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College in Sweden is free but students still have a ton of debt. How can that be?
Old article, but point is that people are generally not financially responsible. If not for college, people would still take on debt to pay for something else. What's the difference between $30k loan for college vs $30k loan for a car? If someone is not working and can not pay it back? The argument of someone not needing to buy a $30k car isn't any different than saying someone does not need to buy a $30k education when they can get it half off somewhere else.
Banks have no problems selling college loans because that's the "thing" people want to buy these days. If that is taken away, they can just find something else to "sell" to people. And the majority have shown that they will still buy it.
plus outside of the really expensive private schools the majority of the expenses associated with college are room and board. Unless we start paying for living expenses throughout a person's college tenure they are still going to need to come up with $15-20k/yr in a college town and significantly more in a more expensive city.
I never interpreted "tuition-free" to be a blank check. It should incentivize students to make the most cost effective choices.
This is how I would structure a "tuition-free" program:
1) community college - should already be tuition-free & some states are already moving in this direction.
2) 4-year university - tuition free for in-state residents who meet admissions requirements. You don't get tuition-free from any college you want, just the ones you get into after high school or after community college. I would also force students to lock in a choice so they couldn't transfer or change majors all over the place. You also only get tuition-free for classes that are on a degree plan. You'd get maybe 1 chance to change majors then the waiver goes away if you change again, so students are not staying in school forever & incentivizes them to research their major. Must maintain gpa requirements to keep waiver - I'd say 1.6 (C-) or higher. Not room and board. Not fees. Not books. Not expenses. This would incentivize students to live at home where it's cheaper.
If you want to make things less efficient like transferring a lot, changing majors so it takes you 6 years to graduate, living away from home, you'd still have to pay for all that.
With the option I outlined above, a student could get a college degree almost free of charge other than books and fees, but it would be a fairly narrow path to do it.
College subsidies should be solely awarded on the basis of merit. Not everyone is suitable for the rigors of academics. I would have little issue with 100% full ride, actual, scholarships for those able to maintain a 3.75-4.0/4,0 in STEM and a 50-75% scholarship for those at the 3.5-3.75 level (although I think it should be privately funded) After that, pay for college yourself if you have the grades to get in. We need to stop admitting people who have money but little academic promise and those with no money and no academic promise.
We have denigrated our University system by catering to diversity candidates and those ill suited for the rigors of academia. As an employer, I have stopped using a college degree as a barometer of basic competence. Although I employ in STEM, I no longer even require a college degree. What I do require is someone is able to read the actual application process and follow the instructions, that in itself filters out a large percentage of the debris that graduates from our college system and gives me a leg up on someone with innate talent and ability. We will pay for training for those without degrees who show the raw intellectual prowess and intrinsic factors I demand(it actually is a loan process). None of my positions pay less than 100K a year. And my experience is, free college graduates exactly the caliper of students, overall, you would expect it to.
Here's a novel idea.............how about forcing corporations to hire people WITHOUT the sacred cow bachelors degree??????? The bottom line is there are not enough jobs to support all the millions of Americans going to college and there is not a strong nor big enough economy to give them all decent paying jobs. The entire picture is a complete mess and all everyone continues to do is discuss a few trees in a whole forest of disease! Unless we forget this nonsense that college makes people smarter instead of just making them fit into a square corporate hole, we will never reverse this monstrosity that is our college education and jobs racket. Let's face it, I've worked in many industries and for several large corporations and 3/4 of the jobs people do require a little bit of training and that's it!!! Most HR, marketing, office, administration, etc. jobs you don't need a 4 year degree. Corporate America owns a lot of this, and the blame can be laid directly at their feet. The other elephant in the room is globalization. We as a society need to decide what's important for us.......fat pensions, fat stock markets, or a healthy job market and full employment for future generations. Because our trillions in debt is fueling one or the other, we can't have both.
I never interpreted "tuition-free" to be a blank check. It should incentivize students to make the most cost effective choices.
So why can't they make the same choices now? That's what I don't get about student debt "crisis". It's a fabricated one to me, people made dumb choices and now they don't want to own up for it.
Free college does not prevent poor choices, they still still be in debt because nothing has changed. Sure the vehicle might be different but debt will still happen. What will they blame it on then?
It's really the same with minimum wage. They blame their low living quality on everything besides their poor choices. They won't do an better if they get $15 because nothing has fundamentally changed in their actions.
So why can't they make the same choices now? That's what I don't get about student debt "crisis". It's a fabricated one to me, people made dumb choices and now they don't want to own up for it.
Free college does not prevent poor choices, they still still be in debt because nothing has changed. Sure the vehicle might be different but debt will still happen. What will they blame it on then?
It's really the same with minimum wage. They blame their low living quality on everything besides their poor choices. They won't do an better if they get $15 because nothing has fundamentally changed in their actions.
How old are you? Did you go to college and when? Do you have any sense of what college costs now?
In the case of my alma mater - a state university in Texas which is as average as they come - right in the middle of the rankings, nothing special - its cost of attendance has gone up 108% in the 9 years since I received my bachelor's degree in 2007. That is something like 5 times the rate of inflation. Public college around the country are similar - there's nothing special about mine.
This is not some fancy schmancy school for rich kids where you get gold plated goodies. It's an average state university. I actually chose it because it had the lowest tuition of the schools I got accepted to in that tier. It had at that time the best combination of academics + cost. Community college or something of that nature would have been cheaper, but you take an opportunity hit doing that. There was also a 4th tier college near my home, but I was capable of better than that. So I made what looked like the most frugal, bang-for-the-buck choice. I turned down the flagships or out of state options for being way too expensive.
Someone doing the cheapest possible route to pay for that university starting in 2016 doing exactly what I did would be in more than double the debt! And I thought my debt - $36,000 for a bachelors double major and master's degree, was bad, but now it looks like a huge bargain! Why!? It has not moved up in the rankings, it is where it was when I attended. From looking at the website of the department I majored in, except for a couple retirements they have replaced, is the same size with the same staff & faculty.
I paid off my student loans in 4.5 years. I don't have kids at this time and may not have them. In fact I did not buy a house until the student loans were paid off, did not get married until after my student loans were paid off, and I am starting to get too old for kids, so may never have them. And that was for what now looks like my relatively moderate amount of student debt. That's just me and millions more are saddled with more debt. There are serious macroeconomic consequences of this. We want the economy to take off but it won't happen if millions of young people cannot buy houses or have families/kids - that is what makes the economy grow!
So affordability for my own kids is not an issue since I have no skin in the game. I could be callous or dismissive toward the young people following in my footsteps and not care. But I do. It does not bring me any pleasure to tell them "I had it tough and you should too" when it's clear that they ACTUALLY have it tougher than me.
It's not a fabricated crisis, it is a real crisis and it continues to rise in cost by 10% every year. It's not "dumb choices," it's not entitlement, it's an actual problem.
Last edited by redguard57; 07-21-2016 at 09:48 AM..
How old are you? Did you go to college and when? Do you have any sense of what college costs now?
In the case of my alma mater - a state university in Texas which is as average as they come - right in the middle of the rankings, nothing special - its cost of attendance has gone up 108% in the 9 years since I received my bachelor's degree in 2007. That is something like 5 times the rate of inflation. Public college around the country are similar - there's nothing special about mine.
This is not some fancy schmancy school for rich kids where you get gold plated goodies. It's an average state university. I actually chose it because it had the lowest tuition of the schools I got accepted to in that tier. It had at that time the best combination of academics + cost. Community college or something of that nature would have been cheaper, but you take an opportunity hit doing that. There was also a 4th tier college near my home, but I was capable of better than that. So I made what looked like the most frugal, bang-for-the-buck choice. I turned down the flagships or out of state options for being way too expensive.
Someone doing the cheapest possible route to pay for that university starting in 2016 doing exactly what I did would be in more than double the debt! And I thought my debt - $36,000 for a bachelors double major and master's degree, was bad, but now it looks like a huge bargain! Why!? It has not moved up in the rankings, it is where it was when I attended. From looking at the website of the department I majored in, except for a couple retirements they have replaced, is the same size with the same staff & faculty.
I paid off my student loans in 4.5 years. I don't have kids at this time and may not have them. In fact I did not buy a house until the student loans were paid off, did not get married until after my student loans were paid off, and I am starting to get too old for kids, so may never have them. And that was for what now looks like my relatively moderate amount of student debt. That's just me and millions more are saddled with more debt. There are serious macroeconomic consequences of this. We want the economy to take off but it won't happen if millions of young people cannot buy houses or have families/kids - that is what makes the economy grow!
So affordability for my own kids is not an issue since I have no skin in the game. I could be callous or dismissive toward the young people following in my footsteps and not care. But I do. It does not bring me any pleasure to tell them "I had it tough and you should too" when it's clear that they ACTUALLY have it tougher than me.
It's not a fabricated crisis, it is a real crisis and it continues to rise in cost by 10% every year. It's not "dumb choices," it's not entitlement, it's an actual problem.
Add fuel to the fire.....
The problem of late marriage, high divorce rates, rampant abortions, societal tolerance or acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle and same sex marriage all contribute to an unsustainable birth rate. This will mark the beginning of the collapse of a nation and culture. We, like Europe is now, will eventually become desperate to seek foreigners to fill the voids in our aging workforce. We will be sacrificing our own belief systems and cultural norms to accommodate those we currently understand as being incompatible, such as those from backward, impoverished or predominantly Islamic countries whose populations are generally ignorant of or opposed to our way of life. We are inviting increasing strife and conflict by not breeding and raising our own kind based on our own sensibilities. "Be fruitful and multiply" was not intended to be a sexual innuendo or 3,000 year old sound bite. We may learn of its importance after it is too late.
In Germany most students normally need about 600-800 Euro per month to cover all their expenses. It's normally financed by their parents or by earning own money by doing a part time job.
There is also a federal assistance program (Bafög). It's up to 670 Euro per month. The amount depends on the income of the student and the income of his parents. Half the amount is a grant, the other half is an interest-free loan.
Taking a normal loan from a bank is rather uncommon. I doubt that a bank would give a loan to a student unless he works and has a regular income.
And in Europe, students are geared towards study programs that actually are in demand. In the US we have too many people graduating with art history degrees and tons of debt t boot.
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