Ashmaele posted:

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There are already forgiveness programs in place. Student loan default is pretty far down on the list of things to worry about.

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-Espiritu- posted:

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I wouldn't be surprised if President Obama announces some relief/forgiveness program early in his second term.

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Ashmaele posted:

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There are already forgiveness programs in place. Student loan default is pretty far down on the list of things to worry about.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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I don't think there's much relief coming, except SOME for the institutions who will be asked to take losses in the form of deferments. (And even at that, there won't be much relief).

Why? We don't HAVE much relief left to give and we're indebted out the ass -- both publicly and privately. Simple as that.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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I don't think there's much relief coming, except SOME for the institutions who will be asked to take losses in the form of deferments. (And even at that, there won't be much relief).

Why? We don't HAVE much relief left to give and we're indebted out the ass -- both publicly and privately. Simple as that.

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But 700 Bn for banks and auto manufacturers is A-OKAY!

Of course there's money to loan. Even you're not that dense. It doesn't mean loaning it is the wise thing to do, but goverment overstepped the boundaries of wisdom long ago.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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But 700 Bn for banks and auto manufacturers is A-OKAY!

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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But 700 Bn for banks and auto manufacturers is A-OKAY!

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Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying. Or have ever said.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Ashmaele posted:

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There are already forgiveness programs in place. Student loan default is pretty far down on the list of things to worry about.

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Explain them and back that up.

Everything I've come across say there's no way to discharge most of the private loans excepting death. And, any "forgiveness" is usually just "partial deferment" which renders you a debt slave for life.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Why? We don't HAVE much relief left to give and we're indebted out the ass -- both publicly and privately. Simple as that.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Ashmaele posted:

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There are already forgiveness programs in place. Student loan default is pretty far down on the list of things to worry about.

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Explain them and back that up.

Everything I've come across say there's no way to discharge most of the private loans excepting death. And, any "forgiveness" is usually just "partial deferment" which renders you a debt slave for life.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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No, I said there's not much left FOR BAILOUTS. Re-read Zig. You're going down a totally different road.

Touchy nerves on that topic, much?

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ZigmundZag posted:

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<missing the point>

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Only idiots take out private loans, and private loans make up a very small % of that trillion.

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Wikipedia posted:

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In June 2010, the amount of student loan debt held by Americans exceeded the amount of credit card debt held by Americans. At that time, student loan debt totaled at least $830 billion, of which approximately 80% was federal student loan debt and 20%was private student loan debt. In October 2011, the total amount of money owed in student loan debt was said to exceed $ 1 trillion.

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theredkay1 posted:

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Seems like the easy solution is to just change the law so that student loan debts can be negotiated in bankruptcy.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Only idiots take out private loans, and private loans make up a very small % of that trillion.

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20% is not small.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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<missing the point>

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Re-read what I said, what I said about the form of bail-outs presumed, etc.

I'm not going to re-type across 6 posts as you string out your mistake in reading trying to save face.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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typical OP face-saving

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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theredkay1 posted:

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Seems like the easy solution is to just change the law so that student loan debts can be negotiated in bankruptcy.

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Yeah. It's always easy to renegotiate away other people's money and income stream from payments.

Easy-peasy. And oh so just.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Only idiots take out private loans, and private loans make up a very small % of that trillion.

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20% is not small.

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Well, if you want to get all Paulg about it, I'd say it's "small" but not "very small."

Also, I will amend my previous statement a little. Only idiots and people with asshole parents who can but won't pay for college end up getting private loans. I knew someone like that. His parents were well off so he didn't get financial aid for undergrad, but they were also douchecanoes and wouldn't pay or even lend him the money, so he had to take out private loans.

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theredkay1 posted:

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I know you think that debt peonage economy (with debtors prisons and all) is really a good idea.

But it is bad for the economy. Your moral guide is to make yourself subservient to lenders...and while thats fine for you, its not really a good policy.

There really isnt a good argument, economic or moral, for treating student debt as a lifelong anchor. Every advanced blah blah blah <morality play strawman bullshite>

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Cawlin posted:

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Honestly, I think that the kid's parents probably taught him some valuable lessons about taking classes that were a) worthwhile, and b) applying himself so as to get the most out of his education dollars.

With that said, I think it would be better perhaps to let the kid take the loans out themselves under the premise that they're on their own for getting their college education financed, and then help them pay them off afterward. As much as you hate the concept of attempting to make people, especially young adults be responsible for themselves, I know this rankles you to think about, but I don't really think parents should feel obligated to pay for their kids to get a degree Indo-Eurasian Orphan Poetry Analysis...

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Cawlin posted:

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Honestly, I think that the kid's parents probably taught him some valuable lessons about taking classes that were a) worthwhile, and b) applying himself so as to get the most out of his education dollars.

With that said, I think it would be better perhaps to let the kid take the loans out themselves under the premise that they're on their own for getting their college education financed, and then help them pay them off afterward. As much as you hate the concept of attempting to make people, especially young adults be responsible for themselves, I know this rankles you to think about, but I don't really think parents should feel obligated to pay for their kids to get a degree Indo-Eurasian Orphan Poetry Analysis...

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No. All his parents did was make sure he'll be shackled to debt at highish interest rates for most of the rest of his life. At least until they die and he gets their money and can use that to pay off his debts. Which at 6% interest will end up costing the family at least 2x as much in the long run.

The funny thing is both of them got their college educations paid by their well-off parents. They are just assholes who think like you do that it "builds character" to screw over their kid. People who talk about "building character" as a justification for screwing people over are nearly always lacking in the character department themselves.

These people are such douches they wouldn't even lend their kid the money themselves to avoid the 8% interest. Even though they have plenty of it lying around.

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Bowlartz posted:

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There should be massive restrictions in place with government insured or backed loans. Just because you get into Harvard doesn't mean the government has to subsidize the madness of you racking up 150K in debt.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Cawlin posted:

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Honestly, I think that the kid's parents probably taught him some valuable lessons about taking classes that were a) worthwhile, and b) applying himself so as to get the most out of his education dollars.

With that said, I think it would be better perhaps to let the kid take the loans out themselves under the premise that they're on their own for getting their college education financed, and then help them pay them off afterward. As much as you hate the concept of attempting to make people, especially young adults be responsible for themselves, I know this rankles you to think about, but I don't really think parents should feel obligated to pay for their kids to get a degree Indo-Eurasian Orphan Poetry Analysis...

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No. All his parents did was make sure he'll be shackled to debt at highish interest rates for most of the rest of his life. At least until they die and he gets their money and can use that to pay off his debts. Which at 6% interest will end up costing the family at least 2x as much in the long run.

The funny thing is both of them got their college educations paid by their well-off parents. They are just assholes who think like you do that it "builds character" to screw over their kid. People who talk about "building character" as a justification for screwing people over are nearly always lacking in the character department themselves.

These people are such douches they wouldn't even lend their kid the money themselves to avoid the 8% interest. Even though they have plenty of it lying around.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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^^ That. Bonzo is a poster child for RWN ignorance about education. How on earth have we reached a place where it seems to be part of general right-wing accepted knowledge that going to Harvard is a bad idea and people shouldn't be able to do it unless they're rich?

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Bowlartz posted:

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There should be massive restrictions in place with government insured or backed loans. Just because you get into Harvard doesn't mean the government has to subsidize the madness of you racking up 150K in debt.

There should be a maximum per credit hour cap on student loans. For example you can get a max of $750 per credit hour...if you want to go somewhere that charges more you either pay for it directly, get a traditional non-government backed private loan, pay out of pocket or go somewhere cheaper like a community college.

It would reign in the rampant hyper-inflation of education costs due to schools knowing there is an everlasting faucet of cash. The education lobby would likely team up with lenders to scream bloody murder, spending 100s of millions (of student loan funded dollars) to stop any such reforms.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Student loans cannot be a bubble. The whole point of calling something a bubble is that it can pop and value can be lost.

Existing college educations are not suddenly going to lose value because new students stop coming along and investing in them.

The price of college is irrationally high. That is not the same thing as a bubble.

Tech stocks in the 90s were a bubble. Housing in the 2000s were a bubble.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Again, real costs are not up all that much.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Again, real costs are not up all that much.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Again, real costs are not up all that much.

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Where does this talking point keep coming from in the Leftosphere over the last month?

It isn't true.

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Seething199 posted:

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if RWN's ruled the education system the world would be so boring it wouldn't be worth living in. ironically, they'd be all for soviet style forcing of people to get a specific degree because it's "useful" as opposed to offering any sort of choice.

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Cawlin posted:

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That is where the debt balloon (since bubble is a verboten term I guess) is coming from.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Cawlin posted:

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That is where the debt balloon (since bubble is a verboten term I guess) is coming from.

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debt mountain of doom?

debt fkcking gaping chasm of death?

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Again, real costs are not up all that much.

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Where does this talking point keep coming from in the Leftosphere over the last month?

It isn't true.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Again, real costs are not up all that much.

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Yes, they are.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Those arn't real cost graphs, they're sticker price graphs. Sticker price makes for a better story.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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theredkay1 posted:

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I know you think that debt peonage economy (with debtors prisons and all) is really a good idea.

But it is bad for the economy. Your moral guide is to make yourself subservient to lenders...and while thats fine for you, its not really a good policy.

There really isnt a good argument, economic or moral, for treating student debt as a lifelong anchor. Every advanced blah blah blah <morality play strawman bullshite>

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I am not against future contracts being crafted that don't have lifelong debt slavery as a part of them. Have at.

I am against punishing or bailing out those who went into these arrangements voluntarily IN THE PAST who have active contracts now. I felt the same about the banks who got massive bailouts, btw. And have said so a couple times.

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Ashmaele posted:

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Bowlartz posted:

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There should be massive restrictions in place with government insured or backed loans. Just because you get into Harvard doesn't mean the government has to subsidize the madness of you racking up 150K in debt.

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Harvard grads aren't the ones defaulting on their loans. It's the DeVry and University of Online University College grads who are the problem borrowers.

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theredkay1 posted:

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People are confusing 'cost' and 'tuition (cost to the student)' here. Tuition represents only part of the total cost of education.

The data does seem to support Yuki's point. Education costs are rising slowly, tuition costs are rising rapidly.

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theredkay1 posted:

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Education costs are rising slowly, tuition costs are rising rapidly.

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Cawlin posted:

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Debt is higher, on average, in adjusted dollars, per graduate than ever before.

Potential earnings, on average, in adjusted dollars, are declining.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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I racked up about 2x the loans that my brother did. Both of us only accrued debt for the last 2 years of our 4-year degrees. I went about 10 years later than he did.

You're pretty far out of touch on this topic, Yuki. Maybe you're a trust fund kid whose parents paid your way through law school, or maybe you earned enough merit scholarships that you didn't bury yourself in debt. Whatever it was, I'm kinda surprised you're so far off the mark when you're pretty freshly out of college yourself.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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I have a lot of student debt too. Boalt's tuition cost has tripled in the past 20 years. But 80% of that increase is not from costs actually going up but from funding being cut and sticker price being inflated to pay for financial aid.

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paulg_68 posted:

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If college doesn't cost more then why are student loans up so much?

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paulg_68 posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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I have a lot of student debt too. Boalt's tuition cost has tripled in the past 20 years. But 80% of that increase is not from costs actually going up but from funding being cut and sticker price being inflated to pay for financial aid.

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Why didn't you get financial aid then instead of taking out loans?

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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paulg_68 posted:

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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I have a lot of student debt too. Boalt's tuition cost has tripled in the past 20 years. But 80% of that increase is not from costs actually going up but from funding being cut and sticker price being inflated to pay for financial aid.

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Why didn't you get financial aid then instead of taking out loans?

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Professional schools are different Paul. There is not a whole lot of need-based aid available from the outset. Instead, they focus on debt forgiveness. For example, although I have significant student loans, Boalt is currently paying 90% of my monthly student loan bill, and will continue to do so as long as I work in public interest or public sector jobs and make under a certain income threshhold. Instead of subsidizing me up front, Boalt subsidizes me after graduation.

At Boalt sticker price goes up to subsidize paying off my loans for me. At the undergrad level sticker price goes up to lower the cost of attendence on the front end.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Whether it's increased costs or decreased funding, the end result is pretty much the same.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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I think STEM has become so overused that it's starting to lose any meaning. When many schools now offer a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, something has gone wrong.

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paulg_68 posted:

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At my school I had the option of either BA or BS for my degree. Only difference was if I wanted a BA I had to take 6 credit hours of a foreign language.

/shrug

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Cawlin posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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I think STEM has become so overused that it's starting to lose any meaning. When many schools now offer a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, something has gone wrong.

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I don't know about the overuse of the term - I suppose I may "overuse" it when I talk in these threads, but it's far easier than saying, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, physics, computers...

With that said, and regarding the whole "BA" of Computer Science thing - the terms "BA and BS" are actually meaningless.

When I graduated in 1992, it was from a "liberal arts" college. I had the choice, based on the curriculum I studied, to have my degree be a BA or BS - as did every person there who graduated with a science degree. The humanities degrees were only given the option for BAs...

I just think that it's stupid to have the BA/BS delineation any longer - either you have a bachelor's degree or you don't. The courses in my transcript don't look any different than any other person's with a physiology degree from any other good college back in 1992.

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paulg_68 posted:

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At my school I had the option of either BA or BS for my degree. Only difference was if I wanted a BA I had to take 6 credit hours of a foreign language.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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I don't necessarily mean you in particular. I hear it at work, too, and usually it's to refer to a cohort of students that fits the needs of a particular study at a particular time.

These days, the curricula around CS degrees can vary widely, from one or two programming courses with a lot of project management fluff to upper level math, compiler and OS design and the like.

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Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:

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paulg_68 posted:

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At my school I had the option of either BA or BS for my degree. Only difference was if I wanted a BA I had to take 6 credit hours of a foreign language.

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My school had meaningful differences in BA vs BS degrees. I graduated in '92.

I had to take at least: 5 extra credit hours of higher math, 5 extra credits of a 300-level course from a selection of hard science courses related to my degree, and a third related course (in my case, accounting).

If you didn't know by Sophomore year about the BS requirements and you filled up instead on softer BA-related elective courses, you wouldn't finish your degree in 4 years.

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