Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It shouldn't. It also shouldn't be in the business of giving away money to Ukraine and foreigners who flout or immigration law. But it does so anyway. Might as well give some of that money to OUR people.
so what you're actually suggesting is cutting funds elsewhere to justify giving some funds to student borrowers. You're not actually saying "since we give that money, then we should also give this money"?
Sort of, i do think student loans should be able to be discharged in Bankruptcy. But not until they are no longer "guaranteed". Any other type of loan you have to qualify. You can walk in with a 500 credit score with a decade of defaults decide to go to school(for a degree in basketweaving) and get a 100k in loans, thats nonsense,
I think the basic idea of loaning money for education and backing those loans with a federal guarantee is a reasonable idea in concept. I think the intention is good, it theoretically creates human capital which should result in positive economic returns, more tax collection, etc. and provides opportunities to individuals who might not have the chance to go to college. But I agree that the policy du jour of forgiving lots of loans for lots of people is bad for a variety of reasons....many of which have already been addressed in previous posts. I also don't think it would be unreasonable to figure out a better way to deal with some of the challenges with the current program. Smarter people than I have suggested making the institutions partially responsible for paying back loans should their students default. Doesn't seem unreasonable....the schools benefit from getting the loans, they could share some of the risk. But, I don't think financing an education has to be the sole responsibility of an individual student...seems like we can figure out a better way to help than we do now.
So a couple of things….many people who “pay for their own school” are being subsidized by taxpayers. Every state run University that I am aware of gets some funding from their respective state governments. If one wants people to pay for their own college, then they should be advocating for abolishing subsidies to state universities. Second, based on the number of people who ***** about student loans, I’m sure some number of those people are getting their own federal subsidies, but I don’t hear them talking about giving those up. The most significant one that comes to mind is not requiring taxpayers to pay income tax on the share of medical insurance premiums paid for by their employer. If the employer gave them cash in lieu of this benefit, they would have to pay income tax on it. Similarly, why should all tax payers have to subsidize those who put money into 401Ks or IRAs? If you want to save for retirement, why should other taxpayers have to help bear that cost? The short answer is “we” have decided that encouraging people to save is a good idea. Encouraging people to secure private medical insurance is a good idea. Just as encouraging people to pursue a college education is a good idea.
I am certain in your own mind, this makes excellent sense.
State U's are subsidized by the taxpayers of their states, though not as subsidized as before. They're subsidized because those who are qualified to be future leaders become a state-wide "good" for society.
We "subsidize" company-paid health care because that keeps people from relying on the government for a good that has spiraled out of control cost-wise and demand-wise.
We "subsidize" private retirement plans because that too encourages private savings (that become capital for businesses to grow) instead of relying on the government at retirement.
Somewhere, the idea of "pursuing a college education is a good idea" went off the rails. And I can tell you when that concept was - when the EDUCATION was considered the goal, and not the marginal increase in value to society through work. When "Because I have this piece of paper, you're supposed to give me a relevant job in the field" became the expectation.
Before, college was for the best students (STEM) and yes, ALSO for the children of those who could afford to send Johnny to a private institution where the connections made and critical thinking and communication skills would yield a "white collar" career path that exceeded what going straight to work yielded. About 30% of HS graduates went to college, and as expected some of them failed and had to accept a more "blue collar life".
Unfortunately, at some point we tried for equity and vastly increased the "you NEED a college education to matter as an adult". Now, 66% of HS graduates apply to college (a stat I've seen) and probably 95% of them get admitted somewhere. But since we went from teaching basic lifelong math (especially) skills to requiring 4 years of advancing math - the last 2 being a pre-calc and a calculus course - we've got a large % not learning those math skills that then are already behind when they arrive at college. Many articles have been written in the last decade about this. When I graduated HS in 1984, physics was an "elective"/advanced science in 12th grade and "pre-calc" was the elective/advanced math.
Before we do any "student loan overhaul", we first have to overhaul the K-12 system. But, also unfortunately, we're not going to ever do that because of "equity" when all these kids really need is the old basic skills and some direction (community college) after HS.
I am certain in your own mind, this makes excellent sense.
State U's are subsidized by the taxpayers of their states, though not as subsidized as before. They're subsidized because those who are qualified to be future leaders become a state-wide "good" for society.
We "subsidize" company-paid health care because that keeps people from relying on the government for a good that has spiraled out of control cost-wise and demand-wise.
We "subsidize" private retirement plans because that too encourages private savings (that become capital for businesses to grow) instead of relying on the government at retirement.
Somewhere, the idea of "pursuing a college education is a good idea" went off the rails. And I can tell you when that concept was - when the EDUCATION was considered the goal, and not the marginal increase in value to society through work. When "Because I have this piece of paper, you're supposed to give me a relevant job in the field" became the expectation.
Before, college was for the best students (STEM) and yes, ALSO for the children of those who could afford to send Johnny to a private institution where the connections made and critical thinking and communication skills would yield a "white collar" career path that exceeded what going straight to work yielded. About 30% of HS graduates went to college, and as expected some of them failed and had to accept a more "blue collar life".
Unfortunately, at some point we tried for equity and vastly increased the "you NEED a college education to matter as an adult". Now, 66% of HS graduates apply to college (a stat I've seen) and probably 95% of them get admitted somewhere. But since we went from teaching basic lifelong math (especially) skills to requiring 4 years of advancing math - the last 2 being a pre-calc and a calculus course - we've got a large % not learning those math skills that then are already behind when they arrive at college. Many articles have been written in the last decade about this. When I graduated HS in 1984, physics was an "elective"/advanced science in 12th grade and "pre-calc" was the elective/advanced math.
Before we do any "student loan overhaul", we first have to overhaul the K-12 system. But, also unfortunately, we're not going to ever do that because of "equity" when all these kids really need is the old basic skills and some direction (community college) after HS.
I'm all for tweaking education policy, but again, I don't hear about anyone talking about tweaking our approach to providing health insurance. We effectively subsidize workers' insurance....don't tax them on employer contributions for their health insurance. Subsidize anything and we create more demand...in this case more demand for medical services. Prices of medicines, treatments, professional services therefore go up. Absolutely why we spend so much more on health care in this country than in other places....we subsidize it more. I think there are a lot of people on these Boards who have no trouble complaining about the unfairness of canceling student loans, but they either choose to ignore, or fail to consider, that the too are beneficiaries of the government's largess. But they see themselves as victims...other people (student borrowers in this case) are the villains.
Well bear in mind, all of those loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. You can’t do that (certainly not as easily) with student loans. Or in the case of loans on personal residences, which are typically non-recourse loans, the lender can’t recover more than the value of the collateral (the house) even if the borrower owes more than the value of the collateral. Student loans are a different animal.
the loans in question are owed directly to the US Treasury - you and me - not private companies.
And car loan (repossessed) or house (foreclosure), they're not unsecured loans like credit cards or student loans. There's some collateral that's figured into the loan and the actuarial tables of interest and repayment for the lender to recover.
It's why CC rates are high teens - to cover the losses from those who get charged off for whatever reason.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
