College student wants free college&15 Dollars min wage has no idea how to pay for it

[Elim Garak]

Believing that an autodidactic education will equal what someone gets from MIT is pretty silly.

The people who founded the first University, where did they study at? Which university?
Beveling that MIT provides some kind of education that cannot be acquired elsewhere is sillier. Education is knowledge, MIT doesn't have the monopoly on knowledge. Not to mention that in scientific circles the knowledge is freely shared as such is the requirement of scientific method, it's called peer review. And science doesn't need no echo chambers. It's all available to the public too.

But sure, universities are all just a conspiracy to defraud people

The primal purpose of a university is NOT giving education. It's actually scientific work. Hence why uni ranking is based on SCIENTIFIC WORK.
Education is a form of earning money to pay for said scientific work. (Also it is used to grow fresh scientists.)
Hence it should not be that weird that the uni reputation among soon to be students and employers is VERY important to attract the most (more money) and the best (recruits for science) students.

The guy who stays in the uni to become a scientist has 1000000000000% better education than ANY other graduate.

[lockedout]

Sums up the left today. Emotion based logic is a failure. Social Justice idiocy.

This generation of college students is the worst that I have ever seen.

Ahh a repost x 3.
She should have at least had answers to the questions.

[Martinczo]

I can't read every page in this thread, but based off the first three pages why has no one discussed interest rates on these loans?

I can hear opinions against free college. Things like scholarships, community college and going in-state for your education.

What I don't hear is "Why do these loans has 4%-7% interest rates?"

In the United States Mortgages have smaller interest rates on average. Yea, they are bigger loans... sometimes. But students are people with no career, no salary, no job security. Nothing. Sure you can pay some of that off with a part-time job. But what if you major requires many hours of field-work (job like work outside of clases) such as teachers, science and engineering majors, business majors at times, etc. College education is turning into internships mixed with education.

"For instance, in February, 2010, the national average mortgage rate for a 30 year fixed rate loan was at 4.750 percent (5.016 APR). The 15 year fixed was at 4.125 percent (4.312 APR) and the 5/1 ARM was at 3.875 percent (3.122 APR)."

http://www.mortgagecalculator.org/mortgage-rates/

[Spectral]

What I don't hear is "Why do these loans has 4%-7% interest rates?"

In the United States Mortgages has smaller interest rates on average.

Mortgages probably should have lower interest - they're collateralized debt. If someone defaults on a mortgage, there's an asset that can be seized to defray the cost of the default.

There's probably a plausible case for lower rates on degrees that have very high rates of payback, but I'd be surprised if that was the case across the board.

[Healing Rain]

Convince someone to start a "college insurance" company.

[Martinczo]

@Spectral

"There's probably a plausible case for lower rates on degrees that have very high rates of payback, but I'd be surprised if that was the case across the board."

What you are saying is, to me, that people that earn more should have an easier time paying off their debt and people with lower paying jobs should have a difficult time?

[Spectral]

@Spectral

"There's probably a plausible case for lower rates on degrees that have very high rates of payback, but I'd be surprised if that was the case across the board."

What you are saying is, to me, that people that earn more should have an easier time paying off their debt and people with lower paying jobs should have a difficult time?

Yes, people that have a plausible path to paying off their college loans are lower risks. Lower risks are typically associated with lower interest. I can't really imagine a plausible case for doing the opposite without creating some really terrible incentives.

[Martinczo]

Yes, people that have a plausible path to paying off their college loans are lower risks. Lower risks are typically associated with lower interest. I can't really imagine a plausible case for doing the opposite without creating some really terrible incentives.

What you are neglecting is job availability. I know you said it wasn't across the board, but higher paychecks doesn't equate to more jobs. Most jobs that college prepares you for are middle to lower class jobs. The scenario you propose is benefiting a minority, leading to greater wealth disparity.

[Shahad]

This is a weird thing to say. You're looking at a list of rankings that are pretty clear about the relative superiority of American universities, right?

That doesn't mean all the universities that aren't in the US/UK are grossly inferior to those that are.

I'm sure you'd hold that position if the rankings were consistent with what you'd like to believe instead
I know for a fact that at least 2-3 institutions in Quebec offer a better engineering education than McGill, yet they won't ever show up in rankings because they're French schools.

Ranking methodology would still be flawed even if, in this precise case, they got results that more closely resembled reality. Even then, I wouldn't call any school grossly inferior to another unless we were comparing bottom tier schools to the upper tiers.