A pair of married science teachers were sure they qualified for student debt forgiveness. They discovered what many borrowers learned in the 2010s: not qualifying for aid is the norm
George Orwell - "The WAR is not meant to be WON, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can never have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation."
It's worked like a charm for centuries now. Why do you think they hated Marx so much ? Telling the peasants to rise up against the capital class was the worse from of blasphemy anyone could utter.
The folks that own the government own the energy and mineral industries. You also have to have a military presence everywhere in order to enforce your rackets.
I get that, but what energy and mineral resources is the US government successfully extracting from Syria or Afghanistan at present? I realize that might be the planned endgame, but right now the people running this shit do not seem competent or bright to me.
I have to go to the supermarket to buy a super big box of tissues for their tears. The whining over not getting free stuff is really more than people should have to bear.
Matt makes the point clearly that they aren’t a really sympathetic case and they aren’t.
What’s left is that the system for getting free stuff is broken. Boo hoo. The system shouldn’t even exist. You take on an obligation, you meet that obligation. Period. The terms and conditions aren’t hidden from the borrower. The interest rate is, as the article points out, subsidized. Meaning it’s already a bit of a handout.
Loan balances are designed to amortize in most cases. That means they go down if you pay according to the loan terms. They go up in the student loan context when the borrower is already not meeting the agreed upon terms and takes forbearance or otherwise misses payments. Try getting that deal in any other context - you won’t find it.
So let’s be clear about this....people borrow money with clear disclosure. The loan is at a discounted rate. They still don’t make their payments. And then they whine that they aren’t getting some of what they owe being written off and put on the backs of other people?
Jeez., two dick comments right at the top. People don't borrow money with clear disclosure. Student debt cannot be cleared with bankruptcy. Education should be free, but it is not asshat, that is the problem. The US has a system where you have to have a college degree to have a decent chance to get ahead, but also where one misstep or mistake and you're fucked for life. If you're a racial minority and/or poor, you might just get fucked even if you do everything right.
Why stop at free education? How can good people live the care-free happy lives they deserve without free food, housing, picnics, childcare, fair-trade coffee, and pottery classes?
Free education is an investment. An educated populace is what helped the US become a world power. We used to get that, but late-stage capitalism runs out of wealth to extract from the populace, so we stopped advancing while our economic competitors around the globe did not. It is one of the reasons we're losing our big lead over the rest of the world, and have to resort ever more to extortion to stay ahead.
> An educated populace is what helped the US become a world power.
Now we have the worst of both worlds. The grievance studies degrees a lot of these idiot children are graduating with in no way qualify them as educated. They're not the kinds of societal investment you have in mind either. How many know-nothings with an inflated ego do we really need? We should discourage most of what currently passes higher education. We sure as shit shouldn't be looking for ways to pay for more of it.
It's just a matter of time before all those things are indeed free. As jobs are eliminated through automation and off-shoring jobs, we'll all be joining the welfare system. And even then a "virtuous cycle" exists, Fed Gov welfare ending up in the hands of corporations which sends all their profits to wallstreet and to the banks which after exhausting things which provide a yield put their currency hoard into the yield of last resort - Fed Gov debt. Which gets rolled right back into welfare. Embrace your future.
Pretty simple. We are the world's reserve currency. This means we that we can decide repayment of our federal debt (at 28T presently). And if you are telling me we cannot afford it (then the 5 tax cuts to the wealthy, 10 wars of choice, and 3 financial crisis that went unpunished to the top 1% undercut your belief).
If we can create policy that kills people overseas, provides tax relief to billionaires, and fails to police the criminogenic fraud on Wall Street, then we can afford FREE FUCKING college.
It's fascinating that you bring up our violent foreign policy, and our privileged position having the global reserve currency, in the same post.
Most people don't explicitly make that connection, but it's absolutely correct: If you want domestic policies that rely on "free" money, you had better support whatever aggressive policies are needed to maintain reserve currency status.
Am I understanding your position correctly?
Anyway, we'll see how much longer it holds. China is not messing around.
Why? Because college graduates pay more in increased (marginal) taxes over their working lifetimes than do non-college graduates - more than the cost of that college education, to list one of several good reasons. Ergo: It is a proven good investment.
It comes (sort of) from our taxes. Not really, but it easier to conceptualize.
I'd like to see that proof and I'd like to see it broken out between selective and non-selective schools. Average income of students 10 years after graduating from a non-selective college is around $50,000. That is less than what a typical skilled worker, like a carpenter, plumber, electrician, makes. We need to stop telling students with sub 1,000 SAT scores that college is the ticket to a better life. It's mostly a waste of money.
"The US has a system where you have to have a college degree to have a decent chance to get ahead, but also where one misstep or mistake and you're fucked for life. If you're a racial minority and/or poor, you might just get fucked even if you do everything right."
The US now has a system where having a college degree is no decent chance of getting ahead and may in fact be a mistake, as it represents a great amount of time, effort, and money (or = debt) squandered.
If you want to get a good job, know the right people -- or better yet, be related to the right people. Credentialism is collapsing -- if it hasn't collapsed already. That's my advice to the childrens.
Grisha, this was not always the case though. The people in charge of neoliberal institutions are often the beneficiaries of the investment in education --- not the commodification of it. And while I take your position into account (credentialism, meritocracy arguments especially), I taught a public institution for 10 years in the Midwest and found a way to connect with students -- so as they could navigate the falling value of their degree with the rising interest and anger at having been exploited. My time there was not for nothing. There are serious people in all walks of life and one need not be in college to find them, and even in areas where we might not think we have influence, that is where it is the strongest, my friend.
What do you mean that there is not clear disclosure? When I got a student loan, it was clear as day what I was doing. If you mean to say that borrowers should be better educated as to what loan terms mean, I'd agree with you. That speaks to the problem of financial illiteracy.
Yeah the system of free stuff is getting ridiculous! I'm sick of people getting asking for free roads and public education too! Like when will the handouts stop!?!? Life isn't free, if you need a road, you should work until you can afford the paving equipment and build it yourself! /s
First of all, you’re a dickhead. Secondly, it says right in the article that the terms and conditions you reference were changed on the fly, basically. So, yeah, maybe they weren’t “hidden” but they were changed without notice to the borrowers.
What a total Rick, sorry I mean Dick. Making payments is not getting something for free. Dick, Sr. paying for your college is getting something for free...he should have sent you to a different school. And these "write offs" don't go on the "backs of other people"...obviously you don't know how finance works. Cry me your taxes..wah, wah, wah.
What you are demanding is a system for reallocating YOUR costs. You’re not my child, nor are you even my relative or friend. Where do you get the nerve to feel so entitled that you believe that you can get something without laying the stated cost of it? Why are you so special that you think you have a right to it? Making discounted payments - including interest - is indeed getting something for free measured by the discount.
I know how finance works. And I know how demands from the central government works. You get something that other people bear the burden for.
Those "clear" disclosures when students sign up for the loans include information about income based repayment plans, forbearance and forgiveness. That is all part of the agreement they signed. According to everything Matt wrote, they have met all their obligations. Federal student loan balances are not "designed to amortize". You are misinformed and need to google "income based repayment".
ohhh so you're like one of those cartoon people who believes that the misfortune of others is due to them not being as smart as you? I wonder how different this comment would be if you were $126k underwater. nevermind, I'm sure the reason you aren't is because you Make Good Decisions
These people signed up for debt forgiveness programs in exchange for taking employment in undeserved sectors. Others made payments for years, but the Department of Education found excuses and technicalities to not accept the payments.
It's the government that is not keeping their end of the bargain, to the tune of 98%.
Perhaps the solution is to tell the Department of Education that Bill Ackman over at Pershing Capital just lost a currency bet to the tune of 1 trillion dollars and we need 1.5 trillion to bail him out whole and still ensure everyone at his company gets their 100 million dollar year end bonuses as well.
That way you get the money no questions asked and can give it to those in the middle class the DOE is gouging before anyone realizes that the money was wasted on those in actual need.
the student debt ripoff mirrors, Country Wide predatory home loan ripoff. just another vehicle for wall st scumbags, to pimp, then collateralize 100x. that our gov, both d and r, were complicit, speaks volumes.
The Mont Pelerin Society's (Austria 1940's) favorite "economist" F. v Hayek proposed path of "liberty" and "freedom", 4 "planks": [only for the 1% (Neoliberalism)] (Buchanan, Friedman, the "Chicago School", were later disciples and advocates)
1) Deregulate global financial markets - DONE
2) Deregulate global trade - DONE
3) Create the illusion and urgency of national bankruptcy with fake (fiat) debt (thereby neuter a nation's capability to enforce laws - eliminate the people's ability to defend against being overwhelmed and consumed by the 1%) - DONE
this manufactured illusion of bankruptcy is critical path for the 1%'s agenda. the "debt" is used to justify austerity measures for the people, and to tee up, the privatization plan, which is about transforming the public debt, into private debt, where the 1% can extract usury, ad infinitum.
#AusterityIsCode4Looting - austerity measures are plain evidence, the system has already been looted by generational globalist wealth.
then lastly, the kill shot:
4) Privatize Everything. recreate us ALL as permanent rent payers of even the most basic necessities of life (Air, water, food, shelter, health care). the public debt of a nation has been effectively eliminated, transmuted into private debt (bonds); the service of which (usury) is FOREVER- Almost COMPLETE
#PrivatizationIsTheft - privatization today is STRICTLY about prioritizing national productivity (work) away from the commons and general welfare, extracting and transferring it to the 1% rent-seeking parasites (Extreme Redistribution of wealth from the people TO the Billionaires, NOTHING for the people)
Really well said. I completely agree. And in the same vein of the powerful using the government to rob the people, how is it that austerity is NEVER applied to the military industrial complex? When the next John McCain is pushing for the destruction of Ghana or Denmark, in order to Build Back Better, how is it they never have to mention the cost of the demolition? I’m going to sharpen my pitchfork in case the people wake up to the true global threat.
and just what do you imagine government is, sir? government is no different than a corporation, an LLC, etc.. it's aa Legal fiction, a prop, a straw man, operated by the money that pays to play. government is trivial today: it's a facade of the oligarchy
«as of March 2019, 73,554 unique borrowers had submitted 86,006 applications for PSLF, and only 864 applications had been approved for forgiveness. Only 518 borrowers—fewer than 1% of unique borrowers submitting applications—have had their loans forgiven.»
So it is essentially a scam to keep lower the federal and local taxes on affluent people, as such low approval rates can only be the result of carefully designed rules.
The key element of the scam is that the application for the PSLF can only done at the end of the qualifying period, not at the beginning; if it were done at the beginning, most people who don't get approved would not do the required public service that the PSLF is meant to help fund.
I would suspect that the equivalent "GI Bill" for veterans has much, much higher approval rates, and that they are usually approved upfront. Teachers are usually on the left, veterans on the right.
Not only that, but the borrowers are often affirmatively told in the early years of the PSLF that they are qualifying, but those letters are non-binding.
Matt- do you think there is any chance that the BK code will be amended to allow these debts to be dischargeable? Couldn’t a Senator simply add an Amendment to a bill to get that done? Doesn’t seem like it would be that tough to do.
Matt - do you not see the irony of teachers who are expected to shape the minds of our young - are frequently the actors in these loan forgiveness stories? So what are they teaching kids? Dependency is part of life so it’s okay to expect subsidy and write offs that transfer the burden to others? That you are smart enough to teach others to prepare for,life, but not smart enough to prepare for your own?
Rick, those who followed your system here would never qualify as hedge fund managers. The entire idea of paying your own debts is anathema to our entire financial system on Wall Street. Where is your outrage over the bail outs given under TARP, to Long Term Capital, to the Savings and Loans? Why do I only hear this level of outrage from the bootstraps crowd when the net worth of those we help financially is less than a billion dollars?
You can look at people who struggle in two ways. You can see them as inferior humans who failed to meet your standards either through genetic or character inferiority, or failed to plan to be born on 3rd base. Or, you can realize they could be you under different circumstances.
It's our shared suffering that binds us. If a person has been unfortunate enough to have never suffered, or is emotionally incapable of remembering the experience then what I am saying here makes no sense. Those are the people who need help the most.
The GI Bill is not a loan program and is not an "equivalent" to the student loan programs, it's a Federal benefit and ALL veterans who serve the required amount of time in uniform are eligible for it, period. There is no comparison. By the way, my wife put herself through college by WORKING because she wasn't eligible for student loan programs because her mother had inherited a farm. She thought she was going to get the loans but was told she wasn't qualified and that her mother should sell the farm (which is now worth over a million dollars) so she was forced to drop out of college, go to work to pay off the bill at the school where she had been enrolled, then go to a state college where she worked two jobs and lived in a dilapidated trailer to pay her tuition to get a degree in education. I used my GI bill to get my commercial pilot ratings and spent forty years in aviation - and owe nobody!
Your statement about the GI Bill is incorrect; as related specifically to tuition assistance. The benefit that vets are eligible depends entirely on exactly when you served, so you were lucky to have had such a great benefit. I served in the early 80s, was honorably discharged after 6 years, and was not eligible for anything remotely like what you were eligible. What was in place at the time was a savings program that match one dollar for every two you put in thru a payroll deduction- and that benefit had a lifetime cap. All in all, it wasn't worth the time of day.
My experience was the same and I was in during the 90's. The benefit had to be paid for this a monthly deduction and was only good for 10 years. It had so many strings attached to how I could and could not use it that I got my degree without it and let the 10 expiration run out.
«The GI Bill is not a loan program and is not an "equivalent" to the student loan programs [...] There is no comparison.»
Perhaps you haven't figured out yet that this article is not about student loans, but student loan *forgiveness*, which is equivalent to a grant.
«ALL veterans who serve the required amount of time in uniform are eligible for it, period»
So is the loan forgiveness "grant": all qualifying veteran teachers who for the required amount of time are eligible for it, period.
But the difference is that the loan forgiveness "grant" comes with a lot more conditions and a much lower approval rate than the veteran grant, because it is for "socialist" teachers, rather than "conservative" veterans.
Do you really think the uniparty cares about conservative vs liberal? Unless you can back up your statement I think "because they can" is the more likely explanation. Veterans have a lot more political capital than teachers unions.
1) Prior to the post 9/11 GI Bill you paid in $1200 to qualify for 36 months of benefit. Not a loan, also not debt forgiveness. College plus living expenses typically exceed the benefit so you either took out regular student loans, worked, or both. 2) May veterans use their GI Bill benefit to become teachers. 3) Not all veterans are conservative, not by a long shot.
I would be interested in what percentage of the denials are for fairly normal and good reasons. For things like this you can get a lot of "frivolous applications". It is all well and good to focus on sob stories. But if of the 98% of people rejected, 95% of them were people who simply didn't make all their payments, or failed some other straightforward hurdle, well it is a very different picture than if that is only 40% of the rejections. Some data on that would make this a lot more worthwhile than the sob story. It mostly sounds like these people made pretty poor choices, and that is why they owe $126,000. Not that the system screwed them.
It is totally possible the system is really messed up, I don't think this story really demonstrated that, nor does the high rejection rate.
You are free to say whatever you want Rad, have at it sport. However, if there was anyone here who had less credibility to discuss journalistic integrity, it would be yourself.
This data is interesting and seems to confirm the rough numbers in MT's article. 1.66% of people who applied to the program have received it as of nov 2020. 91% of the applications have been processed. Most are rejected for not enough qualifying payments made yet(59%), "missing information"(26%), or no eligible loans(11%). Presumably people thought they qualified or they wouldn't have gone through the trouble to submit the application. This data to me says that the terms of this program are so confusing that the vast majority of people thought they qualified, but did not. Imagine if a private company led people on like that for ten years and then pulled the rug from under them!!
I just found out another aspect of the FED's loan scam: One cannot refinance a Federally backed student loan. Wow, that's freaking awful. 2021 rate is only 2.75%
I'm not getting why the interest rate isn't simply indexed to the Federal prime lending rate, rather than setting up a Bureaucracy of Loan Forgiveness.
That way, college students can "take responsibility for funding their own education" without being caught in a usury trap.
Because there are multiple lenders in the market place (federal and private) - often times private lenders have significantly higher costs. By drawing attention to them, by indexing with Prime (it creates more traffic away from the more expensive loans). This is one reason. There may be more.
There's also the fact that we don't have a public national banking institution; instead, we have the Federal Reserve system which is an entity run by private individuals- regional "governors", appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate- that works as an intermediary between the US Treasury and the privately owned banks. I don't pretend to be up on the pros and cons of that situation.
I do find it worthy of note that the Federal Reserve is routinely cast by old-school American political conservatives as instrumental to a conspiratorial plot by "finance capital socialists"*, five of the seven Federal Reserve Bank Governors are Republicans (currently, there's one vacancy.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Board_of_Governors
[*I could use a lot more explanatory clarification on that particular narrative.]
So...borrow at the low rate and pay off the higher rate loan? Thing is, who are you going to borrow from at 2.75%? Maybe a mortgage lender but they have you locked in for 15-30 years with a hefty down payment. Then again, I haven't bothered to look into too many of the various lines of credit these days, maybe a home equity loan would be be available and low enough to make sense, but I suspect if it were that easy we wouldn't be having this conversation.
As for the G.I. Bill I cannot say but the Student Loan Repayment Program ran through the Army Reserve system is very convoluted, bureaucratic, and misleading by design. It took me years to figure it out. Most soldiers I know gave up trying to get their benefits at some point. There are people of all political stripes in the Reserves. The GI Bill may be easier to get because of the bad publicity that would arise if there were too many barriers preventing payouts.
«the Student Loan Repayment Program ran through the Army Reserve system is very convoluted, bureaucratic, and misleading by design. [...] There are people of all political stripes in the Reserves.»
So the veterans of the reserves are scammed like those the veterans of teaching in difficult situations. It looks politically motivated too. Another and far more important example:
* I can agree that often teacher unions are stupid and greedy.
* I can agree that many states and counties have huge pension deficits because of political reasons.
* However it is not because the teacher unions have won excessive pensions, by a large margin it is because of the police (and firefighters) having been gifted fabulous pensions (and state and county managers too, while other state and county workers get a lot less).
* It is mainly both because the police (and firefighters and management) usually vote for the right (Republicans or Clinton Democrat) and teachers (and other state and county workers) don't.
* In part it is also because wealthy donors want to make sure that "their" enforcers are rewarded for their loyalty.
You're correct about the PSLF, but my experience with the GI Bill was different than you suggest. If you sign up, they deduct a portion of your pay for a year or more in exchange for the defined benefit, but using it is not always easy. For my part, the requirements for use had so many strings about what did and did not qualify that like many I ended up forgoing the benefit all together.
Still, it sounds like the PSLF is far worse. It's not a matter of paying into a system then learning it's unusable. They are actually told in advance it will work and then at the end it did not. If you or I tried to pull that with a company we would go to jail because there would be no such thing as a non-binding agreement to begin with.
Uh, no. I just think people should be able to enter relatively low-paying, but valuable professions without ending up in retirement with a lot of debt. These two erred in going to the one Hawaii school in the district that was not Title 1, but even if they had gone to a Title 1 school, they wouldn't have gotten the benefit, like 99% of the people who apply for these benefits. It makes no sense to build a school system that almost guarantees that anyone who has a detour in life will end up paying debts in their Social Security years.
The value of a college degree is the selectivity of the degree-granting institution. Community college, Sacramento, Cal State Chico. All completely non-selective schools. There was never any reason to believe that degrees from these institutions had any value at all. And they don't. Of course they became public school teachers. Joel Klein made this point repeatedly. Raising teacher pay to attract better candidates only works if you can change the hiring and promotion practices that pretend these qualifications are real in the first place.
First, it isn't really about the school, the quality of teachers at the school or the quality of education theoretically available at the school. It's about the students that attend the school. Which is why college costs are so galling. You are paying the institution as a way of announcing - in a socially acceptable way - that you have the attributes that you had the day before you attended the college.
Second, that is demonstrably wrong. Columbia Community College is little more than an extension of an undemanding public high school. Sacramento and Chico both accept virtually every student that applies and the average SAT scores of the students that attend is about the national average of high school students and below average for students matriculating at colleges nationally. Neither Sacramento nor Chico are in the top 500 schools nationally by median SAT score. At the 75th percentile, students at Chico and Sacramento have SAT scores considerably lower than students at places such as Montana Bible School, Ouchita Baptist University and the University of Findlay (none of which I knew existed until right now).
Third, I find it...odd...that your idea of an elite job available only to people with sterling credentials is working for the NYT, WaPo or New Yorker. I don't actually know, but I would not have guessed that these publishers are really competing for the cream of our youth. They certainly don't seem to employ many of them as reporters anymore. The curtain has just about come down on the day when people like Holman Jenkins and Tom Wolfe were drawn to the business.
I can prove nothing, but I suspect not even a Harvard or Yale degree has much to do with getting a job at the New Yorker, WaPo or NYT at this point.
The whole point of a Harvard or Yale degree has always been to know the right people, but they used to be (and maybe still are?) serious schools that actually educated children who wanted to learn along with the feckless shitbag children of the elite who would graduate regardless of attending class or not. There's a 2-tier system. Anybody think George W. Bush actually went to class? "Gentleman's C" -- "Gentleman's F" more like. I would love to read his senior thesis.
Credentialism pulled weight in the immediate post-WWII decades in the US, I think. Somewhere around 2000 it just turned into obvious feudalism. I can't draw a bright line.
University degrees are just proof that you can manage your homework load. They aren't about what you've learned or even about learning at all. If you just want to learn, all of this information is available for free online.
These schools have welding, chemistry, engineering, nursing, etc. The idea that you need to go to some exclusive school to learn how to do a specialized job is ridiculous. The academic standards are much more important than admission selectivity. Let anyone in who wants to try, but you can't fake your way through engineering or many other subjects, you learn it or you fail out.
If you are incurring $100,000 of debt to go to college for welding, I think you are doing it wrong. I don't think you are right about either engineering or chemistry. If I go to WSP or Fluor and ask them how they recruit college graduates, I feel pretty confident that they will tell me that they value a degree from Carnegie Mellon or Olin a lot higher than they value one from Chico. They are not going to say "well, you can either build a bridge that won't fall down or you can't, and all the people that can are the same."
"he value of a college degree is the selectivity of the degree-granting institution. Community college, Sacramento, Cal State Chico. All completely non-selective schools. There was never any reason to believe that degrees from these institutions had any value at all. And they don't. Of course they became public school teachers."
i.e, you think that the occupation of public school teacher is worthless, because the pay is So Median Income. In your Brave New World, it must be one of those Gamma jobs. Unlike, say, the Empyrean Skill of commodities trading.
In my lifetime, I've witnessed the Inferior Surplus People designation be expanded from Welfare Cheats, to Welfare Bums, to Burger-Flippers and Janitors, and now to Public School Teachers.
It's rather ironic that at the outset of the financialization of the economy in the early 1980s, trading firms were hiring people with BAs in liberal arts subjects from non-elite schools. It was understood that the skill set had little to do with a vast amount of erudition or superior intelligence.
You created the designation, you can expand it whenever you want. The average commodities trader earns 35% more than the average teacher, with a FAR less generous benefits package and no summers off. Seems fair enough to me.
Most people tend to take jobs that maximize their earnings potential, which is based on the value/potential for profit their skills and knowledge offer to others. So yes, technically those below the median are more likely to be inferior, in aggregate offering. This isn't Lake Wobegon, we can't all be above average.
"In my lifetime, I've witnessed the Inferior Surplus People designation be expanded from Welfare Cheats, to Welfare Bums, to Burger-Flippers and Janitors, and now to Public School Teachers."
Heh, don't forget "paper pushers", which Hilary used to spit out referring to people who work in Insurance, with as much venom as if she were saying "profit". (this occasion, back in the 90s, was when I noticed the widespread failure of analytical ability, with people agreeing sagely that such workers were an unnecessary overhead imposed on health care...as if A) SOMEBODY was going to have to process claims and payments and B) it was going to be the GOVERNMENT so any pretense that there was a saving to be found was insane or stupid or both.
Anyway Hilary proposed to turn those "paper pushers" into doctors, nurses and other worthwhile people. This made me wonder if she might actually BE a witch, though I've never had her in the proximity of a proper Dunking Chair.
"i.e, you think that the occupation of public school teacher is worthless, because the pay is So Median Income."
That is absolutely not what I am saying. What I am saying is that potential employers don't value their degrees. Teacher pay varies significantly from district to district. Teachers with better qualifications work in better districts. A high school science teacher with a medium amount of seniority in my school district makes over $115,000/year.
I will add that people should seriously consider how much personal financial sense there is in incurring $100,000 of debt and foregoing 4 years of earnings to make less than what a typical skilled tradesperson makes; and in plenty of cases to make less than what a top tier waiter makes.
"It's rather ironic that at the outset of the financialization of the economy in the early 1980s, trading firms were hiring people with BAs in liberal arts subjects from non-elite schools."
I don't think that has changed. There are plenty of Fordham history majors on trading floors. It's just that there are fewer human traders on those floors.
The value of a college degree is indeed based on selectivity, especially for non STEM degrees that don't provide hard skills, but the selectivity is based on the market as a whole not which institution you graduated from. So unless you are graduating from elite institutions it doesn't really mean much. We've dumped so many people into colleges of all types, mostly shitty, that pretty much all undergrad degrees are worthless.
I went to a somewhat selective state school with an acceptance rate of 45%. My SAT was 1320 out of 1600. Now granted I was an idiot and switched from studying electrical engineering to political science, but at the time and even still today the only message that is ever given to our youth is go to college get any degree and you'll get a good job.
My first job after I graduated was bagging groceries and cleaning mop sinks. My second job was flipping burgers. My third job was on a packaging manufacturing line where I put things in boxes at a rate of 1 per second. I don't feel I am necessarily owed anything. I've done all of those jobs well and got promoted to the point where I was mass producing chickenpox vaccine in pharma.
That was STILL the best job I have ever had in terms of pay and sense of purpose. I went to college to AVOID working shitty service and manufacturing jobs and my decade's worth of working at plasma donation centers and manufacturing floors still leaves me with a pretty lousy resume. I am on the precipice of applying to grad school to earn an accounting graduate degree, but even the good ROI of those degrees has me worried about debt.
So why didn't you spotlight one of the "99% of the people who apply for these loans"? Surely if that's an accurate figure and that's your main point you could have found someone other than this feckless couple?
Are you saying you're not in favor of the USHS (US Healthcare Service)?
Also; They literally went out of their way to have debt relieved instead of just honoring their loans, which aren't crazy large to begin with. How many years would it take to pay off $127k with two teaching gigs?
Perhaps only captain Ahab would add this comment 8 months later, but I read this today and think it demonstrates what I was saying back in February. While the WSJ would never write this story the way you would, all the salient facts are there. There is (on average) no return on these non-selective degrees. But kudos to USC for discovering the lucrative, non-selective Masters degree in a field with no particular claim to expertise in the first place. Life advice from a carpenter is as likely to be sound as from these people.
What does "build a school system" mean? The schools promise ZERO with these degrees. Today they compete for kids with amenities. If a kid wants to take classes on understanding the greater meaning of Star Trek, they are happy to serve it up. Many couldn't be more disconnected from the economic outcomes. Matt, if the "school system" has this obligation, wouldn't it make sense for them to limit teaching to degrees with a reasonable chance of paying off? Additionally, wouldn't we cap capacity in fields (as medicine does)? But that's not what the consumer (kids) want to hear, especially if they can borrow money and not think about it, again. They got to their senior year at HSU, had a kid and said "oh, wait, what now?". Way too many people have been entering colleges as though it is an exploratory vacation. You can get the numbers on what careers pay, and the general value of degrees from different universities and then put in a margin of safety for "surprises" like becoming pregnant. And if you did so, you probably wouldnt borrow that much for a BA from HSU.
Taxes pay for nothing, any sovereign country that still issues it's own currency spends money into existence. Banks loan money into existence. The whole line of bs regarding taxes was debunked a decade ago.
It removes currency from circulation. Can you show me a balance transfer or a check from the IRS to any government agency ? They take your money and key stroke it out of existence. They don't set around a table and drop bills into different stacks for different departments.
They just spend their budget into existence via the fed money laundering operation. Banks loan money into existence. Every dollar they loan beyond their reserve is just created out of thin air.
70% of US students go to college, in Germany it's less than half that. Are you prepared to do your patriotic duty and go to trade school to sweat it out doing roofing for 40 years so someone else can take advantage of that tax(yours)-funded, free-to-them college?
That's a fair point but it's mostly the rich who are paying the most taxes not the roofers (many are paid in cash). Taxpayer money should also pay for trade school. The point is to encourage class mobility and reduce income inequality and the social ills it brings. Our current system isn't doing a good job of that.
Roofers don't go to trade school and neither did I, and trade school costs a fraction of what traditional colleges cost. The point is that we have too many people going to college already, and not a single person lobbying for "free college" has voiced any intention to change that, let alone cut it in half. If anything they're talking about MORE people going. Germany also pays roughly half as much per student, in addition to the much lower rates of attendance. We're talking massive, massive cuts necessary for it to be even remotely feasible.
If higher education provides value to society then the educated will be compensated for it, and they can pay for it. If they can't afford to pay for it, then it's an overpriced commodity and the price needs to fall. Throwing govt $$ at it will have the opposite effect and is the LAST thing it needs. Most college graduates still have a net positive ROI. There is no reason why ANY taxes paid for by lower income workers should go to fund their economic better's college debts.
I earn very good money in construction but have to suffer for it every single day - freezing cold, burning heat, I'm out there. I scraped and tortured myself to get ahead when I was young, while I saw plenty of my peers take our exorbitant loans to go party for a few years before failing out or graduating to mediocre jobs. Forcing me to pay back their loans under threat of prison is as regressive as it gets, and frankly a slap in the face.
Because unlike other countries our Federal Govt is only supposed to defend us and support interstate infrastructure and transportation. If you want free healthcare have your State handle it.
There's literally no reason why Oregon and Mississippi should be considered the "same community". Lifestyle is different, values are different, everything is different. That is the power of the 10th Amendment. The Constitution does not enumerate that power, therefore the federal government CANNOT do that unless they pass an amendment first.
I favor you convincing people it's a good idea and not just using force to make it happen.
For example, to accommodate all these new people in the system, we're going to need to MASSIVELY expand our supply. Surely you can get behind eliminating the artificial new doctor cap in order to handle all these new patients, right?
States can't run a perpetually growing deficit like the Fed Gov can. Debt issuance by the Fed Gov is the only mechanism for recycling US$ currency hoards back into the economy. The only way this goes away is if US$ currency hoards go away.
Vermont gamely studied it and decided it was infeasible. The belief that it can be done federally (under the same concepts employed by Vermont) is akin to "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume".
Anyone who can't understand the lesson of federalization of student loans and STILL wants a federal healthcare system is just fundamentally detached from reality. Unless you care to explain how you know it can work when Vermont concluded otherwise.
I don't know much about the vermont study, but how is it possible that it's "unfeasible" here but seems to work in so many other countries. We are definitely uncommon as a rich country that doesn't provide healthcare or a college education. So I would ask you if you care to explain why it works in so many other countries but is so unfeasible here.
Brady: What country do you live in? Here in the US in 2021, the federal government is involved in all kinds of stuff that's not remotely national defense or interstate infrastructure, including single-payer healthcare for old people and an NHS-like government-run system for veterans.
At any rate, I'd say the problem here is more at the state level. State college tuition used to be pretty reasonable, but it's gone up every year in a cost-spiral very much like health spending. It's hard to see any sensible reason why this should be happening (colleges hire a lot more administrators and provide a lot more amenities now, but neither is necessary).
I guess I live in a country that doesn’t resemble the country that became such a colossus. That country stuck to the notion that the Federal government was one of limited powers and didn’t get involved in matters traditionally considered to be local concerns. There were no a federal transfer payment programs. No command and control, one size fits all programs imposed upon states and cities that carried local costs but central design and application.
It largely stuck to its knitting, providing the military, foreign policy and trade, built interstate transportation infrastructure to facilitate trade and travel, a common currency and related regulation, a postal system and not much more.
That was enough to save the world twice from itself. Now we can’t get out of our own way.
You have all sorts of regulations on all sorts of topics. Most of our budget is income redistribution. People are no longer pioneers, they are dependent.
Isn't a health care system infrastructure? The federal government already provides this for seniors through medicare and for veterans through VA doesn't it? Your argument that our system of government can't have federally paid healthcare doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
Funny thing, but you can track the growth of healthcare as a percentage of GDP from the establishment of Medicare (which isn't govt provided, though the govt does pay private providers for their services). Prior to Medicare, the healthcare sector was around 5% of GDP; it now is a bit over 16%.
Actually, that’s wrong. The Federal government controls the insurance market, albeit indirectly. Medicare and Medicaid must be accepted by just about all hospitals. That’s more than 50 million people. Medi plans reimbursement rates are ridiculously low. In the zip code where I had total hip replacement surgery, the reimbursement rate was appx. $1,800. My insurance company’s negotiated payment was $4,100. The no insurance fee was $10,000. The only one who would do every hip replacement for $1,800 works in the butcher’s department of your local Piggly Wiggly. The insurance company and the uninsured have to make up the difference of Medi plan underpayments. That’s a hidden tax.
So the Medi plans sponsored by the Federal government is the metronome of pricing paid by for profit insurers and person pay patients. And control the money, you control how the services are delivered - or not.
Private equity owns health care. Hospitals, clinics, mfg., drugs, all of it. Insurance is a red herring. Get private equity out of health care, and good luck doing it.
Hillary's "heath care plan" was going to generate savings by getting rid of the "pencil pushers" in insurance, magically turning them into doctors, nurses and other valuable people (using her powers of witchcraft no doubt). Left unaddressed was who was going to process claims and payments and authorizations (the government) and how efficiently that would be done (not as efficiently as the insurance companies, even). It is indeed a red herring.
Brady, I'm just going to say you are kind of rude for hijacking this conversation about the public service loan forgiveness program to talk about healthcare. It worked on me and 48 others so far, but I regret falling for a troll. I wish trolling weren't so easy on substack.
I'm looking for VC investment for my next project, "Troll Lifestyle Magazine." My elevator pitch is "Vanity Fair, but for trolls." Get in on the ground floor!
"Full control of healthcare by government" implies that physicians and staff be Federal employees, and that hospitals be government-owned buildings. That prospect isn't even up for discussion.
It's the system I grew up under as an Army brat, for what it's worth. I think my medical care was fine, although I don't know how much it would have been different in the civilian world of the 1960s and 1970s.
That said, in principle, I prefer the ideal of independent private practice for family physicians and general practitioners. But it's the growth of the power of Big Private Insurance that's undercut that situation, not Big Government. Private insurance introduced so much paperwork into the process that labor hours and office staff were required to cope with it. The expenses added by insurance middlemen can be maddening. They also exercise veto power that differs little than the most nightmarish speculations of those who warn about "government control." In fact, much of the push for universal public health care consists of an effort to dismantle those obstacles, which are often driven by private profit concerns.
As a result of the growing role of private insurers, many physicians were pushed out of private practice into HMOs, and "insurer networks." In many respects, that result isn't much difference than the care provided by government employee physicians in the armed forces. There's a lot less difference between the public sector and the private sector than there used to be. Doctor-patient confidentiality- how much assurance is there about that any more? Instead, most of us have a Permanent Record. Potentially accessible by many more entities than an authentic principle of confidentiality asserts as a patient right.
So my attitudes toward medical care range from the libertarian to the socialist. At one end, I'd like a system that empowers private practice GPs and familiy practitioners, as well as medical savings accounts. Anywhere that health care can be provided more cheaply and efficiently by a market system without adding an extra set of knees- whether it be public or private- is a good idea. We should have regulation of testing and imaging services, though. I'm wary of the lack of accountability that results from too much outsourcing. But universal public insurance coverage should prioritize catastrophic health care expenses, hospitalization, long-term care and home care. I don't want more HMOs, or less physician independence. I want something more in the direction of ethical private practice GPs who serve their clients with means-tested sliding scale fees.
On the other hand, we need to abolish patent protections for pharmaceuticals and medications. I'm not even necessarily opposed to nationalizing the drug companies- that will get rid of all of those rent-seeking conficts of interest and the potential for corruption of the FDA by Big Pharma. At minimum, a public option for manufactured generics. Drugs are inherently generic chemical compounds. There's no "shopping" for them. The phenomenon of advertising by drug companies is an abomination. Drugs are 20% of all medical costs. Over-prescription and ill-educated prescribing is also the source of the majority of iatrogenic problems.
I realize that those recommendations are both somewhat blunt and pointedly vague. I put them out there as a starting point for discussion, not as final policy recommendations.
Or the IRS could substantially increase deduction for medical, Congress could do something about our tort laws (Ha! they're all ambulance chasers), and FED/States could toss more into Medicaid.
IRS deductions for medical expenses are not going to adequately compensate for catastrophic medical expenses for anyone who isn't already wealthy.
I agree about tort reform. Up to a point. But at least the discussion should be given an airing! What we have instead is Whimsy. And a set of parasitic, exhausting procedures that more often than not are exploited by the defendants with the deepest pockets to win lawsuits by exhausting their adversaries or have the awards reduced by having the means to appeal and appeal again, while honest medical practitioners without that hookup have to pay for exorbitant insurance to defend against cases that are spurious or even predatory. (That said, it wouldn't bother me at all if the Feds seized all of the material assets of, say, Purdue Pharmaceutical, and handed them over to the NIH. Although most drug manufacturing is probably done by contract with factories overseas, and this is also a dubious state of affairs.)
I think leaving Medicaid provision up to the States is a travesty. (Unlike, say, the minimum wage, where the Federal government is better of establishing a wage floor than a one-size-fits-all norm. Although a well-crafted UBC might make it possible to abolish the minimum wage entirely.)
"IRS deductions for medical expenses are not going to adequately compensate for catastrophic medical expenses"
Why not? It would be expensive, albeit not as expensive as govt fucking up USHS, but I think doing so would resolve a lot. Having one's 10 grand policy deductible would entice more (young) people to carry insurance - theoretically lowering insurance rates - and making their out of pocket (already plan capped) deductible would protect if catastrophe occurs.
It's better than giving our govt another thing to screw up, imo.
I'd like a system where I control my health care, not my employer, not a monopoly insurer, not a monopoly health care provider ...... How do we get there?
Reminds me of that time the Federal government added $25,000 to my student loan balance just because. I graduated into a huge recession with zero job offers. Backup plan of moving home got ruled out due to two immediate family members suddenly being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. I missed payments during that stretch but worked out a plan and then never missed another payment by a day or a dollar after that for over 10 years. Then Congress voted to apply a $25k payment as punishment to people who had been “bad” a decade before. This wasn’t part of the deal going in, Congress just changed the rules. That’s the first time I understand we have an actively evil government.
I'm shedding crocodile tears for another pair of Taibbi airheads who made life decisions on whims that turned out poorly. Sob! Sob! Sob! But really, the gov't should just give them whatever they want, because they're such nice well-meaning people.
I'd say they made mistakes without the intent to profit dishonestly from them. I'm not of the opinion that people who have bad luck and make mistakes should be penalized by putting them in debt for the rest of their lives. Particularly when their mistakes were all related to getting an education.
The one mistake where I feel they probably deserve less leniency (with the caveat that one article is not enough to judge on) is going to work on Maui without being damn sure that the school qualified. Maui is a really expensive place to live (I spent about 5 months there). They REALLY should have checked that 10 times and have had it in writing before deciding to move somewhere so remote and expensive.
Bad decisions don't become better just because they did not have bad intentions. The consequences tend to be the same and the lesson to be had, both by them and with them as an example, is about relying on the goodheartedness of bureaucrats (who are only slightly more beneficent than capitalist pigs).
I want to know why they couldn't get a good job if the were teaching a STEM curriculum. I think their college had problems with accreditation or because 40% the schools in the US are Title 1, it presupposes they wouldn't be teaching STEM classes.
Schools are dropping Advanced Placement for for ethnic history studies because it's more important to know where they came from than where they're going.
You had the entire English language and chose this?
Wow, this is a sign of true intelligence RBM. How do you do it? We must know. Debriefing a 10 year old or old Andrew Dice Clay albums? You have a gift -- good luck with cunt talk in all your endeavors.
Where do you get to that kind of conclusion? Who takes pleasure? I think it’s a damned shame that there are so many irresponsible people in the world who make foolish decisions. And it’s a shame that they find themselves in the jam that is the natural consequences of those decisions. But you can’t repeal the law of natural consequences. Other people shouldn’t get the bill for stuff they never signed up for.
Neither is irresponsibility. Oops! She just happened to end up pregnant! Oops! Like Britney Spears, she did it again! All when they were in debt and essentially homeless.
Their mistakes were many. Their life choices were poor. And you don’t take on debt that those choices can’t sustain. Why is that so hard to understand? Sure people want the house with the nice picket fence and two kids or so. My wife and I didn’t buy a house or have kids until we could afford them. I had my loans. I paid them all. On time. No discounts. No forbearance. Sure we wanted to do things sooner. But it never occurred to us to sate our appetites before we could pay for the meal.
Most of us do! Doesn’t mean you can’t feel empathy towards someone. If Matt’s so called sob stories elicit this type of snarky negative behavior out of you I suggest you stop reading them.
I may have privilege now - but I was born into poverty and earned whatever status I have. Just like these tens of thousands of people asking to be let off the hook for their discounted subsidized loans. They’ve earned their spot. Suck it up.
Another is that the very concept of America and one of our greatest strengths was the notion that we were a county of second chances. It's why until recently our bankruptcy laws were designed to be generous and once you left prison you had some hope of rejoining society. This country was literally built by people making their second attempt at things.
That's almost entirely gone now. We've become a culture where with one screw up you are done for life. Not only are we incapable of forgiveness and second changes, but we've become a vengeful people that insist people publicly suffer over and entire lifetime for any transgressions they made in the past.
While that vindictiveness is emotionally rewarding for many, it comes with enormous financial and spiritual cost to all of us. One reason America had such astounding growth both economically and creatively in the 19th and 20 century is because it paid to take risks, meaning the upside was always greater than the downside. A Walt Disney could go bankrupt (as he did) and still have the tools available to rebuild a second empire we could all benefit from.
We have become a country where all to often you only get one swing at the ball. Not surprisingly, fewer and fewer people are willing to step up to the plate and swing at all. We are all less because of that.
At a minimum, bankruptcy laws should be changed to make such debt fully dischargeable. At least that would provide tangible help to the likes of those profiled in this piece.
Or claw it back from the universities that have so handsomely benefited from the loans programs - maybe force them to cut into that administrative bloat that has been the fastest growing part of the entire education enterprise.
That is a great idea, but it would also mean that about 80% of college students were not creditworthy. Which would be a great way to improve the system and stop having students take out loans to live in dorms nicer than their first 5 apartments while they study for a degree in baking.
Lol my dorm was a shithole and looked like a mental hospital from the 50s. Not even a sink in the room. Shared toilets and showers by ~30 kids. LOL. That was 2000. I checked to see if it had changed. Looks the same now! Here it is on youtube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARLc-_B1ygY
The colleges near my house put up new dorms/apartments nearly every year, new student centers/gyms every 5th year or so, though they are private. And they are all quite nice. Even my alma mater which is a second tier research uni has crazy nice apartments and dorms these days. But yeah that looks pretty normal at O state!
This is the only logical answer. However, I don't think people recognize the implications of this. First, there'd have to be a lock period, or every recent graduate would immediately declare. Second, private loans would vanish overnight. Assuming the gov't wouldn't stupidly make up the difference, attendance would plummet, and hopefully tuition inflation would come back to earth.
This is jaw dropping. The fact that 98% of people were disqualified for loan forgiveness because of fine print... makes the program an utter fraud. I'm not surprised by much anymore but this is outrageous.
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened. A few months ago, this substack had thoughtful conversation and now it's troll fest. I guess trolls have no life, so they have time to infiltrate everywhere. It's pathetic.
For all of those claiming it's their fault and they should have read the fine print, I find it interesting to note that you aren't assumed to have the judgement necessary to drink alcohol until you're 21, or rent a car (that's the free market at work, not a government regulation) until you're 25. Yet, somehow, at 17 years old, you supposedly have the required mental faculty to read an obtuse legal document that ensures you'll most likely be in debt for the rest of your life when every adult in a position of authority is telling you to sign said document or you won't have any opportunity going forward.
Considering it's the child who gets saddled with the lifetime of debt, you're bolstering my point regarding adults in positions of authority pushing the minor to make this potentially life-destroying decision.
Some non ABA law schools in some states will rack up $250-300k debt to students, many of whom should not have been admitted in the first place and will not be able to pass the bar. Debt that can never be wiped away.
Even Bankruptcy can’t clear the debt. Think about that. If everything has gone wrong for someone and they’ve tried to pay and many years have passed without evidence of fraud, it seems like basic fairness that debt of this magnitude should be allowed to be addressed thru bankruptcy just as it is in business.
I’m not saying law school ought to be free. Im saying that if you’ve accumulated 300k in debt that cant be paid back and you’ve tried and there’s no fraud, why can’t that debt be dealt with in BK say after 20yrs? Every other debt is..
Because if you do that none of these people will get loans. And we are on a mission to pump out as many degree of varying sorts are we can, regardless of the quality of the graduates.
Though I have to wonder at the value of a dollar in 20 years rather than now. If these people can't pay back the principal and are going to die with these debts, who wins?
I get your point but how many are clear-headed or cognizant enough at 22? Damn few. It’ll take a few more years before even the most high achieving poor figure out that modern college financed with debt is a scam oath to indentured servitude.
I’d agree with that as well as raising the age for contracting. Of course I’m from the school of hard knocks so shit maybe we lower it to 15 and move on
Ah yes, the Guaranteed Student Loan Improvement Act of 1979, brought to you by the Democrat Congress (both houses) and President Carter and sponsored by Senator Harrison "Pete" Williams of NJ, who was convicted of bribery and conspiracy for taking bribes and serving 3 years in prison and $50,000. Would only the persons responsible for this mess be the ones who would bear sole responsibility to repair any and all damage that THEY caused.
Here's another ELEPHANT in this room that everyone ignores. Why the hell are the young and not so young going to college at all, especially if they can't afford it? And don't give me any crap about it being necessary to get a job. Those days are long gone.
Because people are told, from the time they’re very young, that you won’t be able to survive without a college degree. The “crap about it necessary to get a job” is ingrained into people’s heads from a very young age. And yeah, you’re right, you can get a job without a college degree. But that job is probably gonna suck and you won’t make much money doing it. Take it from me, someone who didn’t go to college and has aged out of my chosen profession at 46 years old. I’ve worked for one year out of the last four years. Also, there was a time, not that long ago, when going to college didn’t mean spending $50,000 or more a year. To go to a state college as recently as the 70’s was something that was easily do-able. Shit, man, in the 60’s, people could own a home and raise a family earning minimum wage. If you can’t answer your asinine question,”Why do people go to college at all?” yourself, you’re an asshole.
True. the public college I attended (University of Illinois at Chicago-70s) cost $300 a year for tuition and I waitressed (free food!) and paid it w/ no debt. No phone or Internet to pay for. Public transpiration, no car. Not the same today. Tuition is now $13,874--could not prob. waitress that.
No, that was a very, very long time ago. Things began changing around the late 80s/early 90s and was plain for all to see. I remember reading when the bankrupcy laws were changed to exclude student loans and thinking, "Well, that's nasty" My formal education was over by then so I didn't think much more about it but the red flags were there.
But what if you don’t have a proclivity for welding, electrical work or HVAC stuff? Or what if you just don’t want to do that? We should all just skip college and become welders? That’s ridiculous. I mean, honestly, I wish I was a welder, because then I could maybe get some work. As it is right now, I’m not seeing a job any time in my chosen profession in the near future. Or distant future, either.
News flash: doing whatever you like without regard for self-support is called childhood, retirement, or just plain delusion. Why do you think people get paid to do work?
If you don't like welding there are other trades to try your hand at. If you're of a more academic persuasion then learn to code. If you don't want to work on computers then study and get into a highly ranked med/law school where you can actually pay off the debt after graduation. If you're not well connected, you're not academically inclined enough to get in to at a bare minimum top 100 university in a field that pays well (ie not major in a field which ends with the word 'studies'), you don't like computers, and you don't want to get dirty in the trades, then follow your inner muse and live with your life choices.
Exactly. What would Biden say? "Come on, man!" I spent six years enlisted in the US Navy out of high school during the 80's (read - no GI bill then) because I couldn't afford college, nor could my parental units. They said, "you want to go to college, you figure it out", much like when I wanted to buy that hopped up Gran Torino Sport in high school and they said, "you want that car, you pay for it and btw, don't forget gas and insurance." Never did get that car, ended up with a perfectly OKAY 12 year old VW beetle that had a clunky trans.
Got out of the Navy with a wife and a 3 year old in tow, worked third shift (that's 11am - 7am, for you folks that don't know those hours exist on the dial of a clock other than for partying) for three years DURING school so I wouldn't have any debt. During holidays, worked for UPS loading/unloading packages. Wife was an assistant to the assistant to the assistant of something or other at an insurance firm, so we struggled to say the least.
Sure, I wasn't part of a frat, didn't have a traditional "college" experience, but nonetheless, finished. No loans, no grants. Come on, man ... figure it out. Can't afford it, don't go. Get a degree that is worth something in the market place. Come on, man!
Oh, and as to 3 year old kid? He came to me one day and said, "dad, I want to go to college" I said, "good for you and good luck with that." His sister, the same. She spent three years in the Peace Corps, got some kind of grant thru that service to help pay for her degree. Point is, they both have somehow figured it out, finished and are productive members of society.
Again, bottom line - can't afford it, don't go, do something else for a while. A college degree is NOT a right! Come on, man...
lol check it out it's the "guy who made it who has a lil advice for all you whiners" bit. yeah man I'm sure the reason you made it through is just due to common sense and a lil bit of the old elbow grease. it's so easy, why can't the rest of you losers figure it out? still a classic bit, even in this day and age
Yet another article that ignores the synergy between guaranteed federal loan programs and increases in college costs that bear no relationship at all to increases in the actual cost of living.
I"m a relatively new subscriber. I'd love to read what you've written since, based on your writing in general, we're probably more or less in agreement. Where do i find the pieces?
Maybe instead of asking for him to do something for you that you could accomplish for yourself in 5 minutes with a search engine, you should apologize for making an accusation that this is "yet another article…" then followed up with uhh sorry I'm not really familiar with your work.
All of the actors are incentivized to push the product -- blaming one at the expense of another is odd. This is why we need to know our financial history ---
1. When loans were different,
2. When bankruptcy laws different,
3. When College tuition costs different
4. When bundled investments for loans/debt did not exist
5. When policies were in place that assisted students (GI Bill etc.)
6. When the job market functioned well for workers (wages etc.)
7. When state legislatures started restricted education spending (budget deficits)
8. When think tank policies started attacking perceived leftists institutions
(Atlas Foundation - 1970s funding of conservative think tanks influencing policy)
«8. When think tank policies started attacking perceived leftists institutions (Atlas Foundation - 1970s funding of conservative think tanks influencing policy)»
There is a very good and highly entertaining history of the think-tanks that inspired thatcherism (and in part also reaganism/clintonism):
Who held a gun to their heads to sign the contracts with all the aforementioned "differences" you mention, and what type of gun was it? Perhaps they should sue that gun manufacturer for relief?
Nobody held a gun to their head, but the federal government did offer them a way to get their education without being in eternal debt, they took the government up on the offer, and then they got screwed, apparently like most people who took up the offer.
It is possible to have a government where "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" isn't properly translated as "Abandon hope, you're screwed." We just don't have such a government here in the US.
College costs have exceeded even healthcare costs in terms of growth - in contrast to just about everything else cost of living wise. Colleges have been slow to expand faculty, but wild about growing administration with all of the additional lucre. Like other bureaucratic organizations (this can even include for-profit corporations) - there is a pathetic degree of accountability for flagrant stupidity in expenditures.
This is the huge problem with the Democrat's college reform plan, and frankly many of their "reform" plans. They are right that many of these areas need reform. But almost always the solution proposed is not reform. It is instead "raise taxes and slather money all over everything until the symptoms temporarily abate". Which in rare cases that is the right solution, but mostly that is not the best solution, nor efficient, and with colleges actually contributing to the core problem.
A college education is valuable almost in direct proportion to how rare it is. You start forcing through the bottom 40-50% of students, and you just waste a lot of money on people who aren't very interested in academics anyway, and end up with disgruntled baristas mad that no one values their C average in communications from XYZ state.
It is an incredibly expensive and wasteful way to broaden people's horizons if they don't have a specific professional plan or aren't actually interested in academics.
When you live in a capitalist economy and the incentive is money you really have no choice to slather everything with money. Who's going to waste time working for free ?
The problem is delivering education, not people being educated.
Once again we see people blaming the consumer for the inability and or limitations of the system as a whole.
I graduated in '94 from a state university that was charging $1k/semester for in-state students. Add in other fees (but not books) and it was closer to $1400/semester.
If prices double every 20 years due to inflation, that would make today's tuition at that same university roughly $2800/semester plus fees, so figure it should be around $3400/semester. Want to guess what that same university charges for in-state tuition?
$6697.81 per semester.
Can someone explain to me why tuition has doubled what it should be according to inflation? I'd really like to see the math on this.
When I receive fundraising calls from my alma mater, I kindly share this dilemma with the poor student who drew the short straw and had to call me. I also share that while I would love to donate, I have to save so that my kids can go to college.
Unlimited credit with no commercial underwriting. While I'm sure administrative bloat is part of the answer, another part is pretty clearly the vast improvement in facilities. I toured a number of colleges within the last 5 years with my three daughters. The facilities are astounding. The athletic facilities are borderline ridiculous.
I agree with you.... this nonsense that you have to give college students lux dorms and facilities is absurdity. College is one of the few times in your life that it's ok to be poor, in fact it should help anchor the experience in people's memories as one of the reasons why you want to have financial success. Yet you can still enjoy the time there. We've lost sight as to the value of a liberal arts college experience. This used to be central to the experience.
No, I’m talking about place like Williams, Wash U, U Chicago. There is no revenue associated with this spending. It’s just an effort to compete for students on any basis except price.
Why? The mandates from Democrat overlords requiring diversity administrators, equity administrators, student safe space administrators, “kissing is rape” kangaroo court administrators, and all the rest of the horses hit imposed on colleges today v
Are you saying that tuition increases coincided with the woke nonsense on campuses? Tuition hikes started before the woke crap started. No doubt it's a funding problem with colleges adding bs jobs to the administration and to sate the woke unwashed/brainwashed, but that can't explain that type of tuition hike.
It appears, at this point, that anyone who trusts our government for anything is making a serious mistake.
Who owns the government is a big indicator as to why you can't trust it.
I still don't understand how our government is making a profit by blowing up Syrians and Talibans, but I'm a financial retard.
George Orwell - "The WAR is not meant to be WON, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can never have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation."
It's worked like a charm for centuries now. Why do you think they hated Marx so much ? Telling the peasants to rise up against the capital class was the worse from of blasphemy anyone could utter.
The folks that own the government own the energy and mineral industries. You also have to have a military presence everywhere in order to enforce your rackets.
I get that, but what energy and mineral resources is the US government successfully extracting from Syria or Afghanistan at present? I realize that might be the planned endgame, but right now the people running this shit do not seem competent or bright to me.
I have to go to the supermarket to buy a super big box of tissues for their tears. The whining over not getting free stuff is really more than people should have to bear.
Matt makes the point clearly that they aren’t a really sympathetic case and they aren’t.
What’s left is that the system for getting free stuff is broken. Boo hoo. The system shouldn’t even exist. You take on an obligation, you meet that obligation. Period. The terms and conditions aren’t hidden from the borrower. The interest rate is, as the article points out, subsidized. Meaning it’s already a bit of a handout.
Loan balances are designed to amortize in most cases. That means they go down if you pay according to the loan terms. They go up in the student loan context when the borrower is already not meeting the agreed upon terms and takes forbearance or otherwise misses payments. Try getting that deal in any other context - you won’t find it.
So let’s be clear about this....people borrow money with clear disclosure. The loan is at a discounted rate. They still don’t make their payments. And then they whine that they aren’t getting some of what they owe being written off and put on the backs of other people?
Wah wah wah. Go cry me a river.
Jeez., two dick comments right at the top. People don't borrow money with clear disclosure. Student debt cannot be cleared with bankruptcy. Education should be free, but it is not asshat, that is the problem. The US has a system where you have to have a college degree to have a decent chance to get ahead, but also where one misstep or mistake and you're fucked for life. If you're a racial minority and/or poor, you might just get fucked even if you do everything right.
Why stop at free education? How can good people live the care-free happy lives they deserve without free food, housing, picnics, childcare, fair-trade coffee, and pottery classes?
Free education is an investment. An educated populace is what helped the US become a world power. We used to get that, but late-stage capitalism runs out of wealth to extract from the populace, so we stopped advancing while our economic competitors around the globe did not. It is one of the reasons we're losing our big lead over the rest of the world, and have to resort ever more to extortion to stay ahead.
Late stage capitalism becomes late stage when it gets drenched in socialism
> An educated populace is what helped the US become a world power.
Now we have the worst of both worlds. The grievance studies degrees a lot of these idiot children are graduating with in no way qualify them as educated. They're not the kinds of societal investment you have in mind either. How many know-nothings with an inflated ego do we really need? We should discourage most of what currently passes higher education. We sure as shit shouldn't be looking for ways to pay for more of it.
How does Operation Paperclip fit into your view?
It's just a matter of time before all those things are indeed free. As jobs are eliminated through automation and off-shoring jobs, we'll all be joining the welfare system. And even then a "virtuous cycle" exists, Fed Gov welfare ending up in the hands of corporations which sends all their profits to wallstreet and to the banks which after exhausting things which provide a yield put their currency hoard into the yield of last resort - Fed Gov debt. Which gets rolled right back into welfare. Embrace your future.
Yes! It should all be free!
This.
The US is just a casino now. If you perform productive work, you're a fool for performing productive work.
Where does it end up?
Luck, like most things in life.
Why should education be free? Free? Where does the money come to pay for free?
Pretty simple. We are the world's reserve currency. This means we that we can decide repayment of our federal debt (at 28T presently). And if you are telling me we cannot afford it (then the 5 tax cuts to the wealthy, 10 wars of choice, and 3 financial crisis that went unpunished to the top 1% undercut your belief).
If we can create policy that kills people overseas, provides tax relief to billionaires, and fails to police the criminogenic fraud on Wall Street, then we can afford FREE FUCKING college.
It's fascinating that you bring up our violent foreign policy, and our privileged position having the global reserve currency, in the same post.
Most people don't explicitly make that connection, but it's absolutely correct: If you want domestic policies that rely on "free" money, you had better support whatever aggressive policies are needed to maintain reserve currency status.
Am I understanding your position correctly?
Anyway, we'll see how much longer it holds. China is not messing around.
Yeah just devalue the currency, so we ALL pay for free college instead!
BRILLIANT!
Why? Because college graduates pay more in increased (marginal) taxes over their working lifetimes than do non-college graduates - more than the cost of that college education, to list one of several good reasons. Ergo: It is a proven good investment.
It comes (sort of) from our taxes. Not really, but it easier to conceptualize.
If everyone goes to college, it no longer means anything.
"It is a proven good investment"
I'd like to see that proof and I'd like to see it broken out between selective and non-selective schools. Average income of students 10 years after graduating from a non-selective college is around $50,000. That is less than what a typical skilled worker, like a carpenter, plumber, electrician, makes. We need to stop telling students with sub 1,000 SAT scores that college is the ticket to a better life. It's mostly a waste of money.
Well then the college people should earn enough to pay back their loans, right?
Why should roads, police, social security, or the USDA be free? Where does the money come from I'm so confused? /s Taxes dummy.
Why should people be price out of education ? Did you go to private school or something ? If not you got free education that your community paid for.
"Why should education be free?"
So the profit motive doesn't fuck it up like it fucks up everything else.
"Where does the money come to pay for free?"
From the current ponzi scheme you call capitalism. Perhaps if you don't know you should educate yourself about macro economics ??
Can you stop your bawling now ?
Education is free to employers who don't have to pay for it yet benefit from it by hiring educated employees.
"The US has a system where you have to have a college degree to have a decent chance to get ahead, but also where one misstep or mistake and you're fucked for life. If you're a racial minority and/or poor, you might just get fucked even if you do everything right."
The US now has a system where having a college degree is no decent chance of getting ahead and may in fact be a mistake, as it represents a great amount of time, effort, and money (or = debt) squandered.
If you want to get a good job, know the right people -- or better yet, be related to the right people. Credentialism is collapsing -- if it hasn't collapsed already. That's my advice to the childrens.
Grisha, this was not always the case though. The people in charge of neoliberal institutions are often the beneficiaries of the investment in education --- not the commodification of it. And while I take your position into account (credentialism, meritocracy arguments especially), I taught a public institution for 10 years in the Midwest and found a way to connect with students -- so as they could navigate the falling value of their degree with the rising interest and anger at having been exploited. My time there was not for nothing. There are serious people in all walks of life and one need not be in college to find them, and even in areas where we might not think we have influence, that is where it is the strongest, my friend.
Any 18 year old today that isn't smart enough to skip college isn't smart enough to go to college anyway.
OK, Lord and Master, skip college and do what instead?
if only it were that simple.
This is what happens when the early part of your Substack career consists of woke bashing. The cockroaches crawl out from under the baseboard.
What do you mean that there is not clear disclosure? When I got a student loan, it was clear as day what I was doing. If you mean to say that borrowers should be better educated as to what loan terms mean, I'd agree with you. That speaks to the problem of financial illiteracy.
Yeah the system of free stuff is getting ridiculous! I'm sick of people getting asking for free roads and public education too! Like when will the handouts stop!?!? Life isn't free, if you need a road, you should work until you can afford the paving equipment and build it yourself! /s
Sorry to break this to you, but you already pay for roads and public education.
Just because you don't get a bill doesn't mean you aren't paying.
Yeah I know. "/s" means sarcasm. I was mocking Rick for suggesting that people who want education paid by taxes just want "free stuff".
Well it is free for a lot of people. The Productive Class pays; everyone benefits.
Yes!
Pull yourselves up by your own bulldozers!
I am waiting for the government to issue me a bulldozer.
First of all, you’re a dickhead. Secondly, it says right in the article that the terms and conditions you reference were changed on the fly, basically. So, yeah, maybe they weren’t “hidden” but they were changed without notice to the borrowers.
As someone who paid off his own student debt years ago, I hope you die of covid in extreme pain.
You’re a sick person
I’m fine. Thanks.
Clearly you can't self-diagnose.
Congratulations, you'll die a cunt.
What a total Rick, sorry I mean Dick. Making payments is not getting something for free. Dick, Sr. paying for your college is getting something for free...he should have sent you to a different school. And these "write offs" don't go on the "backs of other people"...obviously you don't know how finance works. Cry me your taxes..wah, wah, wah.
What you are demanding is a system for reallocating YOUR costs. You’re not my child, nor are you even my relative or friend. Where do you get the nerve to feel so entitled that you believe that you can get something without laying the stated cost of it? Why are you so special that you think you have a right to it? Making discounted payments - including interest - is indeed getting something for free measured by the discount.
I know how finance works. And I know how demands from the central government works. You get something that other people bear the burden for.
Those "clear" disclosures when students sign up for the loans include information about income based repayment plans, forbearance and forgiveness. That is all part of the agreement they signed. According to everything Matt wrote, they have met all their obligations. Federal student loan balances are not "designed to amortize". You are misinformed and need to google "income based repayment".
ohhh so you're like one of those cartoon people who believes that the misfortune of others is due to them not being as smart as you? I wonder how different this comment would be if you were $126k underwater. nevermind, I'm sure the reason you aren't is because you Make Good Decisions
Did you read the article?
These people signed up for debt forgiveness programs in exchange for taking employment in undeserved sectors. Others made payments for years, but the Department of Education found excuses and technicalities to not accept the payments.
It's the government that is not keeping their end of the bargain, to the tune of 98%.
Perhaps the solution is to tell the Department of Education that Bill Ackman over at Pershing Capital just lost a currency bet to the tune of 1 trillion dollars and we need 1.5 trillion to bail him out whole and still ensure everyone at his company gets their 100 million dollar year end bonuses as well.
That way you get the money no questions asked and can give it to those in the middle class the DOE is gouging before anyone realizes that the money was wasted on those in actual need.
the student debt ripoff mirrors, Country Wide predatory home loan ripoff. just another vehicle for wall st scumbags, to pimp, then collateralize 100x. that our gov, both d and r, were complicit, speaks volumes.
The Mont Pelerin Society's (Austria 1940's) favorite "economist" F. v Hayek proposed path of "liberty" and "freedom", 4 "planks": [only for the 1% (Neoliberalism)] (Buchanan, Friedman, the "Chicago School", were later disciples and advocates)
1) Deregulate global financial markets - DONE
2) Deregulate global trade - DONE
3) Create the illusion and urgency of national bankruptcy with fake (fiat) debt (thereby neuter a nation's capability to enforce laws - eliminate the people's ability to defend against being overwhelmed and consumed by the 1%) - DONE
this manufactured illusion of bankruptcy is critical path for the 1%'s agenda. the "debt" is used to justify austerity measures for the people, and to tee up, the privatization plan, which is about transforming the public debt, into private debt, where the 1% can extract usury, ad infinitum.
#AusterityIsCode4Looting - austerity measures are plain evidence, the system has already been looted by generational globalist wealth.
then lastly, the kill shot:
4) Privatize Everything. recreate us ALL as permanent rent payers of even the most basic necessities of life (Air, water, food, shelter, health care). the public debt of a nation has been effectively eliminated, transmuted into private debt (bonds); the service of which (usury) is FOREVER- Almost COMPLETE
#PrivatizationIsTheft - privatization today is STRICTLY about prioritizing national productivity (work) away from the commons and general welfare, extracting and transferring it to the 1% rent-seeking parasites (Extreme Redistribution of wealth from the people TO the Billionaires, NOTHING for the people)
Found the commie.
Federal Government been in charge of student lending for over a decade, still wall street's fault.
You're dumber than Maxine Waters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3QSHVNDlaM
#PrivatizationIsTheft - You don't deserve the freedom and excess you enjoy.
Well said, XBarbarian, as always.
many thanks man
Really well said. I completely agree. And in the same vein of the powerful using the government to rob the people, how is it that austerity is NEVER applied to the military industrial complex? When the next John McCain is pushing for the destruction of Ghana or Denmark, in order to Build Back Better, how is it they never have to mention the cost of the demolition? I’m going to sharpen my pitchfork in case the people wake up to the true global threat.
thank you sir
and just what do you imagine government is, sir? government is no different than a corporation, an LLC, etc.. it's aa Legal fiction, a prop, a straw man, operated by the money that pays to play. government is trivial today: it's a facade of the oligarchy
«as of March 2019, 73,554 unique borrowers had submitted 86,006 applications for PSLF, and only 864 applications had been approved for forgiveness. Only 518 borrowers—fewer than 1% of unique borrowers submitting applications—have had their loans forgiven.»
So it is essentially a scam to keep lower the federal and local taxes on affluent people, as such low approval rates can only be the result of carefully designed rules.
The key element of the scam is that the application for the PSLF can only done at the end of the qualifying period, not at the beginning; if it were done at the beginning, most people who don't get approved would not do the required public service that the PSLF is meant to help fund.
I would suspect that the equivalent "GI Bill" for veterans has much, much higher approval rates, and that they are usually approved upfront. Teachers are usually on the left, veterans on the right.
Not only that, but the borrowers are often affirmatively told in the early years of the PSLF that they are qualifying, but those letters are non-binding.
Matt- do you think there is any chance that the BK code will be amended to allow these debts to be dischargeable? Couldn’t a Senator simply add an Amendment to a bill to get that done? Doesn’t seem like it would be that tough to do.
Matt - do you not see the irony of teachers who are expected to shape the minds of our young - are frequently the actors in these loan forgiveness stories? So what are they teaching kids? Dependency is part of life so it’s okay to expect subsidy and write offs that transfer the burden to others? That you are smart enough to teach others to prepare for,life, but not smart enough to prepare for your own?
Rick, those who followed your system here would never qualify as hedge fund managers. The entire idea of paying your own debts is anathema to our entire financial system on Wall Street. Where is your outrage over the bail outs given under TARP, to Long Term Capital, to the Savings and Loans? Why do I only hear this level of outrage from the bootstraps crowd when the net worth of those we help financially is less than a billion dollars?
You can look at people who struggle in two ways. You can see them as inferior humans who failed to meet your standards either through genetic or character inferiority, or failed to plan to be born on 3rd base. Or, you can realize they could be you under different circumstances.
It's our shared suffering that binds us. If a person has been unfortunate enough to have never suffered, or is emotionally incapable of remembering the experience then what I am saying here makes no sense. Those are the people who need help the most.
Maybe you heard of the Tea Party?
It was formed as a direct reason to the bailouts.
Hell, I have better assurance from my damn medical insurer that they'll pay up - and that isn't saying much.
The GI Bill is not a loan program and is not an "equivalent" to the student loan programs, it's a Federal benefit and ALL veterans who serve the required amount of time in uniform are eligible for it, period. There is no comparison. By the way, my wife put herself through college by WORKING because she wasn't eligible for student loan programs because her mother had inherited a farm. She thought she was going to get the loans but was told she wasn't qualified and that her mother should sell the farm (which is now worth over a million dollars) so she was forced to drop out of college, go to work to pay off the bill at the school where she had been enrolled, then go to a state college where she worked two jobs and lived in a dilapidated trailer to pay her tuition to get a degree in education. I used my GI bill to get my commercial pilot ratings and spent forty years in aviation - and owe nobody!
Your statement about the GI Bill is incorrect; as related specifically to tuition assistance. The benefit that vets are eligible depends entirely on exactly when you served, so you were lucky to have had such a great benefit. I served in the early 80s, was honorably discharged after 6 years, and was not eligible for anything remotely like what you were eligible. What was in place at the time was a savings program that match one dollar for every two you put in thru a payroll deduction- and that benefit had a lifetime cap. All in all, it wasn't worth the time of day.
My experience was the same and I was in during the 90's. The benefit had to be paid for this a monthly deduction and was only good for 10 years. It had so many strings attached to how I could and could not use it that I got my degree without it and let the 10 expiration run out.
Bachelors degree paid for with the Montgomery GI Bill. It wasn’t hard.
It's funny how timing is everything. I'm sure the GI Bill was GREAT in the 1950s.
And there is no difference between back then and today either ! Holy shit, people are hopeless.
Your posts remind me of a character named Spaceman from the comic series Preacher. Ever read it?
This is an excellent thing, for the record.
«The GI Bill is not a loan program and is not an "equivalent" to the student loan programs [...] There is no comparison.»
Perhaps you haven't figured out yet that this article is not about student loans, but student loan *forgiveness*, which is equivalent to a grant.
«ALL veterans who serve the required amount of time in uniform are eligible for it, period»
So is the loan forgiveness "grant": all qualifying veteran teachers who for the required amount of time are eligible for it, period.
But the difference is that the loan forgiveness "grant" comes with a lot more conditions and a much lower approval rate than the veteran grant, because it is for "socialist" teachers, rather than "conservative" veterans.
Do you really think the uniparty cares about conservative vs liberal? Unless you can back up your statement I think "because they can" is the more likely explanation. Veterans have a lot more political capital than teachers unions.
1) Prior to the post 9/11 GI Bill you paid in $1200 to qualify for 36 months of benefit. Not a loan, also not debt forgiveness. College plus living expenses typically exceed the benefit so you either took out regular student loans, worked, or both. 2) May veterans use their GI Bill benefit to become teachers. 3) Not all veterans are conservative, not by a long shot.
I would be interested in what percentage of the denials are for fairly normal and good reasons. For things like this you can get a lot of "frivolous applications". It is all well and good to focus on sob stories. But if of the 98% of people rejected, 95% of them were people who simply didn't make all their payments, or failed some other straightforward hurdle, well it is a very different picture than if that is only 40% of the rejections. Some data on that would make this a lot more worthwhile than the sob story. It mostly sounds like these people made pretty poor choices, and that is why they owe $126,000. Not that the system screwed them.
It is totally possible the system is really messed up, I don't think this story really demonstrated that, nor does the high rejection rate.
Funny how people can't accept that the system screws people for profit when most all of the systems in the US currently screw people for profit.
Taibbi knows enough to present these facts, but chooses not to. This is how we know he lacks journalistic integrity.
You are free to say whatever you want Rad, have at it sport. However, if there was anyone here who had less credibility to discuss journalistic integrity, it would be yourself.
That's funny. Attack me instead of the facts of the comment. Go fuck yourself, tool.
What are the facts then Sparky ? Funny how you don't need any but everyone else does don't you think ?
What are facts? This is a good question. Fortunately I have the answer.
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape
I'm still waiting...I'm still waiting...I'm still waiting...
This data is interesting and seems to confirm the rough numbers in MT's article. 1.66% of people who applied to the program have received it as of nov 2020. 91% of the applications have been processed. Most are rejected for not enough qualifying payments made yet(59%), "missing information"(26%), or no eligible loans(11%). Presumably people thought they qualified or they wouldn't have gone through the trouble to submit the application. This data to me says that the terms of this program are so confusing that the vast majority of people thought they qualified, but did not. Imagine if a private company led people on like that for ten years and then pulled the rug from under them!!
You honestly thing private companies don't lead people on ? Where are from ?
I just found out another aspect of the FED's loan scam: One cannot refinance a Federally backed student loan. Wow, that's freaking awful. 2021 rate is only 2.75%
I'm not getting why the interest rate isn't simply indexed to the Federal prime lending rate, rather than setting up a Bureaucracy of Loan Forgiveness.
That way, college students can "take responsibility for funding their own education" without being caught in a usury trap.
Because there are multiple lenders in the market place (federal and private) - often times private lenders have significantly higher costs. By drawing attention to them, by indexing with Prime (it creates more traffic away from the more expensive loans). This is one reason. There may be more.
There's also the fact that we don't have a public national banking institution; instead, we have the Federal Reserve system which is an entity run by private individuals- regional "governors", appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate- that works as an intermediary between the US Treasury and the privately owned banks. I don't pretend to be up on the pros and cons of that situation.
I do find it worthy of note that the Federal Reserve is routinely cast by old-school American political conservatives as instrumental to a conspiratorial plot by "finance capital socialists"*, five of the seven Federal Reserve Bank Governors are Republicans (currently, there's one vacancy.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Board_of_Governors
[*I could use a lot more explanatory clarification on that particular narrative.]
Except that if Fannie or Freddie is holding your home loan you can refinance that.
So...borrow at the low rate and pay off the higher rate loan? Thing is, who are you going to borrow from at 2.75%? Maybe a mortgage lender but they have you locked in for 15-30 years with a hefty down payment. Then again, I haven't bothered to look into too many of the various lines of credit these days, maybe a home equity loan would be be available and low enough to make sense, but I suspect if it were that easy we wouldn't be having this conversation.
As for the G.I. Bill I cannot say but the Student Loan Repayment Program ran through the Army Reserve system is very convoluted, bureaucratic, and misleading by design. It took me years to figure it out. Most soldiers I know gave up trying to get their benefits at some point. There are people of all political stripes in the Reserves. The GI Bill may be easier to get because of the bad publicity that would arise if there were too many barriers preventing payouts.
«the Student Loan Repayment Program ran through the Army Reserve system is very convoluted, bureaucratic, and misleading by design. [...] There are people of all political stripes in the Reserves.»
So the veterans of the reserves are scammed like those the veterans of teaching in difficult situations. It looks politically motivated too. Another and far more important example:
* I can agree that often teacher unions are stupid and greedy.
* I can agree that many states and counties have huge pension deficits because of political reasons.
* However it is not because the teacher unions have won excessive pensions, by a large margin it is because of the police (and firefighters) having been gifted fabulous pensions (and state and county managers too, while other state and county workers get a lot less).
* It is mainly both because the police (and firefighters and management) usually vote for the right (Republicans or Clinton Democrat) and teachers (and other state and county workers) don't.
* In part it is also because wealthy donors want to make sure that "their" enforcers are rewarded for their loyalty.
You're correct about the PSLF, but my experience with the GI Bill was different than you suggest. If you sign up, they deduct a portion of your pay for a year or more in exchange for the defined benefit, but using it is not always easy. For my part, the requirements for use had so many strings about what did and did not qualify that like many I ended up forgoing the benefit all together.
Still, it sounds like the PSLF is far worse. It's not a matter of paying into a system then learning it's unusable. They are actually told in advance it will work and then at the end it did not. If you or I tried to pull that with a company we would go to jail because there would be no such thing as a non-binding agreement to begin with.
I'm just gonna leave this here:
Matt and the majority here want our govt to fully control healthcare.
Uh, no. I just think people should be able to enter relatively low-paying, but valuable professions without ending up in retirement with a lot of debt. These two erred in going to the one Hawaii school in the district that was not Title 1, but even if they had gone to a Title 1 school, they wouldn't have gotten the benefit, like 99% of the people who apply for these benefits. It makes no sense to build a school system that almost guarantees that anyone who has a detour in life will end up paying debts in their Social Security years.
The value of a college degree is the selectivity of the degree-granting institution. Community college, Sacramento, Cal State Chico. All completely non-selective schools. There was never any reason to believe that degrees from these institutions had any value at all. And they don't. Of course they became public school teachers. Joel Klein made this point repeatedly. Raising teacher pay to attract better candidates only works if you can change the hiring and promotion practices that pretend these qualifications are real in the first place.
Do have value. Probably can't get a job at the New Yorker, or WaPo or NYT, but these schools are fine schools.
First, it isn't really about the school, the quality of teachers at the school or the quality of education theoretically available at the school. It's about the students that attend the school. Which is why college costs are so galling. You are paying the institution as a way of announcing - in a socially acceptable way - that you have the attributes that you had the day before you attended the college.
Second, that is demonstrably wrong. Columbia Community College is little more than an extension of an undemanding public high school. Sacramento and Chico both accept virtually every student that applies and the average SAT scores of the students that attend is about the national average of high school students and below average for students matriculating at colleges nationally. Neither Sacramento nor Chico are in the top 500 schools nationally by median SAT score. At the 75th percentile, students at Chico and Sacramento have SAT scores considerably lower than students at places such as Montana Bible School, Ouchita Baptist University and the University of Findlay (none of which I knew existed until right now).
Third, I find it...odd...that your idea of an elite job available only to people with sterling credentials is working for the NYT, WaPo or New Yorker. I don't actually know, but I would not have guessed that these publishers are really competing for the cream of our youth. They certainly don't seem to employ many of them as reporters anymore. The curtain has just about come down on the day when people like Holman Jenkins and Tom Wolfe were drawn to the business.
I can prove nothing, but I suspect not even a Harvard or Yale degree has much to do with getting a job at the New Yorker, WaPo or NYT at this point.
The whole point of a Harvard or Yale degree has always been to know the right people, but they used to be (and maybe still are?) serious schools that actually educated children who wanted to learn along with the feckless shitbag children of the elite who would graduate regardless of attending class or not. There's a 2-tier system. Anybody think George W. Bush actually went to class? "Gentleman's C" -- "Gentleman's F" more like. I would love to read his senior thesis.
Credentialism pulled weight in the immediate post-WWII decades in the US, I think. Somewhere around 2000 it just turned into obvious feudalism. I can't draw a bright line.
University degrees are just proof that you can manage your homework load. They aren't about what you've learned or even about learning at all. If you just want to learn, all of this information is available for free online.
These schools have welding, chemistry, engineering, nursing, etc. The idea that you need to go to some exclusive school to learn how to do a specialized job is ridiculous. The academic standards are much more important than admission selectivity. Let anyone in who wants to try, but you can't fake your way through engineering or many other subjects, you learn it or you fail out.
Thanks for supporting the formation of the permanent under class.
If you are incurring $100,000 of debt to go to college for welding, I think you are doing it wrong. I don't think you are right about either engineering or chemistry. If I go to WSP or Fluor and ask them how they recruit college graduates, I feel pretty confident that they will tell me that they value a degree from Carnegie Mellon or Olin a lot higher than they value one from Chico. They are not going to say "well, you can either build a bridge that won't fall down or you can't, and all the people that can are the same."
"he value of a college degree is the selectivity of the degree-granting institution. Community college, Sacramento, Cal State Chico. All completely non-selective schools. There was never any reason to believe that degrees from these institutions had any value at all. And they don't. Of course they became public school teachers."
i.e, you think that the occupation of public school teacher is worthless, because the pay is So Median Income. In your Brave New World, it must be one of those Gamma jobs. Unlike, say, the Empyrean Skill of commodities trading.
In my lifetime, I've witnessed the Inferior Surplus People designation be expanded from Welfare Cheats, to Welfare Bums, to Burger-Flippers and Janitors, and now to Public School Teachers.
It's rather ironic that at the outset of the financialization of the economy in the early 1980s, trading firms were hiring people with BAs in liberal arts subjects from non-elite schools. It was understood that the skill set had little to do with a vast amount of erudition or superior intelligence.
You created the designation, you can expand it whenever you want. The average commodities trader earns 35% more than the average teacher, with a FAR less generous benefits package and no summers off. Seems fair enough to me.
Most people tend to take jobs that maximize their earnings potential, which is based on the value/potential for profit their skills and knowledge offer to others. So yes, technically those below the median are more likely to be inferior, in aggregate offering. This isn't Lake Wobegon, we can't all be above average.
"In my lifetime, I've witnessed the Inferior Surplus People designation be expanded from Welfare Cheats, to Welfare Bums, to Burger-Flippers and Janitors, and now to Public School Teachers."
Heh, don't forget "paper pushers", which Hilary used to spit out referring to people who work in Insurance, with as much venom as if she were saying "profit". (this occasion, back in the 90s, was when I noticed the widespread failure of analytical ability, with people agreeing sagely that such workers were an unnecessary overhead imposed on health care...as if A) SOMEBODY was going to have to process claims and payments and B) it was going to be the GOVERNMENT so any pretense that there was a saving to be found was insane or stupid or both.
Anyway Hilary proposed to turn those "paper pushers" into doctors, nurses and other worthwhile people. This made me wonder if she might actually BE a witch, though I've never had her in the proximity of a proper Dunking Chair.
Sadly.
"i.e, you think that the occupation of public school teacher is worthless, because the pay is So Median Income."
That is absolutely not what I am saying. What I am saying is that potential employers don't value their degrees. Teacher pay varies significantly from district to district. Teachers with better qualifications work in better districts. A high school science teacher with a medium amount of seniority in my school district makes over $115,000/year.
I will add that people should seriously consider how much personal financial sense there is in incurring $100,000 of debt and foregoing 4 years of earnings to make less than what a typical skilled tradesperson makes; and in plenty of cases to make less than what a top tier waiter makes.
"It's rather ironic that at the outset of the financialization of the economy in the early 1980s, trading firms were hiring people with BAs in liberal arts subjects from non-elite schools."
I don't think that has changed. There are plenty of Fordham history majors on trading floors. It's just that there are fewer human traders on those floors.
The value of a college degree is indeed based on selectivity, especially for non STEM degrees that don't provide hard skills, but the selectivity is based on the market as a whole not which institution you graduated from. So unless you are graduating from elite institutions it doesn't really mean much. We've dumped so many people into colleges of all types, mostly shitty, that pretty much all undergrad degrees are worthless.
I went to a somewhat selective state school with an acceptance rate of 45%. My SAT was 1320 out of 1600. Now granted I was an idiot and switched from studying electrical engineering to political science, but at the time and even still today the only message that is ever given to our youth is go to college get any degree and you'll get a good job.
My first job after I graduated was bagging groceries and cleaning mop sinks. My second job was flipping burgers. My third job was on a packaging manufacturing line where I put things in boxes at a rate of 1 per second. I don't feel I am necessarily owed anything. I've done all of those jobs well and got promoted to the point where I was mass producing chickenpox vaccine in pharma.
(See the writeup in Vanity Fair where I worked in a place that didn't provide adequate shift coverage so I shat my pants twice because I couldn't make it through all the air locks in time https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/fda-covid-vaccine-plant-inspectors)
That was STILL the best job I have ever had in terms of pay and sense of purpose. I went to college to AVOID working shitty service and manufacturing jobs and my decade's worth of working at plasma donation centers and manufacturing floors still leaves me with a pretty lousy resume. I am on the precipice of applying to grad school to earn an accounting graduate degree, but even the good ROI of those degrees has me worried about debt.
So why didn't you spotlight one of the "99% of the people who apply for these loans"? Surely if that's an accurate figure and that's your main point you could have found someone other than this feckless couple?
What?
They HI school they taught at was Title 1, but didn’t have enough students signed up for the lunch program
Are you saying you're not in favor of the USHS (US Healthcare Service)?
Also; They literally went out of their way to have debt relieved instead of just honoring their loans, which aren't crazy large to begin with. How many years would it take to pay off $127k with two teaching gigs?
Maybe they have other issues as well.
How 'bout you whip out yer ol' calculator and answer your own question?
Perhaps only captain Ahab would add this comment 8 months later, but I read this today and think it demonstrates what I was saying back in February. While the WSJ would never write this story the way you would, all the salient facts are there. There is (on average) no return on these non-selective degrees. But kudos to USC for discovering the lucrative, non-selective Masters degree in a field with no particular claim to expertise in the first place. Life advice from a carpenter is as likely to be sound as from these people.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/usc-online-social-work-masters-11636435900?mod=hp_lead_pos4
https://www.wsj.com/articles/usc-online-social-work-masters-11636435900?mod=hp_lead_pos4
What does "build a school system" mean? The schools promise ZERO with these degrees. Today they compete for kids with amenities. If a kid wants to take classes on understanding the greater meaning of Star Trek, they are happy to serve it up. Many couldn't be more disconnected from the economic outcomes. Matt, if the "school system" has this obligation, wouldn't it make sense for them to limit teaching to degrees with a reasonable chance of paying off? Additionally, wouldn't we cap capacity in fields (as medicine does)? But that's not what the consumer (kids) want to hear, especially if they can borrow money and not think about it, again. They got to their senior year at HSU, had a kid and said "oh, wait, what now?". Way too many people have been entering colleges as though it is an exploratory vacation. You can get the numbers on what careers pay, and the general value of degrees from different universities and then put in a margin of safety for "surprises" like becoming pregnant. And if you did so, you probably wouldnt borrow that much for a BA from HSU.
I just want them to pay for it with taxes like all the other countries with high wealth. Why are we the only ones who dont get that?
Taxes pay for nothing, any sovereign country that still issues it's own currency spends money into existence. Banks loan money into existence. The whole line of bs regarding taxes was debunked a decade ago.
I found the MMT crazy person!
Ad hominen all you want but show me the checks or balance transfers from the IRS to congress or any other dept in the government.
Um what? Why do they collect taxes if they pay for "nothing"?
It removes currency from circulation. Can you show me a balance transfer or a check from the IRS to any government agency ? They take your money and key stroke it out of existence. They don't set around a table and drop bills into different stacks for different departments.
They just spend their budget into existence via the fed money laundering operation. Banks loan money into existence. Every dollar they loan beyond their reserve is just created out of thin air.
70% of US students go to college, in Germany it's less than half that. Are you prepared to do your patriotic duty and go to trade school to sweat it out doing roofing for 40 years so someone else can take advantage of that tax(yours)-funded, free-to-them college?
That's a fair point but it's mostly the rich who are paying the most taxes not the roofers (many are paid in cash). Taxpayer money should also pay for trade school. The point is to encourage class mobility and reduce income inequality and the social ills it brings. Our current system isn't doing a good job of that.
Roofers don't go to trade school and neither did I, and trade school costs a fraction of what traditional colleges cost. The point is that we have too many people going to college already, and not a single person lobbying for "free college" has voiced any intention to change that, let alone cut it in half. If anything they're talking about MORE people going. Germany also pays roughly half as much per student, in addition to the much lower rates of attendance. We're talking massive, massive cuts necessary for it to be even remotely feasible.
If higher education provides value to society then the educated will be compensated for it, and they can pay for it. If they can't afford to pay for it, then it's an overpriced commodity and the price needs to fall. Throwing govt $$ at it will have the opposite effect and is the LAST thing it needs. Most college graduates still have a net positive ROI. There is no reason why ANY taxes paid for by lower income workers should go to fund their economic better's college debts.
I earn very good money in construction but have to suffer for it every single day - freezing cold, burning heat, I'm out there. I scraped and tortured myself to get ahead when I was young, while I saw plenty of my peers take our exorbitant loans to go party for a few years before failing out or graduating to mediocre jobs. Forcing me to pay back their loans under threat of prison is as regressive as it gets, and frankly a slap in the face.
Because unlike other countries our Federal Govt is only supposed to defend us and support interstate infrastructure and transportation. If you want free healthcare have your State handle it.
What a awful concept for a country. I favor promoting the general welfare, . . a community of people who care about one another’s well being.
There's literally no reason why Oregon and Mississippi should be considered the "same community". Lifestyle is different, values are different, everything is different. That is the power of the 10th Amendment. The Constitution does not enumerate that power, therefore the federal government CANNOT do that unless they pass an amendment first.
I favor you convincing people it's a good idea and not just using force to make it happen.
For example, to accommodate all these new people in the system, we're going to need to MASSIVELY expand our supply. Surely you can get behind eliminating the artificial new doctor cap in order to handle all these new patients, right?
States can't run a perpetually growing deficit like the Fed Gov can. Debt issuance by the Fed Gov is the only mechanism for recycling US$ currency hoards back into the economy. The only way this goes away is if US$ currency hoards go away.
True that.
Vermont gamely studied it and decided it was infeasible. The belief that it can be done federally (under the same concepts employed by Vermont) is akin to "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume".
Anyone who can't understand the lesson of federalization of student loans and STILL wants a federal healthcare system is just fundamentally detached from reality. Unless you care to explain how you know it can work when Vermont concluded otherwise.
I don't know much about the vermont study, but how is it possible that it's "unfeasible" here but seems to work in so many other countries. We are definitely uncommon as a rich country that doesn't provide healthcare or a college education. So I would ask you if you care to explain why it works in so many other countries but is so unfeasible here.
Brady: What country do you live in? Here in the US in 2021, the federal government is involved in all kinds of stuff that's not remotely national defense or interstate infrastructure, including single-payer healthcare for old people and an NHS-like government-run system for veterans.
At any rate, I'd say the problem here is more at the state level. State college tuition used to be pretty reasonable, but it's gone up every year in a cost-spiral very much like health spending. It's hard to see any sensible reason why this should be happening (colleges hire a lot more administrators and provide a lot more amenities now, but neither is necessary).
I guess I live in a country that doesn’t resemble the country that became such a colossus. That country stuck to the notion that the Federal government was one of limited powers and didn’t get involved in matters traditionally considered to be local concerns. There were no a federal transfer payment programs. No command and control, one size fits all programs imposed upon states and cities that carried local costs but central design and application.
It largely stuck to its knitting, providing the military, foreign policy and trade, built interstate transportation infrastructure to facilitate trade and travel, a common currency and related regulation, a postal system and not much more.
That was enough to save the world twice from itself. Now we can’t get out of our own way.
You have all sorts of regulations on all sorts of topics. Most of our budget is income redistribution. People are no longer pioneers, they are dependent.
Incredible.
It's not hard to see when you follow the money and identify the motive for raising the prices.
Isn't a health care system infrastructure? The federal government already provides this for seniors through medicare and for veterans through VA doesn't it? Your argument that our system of government can't have federally paid healthcare doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
Funny thing, but you can track the growth of healthcare as a percentage of GDP from the establishment of Medicare (which isn't govt provided, though the govt does pay private providers for their services). Prior to Medicare, the healthcare sector was around 5% of GDP; it now is a bit over 16%.
As to the VA, I'll share a bit of dark humor about it (which my own brother has experienced first hand). https://www.duffelblog.com/p/va-hospital-burned-to-ground-rated
Do you drive? Have you seen our roads? And you must be a defense contractor, talk about a freebie!
LOL ! Another constitution thumper ! I can't believe people still believe in that fairy tale.
I like the Constitution, actually. I think it's pretty good.
I take your point (I think) that it only pulls weight in the real world to the extent that people continue to believe in it.
Now for profit insurance companies control it.
How’s that working out?
Actually, that’s wrong. The Federal government controls the insurance market, albeit indirectly. Medicare and Medicaid must be accepted by just about all hospitals. That’s more than 50 million people. Medi plans reimbursement rates are ridiculously low. In the zip code where I had total hip replacement surgery, the reimbursement rate was appx. $1,800. My insurance company’s negotiated payment was $4,100. The no insurance fee was $10,000. The only one who would do every hip replacement for $1,800 works in the butcher’s department of your local Piggly Wiggly. The insurance company and the uninsured have to make up the difference of Medi plan underpayments. That’s a hidden tax.
So the Medi plans sponsored by the Federal government is the metronome of pricing paid by for profit insurers and person pay patients. And control the money, you control how the services are delivered - or not.
"The Federal government controls the insurance market, albeit indirectly."
That's just plain funny right there.
Who controls the government ?
I feel sorry for folks that don't even realize they live in an oligarchy or perhaps plutocracy.
Private equity owns health care. Hospitals, clinics, mfg., drugs, all of it. Insurance is a red herring. Get private equity out of health care, and good luck doing it.
Hillary's "heath care plan" was going to generate savings by getting rid of the "pencil pushers" in insurance, magically turning them into doctors, nurses and other valuable people (using her powers of witchcraft no doubt). Left unaddressed was who was going to process claims and payments and authorizations (the government) and how efficiently that would be done (not as efficiently as the insurance companies, even). It is indeed a red herring.
Brady, I'm just going to say you are kind of rude for hijacking this conversation about the public service loan forgiveness program to talk about healthcare. It worked on me and 48 others so far, but I regret falling for a troll. I wish trolling weren't so easy on substack.
Aware. I apologize.
It's cozy under this bridge.
I'm looking for VC investment for my next project, "Troll Lifestyle Magazine." My elevator pitch is "Vanity Fair, but for trolls." Get in on the ground floor!
Get in on the ground floor...and then we are pitched upwards by the elevator? Not sure I follow.
Also, if a conversation is worthwhile, it's worthwhile. There's nothing sacred about "on-topic".
And you want the banksters, insurance thugs, private hospital cabals, medical device and big pharma to continue to run it evidently.
Medicare isn't operated by the Fed Gov as a profit center. In contrast to the Dept of Education which does seem to operate as a profit center.
"Full control of healthcare by government" implies that physicians and staff be Federal employees, and that hospitals be government-owned buildings. That prospect isn't even up for discussion.
It's the system I grew up under as an Army brat, for what it's worth. I think my medical care was fine, although I don't know how much it would have been different in the civilian world of the 1960s and 1970s.
That said, in principle, I prefer the ideal of independent private practice for family physicians and general practitioners. But it's the growth of the power of Big Private Insurance that's undercut that situation, not Big Government. Private insurance introduced so much paperwork into the process that labor hours and office staff were required to cope with it. The expenses added by insurance middlemen can be maddening. They also exercise veto power that differs little than the most nightmarish speculations of those who warn about "government control." In fact, much of the push for universal public health care consists of an effort to dismantle those obstacles, which are often driven by private profit concerns.
As a result of the growing role of private insurers, many physicians were pushed out of private practice into HMOs, and "insurer networks." In many respects, that result isn't much difference than the care provided by government employee physicians in the armed forces. There's a lot less difference between the public sector and the private sector than there used to be. Doctor-patient confidentiality- how much assurance is there about that any more? Instead, most of us have a Permanent Record. Potentially accessible by many more entities than an authentic principle of confidentiality asserts as a patient right.
So my attitudes toward medical care range from the libertarian to the socialist. At one end, I'd like a system that empowers private practice GPs and familiy practitioners, as well as medical savings accounts. Anywhere that health care can be provided more cheaply and efficiently by a market system without adding an extra set of knees- whether it be public or private- is a good idea. We should have regulation of testing and imaging services, though. I'm wary of the lack of accountability that results from too much outsourcing. But universal public insurance coverage should prioritize catastrophic health care expenses, hospitalization, long-term care and home care. I don't want more HMOs, or less physician independence. I want something more in the direction of ethical private practice GPs who serve their clients with means-tested sliding scale fees.
On the other hand, we need to abolish patent protections for pharmaceuticals and medications. I'm not even necessarily opposed to nationalizing the drug companies- that will get rid of all of those rent-seeking conficts of interest and the potential for corruption of the FDA by Big Pharma. At minimum, a public option for manufactured generics. Drugs are inherently generic chemical compounds. There's no "shopping" for them. The phenomenon of advertising by drug companies is an abomination. Drugs are 20% of all medical costs. Over-prescription and ill-educated prescribing is also the source of the majority of iatrogenic problems.
I realize that those recommendations are both somewhat blunt and pointedly vague. I put them out there as a starting point for discussion, not as final policy recommendations.
Or the IRS could substantially increase deduction for medical, Congress could do something about our tort laws (Ha! they're all ambulance chasers), and FED/States could toss more into Medicaid.
IRS deductions for medical expenses are not going to adequately compensate for catastrophic medical expenses for anyone who isn't already wealthy.
I agree about tort reform. Up to a point. But at least the discussion should be given an airing! What we have instead is Whimsy. And a set of parasitic, exhausting procedures that more often than not are exploited by the defendants with the deepest pockets to win lawsuits by exhausting their adversaries or have the awards reduced by having the means to appeal and appeal again, while honest medical practitioners without that hookup have to pay for exorbitant insurance to defend against cases that are spurious or even predatory. (That said, it wouldn't bother me at all if the Feds seized all of the material assets of, say, Purdue Pharmaceutical, and handed them over to the NIH. Although most drug manufacturing is probably done by contract with factories overseas, and this is also a dubious state of affairs.)
I think leaving Medicaid provision up to the States is a travesty. (Unlike, say, the minimum wage, where the Federal government is better of establishing a wage floor than a one-size-fits-all norm. Although a well-crafted UBC might make it possible to abolish the minimum wage entirely.)
"IRS deductions for medical expenses are not going to adequately compensate for catastrophic medical expenses"
Why not? It would be expensive, albeit not as expensive as govt fucking up USHS, but I think doing so would resolve a lot. Having one's 10 grand policy deductible would entice more (young) people to carry insurance - theoretically lowering insurance rates - and making their out of pocket (already plan capped) deductible would protect if catastrophe occurs.
It's better than giving our govt another thing to screw up, imo.
And you want more of the racket we have now.
I'd like a system where I control my health care, not my employer, not a monopoly insurer, not a monopoly health care provider ...... How do we get there?
He's wants all congressmen/women to be doctors?
Reminds me of that time the Federal government added $25,000 to my student loan balance just because. I graduated into a huge recession with zero job offers. Backup plan of moving home got ruled out due to two immediate family members suddenly being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. I missed payments during that stretch but worked out a plan and then never missed another payment by a day or a dollar after that for over 10 years. Then Congress voted to apply a $25k payment as punishment to people who had been “bad” a decade before. This wasn’t part of the deal going in, Congress just changed the rules. That’s the first time I understand we have an actively evil government.
What law was it that Congress passed that did that?
$1000 says that definitely never happened.
I'm shedding crocodile tears for another pair of Taibbi airheads who made life decisions on whims that turned out poorly. Sob! Sob! Sob! But really, the gov't should just give them whatever they want, because they're such nice well-meaning people.
Wow. You're a dick.
To be fair, these two Matt used as an example did make a number of dumb decisions.
I'd say they made mistakes without the intent to profit dishonestly from them. I'm not of the opinion that people who have bad luck and make mistakes should be penalized by putting them in debt for the rest of their lives. Particularly when their mistakes were all related to getting an education.
The one mistake where I feel they probably deserve less leniency (with the caveat that one article is not enough to judge on) is going to work on Maui without being damn sure that the school qualified. Maui is a really expensive place to live (I spent about 5 months there). They REALLY should have checked that 10 times and have had it in writing before deciding to move somewhere so remote and expensive.
"canceled up to $17,500 in debt"
"The catch was, you had to work five years at a low-income “Title 1” school"
Who the hell makes life decisions based on $17,500? That they made it while living in a tent had me wondering about these two.
Bad decisions don't become better just because they did not have bad intentions. The consequences tend to be the same and the lesson to be had, both by them and with them as an example, is about relying on the goodheartedness of bureaucrats (who are only slightly more beneficent than capitalist pigs).
Debt discharge expectations are ridiculous. Why should people get a free ride? Pay your bills. Arrange your affairs so you can.
I want to know why they couldn't get a good job if the were teaching a STEM curriculum. I think their college had problems with accreditation or because 40% the schools in the US are Title 1, it presupposes they wouldn't be teaching STEM classes.
Schools are dropping Advanced Placement for for ethnic history studies because it's more important to know where they came from than where they're going.
LIfe is hard. It's really hard when you're stupid.
So that's an excuse for spiking the football over someone else's misfortune ?
And you are a cunt
You had the entire English language and chose this?
Wow, this is a sign of true intelligence RBM. How do you do it? We must know. Debriefing a 10 year old or old Andrew Dice Clay albums? You have a gift -- good luck with cunt talk in all your endeavors.
Considering the length of your salty response, I'd say he was just being efficient in eliciting it.
Nah, I think they are a nob-head--British slang is way better that US slang HAHA
So enlightening.
Thanks. Nice to see dicks take pleasure in others suffering stick together. And they say socialism is a bad word!
Where do you get to that kind of conclusion? Who takes pleasure? I think it’s a damned shame that there are so many irresponsible people in the world who make foolish decisions. And it’s a shame that they find themselves in the jam that is the natural consequences of those decisions. But you can’t repeal the law of natural consequences. Other people shouldn’t get the bill for stuff they never signed up for.
Wrong reply button, genius.
Indifferent is no way to go through life son.
Neither is irresponsibility. Oops! She just happened to end up pregnant! Oops! Like Britney Spears, she did it again! All when they were in debt and essentially homeless.
Wow, and a non-sequitor shot at Spears. You're a special kind of asshole.
You must be one of those people who slept thru class if you can’t understand the reference.
Snarky is no way to go through life, douche boy.
Neither is compulsively compassionate.
George W. Bush was the original compassion-fascist. That was part of his uniter shtick.
Yeah, why would I want to love my fellow citizens? You're right -- I have got this whole thing wrong. Who needs compassion in this moment?
If compassion is compulsive, imagine what other thoughts SDNC has? Wow.
Do you know the difference between indulgence and tough love? If not, I hope you are not a parent.
Spoken just like someone born from privilege, complete lack of any empathy. We should all strive towards your I never made a mistake type life.
Asshole
I take responsibility for my mistakes, shithead, and move on. You should try it.
What was their mistake exactly? Becoming science teachers when they couldn't afford to go to college without a government loan?
Their mistakes were many. Their life choices were poor. And you don’t take on debt that those choices can’t sustain. Why is that so hard to understand? Sure people want the house with the nice picket fence and two kids or so. My wife and I didn’t buy a house or have kids until we could afford them. I had my loans. I paid them all. On time. No discounts. No forbearance. Sure we wanted to do things sooner. But it never occurred to us to sate our appetites before we could pay for the meal.
Most of us do! Doesn’t mean you can’t feel empathy towards someone. If Matt’s so called sob stories elicit this type of snarky negative behavior out of you I suggest you stop reading them.
Yeah, that's verifiable, because you typed it on an internet forum.
As valid as your original assertion of privilege, Taibbi bootlicker!
I may have privilege now - but I was born into poverty and earned whatever status I have. Just like these tens of thousands of people asking to be let off the hook for their discounted subsidized loans. They’ve earned their spot. Suck it up.
So you're a big supporter of rent seeking I see. Even when it's detrimental to society.
Well that's one take.
Another is that the very concept of America and one of our greatest strengths was the notion that we were a county of second chances. It's why until recently our bankruptcy laws were designed to be generous and once you left prison you had some hope of rejoining society. This country was literally built by people making their second attempt at things.
That's almost entirely gone now. We've become a culture where with one screw up you are done for life. Not only are we incapable of forgiveness and second changes, but we've become a vengeful people that insist people publicly suffer over and entire lifetime for any transgressions they made in the past.
While that vindictiveness is emotionally rewarding for many, it comes with enormous financial and spiritual cost to all of us. One reason America had such astounding growth both economically and creatively in the 19th and 20 century is because it paid to take risks, meaning the upside was always greater than the downside. A Walt Disney could go bankrupt (as he did) and still have the tools available to rebuild a second empire we could all benefit from.
We have become a country where all to often you only get one swing at the ball. Not surprisingly, fewer and fewer people are willing to step up to the plate and swing at all. We are all less because of that.
Troll much?
At a minimum, bankruptcy laws should be changed to make such debt fully dischargeable. At least that would provide tangible help to the likes of those profiled in this piece.
Thank you President Biden: How Senator Biden helped create the student debt problem ---backed a 2005 bill that stripped students of bankruptcy protections and left millions in financial stress https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/02/joe-biden-student-loan-debt-2005-act-2020
Same guy who didn't want his children to "grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle".
Or claw it back from the universities that have so handsomely benefited from the loans programs - maybe force them to cut into that administrative bloat that has been the fastest growing part of the entire education enterprise.
You are hoping for a lot here.
That is a great idea, but it would also mean that about 80% of college students were not creditworthy. Which would be a great way to improve the system and stop having students take out loans to live in dorms nicer than their first 5 apartments while they study for a degree in baking.
Lol my dorm was a shithole and looked like a mental hospital from the 50s. Not even a sink in the room. Shared toilets and showers by ~30 kids. LOL. That was 2000. I checked to see if it had changed. Looks the same now! Here it is on youtube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARLc-_B1ygY
The colleges near my house put up new dorms/apartments nearly every year, new student centers/gyms every 5th year or so, though they are private. And they are all quite nice. Even my alma mater which is a second tier research uni has crazy nice apartments and dorms these days. But yeah that looks pretty normal at O state!
This is the only logical answer. However, I don't think people recognize the implications of this. First, there'd have to be a lock period, or every recent graduate would immediately declare. Second, private loans would vanish overnight. Assuming the gov't wouldn't stupidly make up the difference, attendance would plummet, and hopefully tuition inflation would come back to earth.
This is jaw dropping. The fact that 98% of people were disqualified for loan forgiveness because of fine print... makes the program an utter fraud. I'm not surprised by much anymore but this is outrageous.
This is a great comment. It's sad that substack's algorithm seems to favor off-topic troll comments over an actual discussion of the article.
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened. A few months ago, this substack had thoughtful conversation and now it's troll fest. I guess trolls have no life, so they have time to infiltrate everywhere. It's pathetic.
[Migrates to underneath bridge in Yakutsk from underneath bridge in Irkutsk, displaying colorful ass throughout the Siberian odyssey]
For all of those claiming it's their fault and they should have read the fine print, I find it interesting to note that you aren't assumed to have the judgement necessary to drink alcohol until you're 21, or rent a car (that's the free market at work, not a government regulation) until you're 25. Yet, somehow, at 17 years old, you supposedly have the required mental faculty to read an obtuse legal document that ensures you'll most likely be in debt for the rest of your life when every adult in a position of authority is telling you to sign said document or you won't have any opportunity going forward.
Uhm don't your parents have to cosign?
Considering it's the child who gets saddled with the lifetime of debt, you're bolstering my point regarding adults in positions of authority pushing the minor to make this potentially life-destroying decision.
Excellent piece.
Some non ABA law schools in some states will rack up $250-300k debt to students, many of whom should not have been admitted in the first place and will not be able to pass the bar. Debt that can never be wiped away.
Even Bankruptcy can’t clear the debt. Think about that. If everything has gone wrong for someone and they’ve tried to pay and many years have passed without evidence of fraud, it seems like basic fairness that debt of this magnitude should be allowed to be addressed thru bankruptcy just as it is in business.
Thank you President Biden: How Senator Biden helped create the student debt problem ---backed a 2005 bill that stripped students of bankruptcy protections and left millions in financial stress https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/02/joe-biden-student-loan-debt-2005-act-2020
Why? How many people are forced or coerced into attending law school?
I’m not saying law school ought to be free. Im saying that if you’ve accumulated 300k in debt that cant be paid back and you’ve tried and there’s no fraud, why can’t that debt be dealt with in BK say after 20yrs? Every other debt is..
Because if you do that none of these people will get loans. And we are on a mission to pump out as many degree of varying sorts are we can, regardless of the quality of the graduates.
Though I have to wonder at the value of a dollar in 20 years rather than now. If these people can't pay back the principal and are going to die with these debts, who wins?
I get your point but how many are clear-headed or cognizant enough at 22? Damn few. It’ll take a few more years before even the most high achieving poor figure out that modern college financed with debt is a scam oath to indentured servitude.
What age should be considered the beginning of adulthood? I'd be all for raising the age of adulthood, if we also raised the voting age.
I’d agree with that as well as raising the age for contracting. Of course I’m from the school of hard knocks so shit maybe we lower it to 15 and move on
Wait....they are orphans? No guidance?
Who knows. Why allow them to blame their parents thought.
Ah yes, the Guaranteed Student Loan Improvement Act of 1979, brought to you by the Democrat Congress (both houses) and President Carter and sponsored by Senator Harrison "Pete" Williams of NJ, who was convicted of bribery and conspiracy for taking bribes and serving 3 years in prison and $50,000. Would only the persons responsible for this mess be the ones who would bear sole responsibility to repair any and all damage that THEY caused.
Here's another ELEPHANT in this room that everyone ignores. Why the hell are the young and not so young going to college at all, especially if they can't afford it? And don't give me any crap about it being necessary to get a job. Those days are long gone.
Because people are told, from the time they’re very young, that you won’t be able to survive without a college degree. The “crap about it necessary to get a job” is ingrained into people’s heads from a very young age. And yeah, you’re right, you can get a job without a college degree. But that job is probably gonna suck and you won’t make much money doing it. Take it from me, someone who didn’t go to college and has aged out of my chosen profession at 46 years old. I’ve worked for one year out of the last four years. Also, there was a time, not that long ago, when going to college didn’t mean spending $50,000 or more a year. To go to a state college as recently as the 70’s was something that was easily do-able. Shit, man, in the 60’s, people could own a home and raise a family earning minimum wage. If you can’t answer your asinine question,”Why do people go to college at all?” yourself, you’re an asshole.
True. the public college I attended (University of Illinois at Chicago-70s) cost $300 a year for tuition and I waitressed (free food!) and paid it w/ no debt. No phone or Internet to pay for. Public transpiration, no car. Not the same today. Tuition is now $13,874--could not prob. waitress that.
Exactly! $300 a year might have been a lot in the 70’s, but I can guarantee you that, adjusting for inflation, it isn’t equal to $20,000 today.
No, that was a very, very long time ago. Things began changing around the late 80s/early 90s and was plain for all to see. I remember reading when the bankrupcy laws were changed to exclude student loans and thinking, "Well, that's nasty" My formal education was over by then so I didn't think much more about it but the red flags were there.
Thank you President Biden: How Senator Biden helped create the student debt problem ---backed a 2005 bill that stripped students of bankruptcy protections and left millions in financial stress https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/02/joe-biden-student-loan-debt-2005-act-2020
It's true that people say this, but the lie was laid bare in the '90s.
Check what welders, electricians, or HVAC repairmen charge.
But what if you don’t have a proclivity for welding, electrical work or HVAC stuff? Or what if you just don’t want to do that? We should all just skip college and become welders? That’s ridiculous. I mean, honestly, I wish I was a welder, because then I could maybe get some work. As it is right now, I’m not seeing a job any time in my chosen profession in the near future. Or distant future, either.
IBEW is good and electrician work can be indoors.
News flash: doing whatever you like without regard for self-support is called childhood, retirement, or just plain delusion. Why do you think people get paid to do work?
If you don't like welding there are other trades to try your hand at. If you're of a more academic persuasion then learn to code. If you don't want to work on computers then study and get into a highly ranked med/law school where you can actually pay off the debt after graduation. If you're not well connected, you're not academically inclined enough to get in to at a bare minimum top 100 university in a field that pays well (ie not major in a field which ends with the word 'studies'), you don't like computers, and you don't want to get dirty in the trades, then follow your inner muse and live with your life choices.
You need a masters degree in most states to become a teacher.
Exactly. What would Biden say? "Come on, man!" I spent six years enlisted in the US Navy out of high school during the 80's (read - no GI bill then) because I couldn't afford college, nor could my parental units. They said, "you want to go to college, you figure it out", much like when I wanted to buy that hopped up Gran Torino Sport in high school and they said, "you want that car, you pay for it and btw, don't forget gas and insurance." Never did get that car, ended up with a perfectly OKAY 12 year old VW beetle that had a clunky trans.
Got out of the Navy with a wife and a 3 year old in tow, worked third shift (that's 11am - 7am, for you folks that don't know those hours exist on the dial of a clock other than for partying) for three years DURING school so I wouldn't have any debt. During holidays, worked for UPS loading/unloading packages. Wife was an assistant to the assistant to the assistant of something or other at an insurance firm, so we struggled to say the least.
Sure, I wasn't part of a frat, didn't have a traditional "college" experience, but nonetheless, finished. No loans, no grants. Come on, man ... figure it out. Can't afford it, don't go. Get a degree that is worth something in the market place. Come on, man!
Oh, and as to 3 year old kid? He came to me one day and said, "dad, I want to go to college" I said, "good for you and good luck with that." His sister, the same. She spent three years in the Peace Corps, got some kind of grant thru that service to help pay for her degree. Point is, they both have somehow figured it out, finished and are productive members of society.
Again, bottom line - can't afford it, don't go, do something else for a while. A college degree is NOT a right! Come on, man...
lol check it out it's the "guy who made it who has a lil advice for all you whiners" bit. yeah man I'm sure the reason you made it through is just due to common sense and a lil bit of the old elbow grease. it's so easy, why can't the rest of you losers figure it out? still a classic bit, even in this day and age
Yet another article that ignores the synergy between guaranteed federal loan programs and increases in college costs that bear no relationship at all to increases in the actual cost of living.
I've written repeatedly about that.
I"m a relatively new subscriber. I'd love to read what you've written since, based on your writing in general, we're probably more or less in agreement. Where do i find the pieces?
Maybe instead of asking for him to do something for you that you could accomplish for yourself in 5 minutes with a search engine, you should apologize for making an accusation that this is "yet another article…" then followed up with uhh sorry I'm not really familiar with your work.
I would also like to read those subjects by Taibbi.
Or the true cost of college.
Colleges and Universities push students into loans to keep the gravy flowing.
All of the actors are incentivized to push the product -- blaming one at the expense of another is odd. This is why we need to know our financial history ---
1. When loans were different,
2. When bankruptcy laws different,
3. When College tuition costs different
4. When bundled investments for loans/debt did not exist
5. When policies were in place that assisted students (GI Bill etc.)
6. When the job market functioned well for workers (wages etc.)
7. When state legislatures started restricted education spending (budget deficits)
8. When think tank policies started attacking perceived leftists institutions
(Atlas Foundation - 1970s funding of conservative think tanks influencing policy)
«8. When think tank policies started attacking perceived leftists institutions (Atlas Foundation - 1970s funding of conservative think tanks influencing policy)»
There is a very good and highly entertaining history of the think-tanks that inspired thatcherism (and in part also reaganism/clintonism):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/09/the_curse_of_tina.html
Thanks Bliss
Who held a gun to their heads to sign the contracts with all the aforementioned "differences" you mention, and what type of gun was it? Perhaps they should sue that gun manufacturer for relief?
Nobody held a gun to their head, but the federal government did offer them a way to get their education without being in eternal debt, they took the government up on the offer, and then they got screwed, apparently like most people who took up the offer.
It is possible to have a government where "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" isn't properly translated as "Abandon hope, you're screwed." We just don't have such a government here in the US.
yeah, the kids are always free to not go to college.
Making a mistake shouldn't cost you your life...
College costs have exceeded even healthcare costs in terms of growth - in contrast to just about everything else cost of living wise. Colleges have been slow to expand faculty, but wild about growing administration with all of the additional lucre. Like other bureaucratic organizations (this can even include for-profit corporations) - there is a pathetic degree of accountability for flagrant stupidity in expenditures.
This is the huge problem with the Democrat's college reform plan, and frankly many of their "reform" plans. They are right that many of these areas need reform. But almost always the solution proposed is not reform. It is instead "raise taxes and slather money all over everything until the symptoms temporarily abate". Which in rare cases that is the right solution, but mostly that is not the best solution, nor efficient, and with colleges actually contributing to the core problem.
A college education is valuable almost in direct proportion to how rare it is. You start forcing through the bottom 40-50% of students, and you just waste a lot of money on people who aren't very interested in academics anyway, and end up with disgruntled baristas mad that no one values their C average in communications from XYZ state.
It is an incredibly expensive and wasteful way to broaden people's horizons if they don't have a specific professional plan or aren't actually interested in academics.
Sadly the Republicans plans are often even worse.
When you live in a capitalist economy and the incentive is money you really have no choice to slather everything with money. Who's going to waste time working for free ?
The problem is delivering education, not people being educated.
Once again we see people blaming the consumer for the inability and or limitations of the system as a whole.
Free community college tuition/fees seems like a no brainer. Free "college" in general needs some more details to be considered as a policy.
So you're down with the whole movement of creating a permanent underclass is what you're saying ?
Tyranny of the bureaucracy story.
Meanwhile Biden is back to bombing Syria. Feels good to be back in the pre-Trump era.
Bombing > $1400/$2000 checks
Chickenhawks are back in charge.
I graduated in '94 from a state university that was charging $1k/semester for in-state students. Add in other fees (but not books) and it was closer to $1400/semester.
If prices double every 20 years due to inflation, that would make today's tuition at that same university roughly $2800/semester plus fees, so figure it should be around $3400/semester. Want to guess what that same university charges for in-state tuition?
$6697.81 per semester.
Can someone explain to me why tuition has doubled what it should be according to inflation? I'd really like to see the math on this.
When I receive fundraising calls from my alma mater, I kindly share this dilemma with the poor student who drew the short straw and had to call me. I also share that while I would love to donate, I have to save so that my kids can go to college.
Helluva system.
Unlimited credit with no commercial underwriting. While I'm sure administrative bloat is part of the answer, another part is pretty clearly the vast improvement in facilities. I toured a number of colleges within the last 5 years with my three daughters. The facilities are astounding. The athletic facilities are borderline ridiculous.
I agree with you.... this nonsense that you have to give college students lux dorms and facilities is absurdity. College is one of the few times in your life that it's ok to be poor, in fact it should help anchor the experience in people's memories as one of the reasons why you want to have financial success. Yet you can still enjoy the time there. We've lost sight as to the value of a liberal arts college experience. This used to be central to the experience.
Depending on the college the college sports money machine is also a big chunk of funding for stadiums and facilities of that sort.
No, I’m talking about place like Williams, Wash U, U Chicago. There is no revenue associated with this spending. It’s just an effort to compete for students on any basis except price.
Why? The mandates from Democrat overlords requiring diversity administrators, equity administrators, student safe space administrators, “kissing is rape” kangaroo court administrators, and all the rest of the horses hit imposed on colleges today v
Are you saying that tuition increases coincided with the woke nonsense on campuses? Tuition hikes started before the woke crap started. No doubt it's a funding problem with colleges adding bs jobs to the administration and to sate the woke unwashed/brainwashed, but that can't explain that type of tuition hike.
SALLIE MAE (cheap govt student loans). Founded in '72 and making colleges richer ever since.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/LXpVKMAFmS0mM_LK7Ah57Yra9o4=/570x322/media/img/posts/2014/04/Quartz_1-1/original.jpg
Sallie Mae existed in 1990-94 when college was $1k/semester. That alone doesn't explain this.