smoke at 18, then how can you be considered viable to take on a debt?

I could swallow this 2k addition of taxes to everyone for this repayment thing, if it could be streamlined to people who are getting degrees that are based on usefulness to society, like doctors, engineers, etc.

Basically, if you are fucking off in college with no real plan to make a career to earn yourself a living, then no, your debt should not be repaid for you. There are literal programs and grants given to college graduates who enter the most needed fields in some states. Got a degree in teaching, fuck yes, Uncle Sam has a gift for you! Doctor, hells yeah! liberal arts lesbian dance theory? fuck no.

I was taught that college is an investment in a future, but people treat it like its a time wasting hobby to look good. I buckled down and got my business management degree, because I wanted at one point to open my own game shop/toy store. But that fell through, and I have a good job now.

Like I stated before, owing to go to school is stupid. I get that people would need loans for basics, and survival, but shouldn't the Pell grant be expanded? I worked and went to school, and had to use the pell grant numerous times, and it saved me and my family a lot of heartache.

Long rant short:  Why should the government NOW step in to repay a completely consensual debt, when the entire system is unbalanced in favor of the schools earning money and not in the favor of the student who CHOOSES to take on the debt. There is a certain charm to a possible Meritocracy based debt repayment system, based on degree being or has been earned, how well you did getting it and what you are doing with it right now.

Example: My wife has her full on nursing degree, and is a RN, she is active in her field and was a good student, her debt should be repaid or adjusted to her output and earnings. But that is my opinion on it.

Also if anyone thinks that since uncle sam is paying off student loans wont raise tuition costs at universities and colleges, I got some swamp land for sale in the Everglades, and a nice bridge in New York for sale.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2022, 07:51:50 PM by Writers Bloque »

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Reply #5 on: August 28, 2022, 10:03:39 PM
The entire higher education system in the United States is broken.  This debt relief is a good first step, but it's just that, a first step.  Tuition prices have gone through the roof in the last 40 years, states have cut education funding to keep prices down, and the schools use the guaranteed federal maximum amounts as a starting point for setting tuition and fees.  In just the last 20 years, prices for state-run schools have tripled or quadrupled.  They're now to the point that a student has to take out a full load of student loan debt just for a basic, run of the mill school.

There are a lot of problems with how education is handled in the US compared to the rest of the world.  A lot of this goes back to Reaganomics fucking things up for everyone but the extremely wealthy.  Instead of establishing free and cheap college like the rest of the world, or easily forgivable student loans with little to now interest, they're designed to make money for a select few. 

I have 6 figures of student loan debt right now.  My original loans were for about $65,000 including grad school.  I have multiple STEM degrees that should be in high demand.  I did everything right, did everything my parent's generation told us to do.  Guess what?  It was all a lie and the game changed.  Now they want to blame my generation for us being lazy because we don't move out on our own until we're in our thirties, if then.  They blame us for studying crazy majors like Gender Studies when they literally told us "It doesn't matter what you study, you'll get a good job with any degree.  It shows you're trainable."  They get mad at us for drowning in debt they saddled us with because they didn't want to foot the bill for paying for the things their parents paid for, like infrastructure or cheap college, or affordable health care.  When the rest of the world embraced things like Universal Health Care and Free College, they screamed that those were Socialist ideas and came up with much worse alternatives.

There's this thing called loan interest capitalization.  When your student loans surpass how much you can pay on an Income Based Repayment plan (which is skewed for even more fucked up reasons) that extra amount each month gets added back to the principal and included and the next month's interest is compounded on that.  If you have to declare a forbearance or your income is so low that you have no payment to make, what you should pay gets recapitalized and new interest gets added to the principal.  I'm finally in a comfortable position in life where I could pay off my original loan amount without a problem.  Guess what?  It's grown to the point I'll never pay it off, all because I happened to graduate college right as the Great Recession started.  Fuck me for wanting to have a better life when the economy turned to shit and it took 3 years to get a halfway decent paying job, right? 

Then there's the clusterfuck of how loans are handled.  The federal government isn't the one you pay, they get sent out to various loan service providers.  Each one is supposed to follow the same rules and laws, but they each differ in how they interpret them.  When you take out your loans, you choose a provider.  What happens when that provider decides to get out of the business?  They sell your loans to other providers, without your consent as to whom they sell them to, and they sure don't make it easy who they sell them to.  My grad school loans were taken out with one company but sold to 3 different companies.  Each one interpreted the rules differently as to what qualified as required payments, spousal payments, and whatnot.  This is on top of my undergrad loans with another company and loans from my first attempt at school with a 5th one.  5 different companies, each interpreting the rules differently, each one refusing to acknowledge the other's debts and take them into account for how much I had to pay each month.  Each one refusing to recognize my wife's loan amount that we had to pay but demanding that I include her salary in calculating how much I had to pay.  It got bad enough that I had to consolidate them into one, but even that wasn't helpful.  It made it easier to pay each month, but when the interest each month is twice what the IDR is, and your choice is either keep paying the IDR amount while giving your family a comfortable life or pay the actual amount but lose your house and put your family on the street, it really isn't a choice.

WB, want to know what the difference is between student loans, a mortgage, a car loan, or a business loan?  You cannot refinance student loans below the original interest rate.  You cannot sell off an asset to eliminate your student loans.  You cannot discharge your student loans through a bankruptcy.  My only three options for getting rid of my student loan debt without faking my own death is to literally die and make sure my wife never pays a cent on it, win the lottery, or hope that I can eventually pay off my house far enough down to refinance it so that I can then pay off the student loans that way and then pay off the new mortgage which will have a much lower interest rate than my student loans.  And I'm in a good spot.  I have dozens of friends worse off than me that can't even pretend to pay off their loans.  Forget moving out or buying a house, they're paying a mortgage payment each month but it doesn't go down.  It's kind of hard to pay property taxes to prop up the Boomer's Medicare costs when you can't afford to move out due to crippling debt.  And the DTI is crazy as well.  I will never have great or amazing credit because of my student loan debt, even though I haven't missed a single bill payment in 20 years.

My kids are supposed to go to college when they're older.  The oldest is a literal genius.  I cannot recommend college to him with a straight face because I know that unless something drastic changes, he'll be buried in debt for the rest of his life.

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Reply #6 on: August 28, 2022, 10:34:52 PM
The entire higher education system in the United States is broken.  This debt relief is a good first step, but it's just that, a first step.  Tuition prices have gone through the roof in the last 40 years, states have cut education funding to keep prices down, and the schools use the guaranteed federal maximum amounts as a starting point for setting tuition and fees.  In just the last 20 years, prices for state-run schools have tripled or quadrupled.  They're now to the point that a student has to take out a full load of student loan debt just for a basic, run of the mill school.

There are a lot of problems with how education is handled in the US compared to the rest of the world.  A lot of this goes back to Reaganomics fucking things up for everyone but the extremely wealthy.  Instead of establishing free and cheap college like the rest of the world, or easily forgivable student loans with little to now interest, they're designed to make money for a select few. 

I have 6 figures of student loan debt right now.  My original loans were for about $65,000 including grad school.  I have multiple STEM degrees that should be in high demand.  I did everything right, did everything my parent's generation told us to do.  Guess what?  It was all a lie and the game changed.  Now they want to blame my generation for us being lazy because we don't move out on our own until we're in our thirties, if then.  They blame us for studying crazy majors like Gender Studies when they literally told us "It doesn't matter what you study, you'll get a good job with any degree.  It shows you're trainable."  They get mad at us for drowning in debt they saddled us with because they didn't want to foot the bill for paying for the things their parents paid for, like infrastructure or cheap college, or affordable health care.  When the rest of the world embraced things like Universal Health Care and Free College, they screamed that those were Socialist ideas and came up with much worse alternatives.

There's this thing called loan interest capitalization.  When your student loans surpass how much you can pay on an Income Based Repayment plan (which is skewed for even more fucked up reasons) that extra amount each month gets added back to the principal and included and the next month's interest is compounded on that.  If you have to declare a forbearance or your income is so low that you have no payment to make, what you should pay gets recapitalized and new interest gets added to the principal.  I'm finally in a comfortable position in life where I could pay off my original loan amount without a problem.  Guess what?  It's grown to the point I'll never pay it off, all because I happened to graduate college right as the Great Recession started.  Fuck me for wanting to have a better life when the economy turned to shit and it took 3 years to get a halfway decent paying job, right? 

Then there's the clusterfuck of how loans are handled.  The federal government isn't the one you pay, they get sent out to various loan service providers.  Each one is supposed to follow the same rules and laws, but they each differ in how they interpret them.  When you take out your loans, you choose a provider.  What happens when that provider decides to get out of the business?  They sell your loans to other providers, without your consent as to whom they sell them to, and they sure don't make it easy who they sell them to.  My grad school loans were taken out with one company but sold to 3 different companies.  Each one interpreted the rules differently as to what qualified as required payments, spousal payments, and whatnot.  This is on top of my undergrad loans with another company and loans from my first attempt at school with a 5th one.  5 different companies, each interpreting the rules differently, each one refusing to acknowledge the other's debts and take them into account for how much I had to pay each month.  Each one refusing to recognize my wife's loan amount that we had to pay but demanding that I include her salary in calculating how much I had to pay.  It got bad enough that I had to consolidate them into one, but even that wasn't helpful.  It made it easier to pay each month, but when the interest each month is twice what the IDR is, and your choice is either keep paying the IDR amount while giving your family a comfortable life or pay the actual amount but lose your house and put your family on the street, it really isn't a choice.

WB, want to know what the difference is between student loans, a mortgage, a car loan, or a business loan?  You cannot refinance student loans below the original interest rate.  You cannot sell off an asset to eliminate your student loans.  You cannot discharge your student loans through a bankruptcy.  My only three options for getting rid of my student loan debt without faking my own death is to literally die and make sure my wife never pays a cent on it, win the lottery, or hope that I can eventually pay off my house far enough down to refinance it so that I can then pay off the student loans that way and then pay off the new mortgage which will have a much lower interest rate than my student loans.  And I'm in a good spot.  I have dozens of friends worse off than me that can't even pretend to pay off their loans.  Forget moving out or buying a house, they're paying a mortgage payment each month but it doesn't go down.  It's kind of hard to pay property taxes to prop up the Boomer's Medicare costs when you can't afford to move out due to crippling debt.  And the DTI is crazy as well.  I will never have great or amazing credit because of my student loan debt, even though I haven't missed a single bill payment in 20 years.

My kids are supposed to go to college when they're older.  The oldest is a literal genius.  I cannot recommend college to him with a straight face because I know that unless something drastic changes, he'll be buried in debt for the rest of his life.

I agree to a certain point. but when you said:

I have 6 figures of student loan debt right now.  My original loans were for about $65,000 including grad school.  I have multiple STEM degrees that should be in high demand.  I did everything right, did everything my parent's generation told us to do.  Guess what?  It was all a lie and the game changed.  Now they want to blame my generation for us being lazy because we don't move out on our own until we're in our thirties, if then.  They blame us for studying crazy majors like Gender Studies when they literally told us "It doesn't matter what you study, you'll get a good job with any degree.  It shows you're trainable."  They get mad at us for drowning in debt they saddled us with because they didn't want to foot the bill for paying for the things their parents paid for, like infrastructure or cheap college, or affordable health care.  When the rest of the world embraced things like Universal Health Care and Free College, they screamed that those were Socialist ideas and came up with much worse alternatives.

No. My parents told me I would never be suited to an office job. I should only attend a trade school and try to work at a barely sustainable level. My grades in school were not the best, and I can count on one hand the times I actually hit the honor roll. I had to fucking tear through my early life juggling getting an education, supporting a family and keeping a roof over our heads, while getting shit on by places I worked for being young and dumb. I can honestly say I am nowhere where I hoped I would be right now. But Even with my massive debts in the beginning, I still got up and chipped away at it.

But the cultural attitudes have shifted. My point is this.

Those "Socially progressive countries" with those universal health care and free college are a joke. Not to be disrespectful of them, but its kind of easy to hand that stuff out like candy when your cost of living and taxes are so high. its like the doctor giving a kid a lollipop before a shot. nice and sweet, then the sting of high income taxes. the only reason they look so good is that their standard of living is tightly controlled by the government, but in the end its still the citizens back that bears the burdens.

So what happened to personal responsibility, and taking on the world on your own, with your own thoughts and feelings and proper planning? Not talking about you Lt. but the generation. What happened to doing some research while in high school? Also depending on the loaner, you can get your debt interest reduced. Sallie Mae did it for me and my wife, we refinanced almost every time our financial situation changed. I am not proud to admit it, but we abused the hell out of the deferment system too, to miss a couple of payments to keep the lights on. There is more than one way to deal with that devil of a debt.

I also made a point that people like you, who I respect the hell out of for going into stem fields to try and help the world, should have their debt repaid, or made more manageable to support you in your pursuits. I told my daughters, who are working their way through college, if you go to college, make damned sure its a pursuit that can give you a life you choose to live. Then when you are comfortable and can afford it, take those funny courses, but make sure you have a base set so you can afford to pursue it.

I am not trying to make light of it. I know full well the heavy weight of that debt, But from where I stand, to me, its an easy way out, hand holding, slap to my face, practically saying I was stupid to work hard to pay off a debt I had to take, despite my parent's and my wife's parents protests. And you are absolutely right, the system needs an overhaul, but not like this, it will add more taxes to an already struggling populace which when the light shines on it, might cause a further rift between the generations. it was not a lie from the past, its the fact that shit changes. what was easy for them in the past, is harder for the next generation, as we go our own way, and oft times do not learn from their mistakes or lessons.

I feel you on not wanting to shoulder debts from the past. but if you think thats bad, wait until you die and even more taxes are levied against your estate. There is nothing anyone can do reasonably or legally to not incur any sort of debt. you get taxed for dying, the value of you stuff, AND in some cases, some debts do not die with you. its a completely fucked up system, but like I said before, kids need to try to plot and plan before just springing into a debt ridden trap.

Right now the highest paying job out of college one can get is the one job environmentalists are trying to outlaw: Petroleum Engineer. Learning to make a better, cheaper and less toxic fuel. Kind of funny, isn't it?

So my friend, Lt. why shouldn't there be a system in place to ensure an almost debt free system of higher education for those courses in fields that actually hold meaning and could make careers, instead of bullshit courses that pad a transcript?

On a final interesting note: This debt forgiveness will raise tuition rates. Because colleges and universities are greedy as all fuck.

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Reply #7 on: August 28, 2022, 11:23:52 PM

I think the cost of a college education has risen much faster than the cost of living has, which exacerbates the situation. Since state owned universities are funded through tax dollars and donors, the state should have some say as to why costs are rising.


This article somewhat demonstrates what you're saying:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/the-gap-in-college-costs-and-earnings-for-young-workers-since-1980.html




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Reply #8 on: August 28, 2022, 11:43:30 PM
"So my friend, Lt. why shouldn't there be a system in place to ensure an almost debt free system of higher education for those courses in fields that actually hold meaning and could make careers, instead of bullshit courses that pad a transcript?"

Those bullshit courses are what made me a better man and engineer.  English literature is a bullshit course, but it helped me learn how to write effectively, to get a point across and say what I mean to say.  My philosophy requirement course was Logic, where I learned how to spot a facetious argument from a mile away.  My digital art classes how to spot when a photo is faked.  Critical thinking and Freshman studies taught proper techniques on how to prioritize time and study habits.  Economics was an elective, but it has helped me understand how people and economies work, and how to predict behaviors going forward.  Ironically, my most useless classes were my computer science courses.  I didn't learn any fancy new techniques or expand greatly upon anything that I didn't already know or could teach myself from an online seminar or reading a book.  I learned more from an online tutorial from W3 about database management than I did from a full semester of Database Management class.

Society needs more than just engineers.  We need everything from artists to zoologists.  Saying that only one type of field is worth pursuing is a slap in the face to everyone in our society.  We make fun of Gender Studies as being the catch-all "stupid degree", but if not for them we wouldn't have the understanding that most girls give up on the STEM path by the time they hit middle school because teachers and their parents and grandparents tell them that girls aren't good at math or science is for boys only.  Without them, we wouldn't have studies showing that women make 30% less than men do for the same job on average, and that they face more difficulties in getting a raise because they tend to be viewed as "a bitch" if they do speak up asking for what they deserve.

Loan forgiveness is just a part of fixing higher education in this country.  Colleges use each and every excuse in the book to raise prices.  This will be no different.  Without hard price caps, increased educational funding, and strict limits on what can charged to students in the miscellaneous fees, we're walking into another trap that will cause more problems.

As far as those other countries are concerned, I would gladly pay a few more percentage points in taxes if it meant my bridges didn't collapse, my family wouldn't be burdened with tons of hospital debt from me getting sick, parks that we can visit and enjoy, and my kids could get the education they need to thrive in this new world.  Compared to a country like Sweden, the average American pays about the same to the various governments and institutions when it's all said and done, we just get a lot less for our money.  And it's a lot more complicated here.

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Reply #9 on: August 29, 2022, 12:22:23 AM
"So my friend, Lt. why shouldn't there be a system in place to ensure an almost debt free system of higher education for those courses in fields that actually hold meaning and could make careers, instead of bullshit courses that pad a transcript?"

Those bullshit courses are what made me a better man and engineer.  English literature is a bullshit course, but it helped me learn how to write effectively, to get a point across and say what I mean to say.  My philosophy requirement course was Logic, where I learned how to spot a facetious argument from a mile away.  My digital art classes how to spot when a photo is faked.  Critical thinking and Freshman studies taught proper techniques on how to prioritize time and study habits.  Economics was an elective, but it has helped me understand how people and economies work, and how to predict behaviors going forward.  Ironically, my most useless classes were my computer science courses.  I didn't learn any fancy new techniques or expand greatly upon anything that I didn't already know or could teach myself from an online seminar or reading a book.  I learned more from an online tutorial from W3 about database management than I did from a full semester of Database Management class.

Society needs more than just engineers.  We need everything from artists to zoologists.  Saying that only one type of field is worth pursuing is a slap in the face to everyone in our society.  We make fun of Gender Studies as being the catch-all "stupid degree", but if not for them we wouldn't have the understanding that most girls give up on the STEM path by the time they hit middle school because teachers and their parents and grandparents tell them that girls aren't good at math or science is for boys only.  Without them, we wouldn't have studies showing that women make 30% less than men do for the same job on average, and that they face more difficulties in getting a raise because they tend to be viewed as "a bitch" if they do speak up asking for what they deserve.

Loan forgiveness is just a part of fixing higher education in this country.  Colleges use each and every excuse in the book to raise prices.  This will be no different.  Without hard price caps, increased educational funding, and strict limits on what can charged to students in the miscellaneous fees, we're walking into another trap that will cause more problems.

As far as those other countries are concerned, I would gladly pay a few more percentage points in taxes if it meant my bridges didn't collapse, my family wouldn't be burdened with tons of hospital debt from me getting sick, parks that we can visit and enjoy, and my kids could get the education they need to thrive in this new world.  Compared to a country like Sweden, the average American pays about the same to the various governments and institutions when it's all said and done, we just get a lot less for our money.  And it's a lot more complicated here.

Now I understand. I do not consider literature or even philosophy bullshit. Those courses offer paths to different careers, English lit. you can get a teachers degree, or work to become a professor, philosphy opens up ways of thinking that help in real life. I took Philosophy of World Religions, Classical lit, and they helped me see things in a productive way. The bullshit courses I was referring to was like dance theory, etc. They might help you understand things, but as for building a future, they dont help as much. I even took a classical myths course and that shit helped me relax during the stressful times, especially when the professor and her assistants showed up to class half naked and re-enacted the story of Medea.

Artists and such are needed, but do you really need to go into debt to become one? Beethoven was poor. Nietzsche was poor and went insane. all of it is subjective, but you do need some sort of education to actually benefit society. You have to have a strong base to build on, and studying ancient sex rites of a long dead society isn't helpful. A society is the sum of its parts, and if more parts are fucking off, the house of cards collapses.

Also I am not going there with the wage pay gap.

But about gladly paying more for those nice things to come into play, it is the complicated systems that allow a large country like the US to exist. Sweden is smaller, so their government can handle the load, but adding more taxes to a large country like us, is the last straw on the camels back. But I can see with where you are coming from with it, but you have a large strata of various groups with their own values and ideals to even remotely hope to unify like sweden or canada.

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Reply #10 on: August 29, 2022, 01:12:29 AM
The entire higher education system in the United States is broken.  This debt relief is a good first step, but it's just that, a first step.  Tuition prices have gone through the roof in the last 40 years, states have cut education funding to keep prices down, and the schools use the guaranteed federal maximum amounts as a starting point for setting tuition and fees.  In just the last 20 years, prices for state-run schools have tripled or quadrupled.  They're now to the point that a student has to take out a full load of student loan debt just for a basic, run of the mill school.

Everything in America is monetized to support the corporate overlords. Including education. Much like our healthcare problems, we have incentivized third parties to be involved in the process, who exploit the system and indebt the consumer.

No offense to our long winded commentator, but you’re all full of shit. The problem is not with the consumer, the problem is with the labyrinth that has been created to separate individuals from their goals.

I can’t say that this is not going to increase the cost of education for everyone. But $20,000 fucking dollars in economic relief is a joke. It doesn’t make a big goddamn difference in anybody’s life. It’s just a token from the fucking overlords to keep us quiet.

Because when you got a quarter million dollars in student debt, $20,000 does absolutely no good. And that is what this latest development does… absolutely nothing. It’s just the goddamn politicians saying “oh look at this, we are doing something.” You’re not doing fucking anything other than sucking the cock of our goddamn fucking overlords who continue to rape our country into oblivion.

”You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went.  You can swear and curse the fates.  But when it comes to the end, you have to let go.” — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #11 on: August 29, 2022, 02:54:48 AM
The entire higher education system in the United States is broken.  This debt relief is a good first step, but it's just that, a first step.  Tuition prices have gone through the roof in the last 40 years, states have cut education funding to keep prices down, and the schools use the guaranteed federal maximum amounts as a starting point for setting tuition and fees.  In just the last 20 years, prices for state-run schools have tripled or quadrupled.  They're now to the point that a student has to take out a full load of student loan debt just for a basic, run of the mill school.

Everything in America is monetized to support the corporate overlords. Including education. Much like our healthcare problems, we have incentivized third parties to be involved in the process, who exploit the system and indebt the consumer.

No offense to our long winded commentator, but you’re all full of shit. The problem is not with the consumer, the problem is with the labyrinth that has been created to separate individuals from their goals.

I can’t say that this is not going to increase the cost of education for everyone. But $20,000 fucking dollars in economic relief is a joke. It doesn’t make a big goddamn difference in anybody’s life. It’s just a token from the fucking overlords to keep us quiet.

Because when you got a quarter million dollars in student debt, $20,000 does absolutely no good. And that is what this latest development does… absolutely nothing. It’s just the goddamn politicians saying “oh look at this, we are doing something.” You’re not doing fucking anything other than sucking the cock of our goddamn fucking overlords who continue to rape our country into oblivion.

Like I said, it's a first step.  $20,000 might not seem like much for those of us with 6 figure loan amounts, but for about 20 million Americans it'll clear the books. 

The 20k is only for those that had Pell grants, 10k for everyone else.  I qualified for the Pell grants because when I returned to college, I was 24 and officially an independent.  I had to wait several years because even though I was fully independent in most things, I was still a dependent according to the Federal government for FAFSA purposes, even though I hadn't spoken to my parents in a couple years by that point.  (Long, long story.)  I took out about 25-30k of loans for my undergrad and another 30k for my graduate degree 2 years later.  Because of capitalized interest, I owe about 140k.  20k it not going to do a lot for me, but for the kid who tried to go to trade school and got screwed over or the kid that dropped out after a year or two of state school because college wasn't for them, or for the independent student that went to a cheaper university and worked their ass off for 4 years while accruing debt to do so, it'll definitely help.

Aside from tuition caps and increasing education funding, two major student loan reforms that need to happen is reset all student loans to 0 percent and eliminate capitalized interest.  Because of the high interest rates, most of my generation is not making any dent in our debts.  I took out maybe 65k in student loans, but owe 140k.  I haven't missed a payment in 15 years.  20k doesn't make a big difference, resetting the loan interest rate to 0 and eliminating the capitalized interest will change this from a "I'll die with this debt" to "I can pay this off in a couple years."  Also, allowing the loans to be dischargeable, making so that older loans can be refi'ed at much lower rates, and building in an automatic forgiveness period like many European countries do (5 or 10 years) while having a cap on monthly payments would go a long way towards helping students. 

Getting rid of many of the fees schools slap on the students wouldn't hurt, either.  If my school wants to build a new football stadium, how about ask the boosters to foot the bill?  If you want me to pay for the stadium, I need 4 tickets to every game, and good ones too.  Don't give me nosebleed seats when I'm paying for this.

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Reply #12 on: August 29, 2022, 03:57:19 AM
[Don't give me nosebleed seats when I'm paying for this.

I thought you were a Brit.

”You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went.  You can swear and curse the fates.  But when it comes to the end, you have to let go.” — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Offline Ericp51

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Reply #13 on: October 05, 2022, 10:03:01 AM
I am all for student loan forgiveness



Offline phtlc

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Reply #14 on: December 30, 2023, 08:13:29 AM
I think this is one of those topics for which I find myself enraging both the left and right. Yes, this subject has both conservatives and liberals going ragefit on me with all the associated name calling.

I tend to be wary of excessive government subsidization of anything, but education is one of the few areas where I tend to support it. Back in ancient times, why did tribes teach their young how to hunt without burdening them with excessive debt for teaching them that? Because they realized that the whole tribe benefitted from the young getting this “education”. This is why we never charged people for tuition and room and board when they joined the army and went through boot camp….because we realized that we all benefitted from having people that knew how to perform a soldiers job. This is why in the United States they started public schools as early as the 1600’s (not an expert, I just googled it as I typed this so my ‘facts’ might be wrong), and Canada in the 1800’s. We realized that we as a society benefit from it.

Is it within our budgets to afford to treat post-secondary education the way we treat primary and secondary education and just fully cover it? I honestly don’t know. I’m intentionally ignorant about that because for years when I followed the fiscal policies of our governments, it scared the shit out of me to see the astronomically bad fiscal decisions being made and I decided being ignorant was better than being overwhelmed by anxiety and drinking to compensate for something I can't change (I have DEFINITELY stopped paying attention to economics since Justin Kardashian became PM of Canada), so I don’t have any idea what our GDP, or debt is because I’d fucking go into convulsions…..so PLEASE don’t tell me).

That said, I’d put education near the top of of spending priorities, as we benefit from having people who can contribute. I don’t know how things work in the US but up here in the peoples undemocratic republik of Canuckistan, high school just wont cut it. Up here most people without post secondary live paycheck to paycheck, and at best contribute net-zero to the public pool via taxes and probably cost more than they contribute. I see no societal benefit to burdening people with a lifetime of debt just for training them to contribute to the tribe, and allowing them the skills for an entry level job. This isn’t the old days where having a degree/diploma was your ticket to the big leagues. You’re not even in the running for entry level without it now.

Ok, having just said something liberal-ish makes me gag, regurgitate, cry, and want to gouge my eyeball out with a fork as I cough up a hairball. I’ve been a very bad boy….I need a lady in leather to whip and beat me for such silliness (oh PUH-LEAZE whip and beat me!!!! I’ve been such a baaaad boy!)

Now having ruffled a few fellow conservatives with my “communism”, it’s time to send the liberals into a rage fit (prepare for name calling, hysterics, accusations of corporatism, racism, being mean to cats….etc). If you wish for this to be a safe space do not read any further.

If we were to subsidize education, then for the most part it has to be vocational. Sure, anyone can come up with an example of someone who did a liberal arts and humanities degree and had a good career, just as I can show that there have been people who have jumped from a plane and had a double malfunction and lived. Since we would not use those examples to say that people shouldn’t need parachutes to skydive, we should also not use those examples to say people should be studying something that has zero job skill related to it……at least not on the public dime.

If we were to cover the costs of post secondary then it should either be trade school, or if it is university it should be vocational (engineering, business, nursing, compu-sci….etc). Sure we will need a certain amount of teachers and professors of history, English, geography…etc, but if we are to cover these costs, those positions in undergraduate programs should be limited to projected demand. We don’t need any more “highly educated” bartenders and baristas with sophisticated pretentious vocabularies whining about how the government needs to provide more jobs for young people.

Anyway….just my two cents

While you're waiting in vain for that apology, why don't you make yourself useful by getting on your knees and opening your mouth


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Reply #15 on: December 30, 2023, 05:02:27 PM
While northern European countries do have “free universities,“ they are not available to all students. And most countries have a multi tiered educational system. Some students learn vocational arts, others learn Greek and Latin. The free universities are for the Greek and Latin group.

England attempted to have free universities for everybody, and discovered that it is very expensive, and generally results in lower quality education. Again, the people at the bottom of the socio- economic pyramid were least likely to obtain a university degree.

So I don’t think anyone in the United States is suggesting that we have free universities. They are suggesting debt relief for students who took on massive amounts of student loans.

When the Pell Grant program was created years ago, a number of capitalists saw loopholes in the program that they could exploit. So they essentially created hundreds of vocational programs solely for the purpose of getting Pell Grant money from the government. And young people, often of color, took out the Pell Grants to get vocational training. Then they ended up with a student loan burden that they could never repay. These loans actually accrue interest faster than the principle can be paid down. And the debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Often, a parent was asked to sign off as a guarantor on the student loan. as a result, we have a large number of people in the United States that are beholden to banks for life, and will never be able to get rid of the debt.

My brother has been paying his student loans for 30 years. He still owes a shit load of money. He has paid more interest (double) than the original debt.

I personally think that there should be interest forgiveness, dischargeability in bankruptcy, and then a requirement for lenders to restructure these debts. They did not use traditional underwriting, because of the “unique characteristics” of student loans. If we take those away, there will be fewer student loans made, but there will also be fewer debt slaves.

My two cents.

”You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went.  You can swear and curse the fates.  But when it comes to the end, you have to let go.” — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Offline JBRG

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Reply #16 on: January 07, 2024, 08:20:15 PM
While northern European countries do have “free universities,“ they are not available to all students. And most countries have a multi tiered educational system. Some students learn vocational arts, others learn Greek and Latin. The free universities are for the Greek and Latin group.

England attempted to have free universities for everybody, and discovered that it is very expensive, and generally results in lower quality education. Again, the people at the bottom of the socio- economic pyramid were least likely to obtain a university degree.

So I don’t think anyone in the United States is suggesting that we have free universities. They are suggesting debt relief for students who took on massive amounts of student loans.

When the Pell Grant program was created years ago, a number of capitalists saw loopholes in the program that they could exploit. So they essentially created hundreds of vocational programs solely for the purpose of getting Pell Grant money from the government. And young people, often of color, took out the Pell Grants to get vocational training. Then they ended up with a student loan burden that they could never repay. These loans actually accrue interest faster than the principle can be paid down. And the debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Often, a parent was asked to sign off as a guarantor on the student loan. as a result, we have a large number of people in the United States that are beholden to banks for life, and will never be able to get rid of the debt.

My brother has been paying his student loans for 30 years. He still owes a shit load of money. He has paid more interest (double) than the original debt.

I personally think that there should be interest forgiveness, dischargeability in bankruptcy, and then a requirement for lenders to restructure these debts. They did not use traditional underwriting, because of the “unique characteristics” of student loans. If we take those away, there will be fewer student loans made, but there will also be fewer debt slaves.

My two cents.

In Denmark, the state provides for 16 years of education, be it vocational training (plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc) or the so called higher education. Once you have used up those 16 years of government funded education, the bill is yours to pay if you decide to go further. One also has to realize that the overall tax load on Danes is in the 70% plus range. And they don't complain about how much they pay in taxes because they know exactly what the taxes are paying for.

In Canada, the post-secondary education is subsidized. We see, every year when the next year's tuition is announced, protests from students that they cannot afford the increase. And, it is usually a very affordable increase (one year the University of Alberta announced and increase from $6000.00 per year to $6500.00 and there were mass protests over several days. Somebody really needs to tell these students to give their heads a shake and check out tuition at USC or Notre Dame before they open their mouths. Oh, foreign students pay about 5 times what domestic students in Canada pay. No,, the biggest expense for Canadian university students is books (not included in tuition) and living expenses.

A big problem is the primary and secondary education system which figures they need to funnel everybody to a university. My one nephew decided that university wasn't going to be his jam so he went to a trade union hall and asked how to do what they do. He's now a journeyman boilermaker making pretty good money. He did have to take some training at a post-secondary institution but he never had to pay an outrageous amount of money.

How many people who go to university have a true idea of: a. what their career goals are; and
b. how realistic are these goals -- how many positions are there available and what is the starting earnings level (you aren't going to land a 6 figure job straight out of school).


That is all.


Offline Elizabeth

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Reply #17 on: May 21, 2024, 09:18:23 PM
Good Topic.....but here is an off point that no one has even bother to try to answer.
"How do you justify the simple fact that the guy down the street should be paying your childs student loans/debt."
I already pay a boatload of taxes, and now you want me to pay for someone else's childs education.
So where does this all end..??
It's crazy and it's out of control.

Love,
Liz
 



Offline phtlc

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Reply #18 on: September 12, 2024, 03:01:19 AM
A big problem is the primary and secondary education system which figures they need to funnel everybody to a university. My one nephew decided that university wasn't going to be his jam so he went to a trade union hall and asked how to do what they do. He's now a journeyman boilermaker making pretty good money. He did have to take some training at a post-secondary institution but he never had to pay an outrageous amount of money.
How many people who go to university have a true idea of: a. what their career goals are; and
b. how realistic are these goals -- how many positions are there available and what is the starting earnings level (you aren't going to land a 6 figure job straight out of school).

I don't think the issue should be one of University vs trade school so much as vocational vs basket weaving.  The stereotype of all university students being flaky and delusional while trade school people have realistic practical goals I think is a bit misleading. The problem i find with universities is that far to few of their programs have any kind of career goal. Sure somebody who studies to become an electrician will do better in life than the guy doing a BA in Twenty-fifth Century Erotic Klingon Poetry (who ends up bartending and bitching about how the government needs to do more to create jobs for young people), but if you compare Trade programs to vocational programs at universities (Engineering, Business, Compu-Sci.....etc) I'd but you woudlnt see this absurd earning gap between trade school people and those who went to vocational programs.

While you're waiting in vain for that apology, why don't you make yourself useful by getting on your knees and opening your mouth


Offline phtlc

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Reply #19 on: September 12, 2024, 03:11:20 AM
Good Topic.....but here is an off point that no one has even bother to try to answer.
"How do you justify the simple fact that the guy down the street should be paying your childs student loans/debt."
I already pay a boatload of taxes, and now you want me to pay for someone else's childs education.
So where does this all end..??
It's crazy and it's out of control.
Love,
Liz


This is one of those few topics where I tend to send both the left and right into a fit of rage.

First let me upset conservatives who will angrily call me a socialist (coughing up a hairball at that suggestion). On one hand if one looks at why we bothered funding public school education in the first place it was because we as a society saw it as an investment in a capable workforce. And limiting that coverage to grade twelve made sense when anyone with a high school diploma was considered work-force ready. Now people are expected to show up knowing a lot more as there is far less OJT going on. Nobody had to end up with massive debt to get their high school diploma when that was considered enough. Now post secondary is the new high school. Most people aren't even in the running for an entry level job without something more. If we accept paying for education from kindergarten to grade 12, what is 2-4 more years so we can have plumbers, engineers...etc? Post secondary no longer means you are on the wealthy track in life. It just means you now can make enough that you might be able to get a mortgage.

On the other hand (now liberals will skin me alive), if my taxes will pay for education, then I expect some sort of return on that investment (ie productive workers), so I would only be willing to provide spending on something that actually leads to some career path. I swear some of the people with basket weaving degrees crying "I'm educated, why am I stuck in a job like this" leave me wondering "What job were you expecting to get with that degree?"

While you're waiting in vain for that apology, why don't you make yourself useful by getting on your knees and opening your mouth