How Did This Happen?
College loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Simple as that.
With lenders knowing that the government will make sure they get paid, they’re happy to loan out any amount of money to anyone regardless of credit worthiness, because they take on literally zero risk.
Then colleges realize the same, and jack up their prices in turn. The feedback loop brings us to where we are today. There is no market (or other) force putting any downward pressure on tuition costs, at all. This is the inevitable result.
College loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Simple as that.
Yes Biden is basically running on the idea of solving a lot of the problems he created. He spent most of his life in government. Those of us who are informed came to terms with that in 2020
Ain’t that convenient huh!
None of us can see the future. Doing something in 2005 maybe made some sense at the time. Now he can see the chain from there to now and realizes it wasn’t good or needs fixing. It’s better than ignoring it.
Plenty of people knew what he did was armful read the article I posted. He was getting paid by the banks and credit lenders at the time. Super ethical dude.
This isn’t the first time. He’s just as responsible for the rise in incarceration. He tried to vote in a constitutional amendment to make sure states could overturn Roe v Wade. He was pro capital punishment until like five years ago. He did so much horrible shit over the years it’s hard to keep up.
But now it’s trust me bro, just vote for me one more time and I’ll undo all the horrible shit I did
Not so much “came to terms” with it as much as “this dumb motherfucker is the only way we escape Trump. I hate him and his policies but I’ll vote for him I fucking guess.” Just like where we are now, but now many are even more pissed because it was already supposed to be just one term of a lesser evil before we’d have new options. Now goal posts are being moved and we all have to do it AGAIN for an asshole like Joe Biden who does not deserve it.
Why can’t these old fuckers just die already?
It’s going to be “lesser evil” for 20 more elections. Count on it.
Seems that way. It’s been pretty much how the DNC has operated for the last 20, so why would they change what’s been working for them?
Considering the staggering losses of state seats during that time, I’m not sure it has been working for them particularly well.
They’ve sure done a lot of fundraising in that time though!
Bold to assume we won’t go extinct before the time needed to hold 20 more of these elections.
Damn. Don’t hurt ‘em.
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Yes this is generally true but I don’t feel like it’s fair to the colleges/universities who work to keep tuition and tuition increases in check. There are lots of decent public universities that have more reasonable tuition. The public university in my smallish city is about 10k a year for in-state. Not necessarily saying that’s ideal for everyone or cheap but it’s a far cry from these places pushing it to 40, 60, 100+k a year.
Also important to point out that we slashed Public Funding of these universities and that’s why the prices are going up in large part
A system with only positive feedback inevitably ends up unstable.
Pegged to an extreme at best
Greed. Get ready because they’re coming for free public k-12 next.
Nah. They just want to cut funding, not cut it completely. They need the dumb kids to grow up to be dumb workers and dumb voters. And to keep their own children in private schools to continue to rule over the poors.
Ah, but cutting it completely means they could potentially go back to child labour, and they’ve already been trying to set the ground work for it
You must live in a state where charter schools aren’t part of normal political discourse. It is happening, and it is what they’re striving for. They want the private schools, yes, but the mostly want unregulated for-profit religious charter schools where there is no oversight in what kids are taught (or if they’re taught)
There’s a real and important underlying reason you’re completely missing.
I have accomplished very little in my life.
I have pissed off innumerable people, been ostracized, ghosted, fired, disowned, discarded, and deserved all of it.
I have never lived up to my potential. I’ve got less than zero ambition.
I have been a historically awful husband and/or boyfriend.
But I accomplished one thing:
I got my daughter through college with no debt.
While she did the work to get admitted and slog through the classes and deal with the remote classroom bullshit of the COVID era, I’m proud that I was able to pull my shit together just long enough to keep writing those godforsaken checks so she will never know the struggle of being shackled to a lifetime of crippling debt.
I did one good thing in this lifetime, and because it gave her opportunity, it was all worth it.
It’s stories like this that make me thankful that my children have EU citizenship and will never have to struggle through college debt and neither will we as their parents.
It’s comments like this that make me happy i didn’t have kids (as a usa citizen)
User name checks out
Ronald Reagan. That’s how this happened.
When it comes to Reagan I feel bad for dementia having to be inside him.
I’m sad that he died unable to remember what a horrible person he was.
He never thought he was horrible, so instead celebrate he was confused and horrified at the end :D
Honestly I can’t think of a single other person who I heard about their dementia and thought ‘good’
Not that simple. This got started before he took office, and it culminated long after he was out of office. Way more than one person is to blame.
https://www.tateesq.com/learn/student-loan-bankruptcy-law-history
Student loans first became nondischargeable in bankruptcy in 1976 due to an amendment in the Higher Education Act. Section 439A of this act made student loan debt non-dischargeable until five years after the start of the repayment period, except in cases of undue hardship. Over time, laws were tweaked and widened to reinforce this limitation.
This got started when he went after Berkeley as the candidate for governor of California, then became worse when he was governor, then other governors copied his playbook, then laws were enacted to roll it nationwide, then got worse when he became president. Prior to Reagan becoming governor of California all state universities were free for residents in California. Reagan hated this because it led to poor minorities being able to get an education, and he hated nothing more than he hated poor minorities.
You listened to this week’s Behind the Bastards too?
I was going to start watching that channel when it showed up in my feed, but then I decided against it because I don’t want to get more pissed off at everything than I already am.
It can be brutal for sure. Sometimes it’s shitheads from a while ago, so it doesn’t induce quite as much rage.
I have a lot more rage towards the capitalist system rather than just the individuals who take advantage of it.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
My school was expensive but was marketed as cheaper. It was cheaper through scholarship, factored in Pell grants and did not comsider the extra fees from bureaucracy.
The problem is that when you try to work while paying for school the grants go down and you pay more and still struggle.
While you do this you see your school build a sports stadium and see host extravagant dinners with business clients. You see how much the president or dean makes and how much the professors make.
I gave up and transferred to a non-profit university and the experience was night and day. It was affordable and the staff worked for you.
Look down at community colleges all day but I work with people doing the same job making the same pay (know your rights) but i don’t have 35 years of debt.
I got into University - they wanted $8,000/semester. Community College across the street offered 4 year degrees for $1200/semester.
Agreed! Community colleges are great, although the local one I attended was not without extraneous fees.
Holy shit dude, for profits are fuckin terrible. Although, that being said, I don’t know of any for-profits that have sports teams or large stadiums.
And I would also add that academia doesn’t really pay that well, at least for professors. They could make much more in industry in a lot of cases
Any private university is for profit, they just don’t explicitly say it.
Ones that aren’t directly corporate run and owned by their shareholders just go through more steps to funnel money to the rich
Because there is no cap on student loans for the most part. Kids who just finished high school are sold on the concept of these loans without knowing what they are really getting into.
If a guy can’t legally buy a beer, then they should not legally be allowed to sign up for 6 figure loans either
Seems like an easy “hey you predators took advantage of me while I was young and naive” case.
And then watch all the self serving reasons why we allow this just catch on fire.
You think that hasn’t happened already, like nobody has ever had that thought?
That’s what the entire student loan forgiveness from Biden was about, trying to eliminate people’s payments towards predatory student loans.
There’s literally no market incentives for it to be otherwise. Look at the factors.
50+ years of institutions and borrowers alike trained to believe that education debt is “good debt” that won’t hurt them.
“Club ed” arms race of expensive non-education-related amenities, targeting students. Essentially it is marketing costs passed on to the student/borrower.
Heavy subsidization of student loans by state and federal governments.
Laws to make student loans not discharged in bankruptcy.
Constant implication that growing amounts of student debts can or should be “forgiven” by federal programs.
If you are the lending institution or the college, literally all of those factors only incentivize charging more.
Driving prices down would require meaningful competition or a feasible alternative. I have encouraged hiring managers to look at alternative credentialing and training for this reason. No bachelors degree is worth going $200k+ in debt for.
Regarding your last point, I was an IT manager for a decade and hired many people. I saw no difference in the skill set between a community college grad with an Associate’s and a grad with a Bachelor’s from a prestigious university. The vast majority of skills simply don’t translate from university to real life, so I don’t understand why we still hold them so highly in IT. I can’t speak to other fields, though.
I very intentionally received only an associate’s degree with the plan being to immediately get a job and start learning from there. It’s worked great. Except that was 20 years ago and now many jobs “require” a bachelor’s or otherwise have the nerve to say that 4 years of on the job experience is the same as 1 year of college.
In my experience, I’ve seen the same thing. The university time kick starts things. But university lessons are so different than real on the job work.
Or regulation.
Driving prices down would require meaningful competition, or a feasible alternative, or regulation.
(Feasible alternatives do exist, eg trades, but are not treated as viable alternatives by society)
Some states are ditching the bar exam for attorneys. You can become a lawyer by getting experience as a paralegal. It shouldn’t be much different for other professionals.
And people who actually do most of the work (aka grad students) are still not getting a living wage.
Support striking grad workers everyone! Search for the currently striking school, and donate to their strike fund if you can: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=support+grad+worker+strike&ia=web
That’s actually highly variable. Some schools have come a long way in that regard
AFAIK there is no school paying a living wage (based on MIT living wage calculator) to all their grad student yet, at least not in most major cities.
The grad workers union of JHU has just won a wage that is somewhat close to living wage, but not there yet.
Depends if you factor all the free credits in ig
The problem is that most grad students are not taking classes after the first two years, and focus solely on research. Many with masters will finish with classes even sooner.
Then it doesn’t make sense to factor in the tuition for most PhD.
Plus, I am referring to living wages calculated without factoring in any educational cost or child care cost. If they are included, the living wage will be much higher.
It all started when they outlawed bankruptcy discharging student loans. Cry and cry over “Lawyers will graduate from college then immediately declare bankruptcy on $5000 loans!”. Then, when they captured the students in inescapable debt, convinced everyone that college was the answer, and then Sallie May being put in charge of defaulted loans… being paid to collect… Federally guaranteed money… It’s like getting paid to get paid, perfect racket!
Greed. It happened because for-profit schools are allowed to exist.
For-profits aren’t really the problem though. They are a tiny tiny tiny fraction of higher ed. And Obama went after them pretty hard
Fro profit schools are not the cause.
Maybe stop paying the coaches so much?
this is a gross reality no one wants to admit… that the highest paid government officials in some states are coaches for state schools.
we prioritize sports and ‘revenue’ over education ever time. humans suck
I agree, but that ain’t gonna fix $1.7 trillion in student loan debt.
They aren’t really worried about that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eh, that’s only an issue in D1 schools. Many elite universities don’t have that issue and they are still insanely expensive.
In B4 TiCkEt SaLeS… as if the university couldn’t use that money for literally anything else.
People finding out why religions banned usury
And back then y’all could just move like 40 miles and become a whole other ass person. Now you’re tracked literally around the entire globe forever.
Yeah so they could corner the market on that shit instead lmao
It’s administrative bloat. All that money isn’t going to hire more professors. It’s going to pay for non-faculty admin staff who provide services to students and work to attract students to the school. Schools are in competition with each other and the trend has been towards providing an all-encompassing luxury experience. While at many schools the fancy buildings may be paid for in whole or in part by donations from rich people, government grants, or other non-tuition sources (endowment), the staffing and maintenance of these buildings is paid for by tuition.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that students comparison shop four-year luxury “Club Ed” vacations, paid for with borrowed money. That student loans are available without collateral or credit history and automatically approved is a huge part of the problem. If the flow of money dries up, the bloat goes with it. But in the mean time only rich people would have access to an education.
Eat the rich.
Americans with income over $74,000 hold about 60% of the total public student loan debt
The holders of college debt are, relatively speaking, the rich in this scenario, lol. They’re sure a lot richer than all the taxpayers who never went to college, who will be the primary ones footing the bill for any college debt forgiveness that occurs.
$74K while they’re paying off student loans isn’t anything close to rich. Why are taxpayers who didn’t go to college footing the bill, is someone failing to make corporations and billionaires pay their fair share?
$74K while they’re paying off student loans isn’t anything close to rich.
It is compared to those not in college, and even moreso as time goes on–college grads make a million more over their lives than others.
Why are taxpayers who didn’t go to college footing the bill, is someone failing to make corporations and billionaires pay their fair share?
There’s no provision preventing the ~85% of the population who never went to college from having to pay, is there? No one’s handing only the even richer minority a bill for it.
Just like how income tax was first proposed as something only the rich would pay, but in reality the middle class pays the majority of it, this is no different.
This is such an idiotic take. It’s clear that you just want to rile people up with fear-driven rhetoric. “They’re stealing from you!” That kind of thing works with your you and your pals but not on people who understand the division in the class war waged against us doesn’t start at $74k while under a mountain of debt.
I have to pay taxes which go to government services I don’t always use. Welcome to society. That’s how it works.
By the way, could you link me to where you were screeching and whining about PPP loan forgiveness? I have a theory to test.
This is such an idiotic take.
It’s not a “take”, it’s a fact.
If you seriously think that NONE of the taxpayer money being used to forgive student loans is coming from the 85% of the non-college taxpaying population, and ALL of it is being paid for by the ultra-wealthy/billionaires, you’re just delusional.
I have to pay taxes which go to government services I don’t always use. Welcome to society. That’s how it works.
So first it’s adamantly denying that the non-college majority will be paying forgiven college students’ loans, and now it’s “actually, it’s good that they do”, lol.
Student loan forgiveness is regressive, period. It’s a wealth transfer from poorer to richer.
By the way, could you link me to where you were screeching and whining
Really pathetic attempt to devalue my factual statements. Ideologue tactics 101.
about PPP loan forgiveness?
All voluntary loans should be paid back by the borrower, and no taxpayer-funded forgiveness should exist. If anything, perhaps bring the loan to 0% interest, though that’s arguably still unfair to the lender.
I bet you really thought that was a gotcha, huh? I’m not one of your stupid stereotype boogeymen, stop pretending you know me.
We do know you. You are a clown pretending that student loan forgiveness is transferring wealth from the poor to the wealthy. You want to ensure education remains unavailable for poor people so the only opportunities they have are trades.
You want to pretend that paying taxes into the government means they’re funding these directly. Delusional. You cannot even read.
I wish they still taught basic civics in schools. Then people wouldn’t have to explain the basics to you.
No, I don’t want you pretending you’re against PPP forgiveness now, I want to see where you are grumpy enough about it at the time to complain about it. It’s easy for fellows like you to be consistent for a few hours at a time.
pretending that student loan forgiveness is transferring wealth from the poor to the wealthy.
Just because it’s not the poorEST to the wealthiEST doesn’t mean it’s not regressive.
It is–the recipients of the monetary handout are receiving it primarily from those who are poorer than them on average. The majority of people whose tax money will be paying this forgiveness, already have less wealth than those getting it.
These are objective facts.
Excluding the value of education from a calculation of net worth while including debt used to finance that education is like measuring a homeowner’s wealth by subtracting their mortgage but ignoring the value of the home itself. You’d find that homeowners were poorer than renters, and that people living in mansions were the poorest members of society.
That’s clearly wrong, yet advocates for debt forgiveness make the same mistake, arguing that recent college graduates with student debt have negative wealth and are thus worse off than otherwise similar Americans who have not gone to college. Consider that the median doctor graduating from medical school in 2017 or 2018 owed $171,000 in student debt, according to the College Scorecard, the median MBA owed $46,000, the median borrower with a BA in business $25,000, and the median AA degree holder in business $18,000. The implied conclusion is that doctors are the worst-off individuals, those with the two-year AA degrees are doing far better, and richest of all are those who never went to college.
You want to pretend that paying taxes into the government means they’re funding these directly.
The government does not spend its tax revenue depending on which class of people paid those particular dollars of tax. There is zero reason to think the distribution will be any different than anything else.
If the top 1% pays 45%, the middle class pays 40%, and the lower class 15% (random numbers, not themselves relevant to the point), then every single thing the government pays for, with tax money, is 45% funded by the 1%, 40% funded by the middle class, and 15% funded by the lower class.
Unless some provision is added that there will be a tax hike ONLY on those with more wealth than the recipients of the handout, that is the case.
And people who pay taxes and never went to college should absolutely NOT be on the hook for a penny of richER people’s loans.
No, I don’t want you pretending you’re against PPP forgiveness now
This is getting sad now. Constantly saying I’m “pretending” to have certain values like you know fucking anything, lmao. It must be a simple life indeed to never have to take on the mental burden of assessing people as individuals instead of members of your pre-built stereotype-driven collectives.
I came up with a plan to lower college tuition years ago while tripping. It starts with the decriminalization of all drugs. And to prevent gangs and what not from profiting colleges will get the exclusive privilege of making and selling all drugs. Drug proceeds would be split between lowering tuition, setting up more college ran centers, and rehabilitation of drug users outside the colleges programs. With a small percentage allowed for the college to profit.
For the program itself, i would have the colleges set up drug manufacturing classes which should benefit students in other chemist and medical fields so it should draw in quite a few people. With the drugs made they then would be sold by college ran businesses whicj could also employ students to have on the job experience and to keep more money in the colleges sphere of influence.
At these centers where drugs are sold, there will also be areas for people to partake in the more dangerous drugs, which should be inheritly safer now that its not being tainted with other nonsense. There would be medical students watching and taking care of their patients making another facet of experience that will help in future jobs.
With all this taking place in the college system, and with plenty of opportunities to view patients, it should be easy to spot people who are in a real bad place that would benefit from health and life counseling. So for the people in need of help, counselors will approach giving an offer to participate in a program to train psychology students that comes with a heavy discount for their drugs while in the program.
My whole idea had several beneficial aspects for all of the country.
Lower colleges tuition
Raising the educational level of general poplus
Lower drug dependencies rates
Lower crime rates
Getting people help who need it
Reduction of drug over doses
Less burdens on are justice system clogged up with drug related crimes
Hampering outside nations who push dirty cheap drugs into our country
Extra tax money
Etc
Idk if anyone has any comments on my wistful thinking, but im open to revisions of my plan.
TLDR: Decrimnalize drugs and make collegese create dispense and sell said drugs to fund the well being of our society.
This is a very American answer. The easy and best solution is to tax the ultra rich and provide college to all Americans.
Jesus fucking christ this is the stupidest shit with the purest potential. I’ve never loved and hated anything so equally. I’m left completely indifferent.
You’re ambivalent not indifferent.
This is legalizing drugs with extra steps. Tax the shops and manufacturers, direct that money split into social programs, safe centers staffed by professionals and school funds.
