what can the US do about the student debt problem?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I am fine with the rich being less rich and corporations making less money unless the plan is to specifically tax these individuals or for a matter of fact anyone to pay for the debt. I do not support any such tax to pay for someone else debt and I think these individuals need to pay their own debt not get bailed out by anyone else. Again I do not support any tax or any use of public funds to pay these peoples debt. You come up with a means to do that then go for it.

If they are citizens then it is there debt. Corporations are people too as the court ruled so if its based in the US then it is there debt as well. Not hard to figure out.

[Talon8669]

Student loans are an individual's debt. I view this no different than credit card debt. I'm not going to ask my neighbor or Microsoft to absolve that debt.

[Gangresnake]

write it off

Great way to set the worst precedent in the history of the United states. Nobody will lend anyone any money in matter of education with no collateral for the foreseeable future. Higher education will go back to become a very exclusive privilege to wealthy families who can pay schools upfront and keep the money flowing.
Really, dont.

[Talon8669]

Yes. Why would you ever want to do things better?

Why do you and others feel entitled and expect others to pay your debts? I have no issue with education reform. I personally think higher education should be available to everyone and free or subsidized. But I think to be eligible for that those people need to serve a minimum 4 years in one of the branches of the armed forces.

[Zython]

Great way to set the worst precedent in the history of the United states. Nobody will lend anyone any money in matter of education with no collateral for the foreseeable future. Higher education will go back to become a very exclusive privilege to wealthy families who can pay schools upfront and keep the money flowing.
Really, dont.

Man. It would really fucking suck if a bunch of usurers are too afraid to exploit the vulnerable lest the government actually protect them. Could you imagine a world like that?



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Why do you and others feel entitled and expect others to pay your debts? I have no issue with education reform. I personally think higher education should be available to everyone and free or subsidized. But I think to be eligible for that those people need to serve a minimum 4 years in one of the branches of the armed forces.

Because the people indebting the rest of us are parasites who, if we lived in a just society, should be forced to drink sulfuric acid.

[Talon8669]

Man. It would really fucking suck if a bunch of usurers are too afraid to exploit the vulnerable lest the government actually protect them. Could you imagine a world like that?



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Because the people indebting the rest of us are parasites who, if we lived in a just society, should be forced to drink sulfuric acid.

Idk WTF that even means. The very notion that you think a just punishment would be execution under such extreme conditions is disturbing. The topic is about student loan debt. My argument in this thread has been that individuals need to pay the debt they incur and not seek bail outs or ask that the rest of us be taxed to pay for their debts. I would never expect anyone else to pay my debts and it's ridiculous to think the government or a tax on the rich and corporations should be an option. I assume your disturbing comment has something to do with national debt? If you want to fix that the government needs to control its spending and seriously cut social programs.

[Super Kami Dende]

make education free like in any other civilised country

It's not free, it just ends up making other people have to pay more in tax to finance a generation of idiots doing Gender studies courses.

[Vantheus]

So student debt is crippling many americans. It doesn't matter anymore what degree students are getting or whatever else you want to blame it on. many students go into college not fully understanding debt to begin with.

We gave the banks and the auto industries their bailouts even though they didn't really deserve it. It's time to bail out student debt.

nothing should be done about it, if the students took out the loan they should pay it back. Ignorance is no defense if they didn't know how it works that's their problem.

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Nothing will be done as long as republicans have a say in the matter.

You are correct because we don't support giving deadbeats free handouts

[exochaft]

Student loans are an individual's debt. I view this no different than credit card debt. I'm not going to ask my neighbor or Microsoft to absolve that debt.

It's as simple as this. Asking someone else to pay your own debts is irresponsible, making others involuntarily pay someone else's debt (as some people suggest as a solution) is pretty much theft. While the US government has done bailouts before, I vehemently disagreed with all those bailouts, despite the government playing a role in the situations getting that far to begin with. That's cronyism, not capitalism as people in these forums incorrectly call it. Besides, bailouts won't solve the problem anyways, as it's primarily an issue with those willingly entering into student loans, and if you guarantee government payout of student loan debt... man, if you think the amount of student loan debt and tuition costs are bad now, they will explode as the lenders and schools will see free guaranteed government money.

Is there a tuition cost issue? Certainly, but it's almost entirely a function of government involvement/funding and reckless spending by individual institutions. There are tons of colleges who are fiscally sound, some that don't even touch a dime of government money, and they're a quality education and really cheap.

Are the student loan vendors to blame? Yes and no, depends on the lending institution, as many are really good/helpful while a few are borderline predatory. What people fail to understand is that student loans are basically unsecured loans for most people (some banks allow secured student loans under certain circumstances, for young people probably requires a co-signer). This means that if the student defaults on the loan, there's no collateral or money backing up the loan, so they're out the principle plus whatever interest has/will have accrued. Therefore, interest rates are much higher than mortgage loans for example, and the interest rates will go up even more if you're considered a risky investment. The interest rates are higher to ensure the lender gets enough money back from interest payments to ensure that their initial investment gets paid back even if the person defaults at some average point. Now, unless there's federal government legislation requiring lenders to sign out loans to risky individuals with no chance of paying loans back (like in the 2000's and the US housing crisis), the student loan vendors should not be shelling out money to individuals that have no chance of paying it back. If you really want a student loan despite being a large risk, this is what co-signers are for, as they off-set the risk of the student to ensure that the money will get paid back.

Bottom line, the people taking out the student loans are the ones responsible for themselves and paying back their loans. It's a pretty simple concept that even children can understand. You can do your fancy underwater gender-neutral basket weaving degrees for $150k/year at an ivy league school, go nuts, but you better be willing to pay the money back. Again, you can still get a quality education for peanuts if you want, so don't expect me or anyone to garner sympathy or funds for people embracing an entitled mentality instead of a personal responsibility mentality.

[Deletedaccount1]

Stop pushing people into college who have no business being there and stop pushing people into degrees that fail any cost-benefit analysis.

[kneehidude]

have the kids move out and get jobs to pay them off. this wasnt even a question in my generation. we just did it. mine were paid off a few years after i was done with school.

Except a minimum wage job doesn't pay for the cost of a year of college...

[pewpmeiser]

It's the student's debt. They get themselves out. If they bail out student debt, why not bail out all debt. Let's all have no consequence!

[God Save The King]

Well, grossly oversimplifying the issue, we could attempt to make a mental shift as a society and de-emphasize 4 year degrees. We could then offer free 2 year degrees at community colleges (or make them very affordable - I mentioned in another thread that it costs around $2k to get a 2 year degree at a California CC). We could subsidize trade skill programs. We could then offer a limited number of free 4-year degrees and then an even smaller number of free graduate level degrees. To determine who receives them, your family would need to make under $X per year and you'd need to be entering a field that is "in demand".

The big issue with student debt comes from the raw number of students achieving higher education who do not really need the degree. The next biggest part of the issue is students selecting a school that they "like" rather than the one that costs the least.

We, as a society, are in need of people with some skill, especially more technical skills like technicians, electricians, construction, etc. We have an abundance of highly skilled individuals with no real place to put them. We also hand out loans to basically any student who asks for them, regardless of their intended choice of major. I don't have an issue with someone pursuing a less monetary orientated skill such as acting or theoretical mathematics, it just needs to be understood that there may be some issues collecting those loans, and to limit how much a student can take.


Now what I mention above is attacking the issue as to why so many students are accruing debt. There's another school of thought that higher education simply costs to much. That's a bit beyond what I've looked into personally, but I do recognize that the cost of education has exploded. It is curious how community colleges can offer 2 year degrees at a pittance, but even the most affordable 4 year schools tend to increase that cost by 5-10x.

Just spitballing these ideas, by the way, I'm not like an expert in this field and these ideas could end up to be terrible.

[Realitytrembles]

This is tied up with racial problems in the US. Any reasonable system for college education has to have standards so that people don't waste resources going to college endlessly and/or pointlessly. The problem with having standards is that most of the minority population (specifically African Americans) would fail to qualify even under minimal admission requirements, and the standards would be considered racist. So they are verboten, and without them, public college education becomes a boondoggle.

On standards: In the diverse high school near me, 50% of white students measure as college ready in math when they graduate, 30% of hispanics, and the percentage of african americans proficient is literally not reported because the state refuses to report numbers below 10% (and we have a large african american population, and our school outperforms many neighboring diverse districts). It's just a goddamn disaster.

On the other side, white people don't want their taxes to go up to pay for minorities to go to college. A lot of the shitty stuff in the US comes back to our racial issues.

Sadly I think you're right.

"All is race, there is no other truth." --- Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1868 and again from 1874 - 1880

Many people who look like me (I'm white) would rather die than help someone who doesn't look like them.

And I will freely admit there seems to be a cultural problem among some African-American communities against education.

[oplawlz]

That's the answer. Eliminate the entirety of current student loan debt, and modernize how people do college in this country. Model the europeans to some extent.

But of course that won't happen. The GOP is the anti-citizen party. DeVos is practically the antithesis of good educational practices, and we have a treasonous Resident who fully 35% of the United States feels is infallible.

It wasn't any less of an issue when Obama had a democratic majority in congress, but nothing got fixed then either.

This issue has nothing to do with political parties and everything to do with $$.

[DSRilk]

You seem to think society is going to suddenly change it's views about college education and blue collar jobs, reality check it is not

We were talking about what is needed to solve the problem, not what is practical in the short (or potentially long) term. Views on education certainly can change, just like views on any other social issue have changed. It takes decades though, if not longer. No where did I say "suddenly" or anything remotely like that. I said I felt it was key to solving several issues related to the problem. Anything related to a timeline or how realistic the solution might be is all inference on your part, not implication on mine.

And for profit colleges do need regulation because millions of people are losing money on scam because right now it is pretty much a free for all

Scam colleges are few and far between. Do we need a fix? Sure. Is that fix regulation? I don't see how it could be. If someone can figure out a way to prevent scam institutions without hamstringing real universities, I'd be happy to support it. I think such regulation would be so incredibly complex it is unlikely to happen, and even if it does, history has shown that complex regulatory rules like what would be necessary are bound to have loopholes and end up being useless anyway. As sad as it is, "buyer beware" is often the most realistic option.

Perhaps you are meaning that ALL (or most) universities (or higher education in general) are a scam. I'm not saying that's what you mean or think, but given the nature of forum-based communication, I'll address the potential. If that is what you mean, then I simply disagree with your premise and we'll have to agree to disagree. Not much else to be said if that's the case.

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On the other side, white people don't want their taxes to go up to pay for minorities to go to college. A lot of the shitty stuff in the US comes back to our racial issues.

I disagree. There are plenty of white people, including affluent ones, who don't mind a tax increase to help ANYONE get educated. It's certainly not all, but there are plenty of us.

I agree that race is an issue, but in a different way. I think there are two major race-related issues in education: cultural and economic. Culturally, there is an issue with many in the African-American community when it comes to their view of the value of education (though I think this same concept is making its way into rural white America as well these days). Economically, it's an issue of the vicious circle of parents raising children in impoverished areas due to a lack of money, which leads to children having poor education and experiences, thereby creating yet another generation in the same boat. The economics of housing and moving also plays a major role in that cyclical issue.

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So yes, politics has to do with it. Liberal policies have been broadly unpopular since Reagan.

Many of Reagan's policies are similar to what liberals are trying to achieve. By today's standard, Reagan is barely a conservative in many ways. Even GWB had some liberal policies (especially surrounding immigration) that would be spit upon by today's republican base.

I don't see liberal policies being broadly unpopular. The fact that the ACA was created is a major liberal move. These days, the majority of Americans (including republicans) don't want major portions of the ACA to go away. The problem is that many can't see why the unpopular parts are required to make the popular parts work, but that's another story. Additionally, things like gay marriage and other social policies are still progressing. I think it is an illusion that liberal policies are unpopular. An illusion fed by the growing gulf between the partisan sides and the growing ennui many in the middle are feeling because of said divisions.

[Serinajohnson]

well information

[oplawlz]

. . .
So yes, politics has to do with it. Liberal policies have been broadly unpopular since Reagan.

I never said it has nothing to do with politics, I said it has nothing to do with political parties, in this context referring specifically to the two parties who have a snowballs chance in hell of gaining power in the federal government.

The post I quoted specifically suggested the GOP was the boogeyman that wanted kids to drown in debt - I'm merely pointing out that red or blue, politicians only give a shit about groups with clear influence. Educated paupers are not one of those groups.

[The Oblivion]

nothing, its your own dumb ass fault for going into debt. no one deserves handouts.

[oplawlz]

I don't see liberal policies being broadly unpopular. The fact that the ACA was created is a major liberal move. These days, the majority of Americans (including republicans) don't want major portions of the ACA to go away. The problem is that many can't see why the unpopular parts are required to make the popular parts work, but that's another story. Additionally, things like gay marriage and other social policies are still progressing. I think it is an illusion that liberal policies are unpopular. An illusion fed by the growing gulf between the partisan sides and the growing ennui many in the middle are feeling because of said divisions.

Rational people are centrist - generally meaning they agree with liberal social leanings and conservative economic ones. The far right and left are simply more likely to vote, which means politicians pander to them.