And I don't think thats his point. He never said they were'nt important or necessary.
"How the college debt debate shifted with one big idea"
- Thread starter BobPSU92
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And I don't think thats his point. He never said they were'nt important or necessary.
It’s not a matter of having to tax others to cover it IMO. Forgiving the loans means bringing in less revenue going forward, to say we need to tax more assumes we can’t cut costs elsewhere. I dare say there are plenty of places the government spends wastefully or gives away fraudulently that we can correct rather than tax others.
Sorry, but this is laughable to think the government is going to stop spending. Just as universities don't stop spending either. This is stealing from Peter to pay Paul and there's no getting by that. That money is going to get paid by others through debt and the government borrowing money. We pay that. So others that already paid are now going to pay again. There isn't a single candidate on the left that isn't calling for increase in taxes.
IMO, there're two points here.
The first is that supply and demand determines both how many art historians and engineers we need, and also determines how much they earn. My son in law has two masters degrees in music and is currently pursuing a music doctorate at Columbia. But he's now begun taking IT courses because the number of full professorship positions in his field is shrinking. He's questioning the investment in time to get his PhD and the likelihood of being able to make a decent living when he's done.
The second is the inflation in undergraduate tuition prices as a result of the government making an unlimited amount of money available for students to borrow. When I was in school, a guy could get a decent construction job in the summer and pay for his own tuition, room and board. It's almost impossible for the average student to work his way through school any more. This is an unintended consequence of a well intended attempt to make college an attainable goal for all. Kids these days are saddled with student loans so high that unless you are an engineer or comparable, you're going to struggle retiring that debt for years.
It is impossible for a kid to work their way through school today. It's not feasible for someone to earn enough during the summer to pay for tuition/fees unless you get a sugar daddy or sugar mommy.
Millennials are already putting off major life decisions such as buying a house, marriage, etc. Student debt levels will be a drag on the economy for many years to come in ways that some don't realize (or aren't willing to admit). I'm not advocating for government intervention to wipe away billions and trillions in debt, nor am I saying anyone shouldn't be responsible for their debt. But, these debt levels are going to be a drain on everything from Social Security to the housing market and even retail.
There's a good point here. By making a 4 year degree so commonplace, it is now devalued compared to what it once was, while the cost of obtaining that degree has skyrocketed.
No, you miss the point. It may be impractical but it's not "irresponsible" to go into debt to be a social worker, unless you think all that matters is your own income. It is an argument for the cost of education to be paid by the government, at least when the real return on investment for society is more than the amount borrowed.
If you said you borrowed $100K to become, say, a stock broker, I would agree with you, as that requires little education and is of questionable value to society.
Maybe the government should subsidize majors that have the greatest potential immediate value to society as a whole relative to expected individual income. Of course, that begs some big questions, but at least it's less expensive than subsidizing everybody and would incentivize important low income professions. Places to start include social workers, teachers, nurses. No doubt those who think that the market always determines the correct value of everything will not agree.
PS: This is also an argument for subsidized trade schools. Who offers more to society, a good plumber or your average business major?
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By viewing it from your personal perspective, you continue to miss the goal of educational policy in a society. It is not to determine winners and losers, it is to optimize the safety and welfare of that society, which is the proper concern of government. On the whole, the more educated a society is, the better.
It has nothing to do with maintaining the status of people who already have an advantage, it has everything to do with ensuring that all have the opportunity in order to make the best possible society.
The only proper concern of government is to protect individual liberty and national sovereignty. The free market will take care of the rest.
If a stockbroker's value to society was "questionable", people wouldn't be willing to pay the good ones so much.
Value is a function of what people are willing to freely pay. It's not an algorithm concocted by some policy wonk in Washington.
Free market? LOL you might as well call it the unicorn market. There are no free markets.
I think Indy's point is you don't borrow $100K to be a social worker, basically getting a job making $40K, the math doesn't work. It is not a knock against social workers, they help a lot of people.
At PSU, I had a lot of friends who were education majors, I would ask them why go to PSU to major in education at almost twice the cost of going to Bloomsburg, Lock Haven etc...that was 30 years ago.
I read an article about student loan debt a few years ago, woman complaining about her huge student loan debt to get a law degree from Columbia. She now specializes in social work, it was something she always wanted to do, put her law degree to work to help people. Of course she is a local government employee and doesn't get paid nearly what a lawyer in the private sector makes, it is tough with a huge amount of student loan debt. OTOH, why in the hell would someone go to an Ivy league law school with the intent to focus on social work? She could have followed her dream at the local in-state law school.
It's also laughable to think they're actually going to forgive large amounts of debt. So the whole thing is laughable, I'm just providing a plausible way of covering it, not that it'll happen, because none of this is happening.
Nice world you live in, where value is determined by what you can get away with. It explains your utter selfishness, including your fear that everybody will be educated (so, for example, they will not "freely" be conned by expensive stockbrokers).
People are not free to the extent they are ignorant and by fearing too much education, you would like to keep others as ignorant as possible to your own advantage. So you want to limit freedom while you claim to value it above everything. The only freedom you value is your own.
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Well, that and how they're abused. Unless you think barons of days gone by treated workers well. I mean, shouldn't the market have forced them to treat employees well? Free markets as perfect is a myth, some intervention is necessary.
3 great points. Only thing that gets me more upset at the parents for not looking in to these things is the kind of remarks I heard yesterday from one of my baseball parents about their D2/3 caliber player with bad grades as we discussed JUCO's.
Parent: "He's already got a contract from a double A team"
Me: so he's being paid as a HS player, thats illegal, we have to forfeit all the games he has played in.
Parent: "well no, they said as soon as the season is over"
Me:hmm, just so you know, no double A team offer contracts, the parent organization signs people and then places them at the level they want. Plus the draft is in 6 weeks, they cant sign HS players until after that.
Parent: "no we're signing after the season, they dont want to wait until the draft"
Me: if you say so
I cant wait to see how this unfolds....
You know you’re arguing with an audience of mostly Baby Boomers, right? It’s the most entitled generation of all time. They were handed the greatest concentration of wealth in the history of the world and found a way to screw it up. They’re the definition of being born on third base and thinking they hit a triple.
This is a feature headline and article on Yahoo right now.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/...orrowers-dont-understand-costs-193650429.html
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/...orrowers-dont-understand-costs-193650429.html
Definitions are important here. What is a "social worker" these days? People have idea that it might be govt. workers checking in on ghetto families. My 2 yr son has needed developmental help. Many social programs are to address child learning and development. Many kids are in homes where parents both work, drugs or mentally ill. These girls studying education and social work ARE HOLDING huge chunks of society from falling off the cliffs. They have to have BA, MS and state certifications to do their job with kids. It take alot to be allowed to train kids. College Ed is a must and we pay them sh&t. Thank God for these women who are kind, selfless educated and willing to take peanuts for thankless, red tape, bureacratic non sense, quite often.
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The "robber baron" thing is a myth. They treated employees as well as they needed to in order to keep them from jumping ship and to get done what needed to get done. Welcome to real life! I don't understand this notion that people should be paid more than their value to who's hired them.
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You say a lot of dumb bullshit on this board.
This, however, is one of the most ludicrous things you've ever posted.
Didn’t you know that Henry Clay Frick was doing his workers a favor when he hired the Pinkertons?
His argument is going to be that the robber barons treated workers as well as they had to in order to keep them.....in other words, everyone else treated workers like shit, so it was okay for everyone to treat workers like shit.
I think you are mixing up arguments in an effort to make your point. I don't think anyone blames the students for the explosive growth in tuition costs. Many agree that needs to be addressed. However, in an environment where high tuition already exists, the students absolutely share some responsibility when their actions put them in a financial situation that they had no plan or reasonable chance to get out of.
I would never sign up for taking on debt without a plan to get out of it. If that meant I couldn't go to the college of my choice then that's what I'd do. I'd look for alternative, less costly, options such as 2 years in a community college and transferring credits. I'd consider different schools with lower tuition. I'd consider working for a time prior to enrollment to save up more money allowing me to take on less debt. I'd consider if there were other majors that might have higher salaries after school that would be a better fit for me since my original plan might put me in a crippling situation. This is all part of personal financial responsibility and expecting someone to wipe away debt that you signed up for on your own volition isn't the answer.
I get that likely half the population agrees with this stance. That's why I hope someone emerges with the much more realistic plans I mentioned earlier regarding eliminating the interest and making the payments tax deductible. I don't think a debt wipe out ever gets anywhere in congress, so it's just pandering.
I’m sure these students have cell phones WiFi cable nice laptops etc in school etc. heck how many here lived on Ramon noodles and could barely pay their phone bill with several roommates sharing the load. I worked 30-40 hours a week at 3.35 and barely paid the bills. When i left I found a job and started paying down my debt. I rented a room around dc and again paid down debt and barely had enough gas to get to work by end of pay period. So many students today are moving back home or say they don’t have a job and don’t give up all the cell phone and extra stuff they had when perhaps living with mommy and daddy.
Well you went to school to get a better job and learn about responsibility and take ownership of your life.
Fantasy land is over it is time to go to work where nothing is given but everything can be achieved.
Well you went to school to get a better job and learn about responsibility and take ownership of your life.
Fantasy land is over it is time to go to work where nothing is given but everything can be achieved.
It has been a busy week with spring break this week I’m behind. I haven’t even caught up on all the game of thrones talk. God forbid tomorrow’s thread about the draft. What is a guy to do!
I live in an area that is a hot bed for women's lacrosse. Several students from the local high school every year go off to play D1. When you talk to the parents, they all see athletic scholarship dancing in their head thinking it is like a football or basketball scholarship...most of them do not even realize that their daughter will be getting probably at most a 30% scholarship. When you consider they decide to go to a public state school as an out of state student, even with the 30% scholarship, it is still costing them 30 to 35K a year.
I know someone who got offered a 30% scholarship from a B1G school, not PSU, it was out of state, cost would have been $40K a year. The coach told them if the kid did well they could get more money, never mentioned if the kid did poorly athletically or got hurt, the kid could get less.
Parents saw through that, kid went to a private school and after all the aid, pays $14k a year.
You had it easy. I went a junior college for two years, working on my dream to play for Penn State. I had no place to live and worked a minimum wage job. The Beaver Stadium groundskeeper offered me a cot in his office. Eventually I made it to PSU but later was charged by SEC for pump and dump scheme, ruining my hero narrative. Oh wait..tmi.
I bet you had one of those fancy dial phones in college with ATT service, paying by the minute. What a luxury.
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