School Loans

[JohnDB]

I know that specialty welders do better then this as well. An Army buddy of mine went into deep water welding and made a very good living.

The work for that isn't steady...none of the specialty welding is steady work... unless you travel constantly.

Road fleas suck...let me just say that. You forget where you are often. You never can find a decent place to eat and eating out all the time is rough...

 

[Belk]

The work for that isn't steady...none of the specialty welding is steady work... unless you travel constantly.

Road fleas suck...let me just say that. You forget where you are often. You never can find a decent place to eat and eating out all the time is rough...

Ex army so pretty used to traveling. He liked it until Deepwater horizon left him without a gig.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Massage School?
Adult Entertainment Academy?
Blackjack and Poker Dealer university?
Clown College of entertainment?
(These actually exist)

Yeah...there needs to be some limits on what kinds of schools and degrees are funded with loans and dollar limits put upon them.

60%- 90% dropout rates after the first year of education is usually the sign of a fairly standard academic school. (EVERYONE says that they will start again)

Then the cost of education is astronomically high lately. It has definitely outpaced inflation but has seemed to keep pace with Hope Scholarships from lottery ticket sales.

Now I can see the need for loans for doctors, nurses, teachers and a host of other skills. These are needed skills that we need to fund.
(What are they teaching at journalism/broadcasting school?)

A French Renaissance Art Major might find work but they might not. Same thing with Midevil literature major.
Not that art or literature studies aren't important in a society...but elephant dung on the virgin mary or an american flag half stuffed into a toilet isn't art...it's an attack on religion or politics.

Teachers are not paid a lot for the hours they put into teaching in the first place. (Homework grading, test grading, and lesson plans make for very long days for little money) But every University lately seems to have plenty of money for building expansion and facilities lately.
Liberty University's list of assets are astounding. (The president may have been without personal morals but their financials have swelled enormously)

School Loans outstanding are currently at 1.4 Trillion Dollars?
Currently some of the most productive members of American society are enslaved to the debts.

But I also wanted to include the point that many of these loans were made with the agreement of forgiveness for working for non-profit organizations like public schools and universities for ten years while making payments and the servicing companies have not kept their part of the deal. Finding every technicality possible (filling for forgiveness one month too late)

Perhaps the bogus programs and degrees exist because the government backs the loans....so the program is made for the gullible students regardless of what chances they have of paying it back....

Perhaps if we went to bank loans exclusively, they would only invest in smart students who are pursuing degrees with a chance of success.

 

[rturner76]

Ok...
But there are many factors at play here.

People borrowing money for degrees that won't generate sufficient pay to pay back loans.

Ballooning costs of education.

And stopping the borrowing before you get a degree that won't generate sufficient income to pay back the loans.

The Government using these debts as assets to borrow more money.

The Government promised that people entering public sector jobs would get loan forgiveness after ten years...and the Government has not fulfilled that promise.

If the Government was to forgive student loan debt it would help minorities the most but those that finished degrees it would stimulate the GDP by 4%. ($50k forgiveness)

I totally agree. One thing the loan calculation system does not consider is the type of degree you are going for. So a teacher with a master's can rack up the same debt as a biologist with a master's who gets a good job in the science industry. The teacher stays in the nonlucrative profession of teaching.

Loan forgiveness would explode the economy in certain sectors. People could afford homes and start families ten years sooner. They make so much off interest, they could afford it in appropriate cases.

 

[rturner76]

Perhaps the bogus programs and degrees exist because the government backs the loans....so the program is made for the gullible students regardless of what chances they have of paying it back....

Perhaps if we went to bank loans exclusively, they would only invest in smart students who are pursuing degrees with a chance of success.

There is much truth to this. Racking up 65,000 on a 2 year degree for a radio DJ will never land the student the income they need to pay back the loan AND pay rent, eat, and drive a car.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

One other thing popped up on this issue. Normally you cant transfer your credits from these for-profit schools. Not a problem if you are in a vocational program like welding or auto repair. However, a lot of these places do medical assisting or associates in business. You can't transfer those into a more recognized school. So if you take a medical assistant program, it is very rare that those credits will be applied in a nursing school. The for-profit schools wont mention that or they say they can be transferred, "to another branch in our system".

 

[GreekOrthodox]

So... What created the financial crisis is that they turned these loans into commercial paper... selling the mortgages to another person. (Actually themselves under an affiliate name) ballooning their bottom line with assets imagined.
Which caused all kinds of problems.

Now our government is doing the same thing with student loan debt. (Horrible history of repayment...worse than credit cards)

Ah, okay. And one of the problems with the sub-prime market was that both parties thought this was a good idea. Democrats wanted home ownership programs and Republicans know that home owners typically lean conservative. So we didn't even have the fox guarding the henhouse, we just left it wide open.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I wouldn't be opposed to some form of aid for people who are struggling specifically because of the pandemic.

(For instance, a person with a marketable degree that would've been able to get a good job under normal circumstances, but with the pandemic, many companies reduced their hiring...and they just need a little help to get by until things get back to normal).

However, the government (via tax dollars) shouldn't be facilitating frivolous degrees under the pretense of covid relief.

For instance, a field (like performing arts, or majoring in gender studies, or journalism) was going to be quite a long shot with or without a pandemic.

With the particular story referenced here, it's double-problematic.

1) Chiropractors aren't real doctors, and the profession itself is largely a scam-pyramid scheme, in which the degree-conferring institutions rip them off on a fake education in a pseudoscience, and then they turn around and rips off others by charging them $$$ for bogus "treatments". The government shouldn't be facilitating that, and I even have a problem with Chiropractors being considered "licensed physicians" by states (thanks to their lobbying efforts to be recognized as real doctors).


2) Chiropractors are one of the top sources of the propagation of anti-vaxxerism. (as well as often times promoting a general distrust of well-established mainstream medical science)

In a time when we, as a society, need to be building confidence in the vaccination process in order to move toward putting this whole thing behind us... helping to forgive student loans for people, who will open a practice, and then turn around and discourage people from getting vaccinated, seems wildly counter-productive.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Indeed. There seems to be a huge disconnect between our for profit school system and the results they produce. So, what do you think we should do about it? Should we craft a government solution or is their a free market way to correct this issue?

I think in this case the solution is for government to stop giving out student loans and stop guaranteeing them for private lenders. The vast majority of degrees that colleges offer are not economically wise investments at the present so providing funding for those college degrees through debt makes no sense. The reason college tuition is so much more inordinately expensive currently is because of the loan programs that are in place and the many colleges' pursuit of hyperinflated tuition based upon the ability given to students by the loan programs to put themselves into life long debt. From what I have heard, colleges never seem to caution students against overloading themselves with debt but instead heavily encourage students to do so. Since they can persuade students to ignore making fiscally responsible decisions, the administrators in the colleges seem to believe they can do the same. BTW when one looks at the not for profit school systems that we provide prior to college it seems to me that there is a huge disconnect there as well between what we spend as a society and the results they produce.

 

[Belk]

I think in this case the solution is for government to stop giving out student loans and stop guaranteeing them for private lenders. The vast majority of degrees that colleges offer are not economically wise investments at the present so providing funding for those college degrees through debt makes no sense. The reason college tuition is so much more inordinately expensive currently is because of the loan programs that are in place and the many colleges' pursuit of hyperinflated tuition based upon the ability given to students by the loan programs to put themselves into life long debt.

Do we know this is the reason college is more expensive? Certainly expanded demand would account for part of the issue but just like other industries I can not think that it is the complete reason. This will also result in a reduction in college attendance which is one of our best known indicators of a higher quality of life. As we shift towards a knowledge based economy I would think we would wan to keep the idea of college but shift people towards growth sector industries.

From what I have heard, colleges never seem to caution students against overloading themselves with debt but instead heavily encourage students to do so. Since they can persuade students to ignore making fiscally responsible decisions, the administrators in the colleges seem to believe they can do the same. BTW when one looks at the not for profit school systems that we provide prior to college it seems to me that there is a huge disconnect there as well between what we spend as a society and the results they produce.

Yes, our public school system is not really producing the way it should. I think there are several reasons for this but the biggest reason I feel is that it is so centralized at the national level. One of the best ideas Americans ever had was the structure of government flowing up from the local level. I think schools are to reliant on broad administration that does not allow schools to focus on the needs of their students at the local level.

 

[JohnDB]

As we shift towards a knowledge based economy I would think we would wan to keep the idea of college but shift people towards growth sector industries.

OK...but there's a basic problem with growth sector industries...
And that is the Democrat party doesn't believe in supply side economics...only demand side of the consumer economic growth.
Growth sector jobs are largely unbroken ground for employment... meaning that you have to create your own job/company and build it into a working model.

That goes completely against their political structure and ideology.

So guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and etc are an anomaly.
They worked the formula backwards by creating a supply first and figured that the demand would come later. (Very republican party of them)

(Bill Gates never finished High School or College...but it wasn't because he couldn't)

Forensic science was once overflowing with new college graduates...but few places to go with their degrees and extremely low pay for the few jobs that existed.
Now,
Pharmacy Technician is overflowing with graduates and not enough jobs.

But oddly enough, construction Electrician is in short supply, nursing staff (RN, LPN, and Nurse Practitioners... although not so much for LPN)

 

[Belk]

OK...but there's a basic problem with growth sector industries...
And that is the Democrat party doesn't believe in supply side economics...only demand side of the consumer economic growth.
Growth sector jobs are largely unbroken ground for employment... meaning that you have to create your own job/company and build it into a working model.

That goes completely against their political structure and ideology.

In what way? They certainly seemed able to get out of the way in the Clinton years. What about them has changed that they will no longer do so?

So guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and etc are an anomaly.
They worked the formula backwards by creating a supply first and figured that the demand would come later. (Very republican party of them)

They also had innovative ideas.

(Bill Gates never finished High School or College...but it wasn't because he couldn't)

Forensic science was once overflowing with new college graduates...but few places to go with their degrees and extremely low pay for the few jobs that existed.
Now,
Pharmacy Technician is overflowing with graduates and not enough jobs.

But oddly enough, construction Electrician is in short supply, nursing staff (RN, LPN, and Nurse Practitioners... although not so much for LPN)

I'm not sure I am following what point you are trying to convey in this section.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Do we know this is the reason college is more expensive? Certainly expanded demand would account for part of the issue but just like other industries I can not think that it is the complete reason. This will also result in a reduction in college attendance which is one of our best known indicators of a higher quality of life. As we shift towards a knowledge based economy I would think we would wan to keep the idea of college but shift people towards growth sector industries.

It's part of the problem. Government backing of student loans has made loans more plentiful and, thus, money more available, which has distorted the market in a way that's allowed the suppliers of education to inflate their prices beyond what their customers would've been otherwise able to afford. Sports cars would also be more common and more expensive if the government encouraged and subsidized the purchasing of them in this manner. There's little to keep universities of any stripe from gaming the system.

Yes, our public school system is not really producing the way it should. I think there are several reasons for this but the biggest reason I feel is that it is so centralized at the national level. One of the best ideas Americans ever had was the structure of government flowing up from the local level. I think schools are to reliant on broad administration that does not allow schools to focus on the needs of their students at the local level.

There's nothing stopping local schools from doing better if they have the resources and desire to do so. OTOH, federal oversight keeps a lot of schools from falling even further behind.

 

[JohnDB]

It's part of the problem. Government backing of student loans has made loans more plentiful and, thus, money more available, which has distorted the market in a way that's allowed the suppliers of education to inflate their prices beyond what their customers would've been otherwise able to afford. Sports cars would also be more common and more expensive if the government encouraged and subsidized the purchasing of them in this manner. There's little to keep universities of any stripe from gaming the system.




There's nothing stopping local schools from doing better if they have the resources and desire to do so. OTOH, federal oversight keeps a lot of schools from falling even further behind.

Economic theory and focus of the political parties and just thinking about stuff I've noticed.