slaves usually search for freedom and rebel

America doesn't provide for its future or children

Students and families decide to borrow for college costs.

If we're serious about investing in our future as a nation, the first thing we have to do is help these students with their loans. A society without good colleges can't compete in today's world.

Part of the problem too is that there's no entry level jobs for students coming out of college. If they had a job, they would be able to pay these costs off, but they can't find jobs.

Higher Education - the peasants don't need or deserve it, right?

This peasant and her family have been paying pre-school, elementary, high school, college and graduate tuition for 2 children for 23 years, which dissolved a good portion of my retirement savings.

I asked a QUESTION about to whom the OP was directing an apparent compaint. Got it?

What you said: "Students and families decide to borrow for college costs."

Addressing the problem of sky-rocketing college costs by saying people choose that debt is insensitive, clueless, and lacking in foresight. It benefits society as a whole to provide educational opportunities for every capable person. Kids from families that aren't affluent shouldn't be burdened with debt that will last their entire adult lives. It creates and maintains a very unfair class division that will only get worse.

I think the attitude that your are expressing very much deserves a slam.

I think you are foolish to fail to understand or recognize my point of view, AND to slam me AGAIN.

who've been pushing this defunding while moving their people into university administration, increasing salaries and overhead while defunding teaching.

http://www.alternet.org/how-higher-education-us-was-destroyed-5-basic-steps?page=0%2C1

when i went to university i didn't have to borrow money to do it. my working-class parents & a part-time job was enough. no one i knew did either.

people didn't just wake up one day & decide to take out loans for university. costs that outstripped the inflation rate + promotion of student loans as a response to escalating costs were the causes.

I remember all the chaos that ensued when CUNY began charging tuition.

The first thing I would do is look at that system (I think there were other state or city universities that charged no tuition) and see how they did it. CUNY was an outstanding system. Obviously they were able to do it for decades. I expect it was supported primarily by taxes. Clearly a political decision was made that this was an important public good that required significant public financial support.

The next thing I would do is see what kind of value shifting occurred that ended up in charging tuition. History is a guide.

So, short answer, publicly fund all state universities so they are tuition-free. Screw the rightwing howling. Be prepared to answer their outcries with a strong political response. The private schools, to compete, had better then either offer something dramatically different to entice students or lower their fees.

and we cannot somehow put them online for credit and actual graduation.

But the colleges still charge the same per credit.

It's not about educating people, it's about having a money machine.

If the amount of a Pell Grant went up by $50,000, it wouldn't take very long for college tuitions, room and board, and books to catch up to devour that amount. Work expands to fit the time allotted it, costs expand to absorb the money set aside for it.

We need to start reality testing for student loans. Nobody can walk into a lender and borrow money for a business without having a business plan that is at least somewhat credible for generating an income to repay that loan, why should it be any different with education loans?

These loans are like blank checks, not for the students but for the colleges.

It will pay off in the long run - a more educated society (with higher paying jobs as a result) with less debt (meaning more freedom to spend and help businesses).

And by the way, Romney, cutting the defense budget isn't making us vulnerable. A lot of that money is wasted anyways.

The aim is to encourage those who haven't gotten them yet to go and get them. It's less about being fair than helping the country as a whole.

Edit: Actually, I think it should depend how much in debt graduated students are. If they paid their entire school off, that means they don't need any more money to pay school off. If they're drowning in debt, I believe the government should come in and pay most of it. We also need more regulation in regards to these loan companies.

After all, there are families out there that struggled through their hardship without the benefit of food stamps, so therefore no one else should get them either.

Crazy world you live in, Logical.

forced you to borrow money for school. Jesus, have you thought about this more than 5 minutes?

And I understand it better, too, if your posts here are any indication.

Your argument is this: no one should have their student loan debt discharged or forgiven because your brother had the good fortune to be able to pay back his loans.

You are saying, in other words, that no one should receive a benefit unless we can retroactively award that benefit to everyone who didn't get it. That's regressive and foolish.


Have you thought about this for even five minutes?

Best Buy credit cards they cannot pay.

Shit, lets pay off any loan that someone cannot pay.

Student Loans were borrowed for a college education. It was not a grant. It was not a entitlement. It was a LOAN!

It was an agreement to get money for college with the promise to pay it back!

Now if you are confusing that with welfare of food stamps or charity then you are part of the problem!

My brothers "good fortune" was to work two shitty low paying jobs so he could pay back the money be promised to pay back.

It really isn't that hard to understand, or at least I wouldn't have thought so prior to reading your posts here.

I am not confusing student loans with welfare or food stamps or grants; I am pointing put that you're arguing that no one should receive a benefit unless everyone is retroactively awarded that benefit.

That kind of thinking isn't part of the problem. It is the problem.

Universities grew into research institutions as a direct result of the reward system as well as being able to afford to do so. States starting starving state-funded universities, and the upward spiral of costs to students began.

The new university paradigm will be totally different: the isolated school in moderate-sized communities will slowly dwindle in importance. The shift will be toward urban universities. Community colleges are exploding as are "third tier" instructional universities such as the directional schools in Florida (e.g., Central Florida and Southern Florida) at the expense of the old standby colleges. Staying with the Florida example, the impact of University of Florida is diminishing in that state, and they are losing national prominence.

Kids attending community colleges and the third tier schools get the education they need at a lower price.

Funding for community colleges have exploded. They have the lions share of the state budget for higher education and have about 10x the total dollars as ten years ago.

No doubt it's different elsewhere, but not here.

and because it is, there should be more funding by all levels of government and tuition caps. Once education becomes out of reach for the majority of the population, a country is doomed to fall behind - especially a country that doesn't have jobs for low-skilled workers like it did in the past. Also, there should be an immediate halt of all compounding interest on loans over a certain amount, or the loan interest should be tied directly to wages. If you can't find a job, you pay 0% interest. Loss of access to post-secondary education will be the downfall of the US.

income sufficed for state university. how quickly things change.

I took out a total of $21,000 in student loans and paid back about $6000 before I fell behind due to long-term financial hardship. After exhausting my deferments and forbearance, and after suffering fees and penalties, I now owe upward of $30,000. I have no problem repaying the original loan amount plus interest, but the penalties are outrageous and should be stopped retroactively.

Step two is to require lenders to provide a specific, detailed, and transparent amortization schedule, so that victims of student loan debt can see the actual hardship that their debt will cause them for years or decades.

Step three is to make the loans dischargeable through bankruptcy. This would make the loans less attractive to lenders in the first place, as it should; that would rein in their predatory tactics and protect the victims from a lifetime of unjust financial burden.

I would submit that not one student loan applicant in 100,000 has any idea--nor any way to determine--the true cost of student loans. This is not due to irresponsibility, as is often claimed by advocates for the lending corporations; rather, it is due to the deliberately impenetrable language of the loan agreements and the hard-sell predatory lending tactics of those corporations and the universities so eager to rake in this mountain of free money.


Before someone invokes the famous million dollars that a college graduate will earn more than his non-college educated peer, I say spare me. I can point you to a great analysis of why that's a bullshit claim with little basis in reality.

you think he deserves some money back for paying it off?

I am not sure how you could do that without compensation for those who paid their student loans back.

I'm not looking for a kick back. What kids are going through today is a national disgrace...period.

...they didn't make me an indentured servant to a bank. My student loan payments were very reasonable, something like $135/month. Moreover, when I graduated (1988), good paying jobs were *relatively* easy to find. Since then, tuition has sky rocketed*, jobs are scarce, and wages have remained flat. Everyone's getting squeezed but bankers. Sound familiar?

*Tuition at my alma mater has more than tripled while the cost of living has nearly doubled, and, of course, wages have remained flat. That is, if you can find a job...

Just different times.

That combined with relief for current borrowers is far better than doing nothing.

we shouldn't end slavery since we can't end it retroactively to benefit you and yours.

and defrauded these students they owe the money legally.

Hell, people owe money on cars they need to get to work. Why not pay those off also.

The loans are crappy, over-leveraged and they are dragging the economy down. The rules of the fiscal world are changed with regularity to benefit shareholders, they could just as easily, be changed, and should be changed to benefit the economy most people have to live in. It's not personal.

You simply can't compare student loan debt to any other debt that can be discharged through bankruptcy. Comparisons to car loans, credit card debt, and mortgages make no sense.


So bully for your brother and anyone else whose circumstances permit them to pay off their student loan debts, even if they believe that it was their hard work (and nothing else) that did it for them. Millions of people work damn hard to escape the indentured servitude of student loan debt and do not succeed.

Your "to hell with everyone else" attitude is preposterous.

I accept that it is more gratifying for you to believe that he boot-strapped his way out of his student loans thanks to his honest hard work, and bully for you if you think that's all there is to it.


Your grasp of this subject is simplistic and incomplete, as you demonstrate by comparing student loan debt to car loan debt.

is for the government to bail them out.

Shit, how about ANY loan on ANY item be paid off also? Houses, cars, furniture, vacations. Shit. I love it!

A student loan is unlike any debt for a car or home or furniture.

Do you honestly fail to comprehend this basic fact? And you think that I'm the reason that liberals get a bad rep?

Education and healthcare? You can go f@#$ yourselves.

It's sickening. I send them a huge amount of money every month and it barely makes a drop in the bucket. I feel hopeless.

What is going to happen is Millions of Americans are automatically in super debt from the time they are 20 till they die

this drags the economy ....and eventually rebellion and refusal to pay

Brain drain ...they will leave

I didn't need loans for undergraduate. I had scholarships based on merit. It was a more expensive private liberal arts college, and the degree was absolutely worth it.

I did have to borrow for my graduate education. At the time, it wasn't that much and I expected by the time I was in my 40's like I am now that I would be paid back.

Except, I got very sick in my late 30's. I had been paying on my loans for over 10 years. After years of diagnosis plus years of treatment it meant my loans went into deferment as I struggled to simply stay alive and have food & shelter. My wife left me because who wants to be with a sick man whose earnings potential just disappeared due to illness.

But I made it through, and I didn't die. I have just started back into my profession after nearly 10 years of part-time at best work and no payment on those loans due to hardship of no choice of my own. I will start paying back on my loans next year. After 20 years plus time off due to my health, the capitalized interest has me from $50,000 in initial loans to $300,000.00 by the time I pay it off at the almost $1000.00 a month rate for the next 30 years. That is insane!

I am not alone. I have friends, family, and co-workers also in their 40's who have this kind of student loan debt and suffered illnesses, loss jobs, etc. So if Social Security and Medicare disappear for my generation (40 to 55) then bluntly I am screwed. I will have 20 years to keep living in this inflationary economy, save for retirement (went through most of my savings while not working and being ill), pay for medical insurance (after my income reaches a certain level I will no longer qualify for medicaid - and I have to be on medications for the rest of my life), AND pay back six times what I borrowed for the education I got.

This is not just about 20 year olds anymore when it comes to the crippling effect of these loans and their long-term effects. Almost everyone will suffer some loss in their life that hampers their abilities be it health, marriage, family, etc. I have no problem paying back what I borrowed. I do have a problem paying back six times that amount due to the sale and resale of my loans to the highest bidder. I would be willing to work 10 years for the government or in disadvantaged areas, but will I be given the opportunity for such a thing?

I have honestly thought of leaving the United States if it comes down to the choice between my survival as an old man or paying back loans from 40 years ago.

We pay about $630 a month for our two daughters' loans.

Obama has actually done pretty good for people with Dept. of Ed. Loans by allowing them to pay based on income.

It's people with bank loans and have trouble paying that are getting screwed right now. These debts are exempt from the protections people have for normal consumer debt, yet there are no income-based payment options such as with the gov't loans.

Banks get the best of both worlds.

see also:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/cfpb-private-student-loan-report/

I owe over $100k for all three of my degrees. I had no one to help me, would never have been able to afford school without loans. Thankfully, they're all gov. loans. Despite what a lot seem to think, professors don't make squat. And handful do, but most don't at all.

Let's open up all public universities' books and see where the money is going. I'm sure the light of public scrutiny will provide some insight to where the money is going.

If the money is going to waste, there will be an outcry to reign in the waste and possible fraud.

The total education budget between K-12 and post-secondary has grown with inflation and growth in the state economy (our taxing structure has remained relatively stable for a very long time with the top marginal rates being ($43K at 8% and $65K at 9% and federal tax deductibility). We have added a 1% to the sales tax (from 6% to 7%). $3,200 property tax on $160K house (this amount continues to grow faster than inflation).

The biggest difference is that the share of the total education pie for post-secondary has continued to shrink over time while K-12 has grown much faster than inflation. It is not that the universities are badly run, but the tuition has to come from someplace.

Agood first step in stopping the “every job must have a degree” madness rest with the Federal Government.

I work in the Federal Government and close to 80% of what my office does is data entry. I could take a intelligent High School grad and teach her every thing she needs to know in a few days. And yet, you need a 4 year degree and at least 24 credit hours ofbusinesss to work in my federal office. So my office has people doing data entry for $75-90K/year.

How many HS grads would be willing to work in an office environment for $30-40K/year? (my office is in the South) I am thinking we would have all the quality applicants we need. It would be a win/win for every one. The workers would have a good job, with no debt, and the government would save on salaries.

On a side note, a few years of OJT (On the Job training) and the HS grad would be qualified for the more complex positions. (And more $$)


Macoy

to the President about it. When you have an excess pool of labor for the jobs available, employers fall back on credentials. Degrees serve as a gold standard and verification of aptitude. Also someone makes the decision (like in Europe), and I not sure anyone wants to take the heat for saying you go to college but you do not go to college.

You would also have to tear down the infrastructure that now exists. Obviously I would start with the for profit vampires.

Many new college graduates would be willing to take a job making 30-40K/year doing office work.
Most of the government job announcements that I have seen ask for specific experience and specific majors so I assume that your office does too.
Another issue seems to be that government jobs require more application materials than the average position. If government positions do not have as many applicants, this could be a reason why.

"professional" caliber jobs to offset the loss of manufacturing and other traditional cornerstones of the middle class. The very jobs from which many of the new indebted students have been displaced.

This isn't really a debt problem--it's a JOBS problem.

We have too many kids (and adults) coming out of college with their student loans starting up and no job in sight.

China is restricting the number of students who can study in majors that have no job opportunities, and in some cases that are completely doing away with majors the government deems useless.

Some major companies like to hire graduates with unmarketable majors. Many of the Wall Street rich graduated with "completely unmarketable majors". That said, it probably isn't a good idea to be a Classics or other "unmarketable" major if you are a below average student going to a below average liberal arts college, aren't planning on an internship, and aren't planning to go to a professional school (business, law, library science, etc.) after finishing your BA.
I don't think that it is fair to completely eliminate some fields of academic study that have benefited students in life and professionally.
Maybe state universities could offer more scholarships in higher demand fields like engineering and nursing that require specific skills.
I don't know if an undergraduate business degree is worth much more than a "completely unmarketable major". From what I understand, both business majors and liberal arts majors are more likely to be doing entry level cleric work upon graduation than anything else.

Dorm life as a freshman, four years on a beautiful campus, U. of California dirt cheap -- gone, gone, gone for them, most likely. It's just not worth going tens of thousands of dollars in debt. It'll have to be junior college and then we'll see ...