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It amazes me how easy it is for just any 18 year old to simply fill out an online form and receive a $200,000 stafford loan to study humanities at some fancy private school. Is this not similar to banks giving out mortgages people could not afford prior to the housing bubble burst?
If you cannot afford college and need to attend on the government's dime (on a generous loan they gave you with a low interest rate), why would you not minimize the loan amount by going to the cheapest college you get into? And why not maximize your ability to repay said loan by majoring in something that has a strong history of job demand, stability and growth? (STEM fields primarily)?
Many young people feel as if they had been wronged by the higher education system and the US government which was so nice to give them a low interest loan which enabled them to go to college in the first place because they are unemployed or underemployed and unable to pay back their massive student loan debt, when in reality, they should have simply gone to a cheap in-state college and chose to study something that can get them a high-paying job upon graduating, no?
Of course, some blame does lie with universities who have used this influx of student loan money to build unnecessary infrastructure and other amenities that don't contribute to the student landing a job and transferred the costs to students by raising tuition rates. But some blame does lie with students, who feel entitled to being debt free and work high paying jobs after spending 4 years drinking and partying on the government's jobs while being mediocre students in a field of study that provides them with no real employable job skills.
Thoughts?
12-31-2014, 09:21 PM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by nalghanim
It amazes me how easy it is for just any 18 year old to simply fill out an online form and receive a $200,000 stafford loan to study humanities at some fancy private school. Is this not similar to banks giving out mortgages people could not afford prior to the housing bubble burst?
They can't. There are both annual and cumulative limits on the amount that can be borrowed, currently $57,500 for independent undergraduates.
Quote:
If you cannot afford college and need to attend on the government's dime (on a generous loan they gave you with a low interest rate), why would you not minimize the loan amount by going to the cheapest college you get into? And why not maximize your ability to repay said loan by majoring in something that has a strong history of job demand, stability and growth? (STEM fields primarily)?
People have been sold the lie that going to college guarantees a good income. Thus we have thousands of psychology majors working at call centers and a ton of lawyers who accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to enter a flooded market where a large fraction of workers have dismal earnings.
Why not STEM? Lots of people aren't very good at it. Getting the degree is not easy. And it's also no guarantee of a good job. If you have no aptitude or interest in the subject matter, companies aren't exactly going to be clamoring to hire you just because you have a engineering degree.
Certainly some blame belongs with the students who don't consider post-college reality before going deep into debt. States and voters also deserve a good share of the blame for slashing higher education spending when budgets get tight.
Last edited by i7pXFLbhE3gq; 12-31-2014 at 09:58 PM..
It amazes me how easy it is for just any 18 year old to simply fill out an online form and receive a $200,000 stafford loan to study humanities at some fancy private school.
I stopped reading right there.
Your entire premise is flawed as an 18 year old cannot "receive a $200,000 stafford loan" to study anything anywhere.
Location: Mid-Michigan by way of Northern New Hampshire
239 posts, read 350,255 times
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Maybe I'm just a hippie but the government should subsidize education for people who cannot afford it. Education is a public good and much of the cutting edge research that this country is known for is driven by people who were educated on the government's dime. And cheap in state college? Give me a break. I went to my state's flagship school (University of New Hampshire) and I STILL paid $20,000 per year in tuition.
You could simply change his premise to a lower number and it would be a decent argument, though not necessarily one I would agree with. Don't discount him based on a little hyperbole.
I tend to go with JasonF's statement: "They have been sold a lie..."
It's difficult to blame students when they've been told they must go to the best college they can, in order to become successful in life...
Location: Mid-Michigan by way of Northern New Hampshire
239 posts, read 350,255 times
Reputation: 322
There is some mild truth to that though if your goal is solely to become rich. Companies like Goldman Sachs only recruit at top schools so you have to go to a top school to get those jobs. It's highly unlikely that you're going to get that job if you go to Eastern State University.
You could simply change his premise to a lower number and it would be a decent argument, though not necessarily one I would agree with. Don't discount him based on a little hyperbole.
Uh, yes we should discount his premise because it's false. He's using the hyperbole to create an emotional response against the concept. The dollar amount is wrong. His use of the term "some fancy private school" is an emotional appeal. Even the definition he uses of "irresponsible student" is based on what he believes a student should study and where they should go.
If you want to discuss the fundamental cost/benefit of the student loan program, then it needs to start from valid data, not an emotional strawman.
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