MoveOn.Org Calls For The Wiping Of Student Load Debt

[WhipperSnapper]

Another case of "The People" looking to the government to help them for their lack of personal responsibility. This is absurd. How many students even check the employment prospects before starting their studies?

Do you think irresponsible lenders should be made to bear the costs of their irresponsible lending decisions? Aren't these student loan lenders being completely irresponsible? The responsibility goes both ways here, as it does with any other sort of loan.

 

[Zebo]

So you are implying the UC system is representative of what professors make? LOL.

And the guy you listed works at UCLA Mecical Center and is

Department of Surgery Chair
Chief of Liver/Pancreas Transplantation
Director of Liver Cancer Center
Director of Liver Transplantation
Physician of hand, liver, pancreas, intestinal transplantation

Just googleing most of those on the SFChron list are Dr's as its not a list of all faculty at UC schools, just the highest paid.

Who cares what he teaches. Point is is if student loans wernt around and guaranteed by the FEDS his school would be unable to charge what they do and it would be far less. Agree or disagree? It's a racket and not free market at all. Pick a university anywhere in USA and I'll find 200K professors.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

And you expect an 18 year old to know this how? Kids are told throughout high school that if they want a good paying job, they HAVE to go to college. Regardless of the truth of that statement, that's our societal expectation of kids in high school these days. Hell, high schools are even judged based on the number of kids they succeed in sending off to 4 year universities. Yet, you somehow think that 18 year olds should be smart enough to ignore this constant pressure on them (which ultimately has resulted in tons of debt for useless majors.)

Kids today are indoctrinated with this starting in preschool. The message is EVERYWHERE. Turn on the TV or the radio and listen to a news or talk show and it's difficult not to hear some economist or pundit or politician say that the solution to our nation's economic problems is more and better higher education and that everyone needs to go to college.

Some people will retort that the problem is that people aren't majoring in useful fields. What these sheeple fail to realize is that if everyone majored in the useful fields we would huge oversupplies of unemployed and underemployed people in the useful fields--the only thing that would change is the degrees people have.

 

[Zebo]

Do you think irresponsible lenders should be made to bear the costs of their irresponsible lending decisions? Aren't these student loan lenders being completely irresponsible? The responsibility goes both ways here, as it does with any other sort of loan.

How are they being irresponsible. It's guaranteed. I'd give every dime I could scrape together to get guaranteed 6-8%. Course banks don't let you buy into the student loan business like other securities.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

You're damned right about this, actually. Given that their parents probably aren't good with money how can they even possibly make any decision about debt. It has been drilled in for years into their head.

...drilled from all directions. That's why allowing student loan debt to be dischargeable isn't necessarily such a bad social policy. It would be a case of society righting one of its wrongs. Of course, the government then needs to immediately get out of the student loan business and let private banks lend the money while being on notice that it's subject to bankruptcy.

 

[Wreckem]

Who cares what he teaches. Point is is if student loans wernt around and guaranteed by the FEDS his school would be unable to charge what they do and it would be far less. Agree or disagree? It's a racket and not free market at all. Pick a university anywhere in USA and I'll find 200K professors.

Hes a Dr., the bulk of his compensation is from being a surgeon. He isn't just a teacher. He likley brings in millions in revenue from medical treatments(transplants are $100-200k a pop) and probably millions in for research.

Here is a list of academic(non medical/law/business/engineering) salaries at the UC System.

http://www.ucop.edu/acadpersonnel/1112/table1.pdf

Most academic(non professional ie:medical, business, law, engineering) faculty make far less than $200k. The average salary in the US for a tenured full professor is less than $100k. And keep in mind it takes 10-12 years of education to get a PHd. Most then bounce around from school to school until they can get tenured(you spend 6 years trying to get tenure, and may or may not get it, and have to move on and start over). It takes about a decade to get tenure for most. Then another 10-15 years getting a full professorship, a title most faculty never get, hell alot never get tenure as its 100% political and in the hands of the full professors in your departmen. Not to mention in the end you are talking about going from $60k to 100k over 20+ years. Then once you get over the $100k mark you start getting more and more administrative responsibilites as well.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

i think the system is broken.

I think people as a whole would be better off without hyper inflated school degrees.

Its like with the housing thing. Everyone is like fuck those people they need to pay their home loans or get stuffed. Well when 5 of your neighbors all lose their homes and YOUR property values are now 250k in the hole who exactly is getting fucked?

Higher education is very much akin to a bubble. Here's a great article:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/80276

It's a story of an industry that may sound familiar.

The buyers think what they're buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they're buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn't.

Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble, but I'm afraid it's also sounding a lot like a still-inflating higher education bubble. And despite (or because of) the fact that my day job involves higher education, I think it's better for us to face up to what's going on before the bubble bursts messily.

 

[Zebo]

Kids today are indoctrinated with this starting in preschool. The message is EVERYWHERE. Turn on the TV or the radio and listen to a news or talk show and it's difficult not to hear some economist or pundit or politician say that the solution to our nation's economic problems is more and better higher education and that everyone needs to go to college.

Some people will retort that the problem is that people aren't majoring in useful fields. What these sheeple fail to realize is that if everyone majored in the useful fields we would huge oversupplies of unemployed and underemployed people in the useful fields--the only thing that would change is the degrees people have.

Same shit everywhere. Ever been to Asia? Everyone has a degree. Kinda funny they even post it on their business cards and everyone has a business card, employed or not.

 

[Wreckem]

..

 

[Balt]

Kids should be required to take a personal finance class in their junior year of high school. I'm not sure how much of it will actually sink in, but at least they information will be there for them.

I didn't have the benefit of such a class, but I did have a father who taught me the importance of managing my money.

 

[Zebo]

...drilled from all directions. That's why allowing student loan debt to be dischargeable isn't necessarily such a bad social policy. It would be a case of society righting one of its wrongs. Of course, the government then needs to immediately get out of the student loan business and let private banks lend the money while being on notice that it's subject to bankruptcy.

The social policy of allowing lower class kids a shot is the argument for maintaining the student loan regime/FED guarantees. I'd go a third way, do away with both and do like Europe and publicly finance education and only those with strong merit could attend the university level free of charge..

 

[WhipperSnapper]

IMO the student loan situation is a classic case of well intentioned government program hurting the people it was designed to help. By guaranteeing student loans and making them nondischargable in bankruptcy we've created a system that encourages incredibly bad choices.

One my economics professors perfectly described the current situation as an arms race in which people are getting higher degrees not because they add any real value but just to keep up.

I've been calling it the "Education Arms Race" for years now. When you step back and look at our nation's economic policies, it's truly sickening how screwed up our country is. We're destined to collapse.

 

[silverpig]

Allow people to declare bankruptcy and clear their student loans, then incorporate that risk into the price of student loans.

Loan availability goes down.
Tuition prices go down.
People carrying $200k of debt around their whole lives gone.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Then the schools would create zillions of in demand positions and then they would no longer be in demand.

Only wealthy people would go to school in liberal arts.

And then those majors which were discriminated against would become "in demand" vs those that were over saturated. Interesting how that works.

 

[piasabird]

Just force tuition rates down.

Too many overpaid administrators and Professors.

Dont release people from student loans. Make them pay the money back with low interest. If they dont pay at all then increase the interest on the debt. We need to teach deadbeats they have no place in society. If the banks and government are losing monty on the student loans then the school should have to lose money on the loan also. If the school is taking on all the benefits from the loan, then make the schools also accept some of the risk.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Just force tuition rates down.

Too many overpaid administrators and Professors.

Well the question needs to be asked.

At the expense of what and whom? You can't simply force tuition rates down without having someone else pay for it in some other way.

 

[Infohawk]

I'd go a third way, do away with both and do like Europe and publicly finance education and only those with strong merit could attend the university level free of charge..

I think we're heading in that direction (hopefully not with American style affirmative action thrown in but I wouldn't be surprised). There's problems with the European model though. There are rigid cut-offs in Europe. Since they don't have the resources to educate everyone for free, they have to cut a certain amount of students after a program has started or they have ridiculous entrance exams. This doesn't sound too bad until you realize it's just pushing students to be cookie-cutter-style students. It also sets up a system where once you have a prestigious degree, you have it made. Then you get a stagnant bureaucratic culture (frequently in government) with less innovation. I'm not saying it's hell on Earth but it's not as good as what we had in the US.

 

[piasabird]

The demand for talented employees are not always what is taught. For instance there is still a demand for programers and other skills. However, corporations do not want to train or hire Americans when they can just hire people from places like china and india under h1b visas. This is an example of the Federal Government helping business out at the expense of US workers. Any time the federal government gets involved in this expect to be the loser! Then these stupid social engineering democrats point to the fact that there are fewer and fewer science and math majors in the USA. Just because our stupid idiot Federal Government is handing out visas right and left.

At Universities in the USA there are plenty of engineering majors, the problem is most of them are not Americans. We are educating our competition just fine.

 

[TridenT]

Lol, I forgot how many people in P&N are too placated by ideology to understand simple things.

Anyway, a nice compromise for some of you tryhards: Make 2 year degrees and trades at community colleges free.

 

[Engineer]

Anyway, a nice compromise for some of you tryhards: Make 2 year degrees and trades at community colleges free.

Nice for you to volunteer others money for this....very nice.

 

[TridenT]

Nice for you to volunteer others money for this....very nice.

I'm willing to pay for it with my tax dollars that will eventually be used. (Considering I'll more than likely be in the 6 figure bracket)

Unlike most of you, I am willing to support others for a greater society. :awe:

 

[Engineer]

I'm willing to pay for it with my tax dollars that will eventually be used. (Considering I'll more than likely be in the 6 figure bracket)

Unlike most of you, I am willing to support others for a greater society. :awe:

Wait until you start making your own money instead of playing with mom and dad's.

 

[Wreckem]

The demand for talented employees are not always what is taught. For instance there is still a demand for programers and other skills. However, corporations do not want to train or hire Americans when they can just hire people from places like china and india under h1b visas. This is an example of the Federal Government helping business out at the expense of US workers. Any time the federal government gets involved in this expect to be the loser! Then these stupid social engineering democrats point to the fact that there are fewer and fewer science and math majors in the USA. Just because our stupid idiot Federal Government is handing out visas right and left.

At Universities in the USA there are plenty of engineering majors, the problem is most of them are not Americans. We are educating our competition just fine.

At the undergradute level, most are American. At the Graduate level, it flips.

I know plenty of EE/CE/CE majors from the classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011 that aren't working in their fields because they couldn't find a job in it.

 

[PeshakJang]

Wait until you start making your own money instead of playing with mom and dad's.

Indeed...

Cliffs - I'm in college. Mom got inheritance from dead mother. Parents spend it on stupid shit(Escalade, useless renovation on house, et cetera). I think they should be spending some of it on me because I was the favorite grandchild.

Bought a HP ProBook 4530s off of Newegg for $484.99.

I'll get reimbursed from parents.

I never felt good about having to save and save AND SAVE my fucking money in school so I could end up spending $5,000+ on newegg for computers. I liked having those computers but I DIDN'T LIKE SAVING. I save just because I have to. I don't want to save. I don't feel good about it. I don't feel like, "Hey I earned this, blahblahblah." I feel like, "Hey, here goes my entire fucking life savings again. Here comes another endless cycle of agony that involves saving money. Here comes the, 'I can't afford this, that, this, that.' FML."

I hate saving money and spending it on shit. It's the worst. I have to part with years of work for some shit that I could have easily gotten if I just had a family that wasn't so inadequate.

Just another little child who has no problem spending other people's money, as was already pointed out.

 

[Darwin333]

Um, yeah, 18 year olds should be able to figure it out, unless, of course, their parents have done well and the kid expects to skate by on that. All of the kids from my economic class in high school have done well, some went to CC, some went to trade school, a few went to University and graduated. Yes, some got loans for stupid degrees, but mostly not. Most of the useless degree kids I see come from upper-middle class families, and drive nicer cars than the college graduates from my group.

Is it America's fault that there are adults over their head in loans for useless degrees? Not at all, and to forgive loans because of it is irresponsible.

Not once have I suggested that a loan should be "forgiven".