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EVNow
Well-Known Member
I went to college (an engineering and then an MBA) in a "third world" country. Tuition was some Rs 200 per semester (so about $40 for a year using the exchange rate from those days). If a 3rd world country can do it why shouldn't the richest country on earth ?
Racial hatred combined with ideology has destroyed the social fabric in US. Healthcare & education have to be universal and free for everyone. There is no reason K-12 education is free but college needs to be paid for with life-long debt.
Brando
Active Member
Completely agree. Exactly what I did. Here are the UW numbers. (I didn't go in WA - Westminster in Utah) your number not correct either. here is Cost of attendance | Office of Admissions
So I have no idea why US has over $trillion in student debt. Maybe it is fake news??
IF you could pay with min. wage job, why get a loan ?? makes no sense to me. Who signs for these student loans? Back in the '60s you had to be 21 to sign a contract for a loan OR get a co-sign. as usual, confused.
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MikeQ
Member
I have a son who is in his third semester in college. I've had my eyes opened a lot.
College has become like a five star resort. We are in the process of moving our son off campus and the off campus housing is nicer than any apartment I ever lived in my entire life. Private gym, private THEATER, game room with a room full of large screen TV's, xbox, and ps4. Each room is fully furnished with flat panel TV, Internet and cable included and a full kitchen. 20 foot outdoor TV AT THE END OF THE SWIMMING POOL!. The pool btw looks like a pool at a Vegas resort.
Now if it was YOUR money, you could live on the cheap and find some dumpy house to rent with 3 of your buddies and pay probably $250-$300 a month each but that wouldn't be as fun would it?
Then you've got the gourmet food lines at the dinner halls on campus. When you do the math, you're spending as much as it would cost you to eat ever meal at a restaurant (because you basically are). Now if it was YOUR money, you could probably cut your food budget in half if you lived in your dumpy house that you rented with your friends and cooked a few meals but that wouldn't be as fund would it?
Another issue I believe that has swelled the college debt situation too is parents with means to send their kids to college aren't. They see the student loan situation as a way for their kids to go to college without impacting their lifestyle. Why save for their education when we can just finance it later? And you wonder why the kids don't know how to suck it up and rent that dumpy house for the 4 years they are in college?
And then there's tuition and college itself. You could do two years at a community college and transfer to a four year college but as a parent you really don't want to explain to your friends that your kid is in community college. As a kid you really don't want to save money and live with mom and dad when you could live at Club Med and eat gourmet meals everyday. What fun would that be? And besides, it's not YOUR money, right?
It's all keeping up with jones'. Do you want your kid living in that dumpy house when your neighbors kid is living it up at Club Med? Hell, those same parents probably live in a house they can't afford because they are trying to keep up with neighbors. It's why every kids is running around with a $1000 phone in their pocket today.
The sad thing is that this is what our society has become. People don't know how to sacrifice, save, budget and make wise financial decisions. If someone is willing to give them a loan for ANY amount of money, they will take it. How do you think we got into the mortgage situation we did? People took loans that they had no way of repaying. You may want to blame it on the lender but people should be able to figure out what they can afford....but they can't. Same is true with college and worse. They believe the more they spend the better the education they will receive.
This all ties right into the income inequity argument too. People are not investing wisely with their education and are therefore not able to secure good high paying jobs. The job landscape has changed in the last 30 years. We were warned about this in the 80's. We knew that the good paying jobs were going to involve STEM. I heard it in the 80's as a kid. Computers in every home, etc.. We absolutely knew it was coming. I'm in engineering today because I was told back then it was where the future jobs would be. Yet still today we cannot entice kids into these fields because it actually requires working hard. I'm no rocket surgeon but with a lot of hard work and my never quit attitude that was issued to me in the Army, I was able to get through all the engineering courses needed for my degree.
Someone posted up in this thread a video from an economist from Brown University. Go back and watch that video during the Q&A session. There were probably 5 students that asked questions and before each question they stated their name and their major of study. All but one was in a degree program with poor earning potential. There was one student who was a BioChem major. The rest were English, Humanities or the like. The world doesn't need more of these majors and no one in their right mind should be choosing to take on huge debt for these degrees. It's utterly ridiculous.
MikeQ
Member
FYI, there's something now called FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Most colleges require you to fill it out and the federal government uses it to calculate the amount of federally back student loans your child will qualify for. I had and have no intention of taking out one dime of student loans for my son yet we were required to fill it out.
Once you fill it out, you'll get a federal form sent you that shows something like:
For 2019 you qualify for $XX,XXX in federal financial aid.
Now, I have multiple problems with this.
1) You're pushing loans when people aren't necessarily even looking for them.
2) You're calling it financial aid. It's not aid. It's a loan.
3) You're giving it to anyone with no strings. If I walked into a bank to get a loan to start a business, I'd have to submit a business plan. College is not much different. You should have an idea (a plan) as to how that degree is going to generate the income to repay the loan.
Also on your other question, as to why we have $1 trillion in student debt, It's probably exacerbated by the fact that the debt never goes away and you have up to 25 years to pay. That $1 trillion is 25 years worth of lending.
Brando
Active Member
And if you haven't paid off after 25 years? Is student off the hook and bankers get taxpayers (federally insured, right?)
Don't expect anyone to know these details as it all depends. For some specifics I ran across:
What Happens to Student Loans When You Die?
Your spouse might be liable. Even in death you may still owe and so far, I don't think the banks EVER loose and so why are interest rates on Student loans not at say treasury rates or certainly not more than +2%.
IMHO the banks are out of control. I also remember when usery laws limited banker % about 7% not any more.
Isn't America great - no risk banking. And the banks can still crash the economy and tax payers pay.
Let us please drop this depressing topic. I'm sure the nuances can be viewed in many ways.
Don't expect anyone to know these details as it all depends. For some specifics I ran across:
What Happens to Student Loans When You Die?
Your spouse might be liable. Even in death you may still owe and so far, I don't think the banks EVER loose and so why are interest rates on Student loans not at say treasury rates or certainly not more than +2%.
IMHO the banks are out of control. I also remember when usery laws limited banker % about 7% not any more.
Isn't America great - no risk banking. And the banks can still crash the economy and tax payers pay.
Let us please drop this depressing topic. I'm sure the nuances can be viewed in many ways.
Student loans have become a massive scam. Thanks to the Republicans in Congress, student loans are exempt from being discharged in bankruptcy, so predatory lenders go after students knowing they have those kids on the hook for life. If the kid misses any payments, they will hammer them with penalties. IMO, it's a form of slavery.
My SO is an attorney who does bankruptcies and she was watching everything as it went down. In 2006 after the Republicans lost the midterms, they slammed through a bankruptcy "reform" in the lame duck session which made it much more difficult to file for bankruptcy. Before this student loans were dischargable and older loans were issued by the government. A few years before 2006 the government privatized student loans and the banks started preying on students, but if the fish could get off the hook, they could end up losing a lot of money, so part the banks lobbied for making student loans non-dischargable as part of the reform. Bankruptcy attorneys refer to the act as "BARF".
Just like all the other lies the GOP tells us to ram through bills to help the already wealthy, they trotted out a few very rare examples as their examples of abuse of the system. The abuses are very rare, in close to 20 years of doing bankruptcies my SO has only run into a few scammers and they ran off before getting very far when they realized they would get caught if they continued.
bhtooefr
Active Member
It's simple, really.
Facebook was a large part of how Trump made it into the White House. They scratched his back, so he has to scratch back by keeping the SEC away from them.
Tesla, OTOH, is disrupting the oil industry, which also helped Trump get into the White House. They scratched his back, so he has to scratch back by deploying the SEC on Tesla.
shlokavica22
Member
The poor kids will get he feeling of entitlement that will follow them for life. Education is a tool, not a medal.
MikeQ
Member
Are you really trying to make the politicians look bad because they made it harder for people to walk away from their responsibility and bad decisions? Really?
Yes there's predatory lending but lets not make the people making utterly ridiculous decisions out to be the victim. We have enough victim mentality in this country already.
A perfect example is everyone's darling AOC. She went to $200k undergraduate program. She probably graduated around 7 years ago? And what did she do since then with that $200k education? She became a bartender. She lucked into her political career and that didn't even require a degree.
MikeQ
Member
Natural intellectual talent and social skills help but do not guarantee success in any endeavor. Grit is crucial as many studies conclude related to college success. Having over fifty years consecutive association as either a student at private institutions and university teaching for one year at an elite private college and one at a University of California campus, I ended with a tenure track appointment for the rest at a California State University. I thus have a passing acquaintance with and obvious bias in favor of the education biz. I am also distressed with the current state of higher education.
Any grit or other talents I had for education is entirely due to my parents who actually shopped among several communities for the best high school when we finally settled in northern New Jersey.
On the inflated cost discussion above. It also helped my Dad made enough money that I never had to work while in college as an undergraduate. At a dollar an hour minimum wage job I was able to contribute savings in the summers and during high school for about two-thirds of tuition at MIT. Tuition in the mid to late fifties at MIT was then about eleven hundred dollars. I guess tuition at our State University was around $2-3000 a year in 2008 when I stopped teaching part time in retirement. My wife's tuition at my old institution is nearly $8000 a year which we can afford but if necessary I would even sell some Tesla stock to keep her in school.
On the instrumental discussion above. I disagree totally with the idea higher education is solely for instrumental purposes, except in the broadest sense. Of course that is easy for me to say since my undergrad expenses were paid—a strong argument for tuition free education at public institutions—and any work I did post graduate was related to education. I was a paid intern, if you will. Also, by happy accident, I have strong technical education plus a lot of philosophy, history, economics and more with Ph.D. work.
At Colgate as a graduate preceptor I was made to teach Ralph Barton Perry's, The Humanity of Man, which elaborates on the purpose of a liberal education. If I remember correctly he starts with inculcation of several humane principles. First is freedom which he defines as the capacity for enlightened choice. Second is liberty which he defines as the capacity for effective choice. (That is where some instrumental education must take place.) Third is civility. I have forgotten how he defines that, but the capacity for moral choice works for me now and especially in the age of Trump and enablers. Finally, higher education he said should inculcate a sense of style. I don't remember he said anything memorable on this, probably because styles are always going in and out of fashion. It will be interesting and doubtless painful to see how long Trump's disturbing interventions will last. Of course we shall see more volatility in the markets. We shall see how long this "stylish fad" will last.
An advice.
Fire away.
Any grit or other talents I had for education is entirely due to my parents who actually shopped among several communities for the best high school when we finally settled in northern New Jersey.
On the inflated cost discussion above. It also helped my Dad made enough money that I never had to work while in college as an undergraduate. At a dollar an hour minimum wage job I was able to contribute savings in the summers and during high school for about two-thirds of tuition at MIT. Tuition in the mid to late fifties at MIT was then about eleven hundred dollars. I guess tuition at our State University was around $2-3000 a year in 2008 when I stopped teaching part time in retirement. My wife's tuition at my old institution is nearly $8000 a year which we can afford but if necessary I would even sell some Tesla stock to keep her in school.
On the instrumental discussion above. I disagree totally with the idea higher education is solely for instrumental purposes, except in the broadest sense. Of course that is easy for me to say since my undergrad expenses were paid—a strong argument for tuition free education at public institutions—and any work I did post graduate was related to education. I was a paid intern, if you will. Also, by happy accident, I have strong technical education plus a lot of philosophy, history, economics and more with Ph.D. work.
At Colgate as a graduate preceptor I was made to teach Ralph Barton Perry's, The Humanity of Man, which elaborates on the purpose of a liberal education. If I remember correctly he starts with inculcation of several humane principles. First is freedom which he defines as the capacity for enlightened choice. Second is liberty which he defines as the capacity for effective choice. (That is where some instrumental education must take place.) Third is civility. I have forgotten how he defines that, but the capacity for moral choice works for me now and especially in the age of Trump and enablers. Finally, higher education he said should inculcate a sense of style. I don't remember he said anything memorable on this, probably because styles are always going in and out of fashion. It will be interesting and doubtless painful to see how long Trump's disturbing interventions will last. Of course we shall see more volatility in the markets. We shall see how long this "stylish fad" will last.
An advice.
Fire away.
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MikeQ
Member
I have a son in college. I have some real world experience. Apparently you didn't read my post. I said you don't have to live in ClubMed and you can go to community college. I was actually advocating that. My point was that there ARE kids living in ClubMed and they aren't choosing community college and they are doing it because they DO qualify for financial aid and it feels like free money.
People who don't qualify for financial aid obviously make the sane choices for their level of income because they are directly paying for it. You're literally making my point for me.
Also, FASFA is used by many colleges as the form for ALL student aid. It is linked to your tax returns so it makes it harder to fudge your income. FASFA is primarily for Federal financial aid. However, the colleges then use that info to determine if you are eligible for grants, tuition reduction, internal scholarships, etc... Because of this some colleges REQUIRE it as part of admission. The government isn't making it required, the some colleges do.
I'm also interested in how you didn't qualify for anything? I know people with $300k+ incomes that qualify for something. I think this is also wrong but in the grand scheme of things, they are probably more capable of repaying it than someone making much less. On the other hand though if you're making that kind of money and haven't been able to save for your kids education, you probably aren't good at managing your money.
This is what people are doing with their student loans:
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we became aware of FAFSA and filled out the forms
we got told we qualified for >$10,000 in loans, grants whatever
then we got told we qualified for $00.00 in loans
the kids worked and went to UMd and Towson and Community college.
2005 - 2015
we saved in 529's
we cut big checks every semester
If your kid is going to that resort for college, i would be hesitant to tell others they are not managing money very well, as it looks like your kid is managing his parents money quite well.
you might want to revoke, if able his power of attorney.
my nephew almost bankrupted my brother 10-15 years back with his "business acumen or lack thereof"
'buddy jezuz/c'thulu"
Still the #1 cause for filing bankruptcy is the result of a medical problem not covered by insurance. Having other debts hanging over someone can make a medical debt that might be payable under other circumstance impossible to pay. Student loan debt contributes to this burden.
The predatory lending done on students is very lucrative because they are pedaling their financial services on young kids with no life experience who are often overly optimistic about their ability to pay back their debts after college. It's unreasonable to chastise people for being idiots when they were 18, especially when many had absolutely no warning about this sort of thing at all. The meme for middle class Americans for the last 70 years has been to go to college and then become a productive member of society. For the Boomers and to a lesser extent GenX, college graduates tended to have better economic futures than those who didn't. That has been less true for the Millennials for whom spending their 20s and 30s buried under crushing debt with loans the equivalent of a mortgage hanging over their head they day they graduated. For those who didn't make the best choices for majors, again your asking a kid to make major life decisions at 18 and some are going to get degrees that are not that valuable in the work world (though may contribute to a better understanding of the world).
Allowing for bankruptcy ultimately helps the entire economy, even if a few debtors take a hair cut in the short term, people who are freed from crippling debt are not spending all their money servicing their debts and falling further behind every month. Instead they are both mentally healthier and able to spend money in the economy. The 2008 crash had many reasons, but one of them was the Millennials were not taking their place in the economy at the same age as previous generations. They were not buying cars, houses, or having children (a major driver of the economy) which caused the economy to destabilize as older people quit spending money and younger generations were not picking up the slack. It was already weak because the GenX generation, being smaller than both the Boomers and Millennials have had less impact in general.
Having people in perpetual, crippling debt is a net drag on the economy. The more there are, the worse it gets.
Citing one extreme example like AOC doesn't really advance the conversation. There are plenty of people who went to state schools on student loans, are working in tech jobs bringing down good money, but still driving a 15 year old car and sharing an apartment or house with multiple roommates because the loan payments are killing them. A number of Millennials have said that if they knew then what they know now about the loan scam, they wouldn't have gone to college at all.
MikeQ
Member
Interestingly we found that for upper middle class it's harder to afford college than for people at lower levels. Many colleges now do tuition forgiveness for people of certain income levels. I was in the hospital talking to a nurse and she stated that her daughter was going to Brown University. I said, "That's going to fun to pay for". She said that being a single mother and with her income level, Brown was making it cost about the same as a state school. With my income being probably 5 times what her income is, I don't qualify for any aid, grants, scholarships, etc... For me Brown cost $50k a year. For her it cost $16k. Now to her that $16k is a lot but she's probably going to do student loans. I just hope her daughter isn't going for a degree in education, history or some other liberal arts.
MikeQ
Member
My kid is not living there. We could afford to put him there but we're not. We're trying not to raise an entitled snowflake. There's enough already. Plus he's going for PHD/MD. The crowd that lives in those types of places tend to be the party first, school second crowd.
MikeQ
Member
So explain to me how this makes their filing for bankruptcy attributed to "medical problems". The real reason the are filing for bankruptcy is because they have student loan debt that they cannot default on. You even said, if it weren't for the student loans they might be able to pay the medical debt.
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