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The Price of Higher Education
Muriden
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http://articles.boston.com/2011-10-23/news/30313998_1_student-loans-loan-program-college-students
What do you think? Would there be a significant change in tuition costs if student loan options were reduced or removed?
Republican presidential contender Ron Paul said Sunday he wants to end federal student loans, calling it a failed program that has put students $1 trillion in debt when there are no jobs and when the quality of education has deteriorated.
Paul unveiled a plan last week to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget that would eliminate five Cabinet departments, including education. He’s also wants young workers to be able to opt out of Social Security.
The student loan program is not part of those cuts, but Paul said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press’’ that he’d kill the loan program eventually if he were president. That could put him at odds with some of his young followers, many of whom are college students.
Paul blamed government intervention in the economy for rising tuition.
“Just think of all this willingness to want to help every student get a college education,’’ said Paul, who graduated from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania before earning a medical degree at the Duke University School of Medicine. “I went to school when we had none of those. I could work my way through college and medical school because it wasn’t so expensive.’’
Annual tuition for Gettysburg College is $42,610 for the 2011-2012 academic year. Annual tuition at Duke’s medical school runs $46,621, according to its web site.
Amid such rising costs, borrowing for college is at record levels. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says students and parents took out a record $100 billion last year, and owe more on student loans — more than $1 trillion is outstanding — than credit cards.
What do you think? Would there be a significant change in tuition costs if student loan options were reduced or removed?
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Not really. It would just mean that poor kids who want to go to college would be absolutely screwed.
Also, middle class kids.
* Reduce income for smaller/less prestigious colleges, as the `better' college will still get first dibs.
* Truly high-profile colleges will just take in more rich kids from the international market, so the student base will change but not much else.
* Reduces total student intake. Which if you're at the point that you need a college degree for unskilled positions, may be a good option for the `nation'. But the students that will be reduced out are those with the least money, not the least able.
"Ron Paul doesn't want you to go to college."
"Ron Paul doesn't want your children to go to college. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!1"
About college tuition. I'm pretty lucky to have such a good state university with affordable in state tuition. Right now its only like 4k for a graduate semester.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
A much better idea is to allow students to discharge them in bankruptcy (with some restrictions of course). Because trapping broke people in debt for life is some real bullshit.
I disagree, if only because having gone through bankruptcy proceedings as a creditor, it is way to fucking easy to get your debts discharged as it is.
No. Although if you'd like to attempt to find some of these made up studies, go ahead.
Ummmmm, loan money better?
It's a looonnng story and has precisely jack shit to do with my leet shylock skillz.
Suffice to say, if I didn't challenge it, he would have easily qualified for a Chapter 7 discharge of about $40,000 when he makes over $60,000 a year.
So anecdotes about your personal problem with bankruptcy should hold as an aggregate policy towards lending.
It would probably take him, at least, 30 years to pay off that debt at his salary.
Because they're filthy, filthy college students and they don't vote so banks can get away with it.
A large reduction in students means schools will shrink or just close altogether. Even big, public state schools would run into pretty immediate problems.
In the long term, America's education level drops significantly (high school level education is a joke and I don't see how making it harder to become a teacher would fix that). Far less professionals available in general, notably professions like doctors and engineers. Hell, we already have a nursing shortage what would happen if a significant chunk of nursing students could not afford to go to school?
Yep, sounds like a great idea.
No, it was just a little anecdote about how easy it is to get a Chapter 7 discharge.
The place that Paul is coming from is that student loans basically act as a price floor on tuition because demand for higher education is enhanced. I'm sympathetic to some of that argument BUT I don't think the elasticity of demand shrinks greatly sans loans, just the means to accrue the tuition changes.
Nah, this is completely in-character for him.
Ron Paul's song is always something to the tune of: "Look, we a major problem facing this nation and we need to fix it right now! I'll fix it by throwing it to the wolves!"
He almost always correctly identifies the problem, but his solution always involves drowning some government service in the bathtub.
You can't discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy anymore.
You know why your in-state tuition is cheap? Because it's subsidized by your state's taxes. Public college tuition, before these subsidies, isn't significantly cheaper than private college tuition on average; nor is tuition particularly expensive in the US compared to other Western countries. We just have a bizarre ass-backwards way of financing it.
Anyway, I agree with Ron Paul that kids shouldn't have to take out ridiculous amounts of debt right at the beginning of their adult financial lives, just when they're supposed to be getting a foothold on economic self-sufficiency. Making it harder to take out debt, without offering a carrot in return (like, say, federal grants), is just insanity.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Whaaaa?
Anyway, it's a moot point, because I challenged, settled, and will have the rest of my money by mid 2012.
Obviously it wasn't considering the creditors can, you know, weigh in on the matter...like you did...just sayin.
It's so easy to get debt discharged that you single-handedly stopped somebody from getting their debt discharged.
I bow to your impeccable logic, sir.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I agree, but allowing for the loans to be discharged will also probably result in some other awful unintended consequences.
Bankruptcies for some, miniature American flags for everyone.
Like creditors assessing the risk of lending to students more seriously?
You're being a goose. If it wasn't for outright fraud, and my OCD habit of keeping every email and text message I've ever received, I would have been left holding my dick. As it shook out, I had to pay an attorney a shit ton of money, sue him in state court AND federal court. Even then, and with evidence of fraud I had to settle for about 70%, because it would have cost me more in attorneys fees than the tens of thousands of dollars he owed me.
So yeah, being snarky's cool and all, but I said it was a long story.
So it's so easy to get loans discharged that you can only get it by committing fraud. Sure.
Debaser is implying that the lendee committed the fraud.
While true, there is no collateral to repo on student loans, you also don't see that with relation to credit cards.
But we need to seek a reason why a student can accrue 60-100k in debt. Some the reason has to lie in the very fact those loans are not dischargable.
Alternatively: willingness to work with the debtor instead of saying "Fuck you, pay up, you can't get rid of us ever, hahahahahahahahaha."
It's a fucked up system any way you slice it. We need more government investment in education.
And how does one evaluate the future income potential of an 18 year old, with minimal work experience, a GPA, and some test scores to their name. That's why the government backed the loans in the first place, because loaning 25k a year to someone from age 18-22 is insane risky.
Right now they are basically risk-free loans, and that's why students can get them.
Then we can talk about removing the discharge through bankruptcy when we're not gouging people's livings for 40 years.
And that's why no one is cutting students off at the bar for being way too drunk despite it causing obvious cirrhosis.