#46: Episode VI: Return of the Neolibs

[arus2001]

I'll never miss the irony of shitting on those that pursue the arts while posting in a video game forum.

Still wish I could go back in time and tell myself to go to an art school that wasn't AIP, though.

[Gredival]

Man, ya'll put a lot of words into my mouth while I wasn't here.

Thread sure is full of dudes in their 30s pretending that ~$80K in loans weren't a worthwhile investment to make $60k+ a year instead of ~$30k, though.

The problem is now even the 30k jobs get to require degrees, even though there is no need and those jobs used to only require a HS diploma, because of oversaturation.

All of them? College should be about bettering yourself and finding out what you like. There's no way any high schooler has any idea what they want to do career-wise...fuck most adults still dont and change career paths. What I wanted to do at 17/18 and now are way different.

The painful truth is not everyone does, or should have, that luxury. The economy doesn't work with only skilled workers. There are always going to have to be unskilled workers who don't need a college degree to do their job

The point of a livable wage and social security is so that even these people can have a decent life and secure retirement. We already saw what happened when we bought into this fantasy of everyone having a well-paying skilled job they like if they went to college; don't need a fantasy of everyone having a well-paying skilled job they like when college is free.

What Salodin mentioned, on top of that you're never taught anything besides "the private skewls are the very best, you HAVE to go there and try to get in!". People put way too much stock in where they went to school and not what they can actually do. I love hearing someone constantly mention they went to MIT or Cornell with an air of superiority as I watch them just completely fuck shit up again and again.

School prestige is a matter of the outputs when you have equivalent inputs. Every school has people at the bottom, usually who barely got in or who are in because of family wealth, legacy, etc.

[Tyche]

I picked the cheapest path possible for my degrees. Well, after my first degree that was wasted and was paid for by grants.

Nursing degree from community college.
1 year bachelor degree program (I had gen ed reqs done from first bachelor degree that grants paid for).
Cheapest grad school I could find (<$600/hr).

Paid on all loans while going through school and working full time. All in all, when I finished, I had ~20k in debt and a comfortably 6-figure income. No one gives a shit where NPs got their degrees.

[Koyangi]

The biggest benefit to the "prestigious" schools like a Harvard or Yale isn't necessarily the education you receive there being better than another school; it's the networking and people you meet and get to know who can help you land a good job prospect or position somewhere.

[Gredival]

The biggest benefit to the "prestigious" schools like a Harvard or Yale isn't necessarily the education you receive there being better than another school; it's the networking and people you meet and get to know who can help you land a good job prospect or position somewhere.

If you are in a field where your first job is usually landed through OCI, there are TONS more opening positions AND interview spots available at the prestigious schools.

Like prestige doesn't matter in every career. And a lot of people are better off with local "lay" prestige (say, USC in Southern California vs. Harvey Mudd or Pomona College). But the metrics through which schools are evaluated and ranked can and do matter in the relevant circumstances.

[Zealot]

I have 2 degrees, one of which is terminal, with a 6-figure income, and barring either personal business ventures taking off or abandoning all expenses and moving back in with a parent, there is no chance I will ever erase my debt.

Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk

[kuronosan]

I don't even need loan discharge and I think it needs to be done.

[Byrthnoth]

I am not so convinced it needs to be done, or if it needs to be done I think maybe Biden's idea of forgiving a small amount of money across the board is the right one. If they did that and also made student loan debt dischargeable through bankruptcy, I think the system would adjust favorably and the worst off would be helped.

It is difficult to determine when people should be responsible for their own actions. At 16-17 when choosing their college, maybe not? At 20-21, when choosing whether to go into >100k debt to get a JD... maybe?

People make bad decisions that put them in unrecoverable debt all the time. Normally two parties are fucked when that happens, both the borrower and the creditor. Student loan debt being undischargeable means that only one party is fucked and it is the much less experienced of the two. The normal risk assessment step can basically just be skipped by one party at the expense of the other.

If it was dischargeable, of course we would have to stop betting on long-shot students or give them scholarships. That might not be bad for them.

[Sirious]

There's no simple answer, but the end result is it's better to eat the mulligan and give the relief. Many of those people are defaulted, they're never going to get that money back anyway, what good does it do to be owed 100k when you're never going to get it anyway.

Maybe if they wanted the loans paid back more effort should be put into raising wages and getting those people worthwhile jobs instead of slave labor making not even enough to survive. Working every free minute of every day, with overtime and a side hustle isn't living. it's incredibly easy to get a hundred grand in loans, and damn near impossible to earn that hundred grand (plus 40 grand more in interest) back. 100% of the people get the loan and what, 10% successfully pay it back? Seems imbalanced.

[Day]

https://twitter.com/GPrime85/status/...231760898?s=19

[kuronosan]

I make more than enough to handle my burden. I'd prefer that others who don't have that income level be able to discharge their debt. Even if it's just a percentage of it.

[Yabby]

Truthfully i just think they need to put a cap on the debt. Take the total loan and the second it hits about 15-20% of the total borrowed, interest drops to 0. Most people could deal with the money they borrowed. What fucks most people is it can take a good 5 to 10 years before people are in a position to start paying back the debt. By that time it has grown to the point where paying it off is nearly impossible for the majority.

[NynJa]

The problem with that is inflation.

20k CAD in 2011 is the equivalent of 23,422.37 today.
20k USD in 2011 is the equivalent of 23,744.57 today.

20 years back:
28,691.21 CAD, 30,175.59 USD

Theyre not lending money out of the goodness of their hearts, their goal is to make money as well.

[Meresgi]

Man, ya'll put a lot of words into my mouth while I wasn't here.

Thread sure is full of dudes in their 30s pretending that ~$80K in loans weren't a worthwhile investment to make $60k+ a year instead of ~$30k, though.

You're not guaranteed that $60k+ a year. Is a degree great for professions such as doctors, scientists and other STEM lords where things have remained the same for the most part and change slowly? Yeah totally. Should it cost them $100k+ in loans? Nope that's stupid as fuck. Let people make mistakes and try things out and better themselves through knowledge instead of shackling them with debt they can't break out of. Also that $80k in loans is only translating to that $30k boost of pay in specific circumstances/degrees. I don't value my degree in cybersecurity higher then someone who has a degree in music theory, just because nowadays it's cool to be "lol art majors amirite?"

I make more than enough to handle my burden. I'd prefer that others who don't have that income level be able to discharge their debt. Even if it's just a percentage of it.

This, I got lucky as fuck to get where I am (combo of nepotism and hard work but 75% of it was nepotism) and make more than enough to pay off my shit but I know others are not that lucky.

[Cyn]

Can't see how trading the compounding interest for a one time fee and an annual inflation adjustment on the principle would kill the lenders, but it would greatly help people that struggle to pay the minimum amount each month. But if you did that, I can't see how you could justify making the debt dischargeable via bankruptcy would work. And you would sort of need an annual adjustment to wages due to inflation as well, which we need anyways.

OFC, raising minimum wage would alleviate a lot of the problems right off the top, because trade jobs and jobs that only require a degree without any real specialization would see wage increases as a side effect. Additionally, attending short term training and apprenticeships in lieu of a 4 year degree would become a more viable option.

[Cyn]

You're not guaranteed that $60k+ a year. Is a degree great for professions such as doctors, scientists and other STEM lords where things have remained the same for the most part and change slowly? Yeah totally. Should it cost them $100k+ in loans? Nope that's stupid as fuck. Let people make mistakes and try things out and better themselves through knowledge instead of shackling them with debt they can't break out of. Also that $80k in loans is only translating to that $30k boost of pay in specific circumstances/degrees. I don't value my degree in cybersecurity higher then someone who has a degree in music theory, just because nowadays it's cool to be "lol art majors amirite?"

Obviously, but I was using the national averages to make a very generalized point. Student loans were more viable 10-20 years ago than they are going forward, because the cost of education is rising while wages remain stagnant. Thus, it seems even more important to address tuition before existing student loans. It would be nice to do both together, but I feel like even seeing one happen will be a minor miracle right now.

[Zealot]

Here's my proposal:

Eliminate interest on student loans
Apply any interest amount already paid to the principle
Refund the difference in instances where this results in overpayment
Use this model going forward while we address overall tuition costs

[synistar]

If we could only reset tuition costs to pre-Great Recession levels. Too bad the damage already fucked all education funding for all education levels (at least that's the case with California large in part to property tax revenues hitting all time lows.)

[Koyangi]

One thing not mentioned in all of this that is a major part of the problem is that most college's tuitions and other costs go up basically every year. They can increase these costs all the time and all they want, because they know a "loan" is paying for it all up front.

The main reason why student loan debt is non-dischargable is because there is no collateral against it. Unlike most other kinds of loans, a house or a car for example, if you can't pay it or default on it, the bank can take either of them from you. You can't "unlearn" or get something taken from you for the student loan debt, so it's caveat is the fact it's not dischargable.

[Gredival]

I'd be fine making student loans dischargeable going forward if it meant that banks were going to start being more discerning about who gets a loan and to where. The one problem with this is federal loans, which are the bread and butter of the for-profit school industry who take any and all applicants.