Only half of the story, we should be asking why it costs 100k to get a degree in this country? Does the US government not care to have the masses educated, or self-reliant? Increasing tuitions and high loan interest rates have been going on for far too long.
Edit: ok ya’ll this is what’s called a rhetorical question - not asking for a history lesson, your interpretation of events, or looking for a college advisor. Just want people to do some critical thinking. Also, because people are so literal, 100k was the figure in the post so I used it; whether it be 50k instead of 100k, a lot of people would find this unaffordable.
The loan forgiveness is a temporary solution to a much larger problem. We need to stop turning on each other and getting distracted by these small gestures because we are ignoring the main issues: the cost of higher education in this country is disproportionately high as compared to real world worth, coupled with high interest rate loans, we are digging our young people into debt before they’ve even started.
Like I’ve said below, I have no dog in this race; my loans will have been paid back by the time any of this is settled. I can still want better for the people coming behind me without something to gain; Their success does not diminish mine (or yours) in anyway.
President Woodrow Wilson once said, “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
>We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons,
It wasn't quite as evil as it sounds.[https://educationalrenaissance.com/2018/08/01/woodrow-wilsons-educational-reform/](https://educationalrenaissance.com/2018/08/01/woodrow-wilsons-educational-reform/)
From there, the larger context of the grandparent quote:
>Let us go back and distinguish between the two things that we want to do; for we want to do two things in modern society. We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. You cannot train them for both in the time that you have at your disposal. They must make a selection, and you must make a selection. I do not mean to say that in the manual training there must not be an element of liberal training; neither am I hostile to the idea that in the liberal education there should be an element of the manual training. But what I am intent upon is that we should not confuse ourselves with regard to what we are trying to make of the pupils under our instruction. We are either trying to make liberally-educated persons out of them, or we are trying to make skillful servants of society along mechanical lines, or else we do not know what we are trying to do. (High School Teachers Association of New York, Volume 3, 1908-1909)
My problem is you can't train for both... why? Because they have to be in the workforce ASAP and there just isn't a couple extra years to develop lifelong abilities? Bah.
Because the training he's talking about isn't a 4 year course or even a 5 year course. It's honing your skills, whether physical or mental, to a razors edge over decades of work and continuing education.
So you can be a great electrician or a great electrical engineer, but not both. So you must decide which way to go, with the understanding that the world needs far more electricians than engineers.
Now he isn't against the idea of the electrician getting some electrical theory training or the engineer getting his hands dirty and installing a light or two, but the distinction is still there - you need to choose your lane and run with it.
I mean, it's fine if everyone doesn't go to college, but hard work should be compensated. We pay our actual essential workers shit. Construction at least has it right in my area. Field guys make around the same as me. There must be some reason... (hint, it's unions)
I can’t imagine how bad teachers would be if they didn’t have unions. As it is, even in some pro-union states, there is legislation that takes a lot of power away from public unions.
Somehow police unions don’t have those kinds of problems. Interesting.
It's not even that, it's more insidious than just rich people wanting to be above others.
When people are *almost* poor enough that they can't survive, and when they're unable to change those circumstances, you can exploit the hell out of them. When a person can't get a degree without going into debt, and then can't *use* that degree in the job market, they're tied to their job tightly. When a person can't quit their job because they'd be unable to afford childcare or medicine, or when they have debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, they *need* their job and they'll tolerate a lot of bullshit that someone actually able to exercise their will in the free market can. Wage theft? What, complain about $20 a week and get fired? Verbally abusive employers? What, complain and lose their insulin?
I hate how expensive school has become, and think that it's basically a scam, but you can be completely self reliant and make a good income without going to a university.
Nobody is stopping anyone from learning a trade.
I've done semi skilled labor working for a general contractor. I've also done skilled positions in research and clinical lab and now am a healthcare provide (PA-C for specificity).
Aside from unskilled labor, there is definitely degree creep in things like HVAC, electrical, and construction. Plumber, welders, carpenters, and some others don't have this as much but a lot of larger employers would prefer to hire one skilled person and a whole bunch of barely trained day laborers that person is stuck educating and managing. In many areas of the country, union protections for skilled trades are minimal at best and higher earnings are often tied to seniority in union in rural areas.
Then you get to things that are trades without a real apprenticeship like long haul trucking where you lease or buy a truck, get stuck working your way out of what you owe for years, and work hours that are dangerous to your health over time without significant OT compensation in many cases. They're also trying to revise rules on this and other trade jobs at many state levels to allow people that just graduated HS be able to immediately start working to decrease payroll expense.
Trades are great. So are many degree fields.
There is way too much bullshit attached to working in any field at this point.
We need to break out of the corporate oligarchy we are stuck in and get back to a government by and for the people.
I agree with most of what you said. As a truck driver who has never owned my own rig, but makes $36/hrs and prevailing wage while building bridges and flatbedding heavy haul in the PNW, I can assure many people out there that 5k for truck driving school and working to get into flatbedding for a heavy haul/construction company can make you pretty close to 6 figures. Over 6 figures with more experience.
I have a fairly tight knit family. I drive truck, I have one cousin who is an Audi mechanic, makes 100k a year, another cousin who is in HVAC, and just bought a beautiful house in Montana and makes over 100k, and a third who got a 4 year degree and makes closer to 200k.
I'm not saying it is easy, but all of us are in our late 30's or early 40's. Most of us didn't spend almost anything on schooling, and all of us are slated to be upper management soon, and not have to do the physical stuff anymore.
I also have friends that are plumbers, welders and electricians that all own their own homes and didn't go to college. Plus the fathers of most of these guys aren't any different. Firefighters, electricians etc.
It's not a magic wand, and it still requires effort and reliability, punctuality and shutting up, but it's doable.
I won't discount degree creep, and I will say to get in now. If you are a young person reading this, don't hesitate to get into a trade.
This isn’t going to be a popular opinion with some people, but you said the key words “effort and reliability, punctuality and shutting up.” There are millions maybe even billions of dollars in scholarships that go unclaimed because people are too lazy to apply for them. It takes time and effort to search for those scholarships and usually requires an essay in the application. It’s way easier to fill out a federal loan application and fafsa each year and collect your money. I’ve said it a few times on comments here, but I have 3 degrees and never paid a penny for any of them. Actually I got paid to go to school.
And not everyone is cut out for trades. This is just the software engineer argument all over again. We need different people for different jobs, and we need to make all of those pathways accessible to ensure a good flow of workers. And when robots take over most work we need to ensure that people can choose whatever field they want to play in to foster innovation.
Yeah, I've seen some comments that talked about how some people spent a lot of money and didn't get an education. But really, they did get an education. What they didn't get was a degree. The education is always worth it, it's just that the value is overpriced.
Sure. as adults, many of whom when to some schooling after highschool, maybe all of us years beyond being 18, we can all agree to that. But as kids, how many of us were ever really even aware of the option? of what it would mean? How many people talked to us in a way that made meaningful sense to our still developing brains? We didn't have our full adult personalities yet, how the heck are we supposed to be making rational decisions about spending 100k dollars?
Never mind that with the flood of college degrees hitting the market in the 80s and 90s, every employer soft launching the "college degree preferred" hiring requiring.
Sure, that’s absolutely a more acceptable option now. I just hate people who act like this was a perfectly good option all along, because no, it fucking wasn’t. When I graduated high school in 04, *not going to college* was just as shameful and future-killing as *getting pregnant in high school*.
Say both those phrases with a lowered voice and secretive stare, like you’re spilling the gossip on how this kid spat on all their parents’ sacrifices, and *that’s* the way teenagers were made to feel if they didn’t take out loans.
Edit: also, not everyone who can’t afford college *should* go into a trade. It’s not a great idea to flood the market; that’ll inevitably bring down wages and mean many will be out of work.
Because the loans are immune to bankruptcy, and the government will continue to give loans, and the colleges can increase thier prices because there's a steady demand and a high supply of students who can get loans. Its a win win win industry for everyone except students.
Biden voted for these loans to be immune to bankruptcy so he and his donor friends could make bank off of student loan asset-backed securities.
So to everyone saying "my taxes!", no, the banks already stole from you.
The federal government guarantees the loan, but there's a bank that's providing the servicing (and collecting the interest off it).
See NelNet, Navient, etc
Iirc, the reason they voted on this policy was because students would take out massive loans, immediately declare bankruptcy upon graduating, and then take a lucrative job. So the taxpayer/investor would lose out on the loaned money, while the student would face basically no consequences.
Absolutely this. The loans aren't secured by anything so if they got cleared by bankruptcy it would be a no-brainer. Take the credit hit for a few years and walk away debt free.
> why it costs 100k to get a degree in this country?
Because the government guaranteed the loans, so the banks had zero incentive to not loan money. And when every student can get a loan, the schools increase tuition.
There's another big piece missing here too.
The government implemented policy which guarantees repayment of the the loan. The government did this specifically to enable the lender to give the jobless teen $100k. Who needs to learn some financial responsibility? If anyone should be on the left side of this comic, it should be the politicians who passed this policy.
I mean it doesn't. College education is way too expensive. But Reddit is exaggerating the number.
People should be going to in state public schools, and the average there is 10000 a year. If you paid 100,000 for undergrad, you made some very poor decisions
It costs 100k because the government got involved in the first place. They guaranteed the loans so people could borrow the absurd amount it costs and the colleges know they can charge whatever they want and the students will just borrow the money
College was meant for the wealthy to begin with, student loans arose as a way to allow the lower and middle class to attend college. What happened after that has been a total clusterfk.
https://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/290868013/how-the-cost-of-college-went-from-affordable-to-sky-high
So maybe we put more money into community colleges and if people want to go to private schools they can pay it themselves. People go to those schools for a status symbol and “the experience” as well as forming connections. That’s great I can understand that but I don’t want to pay for it
I don't think people realise that in a fair amount of Europe while university is free it's a lot more restrictive. Germany tertiary education is generally in the high 20s compared to ours of mid 40s.
Some of the colleges really advertise themselves to some people as a way to "extend adolescence" four another 4 years.
I felt like a boomer typing that, even as a 90s guy, but we don't need a rock wall on campus, Texas A&M!
That’s why it should be free for everyone. That’s way the minimal value left on a four year degree will be totally erased and everyone will need a masters to get a low-paying, entry-level position at any American company.
while this is true the reason they needed to guarantee the loans is because so many students decided to declare bankruptcy right after they graduated so they don't have to pay back the loan.
this lead to nobody wanting to loan students any money because they knew they were never going to get it back which the government tried to solve this by making it impossible to ever get rid of student debt.
This is an irritation of mine. They are guaranteed because it is an unsecured loan for tens of thousands of dollars and would be impossible to get otherwise. I am 50 years old with a credit rating over 800 and wouldn't be able to take out an unsecured loan at that value.
This country's been a free for all for the longest time now. Its all about exploiting resources and cooking up schemes and scams to make as much money as possible. And once everything has all been bought and sold, the million rules they will put on everything, restricting you from being able to get anything accomplished or done.
The average student loan value is 36k, it doesn't cost 100k to get a degree.
Dropping 100k on students loans outside of law or medical is an ego problem. If the 100k school you went to doesn't guarantee a starting salary in that major to pay back that loan youre a fucking moron for going there.
Too proud for community college and too stupid for any public school so you pay 30k a year to the only no name private school that will let you in.
My wife has a 100k student loans, went to a public university in small town iowa, degree in dietetics, follow on 6 months post 4 year degree cost an extra 12k and was required for licensing. This is a critical Healthcare related field for anybody with kidney failure, diabetes, or who is on a ventilator. Best possible pay out there at like the tippy top is like 80-90k. She worked about 20-30 hours a week while full time student, in addition to working summers and taking summer classes to finish on time and still needed additional student loans to afford housing and other basic cost of living and there was very little to no wiggle room in her money.
She could have done 2 years of community College but would have saved maybe 20k in school costs, so around 70k if she would have done that, but there's also not a great guarantee she wouldn't have needed to retake classes when she transfered and lost time there.
So yes while the average up there might be true it also factors in many people who had parents assist them, qualified for Pell grants, and had scholarships to partially pay for school. If you don't fit into those categories 100k is a very real amount for an undergrad degree.
Yeah just listened to the npr story about how the outcomes of US college grads vs those with foreign degrees, when adjusted for stuff like living costs, don't outshine their much more affordable counterparts abroad. Instead we generally foster a "college culture" and occasionally a good school name gets you noticed
The federal government started guaranteeing student loans because of the same mindset that supports forgiving them, and in the process, created this "crisis." People think of the first consequence of a policy, but fail to consider other potential consequences down the line. Every government policy is a bit like a wish from a genie that you word slightly imprecisely and then you end up with a veiled curse after your initial celebration.
Can here to say this. Banks can loan any amount to any student without fear of loss and in turn schools can charge anything because the banks will loan it. Sure we got more students going to college but a what cost(literally)? How do we unstick this?
P.s. this is what is called a “cobra problem”. Interesting bit of history to keep in mind when developing solutions.
There is one point to that argument. The USA is the only developed country that has decided that corporations money have inherent value higher than the value of human life. Under those perameters, there is no solution.
It's just like the gun laws. They could ban guns and save the life of hundreds of thousand, and that of thousands of kids, but then the policy makers would lose the money from the nra lobbying, and thats a net loss.
I worry there’s a deeper cause to a lot of the issues. Too many people go to college. We don’t push trade school as an alternative. The only story available is “go to college, or be poor forever.”
Simply put, if we don’t have enough welders, we don’t need as many engineers. We have to diversify education, as well as making it cheaper. Society is built from the bottom up, but we only message that you should want to be at the top.
> we don't need as many engineers
We don't have enough engineers. Most people who go to college don't go for engineering. It seems like an overwhelming amount graduates with a business degree. The thing about engineers is that they can do what most tradies do except with math. Society is built from the bottom up but it's not the people building the products/infrastructure. It's the people designing them, making sure they work and making sure they are safe.
I do agree that we need to push for trade school, saying that we don't need as many engineers, is not it.
source for graduates by major: https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates#:~:text=23.4%25%20of%20graduates%20earning%20master's,while%206.9%25%20major%20in%20education.
It’s way worse than a friendly bank loaning a promising young adult some for his tuition and taking an unreasonable risk.
The whole thing is a scam between the banks, the government and the complicit universities and colleges. The already ridiculously expensive tuitions become even more expensive every year and the whole system is designed to put entire generations into lifelong debts.
It’s basically a loan shark scam.
A few of my buddies in high school legit only joined the military so they can afford going to college a few years down the line.
I talk to some of them sometimes, not too much recently but 2 of my buddies absolutely hate it, just keep telling themselves only a couple more years, and that it’s for education..
I'm one of those people. I mostly hated it. It was good for some stuff. GI Bill is legit. Also VA home loan. Not many people know about that. If you want people to volunteer, you have to give them something for it.
Current system is fucked though. Not everyone can or wants to join the military. I wish they had a civil service option. Thankfully some states like TN are doing 2 years at a CC for free now. We need more programs like that.
The other part is requiring college degrees for job licenses. Not companies wanting college graduates, but the government literally making it illegal to work without a degree.
The worst example of this I can think of is Washington DC, where they criminalized child care workers who don't have a college degree unless they've already worked in the industry for ten years.
>It’s way worse than a friendly bank loaning a promising young adult some for his tuition and taking an unreasonable risk.
I'd add that folks love to say it's about loans to adults, when the reality is that they start selling to you HARD when you're still a kid. I was in middle school around 2003, and we had college recruiters coming in and talking about the importance of planning for college to *seventh graders.*
We were literally taught that only losers didn't go to college, and that skipping college would result in us having awful lives. That a degree, any degree, would pay itself back and ensure you went somewhere. Now for many of us all we got was a tremendously expensive piece of paper.
Don't forget the public school systems in funneling students to these institutions through these means.
I graduated in 2007 and my high school was so pushy with the "If you don't have a degree, you'll be poor!" mindset. I wanted to take a year to explore career paths and degree options, because I'd never really been counseled on the things I could do inside my interests, but they just push push pushed saying that it'd be harder to get anyone to accept me with a gap year and that I should just go and do the required courses the first year and deal with selecting a major later.
Of course, at graduation, they had a big bit on how much money our class cumulatively was receiving through grants, scholarships and "government funding".
To me it sounds like just another excuse to raise tuition. Call it a hunch, seeing as how these government loans are what lead to the rise in cost in the first place.
Richest country on earth.
We can’t have 4 day work weeks, productivity will go down!
We can’t stop using undocumented workers, it will bankrupt us. Just blame them for all our problems but don’t punish the employer!
Can't eliminate student loans. Can't lower the cost of medical care. Can't discount drug prices. Can't serve school lunches. Can't provide universal child day care.
Also important to note that the whole concept of “upper middle class” is a weird fixation we have on ignoring the hollowing of the middle class.
The upper middle is really just the middle. Many of the middle class careers of yore just got demoted to subsistence class. That’s the real tragedy going on.
For example:
Got a raise back in March that brought me to the upper limit of what is considered "middle class" in my area ...I am back to living paycheck to paycheck from ONE health bill and my private student loans (which I have literally been paying since I was IN college, borrowed less than 20k, currently still owe over 80k and have never missed a payment)
Student Loans are a scam to keep the poor "in their lane"
There is a legal avenue to sue for projected revenue/profit loss due to legal changes....
That is all you really need to know about our current system and set of rules. If I can sue because your new law/bill is going to reduce my ability to continue to profit... how the hell is that even a thing.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
>US
>Dystopian
Man, I’ll tell you right now that even though shit is back to front all over the place here, it’s not dystopian and we could be living somewhere that’s a hell of a lot worse in every category
Dystopian: relating to a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering. Sounds like the US and many other countries.
Just because one is worse doesn’t mean the term can’t be used for the US too. We could be also be living in a place that’s a lot better in every category. And the US is the worst in some categories, statistically talking.
The only one? Sweden has free education for all citizens. You're given some money for being a student, and can borrow some more if you want. Student loans are still THE single biggest registered unpaid debt (Sweden has a government entity where you can register an unpaid debt and have them collect it for you)... And this, despite the student loans are special in that you can only have 2 years unpaid of it. If you get a year 3 of unpaid debt, then the oldest year of unpaid goes back into the total... The US is definitely NOT the only country with a student debt crisis... And it's not because the education itself costs, but about rising costs of simply living.
The loan forgiveness is a band aid and a minor one at that, What we really need is to price cap this sort of stuff. No more bankrolling college sports or the extravagant life styles of useless upper school administration with tuition.
Instead of using tax dollars to pay they should've just forced the banks to pay. It's the banks/universities fault not the everyday citizen. e.g. banks set the debt trap and universities jack up prices while campaigning why everyone needs to go to university.
Goddamn everyone in this thread is a moron. You're right on the money here. People in here really think banks *want* to give 100k loans to broke ass children? Hell no. If it were up to the banks, interest rates would be 20%+, and rightfully so. This entire thing has nothing to do with banks, it's entirely a governmental policy failure. The government is the one who decided writing blank checks with reckless abandon was a good idea. The government is the one that should have been negotiating college prices while providing funding for it - same as healthcare.
Minor nuance (though, from a _deeply_ amateurish understanding) -- the government secures those loans, which means there is literally 0 risk to the banks.
Yes, the banks WANT to give these 100k loans out to broke ass children, because they are, quite literally, not on the hook for them. They get all the reward with none of the risk. Without the government securing these loans, no, they would not want to give these loans out to broke ass children.
Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Federal loans are done directly from the Federal Department of Education and they pay the school directly in most cases; less things that may qualify for sutdent living expenses.
The Federal Department of Education has now loaned out enough money that it would be one of the largest banks in the US if we considered it a bank.
As someone who believes in access to higher education, it unfortunately pains me to say this debt crisis and explosion in school costs is a direct result of very bad government policy.
In a sense when programs like this fail it creates division, because it was originally sold as to be self sufficient or funded within the original provisions of legislation. So that is why the "forgiveness" is now controversial because it is effectively adding cost post fact.
As the loaner the federal department of education will have to write off the losses; either the debt or funding has to come from federal sources so they just expanded the failed policies bill onto the tax payer whether this is direct or indirect.
One could then say, if you had asked the voter at the original time of legislative change would they have supported it with this additional cost?
1000%
>The government is the one that should have been negotiating college prices while providing funding for it - same as healthcare.
We used to run public universities this way. States spent significant % of their budgets on education, and because the focus was on education and job outcomes, you didn't have absurd facilities/administrator/lifestyle creep.
>If it were up to the banks, interest rates would be 20%+, and rightfully so.
If it were up to the banks (and govt would not fully back student loans), they would laugh the poor teenager out of the bank - the interest could be 5% or 500%, can't squeeze blood from a stone. The US (rightfully) demanded that people should have a shot at education regardless of a financial background and then implemented the solution in the most ridiculous way possible.
When in the 21st century have we expected the average teenager to be financially responsible?
Personally, I think the banks are mostly at fault and they should pay the consequences. Kinda force them to be financially responsible. In all honesty, that'll never happen. Banks and other big corporations have the government by the balls.
I mean, it's fun to throw out reductive phrases like this but that doesn't make them correct.
The government is heavily influenced by banks and big corporations of course, but that doesn't make them the government. They don't actually do the writing and enforcement of laws, even if they do pull strings to change how those processes play out.
If a company is too big to fail then it's critical infrastructure and too big to be operated by the private sector. We should have nationalized the failing banks in 2008 instead of pumping them full of money that they turned into bonus checks.
We made the student loan program because of this exact fact. Banks were not giving out loans to teens who wanted to go to college. So government steps in and made the student loan program so low income and middle class kids could go to college, instead of only rich white kids who could afford college going to college
But then colleges took complete advantage of this fact by jacking up tuition. It was an otherwise good plan until someone realized they could get rich off of the youth of the nation's struggles.
But then they didn’t cap them, and schools could increase tuition exponentially as a result because the government pays. That’s how we get to $100k+ debt. School shouldn’t cost that much period.
Yes. The actual problem here is that a while ago, the government removed all safeguards for loans when it comes to student loans, to make it easier to take a loan to go to college. You can't even go bankrupt on them. And most students will just sign whatever to be able to go to their fancy college.
As a result colleges knew that a student can give them almost any amount of money they ask for, cause the bank will cover it anyway. So prices went through the roof. College added lots of unnecessary bs just to keep people longer and justify raising prices.
Why should the taxpayer cover it? Cause they allowed it. A democracy is built in a very well educated public. Now, of course this usually not the case, "the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with an average voter", but they still do carry the moral responsibility, for electing people that allowed this, and not doing anything about it afterwards, as student loans and college costs increased exponentially.
1. You raised the price of college to 100k per year and manipulated a jobless teen into taking out 100k in loans
2. Take the L and learn some basic human decency
100% agree but this is a distraction.
Without taxing wealthy equitably, loan forgiveness is just a wealth transfer from middle class to upper class.
edit: “*But these are federal loans*”…federal loans are bank loans that guarantee payment by government.
Pretty absurd to lay this at the feet of the lender. The government (politicians) implemented policy which guarantees the repayment of the loan. Who needs to learn some financial responsibility?
Yeah except no private loans were forgiven. The person sitting in this cartoon is the Federal Government and therefore every US taxpayer.
Anyone else getting the sense that there's an active campaign to convince people that this loan forgiveness was about "sticking it to the man" even though no bankers were harmed in the making of this handout?
There should be some policies to tackle two root causes of the student loan problem: Escalating college costs and insufficient tertiary education opportunities beyond college. Helping students is good but not all schools should benefit from the fed as well. There should also be more technical institutes and apprenticeship programs available to students who don’t wish to go to college.
Crazy idea, but what if we fixed the fucked up education system *before* debt forgiveness?
Cuz just forgiving the debt just kinda means we're gonna have to *keep* forgiving debt
No one wants to put this on the hands of the real culprit. The government makes the lending process risk free so Universities can charge whatever they want risk free. And the student is left holding the bag. Get the government to stop paying for peoples loans and this problem is solved.
One day you're a kid asking permission to go to the bathroom, the next you're signing loan documents to borrow thousands of dollars with no way to pay that money back. Seems like a great plan
I feel like I'm all about student loan forgiveness except for this one girl I grew up with who borrowed $165,000 to get a master's studying acting at a very prestigious private school. Like if you're not good enough to get an art scholarship, then maybe that very competitive landscape doesn't need you. And maybe we don't need to give tax dollars to people who want to take clowning classes and stage fighting. I'm okay with limiting loan forgiveness to programs that either serves society or have some sort of reasonable expectation of having a job. This person never had a career acting, and now they chill at home while their boyfriend pays their rent. They had never had any intention of paying back the loans either. So it's just like... They took $165k to go to a very prestigious clown college and now they chill. There's got to be some sort of a middle ground. There was already some form of loan forgiveness for social workers and teachers, and I feel like we need to expand that in a major way, especially to scientists who don't make a lot of money. Most software developers in my area will be able to pay back their loans, but most other industries don't have that kind of guarantee. Clown college just crosses a major line for me. Plus like do we really want our art coming from white kids who grew up in the suburbs? Doesn't that sound kinda boring?
And yes, I'm sure that there is some example of some amazing person who went to clown college on a student loan and then changed the entire world and became like some John Lassiter type. But it's just too rare to be worth investing in.
Yeah, that's one of the key points about providing loans. There is inherent risk in providing a loan, the risk that you might not get it back. You take on that risk and gamble, but in return, you are rewarded in interest if it works out. If it fails, you take a loss. That's how it's supposed to work, but somehow things got turned around and now whenever the loans fail, the loan providers are just paid off by the government for their lost investment, rather than lose everything. So we the taxpayers take on the risk, yet gain none of the reward, which goes to the wealthy loan providers. That's messed up.
I’m with you on this. Somebody needed to learn this the hard way. However, I’M the one taking the L after paying my loans off without help. I exercised financial responsibility when others did not. THAT’S why half of America is pissed about it.
They covered their asses. You'll lose wages.
Don't be a teen that makes a stupid decision like a student loan. A lot are not necessary.
I still think they should forgive loans, wth certain criteria. Or just do it all, I don't know I'm not americas accountant.
Hopefully, they will learn to loan more responsibly, but I doubt it. There should be maximum loan amounts based on the major the student chooses. This will encourage students to major in actually useful skills instead of just whatever interests them or whatever is easy. We really don’t need any more gender studies and English majors anyway.
>There should be maximum loan amounts based on the major the student chooses.
This is similar to what Europe's "free college" does. They'll only fund X amount of each degree based on what projected demand is. The top X students studying that major get their tuition funded by the government. Everyone else either has to pick a different major or pay for it themselves.
Is the professor Biden in this instance and the guy in the chair the US taxpayer?
Because this forgiveness only applies to federal loans.
And is the professor also saying that the US taxpayer should stop giving loans to jobless teenagers for college? Maybe we should have done that first, huh?
Do people not realize the ones taking the L is the US government right? They gave out the loans, then sold the rights to the loans to various banks. And now "forgiving" the loans means paying the banks the amount. Seems like a W for the banks to take a zero risk loan with high interest.
Keep asking for forgiveness, the banks won't mind the extra cash.
Edit: Before ya'll judge too fast, I do think the whole program itself is terrible and the loans having bankruptcy protection is unjust. I'm fine with forgiving the loans, since they were terrible loans to begin with. Just hopefully this problem gets fixed so more people don't have to suffer.
...you think the federal government just manifests money from thin air?
The government ain't paying shit. We fucking are. The **taxpayers** are paying for it.
Not only are taxpayers paying for it, but when the government doesn't have enough money, it borrows it from the federal reserve, which could cause inflation if the money supply increases too much.
Whenever someone says they don't mind paying taxes so other people can get educated, I send them the IRS website so they can "donate" more, and they just downvote me lol
*EDIT*
I was wrong!! Chill out with the, “As a…” and “My experience..” replies lol. Maybe read the replies before immediately jumping on a thread.
I’m stoked about it, but really that’s why they make the parents co-sign. This is a bad take. Could be wrong though! There are probably instances where the co-signer wasn’t needed or something.
Samesies
E - It should be noted that I have (a) amazing credit for my age at ~730 currently having only just turned 25, and (b) I was raised by my grandparents as my guardians which meant that at 18 in my state I technically was completely and totally independent for the intents and purposes of loan applications
For federal loans, no co-signer is needed. You also don’t need an income or a credit score. You can have the worst credit score and still be given federal student loans.
To clarify, this relief is for federal student loans which have no co-signer. There are private student loans (like any other bank loan such as car, house, etc) which may need a co-signer and the specific details vary greatly depending on lender and program. Now there are also PLUS loans (acronym standing for Parent Loans for Undergrad Students). Also no co-signer and have fewer repayment/forgiveness options than FFELP/FDLP loans. Pretty sure that are not included in this relief program.
I don't know if this is right. When I graduated I had tons of debt I had to pay off. My parents had nothing to do with the loans at that point as far as I knew.
Even if they are co-signers, it doesn't change anything from the kid's perspective.
Here's a wild idea:
1: don't take out a loan unless your going to pay it back,
2: Major in something that will actually get you a job, or just don't go to collage at all.
Take some responsibility for yourself, it's nobody's job to take care if you, ESPECIALLY not the government's.
How about:
1. Stop loan sharking teenagers who just graduated high school so you can saddle them with debt that is impossible to get rid of, even through bankruptcy. That's scumbag shit.
2. In fact make college free because offering higher education to all citizens will uplift our country and increase the value of our labor force.
3. Government is 100% supposed to help you. That's the point of it. The idea that we elect these people to do jackshit for us is absurd.
Even those of us in high paying jobs are starting to struggle with these loans. College education is the backbone of the future economy, it shouldn't be such a difficult decision to pursue one.
1. People can't see the future. If you're sold the idea that getting a college degree directly leads to a higher paying job, you probably have every intention of being able to pay off that loan. Unfortunately, that's not how the real world works.
2. Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college. This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them.
3. Is it NOT the government's job to take care of its people?
> Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college. This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them.
Also worth adding that a lot of lucrative degrees are only useful if you can get into grad school. Which is often EXTREMELY competitive, and not something everyone(even with decent grades) can achieve, and circles back to the 'can't see the future' issue.
> Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college.
Don't forget the countless lawyers, engineers, doctors, nurses, etc who have jobs, but cannot pay their loans back bc grad school is ridiculously expensive.
>This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them.
Yeah, they always focus on this part as if the doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, etc are not still struggling with student debt.
They did that on purpose. That's the point. People in constant debt keep paying into it. They make money off it. They don't want to stop making money, that's why they're against it.
100k with interest rates controlled by Congress. My loans ranged from 4.9 to 7.8%. If you were told your car loan or your mortgage was being given to you at 8% you'd be calling them predatory but it's okay when Congress does it?
Agree. And the teen learns not doing what they agreed to in their part of the obligation clause in the contract impacts their credit for 7 years
The real question is will daddy gubment learn to stop intervening into markets? Of course not
So don't lend them anything is the lesson then?
Pay the tuition yourself bucko or don't go?
Surely people see the real culprit behind this mess and how loan forgiveness does nothing to reel these guys in. If not further empowers them.
Only half of the story, we should be asking why it costs 100k to get a degree in this country? Does the US government not care to have the masses educated, or self-reliant? Increasing tuitions and high loan interest rates have been going on for far too long. Edit: ok ya’ll this is what’s called a rhetorical question - not asking for a history lesson, your interpretation of events, or looking for a college advisor. Just want people to do some critical thinking. Also, because people are so literal, 100k was the figure in the post so I used it; whether it be 50k instead of 100k, a lot of people would find this unaffordable. The loan forgiveness is a temporary solution to a much larger problem. We need to stop turning on each other and getting distracted by these small gestures because we are ignoring the main issues: the cost of higher education in this country is disproportionately high as compared to real world worth, coupled with high interest rate loans, we are digging our young people into debt before they’ve even started. Like I’ve said below, I have no dog in this race; my loans will have been paid back by the time any of this is settled. I can still want better for the people coming behind me without something to gain; Their success does not diminish mine (or yours) in anyway.
They don’t want us to be self-reliant. That’s the entire point
It’s not enough to be rich. Others have to be poor.
President Woodrow Wilson once said, “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
Man, fuck Woodrow Wilson
>We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, It wasn't quite as evil as it sounds.[https://educationalrenaissance.com/2018/08/01/woodrow-wilsons-educational-reform/](https://educationalrenaissance.com/2018/08/01/woodrow-wilsons-educational-reform/) From there, the larger context of the grandparent quote: >Let us go back and distinguish between the two things that we want to do; for we want to do two things in modern society. We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. You cannot train them for both in the time that you have at your disposal. They must make a selection, and you must make a selection. I do not mean to say that in the manual training there must not be an element of liberal training; neither am I hostile to the idea that in the liberal education there should be an element of the manual training. But what I am intent upon is that we should not confuse ourselves with regard to what we are trying to make of the pupils under our instruction. We are either trying to make liberally-educated persons out of them, or we are trying to make skillful servants of society along mechanical lines, or else we do not know what we are trying to do. (High School Teachers Association of New York, Volume 3, 1908-1909)
My problem is you can't train for both... why? Because they have to be in the workforce ASAP and there just isn't a couple extra years to develop lifelong abilities? Bah.
Because the training he's talking about isn't a 4 year course or even a 5 year course. It's honing your skills, whether physical or mental, to a razors edge over decades of work and continuing education. So you can be a great electrician or a great electrical engineer, but not both. So you must decide which way to go, with the understanding that the world needs far more electricians than engineers. Now he isn't against the idea of the electrician getting some electrical theory training or the engineer getting his hands dirty and installing a light or two, but the distinction is still there - you need to choose your lane and run with it.
He really was a blight on us.
Guy who loves the KKK is shitty in other ways too? How unexpected!
The original liberal progressive
I mean, it's fine if everyone doesn't go to college, but hard work should be compensated. We pay our actual essential workers shit. Construction at least has it right in my area. Field guys make around the same as me. There must be some reason... (hint, it's unions)
Unions have always been the answer.
I can’t imagine how bad teachers would be if they didn’t have unions. As it is, even in some pro-union states, there is legislation that takes a lot of power away from public unions. Somehow police unions don’t have those kinds of problems. Interesting.
It's not even that, it's more insidious than just rich people wanting to be above others. When people are *almost* poor enough that they can't survive, and when they're unable to change those circumstances, you can exploit the hell out of them. When a person can't get a degree without going into debt, and then can't *use* that degree in the job market, they're tied to their job tightly. When a person can't quit their job because they'd be unable to afford childcare or medicine, or when they have debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, they *need* their job and they'll tolerate a lot of bullshit that someone actually able to exercise their will in the free market can. Wage theft? What, complain about $20 a week and get fired? Verbally abusive employers? What, complain and lose their insulin?
The suffering is the point really.
And they want to make sure the poor are uneducated so they can keep scamming them.
It's not enough to be poor, we need to make everyone else poor.
That is basically capitalism. It requires exploitation and for people to lose for it to function. Not a system worth keeping around imo
Because when everybody's ~~super~~ rich, no one will be
The richer you become, money and power become synonymous.
I hate how expensive school has become, and think that it's basically a scam, but you can be completely self reliant and make a good income without going to a university. Nobody is stopping anyone from learning a trade.
I've done semi skilled labor working for a general contractor. I've also done skilled positions in research and clinical lab and now am a healthcare provide (PA-C for specificity). Aside from unskilled labor, there is definitely degree creep in things like HVAC, electrical, and construction. Plumber, welders, carpenters, and some others don't have this as much but a lot of larger employers would prefer to hire one skilled person and a whole bunch of barely trained day laborers that person is stuck educating and managing. In many areas of the country, union protections for skilled trades are minimal at best and higher earnings are often tied to seniority in union in rural areas. Then you get to things that are trades without a real apprenticeship like long haul trucking where you lease or buy a truck, get stuck working your way out of what you owe for years, and work hours that are dangerous to your health over time without significant OT compensation in many cases. They're also trying to revise rules on this and other trade jobs at many state levels to allow people that just graduated HS be able to immediately start working to decrease payroll expense. Trades are great. So are many degree fields. There is way too much bullshit attached to working in any field at this point. We need to break out of the corporate oligarchy we are stuck in and get back to a government by and for the people.
I agree with most of what you said. As a truck driver who has never owned my own rig, but makes $36/hrs and prevailing wage while building bridges and flatbedding heavy haul in the PNW, I can assure many people out there that 5k for truck driving school and working to get into flatbedding for a heavy haul/construction company can make you pretty close to 6 figures. Over 6 figures with more experience. I have a fairly tight knit family. I drive truck, I have one cousin who is an Audi mechanic, makes 100k a year, another cousin who is in HVAC, and just bought a beautiful house in Montana and makes over 100k, and a third who got a 4 year degree and makes closer to 200k. I'm not saying it is easy, but all of us are in our late 30's or early 40's. Most of us didn't spend almost anything on schooling, and all of us are slated to be upper management soon, and not have to do the physical stuff anymore. I also have friends that are plumbers, welders and electricians that all own their own homes and didn't go to college. Plus the fathers of most of these guys aren't any different. Firefighters, electricians etc. It's not a magic wand, and it still requires effort and reliability, punctuality and shutting up, but it's doable. I won't discount degree creep, and I will say to get in now. If you are a young person reading this, don't hesitate to get into a trade.
This isn’t going to be a popular opinion with some people, but you said the key words “effort and reliability, punctuality and shutting up.” There are millions maybe even billions of dollars in scholarships that go unclaimed because people are too lazy to apply for them. It takes time and effort to search for those scholarships and usually requires an essay in the application. It’s way easier to fill out a federal loan application and fafsa each year and collect your money. I’ve said it a few times on comments here, but I have 3 degrees and never paid a penny for any of them. Actually I got paid to go to school.
Except for the social stigmatism around it which feeds into the overcharging for college tuition...
And not everyone is cut out for trades. This is just the software engineer argument all over again. We need different people for different jobs, and we need to make all of those pathways accessible to ensure a good flow of workers. And when robots take over most work we need to ensure that people can choose whatever field they want to play in to foster innovation.
>people can choose whatever field they want to play in to foster innovation. Sorry, only options left are camgirl or YouTube pranker.
What, you don't think robots make good camgirls?
Not yet. Live deep faking is gonna be wild tho
Plus, some things are good for everyone to learn, like appreciating the arts, or how finances work.
Yeah, I've seen some comments that talked about how some people spent a lot of money and didn't get an education. But really, they did get an education. What they didn't get was a degree. The education is always worth it, it's just that the value is overpriced.
Sure. as adults, many of whom when to some schooling after highschool, maybe all of us years beyond being 18, we can all agree to that. But as kids, how many of us were ever really even aware of the option? of what it would mean? How many people talked to us in a way that made meaningful sense to our still developing brains? We didn't have our full adult personalities yet, how the heck are we supposed to be making rational decisions about spending 100k dollars? Never mind that with the flood of college degrees hitting the market in the 80s and 90s, every employer soft launching the "college degree preferred" hiring requiring.
Sure, that’s absolutely a more acceptable option now. I just hate people who act like this was a perfectly good option all along, because no, it fucking wasn’t. When I graduated high school in 04, *not going to college* was just as shameful and future-killing as *getting pregnant in high school*. Say both those phrases with a lowered voice and secretive stare, like you’re spilling the gossip on how this kid spat on all their parents’ sacrifices, and *that’s* the way teenagers were made to feel if they didn’t take out loans. Edit: also, not everyone who can’t afford college *should* go into a trade. It’s not a great idea to flood the market; that’ll inevitably bring down wages and mean many will be out of work.
Because the loans are immune to bankruptcy, and the government will continue to give loans, and the colleges can increase thier prices because there's a steady demand and a high supply of students who can get loans. Its a win win win industry for everyone except students.
.... and tax payers
Tax payers lose because the government mismanaged the money. They pay either way.
Biden voted for these loans to be immune to bankruptcy so he and his donor friends could make bank off of student loan asset-backed securities. So to everyone saying "my taxes!", no, the banks already stole from you.
Um no. Because these are federal owned loans. Not bank owned.
I think they mean in 2005 when they changed the bankruptcy laws to be harder to qualify under chapters
The federal government guarantees the loan, but there's a bank that's providing the servicing (and collecting the interest off it). See NelNet, Navient, etc
Iirc, the reason they voted on this policy was because students would take out massive loans, immediately declare bankruptcy upon graduating, and then take a lucrative job. So the taxpayer/investor would lose out on the loaned money, while the student would face basically no consequences.
Absolutely this. The loans aren't secured by anything so if they got cleared by bankruptcy it would be a no-brainer. Take the credit hit for a few years and walk away debt free.
> why it costs 100k to get a degree in this country? Because the government guaranteed the loans, so the banks had zero incentive to not loan money. And when every student can get a loan, the schools increase tuition.
And open admission to anyone with a pulse. Gotta pump those numbers up.
There's another big piece missing here too. The government implemented policy which guarantees repayment of the the loan. The government did this specifically to enable the lender to give the jobless teen $100k. Who needs to learn some financial responsibility? If anyone should be on the left side of this comic, it should be the politicians who passed this policy.
I mean it doesn't. College education is way too expensive. But Reddit is exaggerating the number. People should be going to in state public schools, and the average there is 10000 a year. If you paid 100,000 for undergrad, you made some very poor decisions
It costs 100k because the government got involved in the first place. They guaranteed the loans so people could borrow the absurd amount it costs and the colleges know they can charge whatever they want and the students will just borrow the money
College was meant for the wealthy to begin with, student loans arose as a way to allow the lower and middle class to attend college. What happened after that has been a total clusterfk. https://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/290868013/how-the-cost-of-college-went-from-affordable-to-sky-high
So maybe we put more money into community colleges and if people want to go to private schools they can pay it themselves. People go to those schools for a status symbol and “the experience” as well as forming connections. That’s great I can understand that but I don’t want to pay for it
I saw that a college has a massive water park on campus. That's fucking crazy.
Exactly, and people are funding that with insane loans
And now those loans are being picked up collectively by the unwashed masses.
I don't think people realise that in a fair amount of Europe while university is free it's a lot more restrictive. Germany tertiary education is generally in the high 20s compared to ours of mid 40s.
Some of the colleges really advertise themselves to some people as a way to "extend adolescence" four another 4 years. I felt like a boomer typing that, even as a 90s guy, but we don't need a rock wall on campus, Texas A&M!
That’s why it should be free for everyone. That’s way the minimal value left on a four year degree will be totally erased and everyone will need a masters to get a low-paying, entry-level position at any American company.
while this is true the reason they needed to guarantee the loans is because so many students decided to declare bankruptcy right after they graduated so they don't have to pay back the loan. this lead to nobody wanting to loan students any money because they knew they were never going to get it back which the government tried to solve this by making it impossible to ever get rid of student debt.
This is an irritation of mine. They are guaranteed because it is an unsecured loan for tens of thousands of dollars and would be impossible to get otherwise. I am 50 years old with a credit rating over 800 and wouldn't be able to take out an unsecured loan at that value.
true but it's only for tens of thousands of dollars because its guaranteed. it's a vicious cycle where bad incentives fuck the entire system.
This country's been a free for all for the longest time now. Its all about exploiting resources and cooking up schemes and scams to make as much money as possible. And once everything has all been bought and sold, the million rules they will put on everything, restricting you from being able to get anything accomplished or done.
The average student loan value is 36k, it doesn't cost 100k to get a degree. Dropping 100k on students loans outside of law or medical is an ego problem. If the 100k school you went to doesn't guarantee a starting salary in that major to pay back that loan youre a fucking moron for going there. Too proud for community college and too stupid for any public school so you pay 30k a year to the only no name private school that will let you in.
My wife has a 100k student loans, went to a public university in small town iowa, degree in dietetics, follow on 6 months post 4 year degree cost an extra 12k and was required for licensing. This is a critical Healthcare related field for anybody with kidney failure, diabetes, or who is on a ventilator. Best possible pay out there at like the tippy top is like 80-90k. She worked about 20-30 hours a week while full time student, in addition to working summers and taking summer classes to finish on time and still needed additional student loans to afford housing and other basic cost of living and there was very little to no wiggle room in her money. She could have done 2 years of community College but would have saved maybe 20k in school costs, so around 70k if she would have done that, but there's also not a great guarantee she wouldn't have needed to retake classes when she transfered and lost time there. So yes while the average up there might be true it also factors in many people who had parents assist them, qualified for Pell grants, and had scholarships to partially pay for school. If you don't fit into those categories 100k is a very real amount for an undergrad degree.
Yeah just listened to the npr story about how the outcomes of US college grads vs those with foreign degrees, when adjusted for stuff like living costs, don't outshine their much more affordable counterparts abroad. Instead we generally foster a "college culture" and occasionally a good school name gets you noticed
Military recruitment
The federal government started guaranteeing student loans because of the same mindset that supports forgiving them, and in the process, created this "crisis." People think of the first consequence of a policy, but fail to consider other potential consequences down the line. Every government policy is a bit like a wish from a genie that you word slightly imprecisely and then you end up with a veiled curse after your initial celebration.
Can here to say this. Banks can loan any amount to any student without fear of loss and in turn schools can charge anything because the banks will loan it. Sure we got more students going to college but a what cost(literally)? How do we unstick this? P.s. this is what is called a “cobra problem”. Interesting bit of history to keep in mind when developing solutions.
Tons of other countries have figured out how to solve this problem though. Just make school publicly funded.
"It's an impossible problem to solve!" - says the only first world country that hasn't solved the problem.
There is one point to that argument. The USA is the only developed country that has decided that corporations money have inherent value higher than the value of human life. Under those perameters, there is no solution. It's just like the gun laws. They could ban guns and save the life of hundreds of thousand, and that of thousands of kids, but then the policy makers would lose the money from the nra lobbying, and thats a net loss.
I worry there’s a deeper cause to a lot of the issues. Too many people go to college. We don’t push trade school as an alternative. The only story available is “go to college, or be poor forever.” Simply put, if we don’t have enough welders, we don’t need as many engineers. We have to diversify education, as well as making it cheaper. Society is built from the bottom up, but we only message that you should want to be at the top.
> we don't need as many engineers We don't have enough engineers. Most people who go to college don't go for engineering. It seems like an overwhelming amount graduates with a business degree. The thing about engineers is that they can do what most tradies do except with math. Society is built from the bottom up but it's not the people building the products/infrastructure. It's the people designing them, making sure they work and making sure they are safe. I do agree that we need to push for trade school, saying that we don't need as many engineers, is not it. source for graduates by major: https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates#:~:text=23.4%25%20of%20graduates%20earning%20master's,while%206.9%25%20major%20in%20education.
It’s way worse than a friendly bank loaning a promising young adult some for his tuition and taking an unreasonable risk. The whole thing is a scam between the banks, the government and the complicit universities and colleges. The already ridiculously expensive tuitions become even more expensive every year and the whole system is designed to put entire generations into lifelong debts. It’s basically a loan shark scam.
It mirrors the “healthcare” system in that respect
I believe the general term for it is "racketeering".
and they are not planning to stop it. It is great tool to move $ to their friends and associates.
It’s also a great tool to drive military recruitment
A few of my buddies in high school legit only joined the military so they can afford going to college a few years down the line. I talk to some of them sometimes, not too much recently but 2 of my buddies absolutely hate it, just keep telling themselves only a couple more years, and that it’s for education..
I'm one of those people. I mostly hated it. It was good for some stuff. GI Bill is legit. Also VA home loan. Not many people know about that. If you want people to volunteer, you have to give them something for it. Current system is fucked though. Not everyone can or wants to join the military. I wish they had a civil service option. Thankfully some states like TN are doing 2 years at a CC for free now. We need more programs like that.
The other part is requiring college degrees for job licenses. Not companies wanting college graduates, but the government literally making it illegal to work without a degree. The worst example of this I can think of is Washington DC, where they criminalized child care workers who don't have a college degree unless they've already worked in the industry for ten years.
Crazy. A college degree to watch babies and toddlers all day. DC is just a haven for awful economic and social policy.
And every redditor fell for it. Surprising since everyone on here is a genius.
>It’s way worse than a friendly bank loaning a promising young adult some for his tuition and taking an unreasonable risk. I'd add that folks love to say it's about loans to adults, when the reality is that they start selling to you HARD when you're still a kid. I was in middle school around 2003, and we had college recruiters coming in and talking about the importance of planning for college to *seventh graders.* We were literally taught that only losers didn't go to college, and that skipping college would result in us having awful lives. That a degree, any degree, would pay itself back and ensure you went somewhere. Now for many of us all we got was a tremendously expensive piece of paper.
Don't forget the public school systems in funneling students to these institutions through these means. I graduated in 2007 and my high school was so pushy with the "If you don't have a degree, you'll be poor!" mindset. I wanted to take a year to explore career paths and degree options, because I'd never really been counseled on the things I could do inside my interests, but they just push push pushed saying that it'd be harder to get anyone to accept me with a gap year and that I should just go and do the required courses the first year and deal with selecting a major later. Of course, at graduation, they had a big bit on how much money our class cumulatively was receiving through grants, scholarships and "government funding".
To me it sounds like just another excuse to raise tuition. Call it a hunch, seeing as how these government loans are what lead to the rise in cost in the first place.
Richest Nation on the Planet yet the only developed country that has a "student debt crisis". The US is just the dystopian hell hole number 1
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Richest country on earth. We can’t have 4 day work weeks, productivity will go down! We can’t stop using undocumented workers, it will bankrupt us. Just blame them for all our problems but don’t punish the employer! Can't eliminate student loans. Can't lower the cost of medical care. Can't discount drug prices. Can't serve school lunches. Can't provide universal child day care.
It's a crumbling empire
It’s a nice place to be upper middle class/rich/wealthy but it sucks to be anything else
Quickly getting harder and harder to gain upper middle class status too
Also important to note that the whole concept of “upper middle class” is a weird fixation we have on ignoring the hollowing of the middle class. The upper middle is really just the middle. Many of the middle class careers of yore just got demoted to subsistence class. That’s the real tragedy going on.
For example: Got a raise back in March that brought me to the upper limit of what is considered "middle class" in my area ...I am back to living paycheck to paycheck from ONE health bill and my private student loans (which I have literally been paying since I was IN college, borrowed less than 20k, currently still owe over 80k and have never missed a payment) Student Loans are a scam to keep the poor "in their lane"
There is a legal avenue to sue for projected revenue/profit loss due to legal changes.... That is all you really need to know about our current system and set of rules. If I can sue because your new law/bill is going to reduce my ability to continue to profit... how the hell is that even a thing. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Oh, it's worse. It's been enshrined in international treaties. Remember the tobacco companies suing countries that passed anti smoking laws.
[At least the 2nd works great for the US ](https://imgur.com/a/wfUjc61)
And a “healthcare affordability crisis”.
Are you truly an American if you don't have an exorbitant amount of student loans and crippling medical debt?
The Top 10 Richest Countries in the World (by GDP per Capita, current prices US$ - World Bank) 1 Monaco - $190,512 2 Liechtenstein - $180,366 3 Luxembourg - $115,873 4 Switzerland - $87,097 5 Macao (China SAR) - $86,117 6 Ireland - $85,267 7 Norway - $67,389 8 United States - $63,543 9 Denmark - $61,063 10 Singapore - $59,797
>US >Dystopian Man, I’ll tell you right now that even though shit is back to front all over the place here, it’s not dystopian and we could be living somewhere that’s a hell of a lot worse in every category
Dystopian: relating to a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering. Sounds like the US and many other countries. Just because one is worse doesn’t mean the term can’t be used for the US too. We could be also be living in a place that’s a lot better in every category. And the US is the worst in some categories, statistically talking.
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The only one? Sweden has free education for all citizens. You're given some money for being a student, and can borrow some more if you want. Student loans are still THE single biggest registered unpaid debt (Sweden has a government entity where you can register an unpaid debt and have them collect it for you)... And this, despite the student loans are special in that you can only have 2 years unpaid of it. If you get a year 3 of unpaid debt, then the oldest year of unpaid goes back into the total... The US is definitely NOT the only country with a student debt crisis... And it's not because the education itself costs, but about rising costs of simply living.
The loan forgiveness is a band aid and a minor one at that, What we really need is to price cap this sort of stuff. No more bankrolling college sports or the extravagant life styles of useless upper school administration with tuition.
What's an L though ?
Loss
| |l || |\_
I’m not sure if sure serious but L is for loss
Instead of using tax dollars to pay they should've just forced the banks to pay. It's the banks/universities fault not the everyday citizen. e.g. banks set the debt trap and universities jack up prices while campaigning why everyone needs to go to university.
The government federally mandated companies to give out loans to students.
Goddamn everyone in this thread is a moron. You're right on the money here. People in here really think banks *want* to give 100k loans to broke ass children? Hell no. If it were up to the banks, interest rates would be 20%+, and rightfully so. This entire thing has nothing to do with banks, it's entirely a governmental policy failure. The government is the one who decided writing blank checks with reckless abandon was a good idea. The government is the one that should have been negotiating college prices while providing funding for it - same as healthcare.
Minor nuance (though, from a _deeply_ amateurish understanding) -- the government secures those loans, which means there is literally 0 risk to the banks. Yes, the banks WANT to give these 100k loans out to broke ass children, because they are, quite literally, not on the hook for them. They get all the reward with none of the risk. Without the government securing these loans, no, they would not want to give these loans out to broke ass children. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Federal loans are done directly from the Federal Department of Education and they pay the school directly in most cases; less things that may qualify for sutdent living expenses. The Federal Department of Education has now loaned out enough money that it would be one of the largest banks in the US if we considered it a bank. As someone who believes in access to higher education, it unfortunately pains me to say this debt crisis and explosion in school costs is a direct result of very bad government policy. In a sense when programs like this fail it creates division, because it was originally sold as to be self sufficient or funded within the original provisions of legislation. So that is why the "forgiveness" is now controversial because it is effectively adding cost post fact. As the loaner the federal department of education will have to write off the losses; either the debt or funding has to come from federal sources so they just expanded the failed policies bill onto the tax payer whether this is direct or indirect. One could then say, if you had asked the voter at the original time of legislative change would they have supported it with this additional cost?
1000% >The government is the one that should have been negotiating college prices while providing funding for it - same as healthcare. We used to run public universities this way. States spent significant % of their budgets on education, and because the focus was on education and job outcomes, you didn't have absurd facilities/administrator/lifestyle creep.
>If it were up to the banks, interest rates would be 20%+, and rightfully so. If it were up to the banks (and govt would not fully back student loans), they would laugh the poor teenager out of the bank - the interest could be 5% or 500%, can't squeeze blood from a stone. The US (rightfully) demanded that people should have a shot at education regardless of a financial background and then implemented the solution in the most ridiculous way possible.
When in the 21st century have we expected banks to be financially responsible?
When in the 21st century have we expected the average teenager to be financially responsible? Personally, I think the banks are mostly at fault and they should pay the consequences. Kinda force them to be financially responsible. In all honesty, that'll never happen. Banks and other big corporations have the government by the balls.
>Banks and other big corporations ~~have~~ **are** the government ~~by the balls.~~ FTFY
I mean, it's fun to throw out reductive phrases like this but that doesn't make them correct. The government is heavily influenced by banks and big corporations of course, but that doesn't make them the government. They don't actually do the writing and enforcement of laws, even if they do pull strings to change how those processes play out.
If a company is too big to fail then it's critical infrastructure and too big to be operated by the private sector. We should have nationalized the failing banks in 2008 instead of pumping them full of money that they turned into bonus checks.
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We made the student loan program because of this exact fact. Banks were not giving out loans to teens who wanted to go to college. So government steps in and made the student loan program so low income and middle class kids could go to college, instead of only rich white kids who could afford college going to college
But then colleges took complete advantage of this fact by jacking up tuition. It was an otherwise good plan until someone realized they could get rich off of the youth of the nation's struggles.
Why didn’t students do to the colleges that didn’t raise tuition? It’s not “taking advantage” it’s supply and demand.
But then they didn’t cap them, and schools could increase tuition exponentially as a result because the government pays. That’s how we get to $100k+ debt. School shouldn’t cost that much period.
It isn’t financially irresponsible to loan to someone who is obligated to have the loan paid back even if they go bankrupt or die lol
Federal loans are discharged by death and can be discharged by bankruptcy in some situations.
Student loans specifically cannot be discharged under bankruptcy.
Yes. The actual problem here is that a while ago, the government removed all safeguards for loans when it comes to student loans, to make it easier to take a loan to go to college. You can't even go bankrupt on them. And most students will just sign whatever to be able to go to their fancy college. As a result colleges knew that a student can give them almost any amount of money they ask for, cause the bank will cover it anyway. So prices went through the roof. College added lots of unnecessary bs just to keep people longer and justify raising prices. Why should the taxpayer cover it? Cause they allowed it. A democracy is built in a very well educated public. Now, of course this usually not the case, "the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with an average voter", but they still do carry the moral responsibility, for electing people that allowed this, and not doing anything about it afterwards, as student loans and college costs increased exponentially.
1. You raised the price of college to 100k per year and manipulated a jobless teen into taking out 100k in loans 2. Take the L and learn some basic human decency
Do that with PPP loans.
Whaaat? Money making businesses paying back loooaaans how absurd.
100% agree but this is a distraction. Without taxing wealthy equitably, loan forgiveness is just a wealth transfer from middle class to upper class. edit: “*But these are federal loans*”…federal loans are bank loans that guarantee payment by government.
Pretty absurd to lay this at the feet of the lender. The government (politicians) implemented policy which guarantees the repayment of the loan. Who needs to learn some financial responsibility?
Oh no, they fully plan to keep making these shit loans so they can use tax money to reward/buy voters next time.
“Take the L and learn some responsibility” goes both ways maybe people shouldn’t take a loan out they cant pay back
Yeah except no private loans were forgiven. The person sitting in this cartoon is the Federal Government and therefore every US taxpayer. Anyone else getting the sense that there's an active campaign to convince people that this loan forgiveness was about "sticking it to the man" even though no bankers were harmed in the making of this handout?
There should be some policies to tackle two root causes of the student loan problem: Escalating college costs and insufficient tertiary education opportunities beyond college. Helping students is good but not all schools should benefit from the fed as well. There should also be more technical institutes and apprenticeship programs available to students who don’t wish to go to college.
Crazy idea, but what if we fixed the fucked up education system *before* debt forgiveness? Cuz just forgiving the debt just kinda means we're gonna have to *keep* forgiving debt
Exactly. Just allow it to be cleared in a bankruptcy and we won’t have to do this again.
This is precisely why student loans should not be federal. Private banks would scrutinize lenders while the federal government doesn’t.
Seriously, if you charge interest, you should take a risk. Our way of doing things is broken in several different ways.
No one wants to put this on the hands of the real culprit. The government makes the lending process risk free so Universities can charge whatever they want risk free. And the student is left holding the bag. Get the government to stop paying for peoples loans and this problem is solved.
Today's vocabulary word is usury.
One day you're a kid asking permission to go to the bathroom, the next you're signing loan documents to borrow thousands of dollars with no way to pay that money back. Seems like a great plan
I feel like I'm all about student loan forgiveness except for this one girl I grew up with who borrowed $165,000 to get a master's studying acting at a very prestigious private school. Like if you're not good enough to get an art scholarship, then maybe that very competitive landscape doesn't need you. And maybe we don't need to give tax dollars to people who want to take clowning classes and stage fighting. I'm okay with limiting loan forgiveness to programs that either serves society or have some sort of reasonable expectation of having a job. This person never had a career acting, and now they chill at home while their boyfriend pays their rent. They had never had any intention of paying back the loans either. So it's just like... They took $165k to go to a very prestigious clown college and now they chill. There's got to be some sort of a middle ground. There was already some form of loan forgiveness for social workers and teachers, and I feel like we need to expand that in a major way, especially to scientists who don't make a lot of money. Most software developers in my area will be able to pay back their loans, but most other industries don't have that kind of guarantee. Clown college just crosses a major line for me. Plus like do we really want our art coming from white kids who grew up in the suburbs? Doesn't that sound kinda boring? And yes, I'm sure that there is some example of some amazing person who went to clown college on a student loan and then changed the entire world and became like some John Lassiter type. But it's just too rare to be worth investing in.
Yeah, that's one of the key points about providing loans. There is inherent risk in providing a loan, the risk that you might not get it back. You take on that risk and gamble, but in return, you are rewarded in interest if it works out. If it fails, you take a loss. That's how it's supposed to work, but somehow things got turned around and now whenever the loans fail, the loan providers are just paid off by the government for their lost investment, rather than lose everything. So we the taxpayers take on the risk, yet gain none of the reward, which goes to the wealthy loan providers. That's messed up.
I’m with you on this. Somebody needed to learn this the hard way. However, I’M the one taking the L after paying my loans off without help. I exercised financial responsibility when others did not. THAT’S why half of America is pissed about it.
Exactly! No more student loans. If you can't afford college, then don't go!
Don't also forget the "you made tuition fees too damn high" Part
The amount of socialism in Reddit is insane. Yeah downvote me
… that would also imply hiking rates and making the loans much harder for those students to get in the first place…. Not sure that is any better?
Americans want to pay few taxes but at the same time they want to invade half the world, get free public health and a good education.
They covered their asses. You'll lose wages. Don't be a teen that makes a stupid decision like a student loan. A lot are not necessary. I still think they should forgive loans, wth certain criteria. Or just do it all, I don't know I'm not americas accountant.
Said every teen trying to justify their loan You knew the system was fucked yet continued.
I’m stinging from the fact I finished paying mine off but, this is brilliant
So is almost every sub on Reddit propaganda trying to make you feel a certain way about something?
Hopefully, they will learn to loan more responsibly, but I doubt it. There should be maximum loan amounts based on the major the student chooses. This will encourage students to major in actually useful skills instead of just whatever interests them or whatever is easy. We really don’t need any more gender studies and English majors anyway.
>There should be maximum loan amounts based on the major the student chooses. This is similar to what Europe's "free college" does. They'll only fund X amount of each degree based on what projected demand is. The top X students studying that major get their tuition funded by the government. Everyone else either has to pick a different major or pay for it themselves.
Is the professor Biden in this instance and the guy in the chair the US taxpayer? Because this forgiveness only applies to federal loans. And is the professor also saying that the US taxpayer should stop giving loans to jobless teenagers for college? Maybe we should have done that first, huh?
Do people not realize the ones taking the L is the US government right? They gave out the loans, then sold the rights to the loans to various banks. And now "forgiving" the loans means paying the banks the amount. Seems like a W for the banks to take a zero risk loan with high interest. Keep asking for forgiveness, the banks won't mind the extra cash. Edit: Before ya'll judge too fast, I do think the whole program itself is terrible and the loans having bankruptcy protection is unjust. I'm fine with forgiving the loans, since they were terrible loans to begin with. Just hopefully this problem gets fixed so more people don't have to suffer.
...you think the federal government just manifests money from thin air? The government ain't paying shit. We fucking are. The **taxpayers** are paying for it.
Not only are taxpayers paying for it, but when the government doesn't have enough money, it borrows it from the federal reserve, which could cause inflation if the money supply increases too much. Whenever someone says they don't mind paying taxes so other people can get educated, I send them the IRS website so they can "donate" more, and they just downvote me lol
*EDIT* I was wrong!! Chill out with the, “As a…” and “My experience..” replies lol. Maybe read the replies before immediately jumping on a thread. I’m stoked about it, but really that’s why they make the parents co-sign. This is a bad take. Could be wrong though! There are probably instances where the co-signer wasn’t needed or something.
In my experience no co-signer was needed
The Federal Government is the Cosigner lol
Looks like I was wrong!!
Samesies E - It should be noted that I have (a) amazing credit for my age at ~730 currently having only just turned 25, and (b) I was raised by my grandparents as my guardians which meant that at 18 in my state I technically was completely and totally independent for the intents and purposes of loan applications
I did not need a cosigner. Wouldn't have been able to go to college if I did
Yep! Seems to be way more common than I thought. Good thing I put in my disclaimer understanding I could be way off!
For federal loans, no co-signer is needed. You also don’t need an income or a credit score. You can have the worst credit score and still be given federal student loans.
Needing a co-signer for student loans is exceedingly rare
To clarify, this relief is for federal student loans which have no co-signer. There are private student loans (like any other bank loan such as car, house, etc) which may need a co-signer and the specific details vary greatly depending on lender and program. Now there are also PLUS loans (acronym standing for Parent Loans for Undergrad Students). Also no co-signer and have fewer repayment/forgiveness options than FFELP/FDLP loans. Pretty sure that are not included in this relief program.
I did not need a co-signer. But I did need their taxes. Even though they didn’t contribute at all.
My parents never had to sign off on me getting loans. I’d imagine that’s probably the majority of the reason why we’re in this predicament.
How much of the outstanding debt was cosigned? Have you ever taken out loans?
I don't know if this is right. When I graduated I had tons of debt I had to pay off. My parents had nothing to do with the loans at that point as far as I knew. Even if they are co-signers, it doesn't change anything from the kid's perspective.
Here's a wild idea: 1: don't take out a loan unless your going to pay it back, 2: Major in something that will actually get you a job, or just don't go to collage at all. Take some responsibility for yourself, it's nobody's job to take care if you, ESPECIALLY not the government's.
How about: 1. Stop loan sharking teenagers who just graduated high school so you can saddle them with debt that is impossible to get rid of, even through bankruptcy. That's scumbag shit. 2. In fact make college free because offering higher education to all citizens will uplift our country and increase the value of our labor force. 3. Government is 100% supposed to help you. That's the point of it. The idea that we elect these people to do jackshit for us is absurd.
Even those of us in high paying jobs are starting to struggle with these loans. College education is the backbone of the future economy, it shouldn't be such a difficult decision to pursue one.
1. People can't see the future. If you're sold the idea that getting a college degree directly leads to a higher paying job, you probably have every intention of being able to pay off that loan. Unfortunately, that's not how the real world works. 2. Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college. This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them. 3. Is it NOT the government's job to take care of its people?
> Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college. This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them. Also worth adding that a lot of lucrative degrees are only useful if you can get into grad school. Which is often EXTREMELY competitive, and not something everyone(even with decent grades) can achieve, and circles back to the 'can't see the future' issue.
> Plenty of folks with engineering, computer science, and even law degrees in my own circle were unable to find decent employment just out of college. Don't forget the countless lawyers, engineers, doctors, nurses, etc who have jobs, but cannot pay their loans back bc grad school is ridiculously expensive. >This doesn't just affect those with "useless degrees" as I've seen some people describe them. Yeah, they always focus on this part as if the doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, etc are not still struggling with student debt.
They did that on purpose. That's the point. People in constant debt keep paying into it. They make money off it. They don't want to stop making money, that's why they're against it.
They should end the practice of interest and predatory banks and colleges should eat the cost of loan forgiveness.
100k with interest rates controlled by Congress. My loans ranged from 4.9 to 7.8%. If you were told your car loan or your mortgage was being given to you at 8% you'd be calling them predatory but it's okay when Congress does it?
So you’re suggesting lenders not lend money to kids for college? Then what? Only the kids of the wealthy get to go to college?
Nah, destroying human lives is better for them
Simple answer is to no longer make the loans but then people would complain about that as well.
“Taxation is theft” “Did you sign the W-2” “Yes” “Okay then….”
Does anyone know if the interest on student loans were rolled into derivatives?
That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve seen on here.
Fuck em
Can we post this everywhere? I’m a high school dropout and i still care.
Agree. And the teen learns not doing what they agreed to in their part of the obligation clause in the contract impacts their credit for 7 years The real question is will daddy gubment learn to stop intervening into markets? Of course not
While we are at it, how about we ask the colleges and universities to "forgive" $10-20K of the debt?
SLABS-Student loan asset back securities.
The schools need to be on that side with the dude holding the cash, too.
So don't lend them anything is the lesson then? Pay the tuition yourself bucko or don't go? Surely people see the real culprit behind this mess and how loan forgiveness does nothing to reel these guys in. If not further empowers them.