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Old 04-20-2015, 06:20 AM
 
18,501 posts, read 15,487,453 times
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There is a serious recruiting effort at my institution to get people with STEM skills to go into teaching. The problem is that their wages are too low. They are trying to entice people in by offering public service loan forgiveness. However, for those of us with zero student debt, or only a little bit of student debt, or only private student loans, or even private loans plus only a little bit of federal loans, this "reward" does little to make up for the low wages.

My parents taught me at a young age to never accept an offer for an expensive school unless funding is provided - and "funding" is defined as scholarships and grants only. They paid a portion of my way through undergrad and I scored scholarships for the rest, so I have never had student debt of any kind for a day in my life.

Now in grad school, I find that I am being denied some opportunities due to that fact that I have no student loan debt. At least this is the effect that this PSLF nonsense has created, because the PSLF has caused the wages to drop to unattractive levels.

Why not just pay people more instead of PSLF? Have we now decided that going to a school you can't afford is something that should be rewarded?
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Old 04-20-2015, 07:27 AM
 
7,898 posts, read 7,087,839 times
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Plenty of people need loans to make it through college and/or grad school. The PSLF program is not exactly a give away program and the loan forgiveness requires many years of working in lower paid jobs that qualify. You sound like one of the privileged few who resents someone else getting a helping hand.
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Old 04-20-2015, 07:45 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,634,586 times
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If you are referring to Public School teaching then there are far more applicants than positions. This keeps starting wages low. As most public schools are funded by regressive property and sales taxes there is simply not enough money to pay decent salaries.

As you have a STEM education I suggest finding employment in the private sector and try to make as much as you can. After twenty years or so get a Federal Job and work another twenty and collet decent pay and a good pension.

If you find partner during those years one of you should stay on the private sector and the other get and keep a Federal job. The result, if you save and make wise (not mortgage backed securities) investments you will be able to fund a really decent retirement.
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Old 04-20-2015, 07:51 AM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
 
n/a posts
Your cause and effect are just a wee bit screwed up.
Quote:
PSLF has caused the wages to drop to unattractive levels.
The salaries sucked before this was ever a thing. They continued to suck after.
Quote:
Why not just pay people more instead of PSLF?
Because if they pay people more, the cost never goes away. If they pay off your student loans, that's a known, fairly small amount. They can afford to do one and it will actually entice people to sign on for terrible pay. Or they could raise salaries across the board by some trivial amount, thus enticing no one.

Also, despite there being a never-ending "shortage" of STEM teachers, there actually aren't that many jobs available. They don't need to appeal to every would-be job candidate.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrkliny
The PSLF program is not exactly a give away program and the loan forgiveness requires many years of working in lower paid jobs that qualify. You sound like one of the privileged few who resents someone else getting a helping hand.
This. The OP already got their hand out and now wants to complain that others might get some help too.
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Old 04-20-2015, 08:02 AM
 
18,501 posts, read 15,487,453 times
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I am not against giving a helping hand, but I am saying that the distribution of the helping hand makes little sense. Suppose we have two graduates, A and B, A with student debt and B with no student debt. If B wants to work in public service and A would rather work in a corporate job instead, what economic benefit is there to making that arrangement less favorable than the reverse (where A is in public service and B in corporate?)

No matter how much or how little help you think is called for, the way it is distributed simply seems irrational to me.

Plus, if you want to help the less fortunate, why not just increase Pell grants to avoid debt from the getgo? It seems the current system is a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules that, taken together, are far from optimal and have a lot of room for improvement.
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Old 04-20-2015, 08:21 AM
 
2,485 posts, read 2,209,174 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
I am not against giving a helping hand, but I am saying that the distribution of the helping hand makes little sense. Suppose we have two graduates, A and B, A with student debt and B with no student debt. If B wants to work in public service and A would rather work in a corporate job instead, what economic benefit is there to making that arrangement less favorable than the reverse (where A is in public service and B in corporate?)

No matter how much or how little help you think is called for, the way it is distributed simply seems irrational to me.

Plus, if you want to help the less fortunate, why not just increase Pell grants to avoid debt from the getgo? It seems the current system is a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules that, taken together, are far from optimal and have a lot of room for improvement.
Less competent people will go work for the public sector and become public school teachers. Nice

So this country is encouraging the less fortunate and less competent to going to public-service
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Old 04-20-2015, 08:25 AM
 
18,501 posts, read 15,487,453 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Costaexpress View Post
Less competent people will go work for the public sector and become public school teachers. Nice

So this country is encouraging the less fortunate and less competent to going to public-service
Not so sure about that. The correlation between skill and the finances of one's parents, while it may indeed exist, is surely too weak for a decent hiring manager and interview to be unable to do a better job at assessing skill than one would simply by looking at parental resources and nothing else.
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Old 04-20-2015, 09:53 AM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,914 posts, read 31,030,575 times
Reputation: 47280
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
There is a serious recruiting effort at my institution to get people with STEM skills to go into teaching. The problem is that their wages are too low. They are trying to entice people in by offering public service loan forgiveness. However, for those of us with zero student debt, or only a little bit of student debt, or only private student loans, or even private loans plus only a little bit of federal loans, this "reward" does little to make up for the low wages.

My parents taught me at a young age to never accept an offer for an expensive school unless funding is provided - and "funding" is defined as scholarships and grants only. They paid a portion of my way through undergrad and I scored scholarships for the rest, so I have never had student debt of any kind for a day in my life.

Now in grad school, I find that I am being denied some opportunities due to that fact that I have no student loan debt. At least this is the effect that this PSLF nonsense has created, because the PSLF has caused the wages to drop to unattractive levels.

Why not just pay people more instead of PSLF? Have we now decided that going to a school you can't afford is something that should be rewarded?
K-12 teaching has never been particularly lucrative. People who go into teaching often do it because they either A) want to help children 2) want the "perks" - pension, summers off, etc 3) can't find private sector work or can't cut in the private sector. In small communities or areas with weak economies, teaching is often one of the few middle class jobs left, as private sector wages in most positions are lower than that of educators.

If you have a STEM degree, want to live/work in a major metro, and work for a good employer, of course teaching is going to be worse monetarily.

I think the PSLF focus is wrong-headed. The focus should be to prevent people from incurring debt, not giving them a "strings-attached" bailout once the debt is already incurred.
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Old 04-20-2015, 10:25 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,813,168 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
... No matter how much or how little help you think is called for, the way it is distributed simply seems irrational to me.
It is irrational from the point of view of a student.

It is irrational from the point of view of the economy as a whole.

It is VERY rational from the point of view of elected representatives and bureaucratic rule makers in the administration. Why? They get to give away goodies using other people's money in exchange for re-election campaign contributions (legislators) or they get to give away goodies using other people's money in exchange for a better performance review (bureaucrats).

Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
... Plus, if you want to help the less fortunate, why not just increase Pell grants to avoid debt from the getgo? It seems the current system is a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules that, taken together, are far from optimal and have a lot of room for improvement.
Again, think about it from the point of view of a legislator who extorts campaign contributions from affected entities. It is quite rational for them.
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Old 04-20-2015, 10:33 AM
 
9,865 posts, read 14,041,019 times
Reputation: 21689
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
Now in grad school, I find that I am being denied some opportunities due to that fact that I have no student loan debt. At least this is the effect that this PSLF nonsense has created, because the PSLF has caused the wages to drop to unattractive levels.
How are you being denied opportunities? You can go work in the public sector; you just won't be able to fully make use of all of the benefits offered. That's the key word. The PSLF is a benefit. And just like any other benefit offered by a company, you may, or may not, use it.

My company offers free emergency child care. I don't have children. It's a benefit that I can't use. Some people don't make use of the health care offered from their employer because they have coverage elsewhere.
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