The cost of education

trouble13 said:

I saw this last night and i think mike rowe makes some really good points about the cost of college educations. Imo this is a subject that we should be able to discuss in a bipartisan way.

YouTube

Tucker Carlson makes a pretty good suggestion in a later segment. He suggests that schools should share in the risks on student loans. I think he is right about that.

What are your thoughts?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

If you really want to lower the cost of going to college, then stop giving out student loans. Really, I feel it's only because student can get access to money that the colleges charge so much.

How Unlimited Student Loans Drive Up Tuition

Why College Became So Expensive
What Is the Cost of College Doing to Families? - The Atlantic

Full Disclosure: I stopped reading at this- "Caitlin Zaloom: College used to be a lot cheaper for families, because there was more funding from the government. If you think about the biggest educational systems, like the University of California system or the City University of New York system, these universities were free or practically free for decades. That was in part because of a belief that higher education was essential for the national project of upward mobility, and for having an educated citizenry."

Free for entrants is not free for others-somebody paid.

Gdjjr said:

Why College Became So Expensive
What Is the Cost of College Doing to Families? - The Atlantic

Full Disclosure: I stopped reading at this- "Caitlin Zaloom: College used to be a lot cheaper for families, because there was more funding from the government. If you think about the biggest educational systems, like the University of California system or the City University of New York system, these universities were free or practically free for decades. That was in part because of a belief that higher education was essential for the national project of upward mobility, and for having an educated citizenry."

Free for entrants is not free for others-somebody paid.

Click to expand...

I was one of those people who received that free education. Always thought it was a great investment by the city. They got a well educated workforce from first or second generation Americans who were motivated to be great for a relatively small cost.

washunut said:

I was one of those people who received that free education. Always thought it was a great investment by the city. They got a well educated workforce from first or second generation Americans who were motivated to be great for a relatively small cost.

Click to expand...

Relatively small is not "free"- so apparently your "free" education wasn't all that great.

Carjosse said:

Concordia University. Why?

Click to expand...

Curiosity, obviously.

bluesmoke said:

One can make as reasonable a guess as is possible, but not predictable. Most college grads do not get a first job that requires a degree. Only a distinct minority get a job within the field of their degree. It can’t be shown that prediction of what few grads base choice of major on, or stick with for that matter, prove out after that 6-year period of time. Most students simply do not have a qualified clue as to what the future will be and thereby what choice they should make. You can’t even say that the great majority of grads are happy they chose the major they did.

Click to expand...

You are probably unaware of this, but I don't need to go as far as what you have in mind to make forecasts. What I am saying is that there exists some relationship between where you study, what type of degree you get, and the field which dominates your curriculum and your income out of college. I don't really care about why it exists, or its exact form. What I care about is approximating it well enough to have a good prediction. To be specific, I have this equation in mind:

income(i) = f(College Reputation(i), Type of Degree (i), Field of Study(i), Other personal characteristics (i)) + noise(i)

where i is an individual and we'Re looking at income over some period of time after college. My job is to approximate f(.,.,.) well enough to forecast income. I can do it with neural networks, random forests, kernel ridge regression, support vector regression or plain linear regression and I can use my dataset in a smart way to compare how well each method generalizes to observations I do not have used to perform the estimation. By reliable, I mean that I want to beat the "I have no clue model." If you have no clue, your best predictor in this context is the average income -- i.e., you do as if everyone earns the same out of college.*And by "beating it" I specifically mean that, using observations that I did not use either for model comparison or model estimation, my chosen model must beat the other in a mean square sense, i.e.:

average( prediction error(i)^2 | chosen model) < average( prediction error(i)^2 | I have no clue model).

My contention is that it should be easy to beat the "I have no clue" model.

bluesmoke said:

Who cares why people choose what degree they wish? Liks I said, they so often get a job, not in their field of study. Many people of a particular political leaning believe scientists are radical.

Click to expand...

Your choices are indicative of your personal characteristics. They can be used as information to make guesses more accurate. Look at how protestors behaved in response to conservatives speaking on college campuses. Look at the number of times they harassed, threatened and sometimes even successfully got people to be fired or ot resign because of a simple disagreement.

They are a noisy minority and it's fairly possible many students pick a humanities major because they don't know what else to do and feel like they have to get a degree. However, it doesn't take a dozen of those lunatics to cause you severe problems. It's not too bad if you can easily fire people because you can always take a chance to pick a rotten apple if you are allowed to throw it back immediately. On the other hand, if you can be seriously stuck with employees who can cause entire hosts of troubles and absolutely can also cause legal trouble if you fire them, that's a risky bet.

bluesmoke said:

Well, my post in this area had to do with real scams, where a lie or some other deception was involved and where the Trump admin is making it more difficult for students to go against the perps or write-off scam debt.

Click to expand...

Student debt has been a problem in the United States since a few decades, long before Donald Trump. Laws prohibiting writing-off student debt have also been around before Donald Trump.

Moreover, when you write off a loan, you have to understand that this is a lost to a bank and by extension to many investors. If they didn't scam you, they have no business suffering those losses. And it's not better to ask the government to step in and pay off those debt since it amounts to asking other Americans, who didn't scam you, to pay for your tuition. I agree, however, that if there REALLY is evidence of a scam on some students, those students should be given a chance to sue those responsible for the scam. But it has to be a real scam, not an imagined scam where people try to foist the blame of their own irresponsible behavior on other people.

Gdjjr said:

Free for entrants is not free for others - somebody paid.

Click to expand...

Somebody always has to pay.

TheEconomist said:

You are probably unaware of this, but I don't need to go as far as what you have in mind to make forecasts. What I am saying is that there exists some relationship between where you study, what type of degree you get, and the field which dominates your curriculum and your income out of college. I don't really care about why it exists, or its exact form. What I care about is approximating it well enough to have a good prediction. To be specific, I have this equation in mind:

income(i) = f(College Reputation(i), Type of Degree (i), Field of Study(i), Other personal characteristics (i)) + noise(i)

where i is an individual and we'Re looking at income over some period of time after college. My job is to approximate f(.,.,.) well enough to forecast income. I can do it with neural networks, random forests, kernel ridge regression, support vector regression or plain linear regression and I can use my dataset in a smart way to compare how well each method generalizes to observations I do not have used to perform the estimation. By reliable, I mean that I want to beat the "I have no clue model." If you have no clue, your best predictor in this context is the average income -- i.e., you do as if everyone earns the same out of college.*And by "beating it" I specifically mean that, using observations that I did not use either for model comparison or model estimation, my chosen model must beat the other in a mean square sense, i.e.:

average( prediction error(i)^2 | chosen model) < average( prediction error(i)^2 | I have no clue model).

My contention is that it should be easy to beat the "I have no clue" model.



Your choices are indicative of your personal characteristics. They can be used as information to make guesses more accurate. Look at how protestors behaved in response to conservatives speaking on college campuses. Look at the number of times they harassed, threatened and sometimes even successfully got people to be fired or ot resign because of a simple disagreement.

They are a noisy minority and it's fairly possible many students pick a humanities major because they don't know what else to do and feel like they have to get a degree. However, it doesn't take a dozen of those lunatics to cause you severe problems. It's not too bad if you can easily fire people because you can always take a chance to pick a rotten apple if you are allowed to throw it back immediately. On the other hand, if you can be seriously stuck with employees who can cause entire hosts of troubles and absolutely can also cause legal trouble if you fire them, that's a risky bet.



Student debt has been a problem in the United States since a few decades, long before Donald Trump. Laws prohibiting writing-off student debt have also been around before Donald Trump.

Moreover, when you write off a loan, you have to understand that this is a lost to a bank and by extension to many investors. If they didn't scam you, they have no business suffering those losses. And it's not better to ask the government to step in and pay off those debt since it amounts to asking other Americans, who didn't scam you, to pay for your tuition. I agree, however, that if there REALLY is evidence of a scam on some students, those students should be given a chance to sue those responsible for the scam. But it has to be a real scam, not an imagined scam where people try to foist the blame of their own irresponsible behavior on other people.

Click to expand...

'My contention is that it should be easy to beat the "I have no clue" model.'

You’re making this discussion nothing more than an intellectual foray. Your “contention” does not refute what I stated:

“MOST students have no clue as to whether or not employability and income from a chosen field of study will be a good investment after the six-plus years it takes to get a bachelor’s degree, if they get it at all. Neither do the various experts, advisers and clairvoyants that tell you.”

And those that have a clue need no more than use linear regression to establish a simple correlation for making they’re choices.

What your reply has to do with my “Who cares” statement, I don’t know.

To do with student debt and loan scams, you merely restate what you said without acknowledging the plight of those students caught-up in this Devos deal, to which you also do not respond. You merely use the point as another opportunity to get up to the podium and make grand speech about your ideology.

You reframed the matter to fit your neural pursuit where I have neither disagreement nor interest. You began your first reply to me with “Here is a very simple way to understand the problem” and therefrom went to exquisite complication and circuitous response.

bluesmoke said:

You’re making this discussion nothing more than an intellectual foray.

Click to expand...

You made some claims about the predictability of returns on education when you said even experts could not tell. I didn't intend to burry you into technical details, but I cannot talk about what people can and cannot do without giving you a rough outline of how we work with data and of how we compare forecasting models.

Moreover, when you presented your point, you alluded to being able to track where people went after graduation and how their careers evolved. That's naturally what people do and it's what we call a structural model in economics: it's when you want a story about how people behave and make choices. However, doing this imposes restrictions on the data that might be false. This is why when we make forecasts, we tend to use more flexible methods. It's typically a better description of the data and it tends to make a more accurate forecast. So, I might be able to tell how much you're going to make on average after graduating from college X with a degree in field Y, even if I have no clue whatsoever how you're going to be making this kind of money.

This idea, that I can exploit observed patterns in the data to make predictions even if I have no clue why my forecasts are good, is a refutation of your claim that experts do not know. We have data and we have some idea of what will happen.


Ask yourself this question. If you had to bet on it, who will be making the most money between ethnic studies majors and business majors, all other things equal? Chances are, business majors because there is a considerably larger market for skills related to their major. They actually do learn how to use computer programs, work in groups, use accounting and financial information, generally know some basics of many relevant laws including international standards in finance and accounting, and often are acquainted with notions related to managing conflicts, etc. Those programs tend to be designed to make them useful in an office. It also tends to attract a crowd of people who are looking to become professionals: they go to university to get a job thereafter.

I suspect if you asked students on any campus today, everybody would give you an answer close to mine. You have to live on Mars to think you'll hit the jackpot by studying lesbian dance theory.

bluesmoke said:

You merely use the point as another opportunity to get up to the podium and make a grand speech about your ideology.

Click to expand...

Because you didn't expand a few posts to explain how postsecondary students really are victims of a scam. Besides, do you realize how profoundly stupid and naive you have to fall for such a scam? Many of those students seem too smart to fall for an obvious lie, and all of them are adults.

washunut said:

I was one of those people who received that free education. Always thought it was a great investment by the city. They got a well-educated workforce from first or second-generation Americans who were motivated to be great for a relatively small cost.

Click to expand...

There is some difference between extending cheap higher education and retroactively making higher education cheap by forgiving loans, the latter being considerably more objectionable than the first.

Retroactive changes affect outcomes in ways people could not have expected. Some people who might have gone for a degree if it was cheaper did not go because they considered it wasn't worth the pain at that price. Others decided to go because they made the opposite calculations. Granted, people go to university for all matters of reasons. Those details do not matter, except when outright lies are involved. In general, those who went will have at least a slightly bigger income than those who did not. And, retroactively, the loan forgiveness would literally involve asking some people who did not go, who did not benefit from the degree, to pay for those who did go and generally benefit at least a little from their degree. It also is unfair in another way. If you thought through the issue and made smart choices, you might not have student debt left or very little of it. The bulk of the help will necessarily go to people who made the worse choices.

Those are real concerns, just as is the fact that most of those indebted people must be held responsible.


Someone could also make a slightly smarter point regarding what it means to slap someone in their early 20s with tens of thousands of dollars in debt because we want to hold them accountable for their choices. It's quite the hit to take for the bad choice as a young person. But the way people who favor loan forgiveness talk is not "they made a stupid mistake, but (...)." It's trying to paint them as completely clueless victims. I suspect that if Democrats were reasonable and not pandering to the identitarian left, they could woo some Republicans into doing something about large student debts. That requires stopping to paint people as victims. They screwed up and it's a mess, but maybe we can make the mess a little more manageable without it costing trillions of dollars. Naturally, if you send a line to people drowning, you'd need some guarantees you won't have to send another line later and that guarantee has to make financial sense for the government to undertake. It can't cost another rescue line every year.

TheEconomist said:

You made some claims about the predictability of returns on education when you said even experts could not tell. I didn't intend to burry you into technical details, but I cannot talk about what people can and cannot do without giving you a rough outline of how we work with data and of how we compare forecasting models.

Moreover, when you presented your point, you alluded to being able to track where people went after graduation and how their careers evolved. That's naturally what people do and it's what we call a structural model in economics: it's when you want a story about how people behave and make choices. However, doing this imposes restrictions on the data that might be false. This is why when we make forecasts, we tend to use more flexible methods. It's typically a better description of the data and it tends to make a more accurate forecast. So, I might be able to tell how much you're going to make on average after graduating from college X with a degree in field Y, even if I have no clue whatsoever how you're going to be making this kind of money.

This idea, that I can exploit observed patterns in the data to make predictions even if I have no clue why my forecasts are good, is a refutation of your claim that experts do not know. We have data and we have some idea of what will happen.


Ask yourself this question. If you had to bet on it, who will be making the most money between ethnic studies majors and business majors, all other things equal? Chances are, business majors because there is a considerably larger market for skills related to their major. They actually do learn how to use computer programs, work in groups, use accounting and financial information, generally know some basics of many relevant laws including international standards in finance and accounting, and often are acquainted with notions related to managing conflicts, etc. Those programs tend to be designed to make them useful in an office. It also tends to attract a crowd of people who are looking to become professionals: they go to university to get a job thereafter.

I suspect if you asked students on any campus today, everybody would give you an answer close to mine. You have to live on Mars to think you'll hit the jackpot by studying lesbian dance theory.

Click to expand...

"I didn't intend to burry you into technical details"

No, you weren't prickly. But, you did "bury" me because you gave way more detail than was necessary to make your point.

“This idea, that I can exploit observed patterns in the data to make predictions even if I have no clue why my forecasts are good, is a refutation of your claim that experts do not know. We have data and we have some idea of what will happen.”

Experts do not know. They can make as reasonable a forecast as can be expected, but not accurate. “Some idea of what will happen” is nothing near “a refutation of your claim that experts do not know”. Show me the evidence of these experts regularly and accurately predicting what you say by comparing those predictions to the actual outcomes 6 yrs down the line. You might also show how many of those that graduate followed your advice to begin with. You’re imagining things.

“Ask yourself this question. If you had to bet on it, who will be making the most money between ethnic studies majors and business majors, all other things equal?”

I didn’t make this a contention of mine. You’re assuming the only reason for choosing a major should be money. But HS grads don’t all decide that way. You aren’t working in the real world with your theories.

“You have to live on Mars to think you'll hit the jackpot by studying lesbian dance theory.”

You have to live on Mars to think those studying lesbian dance theory think they’ll hit the jack pot. How many of them are there, BTW?

The reality is, things just don’t go the way you say.

TheEconomist said:

Because you didn't expand a few posts to explain how postsecondary students really are victims of a scam. Besides, do you realize how profoundly stupid and naive you have to fall for such a scam? Many of those students seem too smart to fall for an obvious lie, and all of them are adults.

Click to expand...

That it was a scam is not in question. That the victim not have to pay what was scammed to the lender that was not actually a part of the scam is the question.

You can go ahead and pass judgement on the stupidity of one who falls victim to a scam, regardless of the fact you are ignorant of the case/scam itself, as if all scams are obvious to anybody of intellect above the level of "profoundly stupid". Apparently, though, you also believe such victims deserve it.

aociswundumho said:

15 years ago banks were giving big loans to uncreditworthy, low income borrowers to buy houses they couldn't afford. The rationale by the idiotic political left was "Everyone deserves to buy a home."

Today banks will give a big loan to an uncreditworthy, low income borrower to get a degree in Lesbian Dance Theory. The rationale by the idiotic political left is "Everyone deserves a college education."

Click to expand...

108th United States Congress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Senate Majority Republican
House Majority Republican
Sessions
1st: January 7, 2003 – December 8, 2003
2nd: January 20, 2004 – December 9, 2004
The One Hundred Eighth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during the third and fourth years of George W. Bush's presidency.
108th United States Congress - Wikipedia

The American Dream Downpayment Act is a U.S. federal statute signed into law, by President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003
The American Dream Downpayment Act Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.


Republicans, the idiotic political left. According to you.
I won't disagree.

bluesmoke said:

That it was a scam is not in question.

Click to expand...

Declaring a scam does not make it a scam. Noting that many people made an allegedly stupid financial decision does not make it a scam either. To be a scam, it must involve some sort of lies, in which case there already are laws on the books to deal with this. Find lawyers and file a class action suit against the perpetrators. Your degree is a service and universities are engaged in marketing. If they led you to believe in falsehoods, you have a case and you can win. I'm sure there are organizations out there that will pick up the case for free.

If it doesn't happen, it's because "scam" is a figure of speech.

bluesmoke said:

You can go ahead and pass judgement on the stupidity of one who falls victim to a scam (...).

Click to expand...

I did not pass judgement on all victims to all scams. I passed judgement on the victims to a specific kind of scam. I said that if you can swallow that a major in lesbian dance theory will earn you six figures, you must be stupid. It's a very specific accusation which you broadened to make it sound silly. Besides, the point is not that people are stupid, but that your scam narrative doesn't seem plausible given people aren't that stupid.

Somehow, these people got scammed, but you cannot demonstrate your proposition using the specifics. If they got scammed, BE SPECIFIC. Show me evidence that universities LIED to them, that they VASTLY EXAGGERATED or outright INVENTED data to attract students. Show me what exactly is ILLEGAL in what universities did. If all you have are nefarious intents floating in the ether, it's not enough. You might buy a crappy service because salespeople lied to you, but you can also buy a crappy service because you made a mistake. But you jump to "it's a scam" without proof. Well, no, I am sorry but you cannot accuse people without cause. The presumption is that universities are innocent and students are responsible for their own mess. Moreover, it's DOUBTFUL that all of them got scammed. Maybe some, but again you'd have to show me the evidence.


I don't buy your scam narrative. I also suspect most conservatives and many moderates don't buy that narrative either. Need I remind you that you don't have to sell your salad on the far left. You say "victim" and they're on board. It's the other people you need to convince and, frankly, you don't sound like an honest person trying to tackle a real problem. You're not even paying lip service to the idea of personal responsibility: all student loans are presumed to be scams in your comments.

dairyair said:

108th United States Congress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Senate Majority Republican
House Majority Republican
Sessions
1st: January 7, 2003 – December 8, 2003
2nd: January 20, 2004 – December 9, 2004
The One Hundred Eighth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during the third and fourth years of George W. Bush's presidency.
108th United States Congress - Wikipedia

The American Dream Downpayment Act is a U.S. federal statute signed into law, by President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003
The American Dream Downpayment Act Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.

Republicans, the idiotic political left. According to you.
I won't disagree.

Click to expand...

This one was an especially egregious gaffe because it was made at a time when the Federal Reserve eased off unnecessarily on their monetary policy.

The unusual behavior of the Federal Reserve in the mid-2000s has been pointed out by John Taylor as a potential cause of the recession and it's so clear you can see the gap between what our models say the Federal Reserve would normally have done and what it actually has done. It also broke markedly with the Bank of Canada, another very unusual phenomena. Although I only present here circumstantial evidence, I would not exactly be shocked if someone in the Bush administration had a conversation with Greenspan and that monetary policy was guided by political interests.

Regardless of how that happened, it did happen and it gave rise to larger shares of variable interest rate mortgages. When the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates back up (very rapidly), people seem to have been caught off guard and delinquency rates increased rapidly before the crisis. The rest is history. Obviously, the American Dream Downpayment Act is part of the problem since it increased the risk of default among mortgage holders.


As for the circumstances, many people forget that 2001 just happened and that the United States was at war in the Middle East, chasing after alleged threats to domestic security. Republicans did not pass this bill as a favor to Democrats, though you can suspect it was somewhat welcome. The name of the bill tips off the hands of those who wrote it: the intention was somewhat patriotic. With hindsight, it doesn't make it any less of a bad call, but it does show it's important to know some of the details before making accusations.

TheEconomist said:

Declaring a scam does not make it a scam. Noting that many people made an allegedly stupid financial decision does not make it a scam either. To be a scam, it must involve some sort of lies, in which case there already are laws on the books to deal with this. Find lawyers and file a class action suit against the perpetrators. Your degree is a service and universities are engaged in marketing. If they led you to believe in falsehoods, you have a case and you can win. I'm sure there are organizations out there that will pick up the case for free.

If it doesn't happen, it's because "scam" is a figure of speech.



I did not pass judgement on all victims to all scams. I passed judgement on the victims to a specific kind of scam. I said that if you can swallow that a major in lesbian dance theory will earn you six figures, you must be stupid. It's a very specific accusation which you broadened to make it sound silly. Besides, the point is not that people are stupid, but that your scam narrative doesn't seem plausible given people aren't that stupid.

Somehow, these people got scammed, but you cannot demonstrate your proposition using the specifics. If they got scammed, BE SPECIFIC. Show me evidence that universities LIED to them, that they VASTLY EXAGGERATED or outright INVENTED data to attract students. Show me what exactly is ILLEGAL in what universities did. If all you have are nefarious intents floating in the ether, it's not enough. You might buy a crappy service because salespeople lied to you, but you can also buy a crappy service because you made a mistake. But you jump to "it's a scam" without proof. Well, no, I am sorry but you cannot accuse people without cause. The presumption is that universities are innocent and students are responsible for their own mess. Moreover, it's DOUBTFUL that all of them got scammed. Maybe some, but again you'd have to show me the evidence.


I don't buy your scam narrative. I also suspect most conservatives and many moderates don't buy that narrative either. Need I remind you that you don't have to sell your salad on the far left. You say "victim" and they're on board. It's the other people you need to convince and, frankly, you don't sound like an honest person trying to tackle a real problem. You're not even paying lip service to the idea of personal responsibility: all student loans are presumed to be scams in your comments.

Click to expand...

“Declaring a scam does not make it a scam.”

You just keep repeating yourself. Then you go on this long, unnecessary ramble, failing to realize that you refuse to accept the fact that students have actually been scammed. Yet, at the same time you say those scammed are at fault for being so stupid to have been taken??? I’m talking about legitimate claims of loan fraud that have been proven which Obama gave oversight and relieve to students that the Trump admin, under DeVos, has reversed. You say, “Tough luck”. There is nowhere to go on this subject. You’re saying scammed students are at fault for being scammed. Then saying they weren’t scammed. To say there is no student loan fraud is inane. To demand case example is inane. I’m not selling you a scam narrative. It is accepted fact. There is rain. There is light from sun. Fire is hot. Students get scammed on college loans. Look it up.

You didn’t address the rest of what we’ve been debating. What I said in response to the neural worming of yours is thus established and unrefuted.

bluesmoke said:

To say there is no student loan fraud is inane. To demand case example is inane.

Click to expand...

I didn't say nobody got scammed. I said it's a priori hard to believe without details on how exactly you're supposed to trick people without getting caught right away. Surely, if legal cases were filed and suits were won, there are traces somewhere as to how universities planned to scam their students.

bluesmoke said:

I’m talking about legitimate claims of loan fraud that have been proven which Obama (...).

Click to expand...

There is an entire world of difference between claiming that all students are victims of fraud and saying that some students are victims of fraud. It also took you quite a long time before pointing out details about proven loan fraud. Of course, if it meets legal standards, frauds need to be addressed and you're not responsible for paying back amounts related to fraud.

bluesmoke said:

You’re saying scammed students are at fault for being scammed.

Click to expand...

I was considerably more specific. I said that if universities lied about the benefits of their programs to scam students, they were stupid to fall for it. That doesn't in any way relieve people who take advantage of their stupidity. And if the frauds were more sophisticated, my comment obviously does not apply. I merely gave an example because you didn't give any details.

Moreover, this thread concerns all students. Why the hell would I suspect you meant to talk about the fraudulent loans? That's the exception, not the rule. The forest is mostly composed of people who took out tens of thousands of dollars in perfectly legal loans to pay for useless degrees -- or, sometimes, even for degrees they never finished. If you've got a handful of people who got scammed and they have evidence to back it up, the scammers need to be put in jail. End of the story.

bluesmoke said:

You’re assuming the only reason for choosing a major should be money. But HS grads don’t all decide that way. You aren’t working in the real world with your theories.

Click to expand...

Look, if I insulted you in some way previously, I must apologize. Let's try to start afresh and see if we can gain some clarity about what we mean.

First of all, I'm not assuming that a major should be only chosen out of monetary consideration. However, when you choose a major, being able to pay back your loan thereafter should be a consideration. You have every right to spend tens of thousands of dollars and forgo several years of income and experience to study a field that might not have immediate practical relevance or which might be very hard to monetize. The issue is that some people who go to college acquire skills they cannot monetize and then complain about their bad finances, asking other people to cash out on their behalf. Once you get other people involved in this process, you kind of need to justify digging into their pockets. And, yes, it's a problem on many levels, including for the autonomy of students.

Second of all, I know that high school graduates do not think that way. Virtually no one today would tell a young man or a young woman to think about the practical consequences of their choices. The advice they give is to "follow your passion." Nobody will tell them they have to make sure they're not sacrificing too much their future well being for current comfort, that most people are not passionate about their work, let alone to follow opportunity rather than passion. Why would you expect a young man or a young woman to have self-control and forethought when no one ever requires them to have it? Part of the issue here is that education fails students by not imparting enough wisdom on them to tackle these problems with the seriousness they command. I don't think most of them realize the enormity of their mistakes until they step out of university because we cuddle them too much. There's always someone to pick up after them. When they graduate and see the bills come in, that must be quite the shock. Some of them have like half a mortgage to pay without any asset to their name and, absent professional skills, it will be long before they can bargain a decent premium over a minimum wage. If I had to make a bet, I'd side with Jonathan Haidt on this one and say things such as rampant censorship on college campuses is a sign that we're dealing with 20-year-old children and not with adults. They don't know how to take conflicts in their own hands and find a peaceful way to resolve them whenever possible. What they know is finding a figure of authority and asking them to handle the problem.


Of course, if I am right, it begs the question of what to do with those who took out the loans legally. If you pay all of it, you're reiterating the problem that caused them to take a bad loan. If you don't do anything, you're letting people you did not train correctly march toward a predictable failure. However, it does prescribe something clear for younger people: go back to teaching a bit about character development and find ways to make more concrete the consequences of a large debt before they make choices.

TheEconomist said:

I didn't say nobody got scammed. I said it's a priori hard to believe without details on how exactly you're supposed to trick people without getting caught right away. Surely, if legal cases were filed and suits were won, there are traces somewhere as to how universities planned to scam their students.



There is an entire world of difference between claiming that all students are victims of fraud and saying that some students are victims of fraud. It also took you quite a long time before pointing out details about proven loan fraud. Of course, if it meets legal standards, frauds need to be addressed and you're not responsible for paying back amounts related to fraud.



I was considerably more specific. I said that if universities lied about the benefits of their programs to scam students, they were stupid to fall for it. That doesn't in any way relieve people who take advantage of their stupidity. And if the frauds were more sophisticated, my comment obviously does not apply. I merely gave an example because you didn't give any details.

Moreover, this thread concerns all students. Why the hell would I suspect you meant to talk about the fraudulent loans? That's the exception, not the rule. The forest is mostly composed of people who took out tens of thousands of dollars in perfectly legal loans to pay for useless degrees -- or, sometimes, even for degrees they never finished. If you've got a handful of people who got scammed and they have evidence to back it up, the scammers need to be put in jail. End of the story.

Click to expand...

“I didn't say nobody got scammed.”

You just used a whole lot of words to challenge the notion that anybody got scammed and demanded evidence that water is wet.

“There is an entire world of difference between claiming that all students are victims of fraud and saying that some students are victims of fraud. It also took you quite a long time before pointing out details about proven loan fraud. Of course, if it meets legal standards, frauds need to be addressed and you're not responsible for paying back amounts related to fraud.”

You pose that it’s a case of “all students” are victims of fraud vs. “some” when I posed no such thing. I didn’t take a “long time” pointing out details, I’ve not pointed out any details at all. Just like when I talk about such subjects as murder and theft, I take it for granted that with whom I’m speaking understands that such a thing exists.

“I merely gave an example because you didn't give any details.”

What you’ve given is a whole lot of details without providing any evidence to back up your claims. Just a lot of theory. I asked a poster to provide evidence of what was claimed. You stepped in with a “Here is a very simple way to understand the problem” post that has been nothing but complicated theory since and you’ve never provided any evidence for what you say nor for what you stepped into.

And that’s where I’m going to leave it. If you can’t provide the evidence which I asked for to support the claims made as posted, I’m not interested in standing in your synaptic cleft of shooting-star neural transmitters of theoretical musings. Your hither and thither is into the weeds.

TheEconomist said:

Look, if I insulted you in some way previously, I must apologize. Let's try to start afresh and see if we can gain some clarity about what we mean.

First of all, I'm not assuming that a major should be only chosen out of monetary consideration. However, when you choose a major, being able to pay back your loan thereafter should be a consideration. You have every right to spend tens of thousands of dollars and forgo several years of income and experience to study a field that might not have immediate practical relevance or which might be very hard to monetize. The issue is that some people who go to college acquire skills they cannot monetize and then complain about their bad finances, asking other people to cash out on their behalf. Once you get other people involved in this process, you kind of need to justify digging into their pockets. And, yes, it's a problem on many levels, including for the autonomy of students.

Second of all, I know that high school graduates do not think that way. Virtually no one today would tell a young man or a young woman to think about the practical consequences of their choices. The advice they give is to "follow your passion." Nobody will tell them they have to make sure they're not sacrificing too much their future well being for current comfort, that most people are not passionate about their work, let alone to follow opportunity rather than passion. Why would you expect a young man or a young woman to have self-control and forethought when no one ever requires them to have it? Part of the issue here is that education fails students by not imparting enough wisdom on them to tackle these problems with the seriousness they command. I don't think most of them realize the enormity of their mistakes until they step out of university because we cuddle them too much. There's always someone to pick up after them. When they graduate and see the bills come in, that must be quite the shock. Some of them have like half a mortgage to pay without any asset to their name and, absent professional skills, it will be long before they can bargain a decent premium over a minimum wage. If I had to make a bet, I'd side with Jonathan Haidt on this one and say things such as rampant censorship on college campuses is a sign that we're dealing with 20-year-old children and not with adults. They don't know how to take conflicts in their own hands and find a peaceful way to resolve them whenever possible. What they know is finding a figure of authority and asking them to handle the problem.


Of course, if I am right, it begs the question of what to do with those who took out the loans legally. If you pay all of it, you're reiterating the problem that caused them to take a bad loan. If you don't do anything, you're letting people you did not train correctly march toward a predictable failure. However, it does prescribe something clear for younger people: go back to teaching a bit about character development and find ways to make more concrete the consequences of a large debt before they make choices.

Click to expand...

“Look, if I insulted you in some way previously, I must apologize. Let's try to start afresh and see if we can gain some clarity about what we mean.”

Thank you for saying so.

“First of all, I'm not assuming that a major should be only chosen out of monetary consideration.”

Yet you do diss “Women studies, gender studies, sociology, history, philosophy, etc.” for being… And say “If you major in one of the many useless social justice majors (usually names "..." studies), it's as clear as day that you will not make six figures.” (I did point-out that the 3-figure earning degrees had the highest debt to income ratios, which flies in the face of what you said. You made no response to that). Plus “to end up earning $40 K, it's not a financially sound choice.”

There’s more to the above. I think that’s enough to support that what you did not assume sure fooled me.

“However”

Yeah. Back at it again. You’re getting up on your soap box to again rehash your ideology to the world into mincemeat. I’m not going to bother to pick apart your intellectual gibberish. You haven’t provided the proof to back up what you’ve been saying so far so why be responsive to what else you repeat or add.

“we're dealing with 20-year-old children and not with adults.”

Yet you previously were very specific about them being adults and having to take that responsibility fully.

“Of course, if I am right, it begs the question of what to do with those who took out the loans legally”

And, of course, you won’t dare answer that question. You’re all theory and imagination.

bluesmoke said:

Yet you do diss “Women studies, gender studies, sociology, history, philosophy, etc.” for being… And say “If you major in one of the many useless social justice majors (usually names "..." studies), it's as clear as day that you will not make six figures.” (I did point-out that the 3-figure earning degrees had the highest debt to income ratios, which flies in the face of what you said. You made no response to that). Plus “to end up earning $40 K, it's not a financially sound choice.”

There’s more to the above. I think that’s enough to support that what you did not assume sure fooled me.

Click to expand...

Plans need to make financial sense: you have to be able to live with the payments later. We wouldn't be talking about it if very many people did not underestimate the challenge. The core of the issue is financial which is why I only mentioned finances.

Of course, we have people in much worse conditions. The other day, I heard a guy on a radio show. He studied medicine and failed very far down the road. He is some 400K in the hole. He has an undergraduate degree and some experience he might be able to bargain to get good paychecks, but that will not be a doctor's pay and that is a mighty debt. It's an extreme example, but I am sure quite a few people are stuck with debt and no degree because they flunked out of their program. Those people are in a very bad position.

bluesmoke said:

Yet you previously were very specific about them being adults and having to take that responsibility fully.

Click to expand...

We give children a break on account that they are children. How far do you want to extend this magnanimity to young adults on account that they act like children? Telling people they can make a massive mess, even as adults, and that not only will someone else pick it up on their behalf, but that they can legitimately request that others pick it up is not a message you should want to send. How you can cope with this problem without sending this message is a nontrivial problem.

bluesmoke said:

“Of course, if I am right, it begs the question of what to do with those who took out the loans legally” And, of course, you won’t dare answer that question. You’re all theory and imagination.

Click to expand...

Actually, I pointed out that a tension exists between personal responsibility and the possibility that parents and teachers failed them.

The first thing I would want is that, if something is done to partially alleviate their debt, something must be done to make sure it's not a recurring theme. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we should insist on teaching about personal responsibility. The current fad in education is to protect them from having any sort of negative feelings, to have adults constantly monitor them and to have adults mediate all conflicts among them. That has been going on for quite a long time and it doesn't seem to help produce good and independent people. It seems to produce people who remain dependent for a long time. Jonathan Haidt, an avowed liberal and life-long Democrat, has a book on this called "The Cuddling of the American Mind." Outside of universities, we teach people to be dependent and, once they are in universities, we tell them to adopt the opposite advice of sound psychological therapy... You need to make people strong, not comfortable.

The second thing I would want to see is determining how much can the government reasonably spend on debt relief and, in that realm, a debate should be had regarding how much help is desirable. You can't treat adults like children, so paying up everything is not desirable (except in the case of scams). On the other hand, it seems unfair to spare them defeats in little leagues only to drop tens of thousands of dollars debt in their hands at 21. They didn't create participation trophies and their corollaries. Adults did that to them. Where you draw the line, I don't know, but I don't like either 100% or 0%. Again, if they were raised properly, this wouldn't be a problem because the vast majority of them would not be making decisions they cannot sustain.

TheEconomist said:

Plans need to make financial sense: you have to be able to live with the payments later. We wouldn't be talking about it if very many people did not underestimate the challenge. The core of the issue is financial which is why I only mentioned finances.

Of course, we have people in much worse conditions. The other day, I heard a guy on a radio show. He studied medicine and failed very far down the road. He is some 400K in the hole. He has an undergraduate degree and some experience he might be able to bargain to get good paychecks, but that will not be a doctor's pay and that is a mighty debt. It's an extreme example, but I am sure quite a few people are stuck with debt and no degree because they flunked out of their program. Those people are in a very bad position.



We give children a break on account that they are children. How far do you want to extend this magnanimity to young adults on account that they act like children? Telling people they can make a massive mess, even as adults, and that not only will someone else pick it up on their behalf, but that they can legitimately request that others pick it up is not a message you should want to send. How you can cope with this problem without sending this message is a nontrivial problem.



Actually, I pointed out that a tension exists between personal responsibility and the possibility that parents and teachers failed them.

The first thing I would want is that, if something is done to partially alleviate their debt, something must be done to make sure it's not a recurring theme. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we should insist on teaching about personal responsibility. The current fad in education is to protect them from having any sort of negative feelings, to have adults constantly monitor them and to have adults mediate all conflicts among them. That has been going on for quite a long time and it doesn't seem to help produce good and independent people. It seems to produce people who remain dependent for a long time. Jonathan Haidt, an avowed liberal and life-long Democrat, has a book on this called "The Cuddling of the American Mind." Outside of universities, we teach people to be dependent and, once they are in universities, we tell them to adopt the opposite advice of sound psychological therapy... You need to make people strong, not comfortable.

The second thing I would want to see is determining how much can the government reasonably spend on debt relief and, in that realm, a debate should be had regarding how much help is desirable. You can't treat adults like children, so paying up everything is not desirable (except in the case of scams). On the other hand, it seems unfair to spare them defeats in little leagues only to drop tens of thousands of dollars debt in their hands at 21. They didn't create participation trophies and their corollaries. Adults did that to them. Where you draw the line, I don't know, but I don't like either 100% or 0%. Again, if they were raised properly, this wouldn't be a problem because the vast majority of them would not be making decisions they cannot sustain.

Click to expand...

“I only mentioned finances.”

That and snide remarks about certain majors, how that might play in the employment market and as a career, and how those people’s majors are indicative of radical views that would be problematic for the employer.

BTW, what do you think would happen if college bound students made choice of their major based on what was judged to provide the best financial future?

“We give children a break on account that they are children.”

An 18-year old is considered an adult in the US, which the vast majority of college students are, and older. Apparently, you have switched positions mid-debate from them being adults to them being children. Or maybe young adults. I really don’t know what your saying in this paragraph. All I get out of this is you trying to get out of this portion of the debate by chameleon tactics. Nice dodge.

“not comfortable.”

I agree completely.

“Actually, I pointed out that…”

Just another dodge.

I largely agree with your last paragraph. I think there is compromise there to effectively bring down the cost of higher education to the student/family to be more in proportion to what it was, say, in the 50’s and 60’s. And thanks for saying “paying up everything is not desirable (except in the case of scams).”

trouble13 said:

I saw this last night and i think mike rowe makes some really good points about the cost of college educations. Imo this is a subject that we should be able to discuss in a bipartisan way.

YouTube

Tucker Carlson makes a pretty good suggestion in a later segment. He suggests that schools should share in the risks on student loans. I think he is right about that.

What are your thoughts?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. In so many ways (which I won't get into right now) higher education is scam. Just what exactly are we paying a university for? The university doesn’t guarantee anyone a job, and even worse they are not even training you to work in a profession! So what exactly are we paying them for? Unless college has changed drastically since I went much of it involves sitting in classrooms listening to lectures. So one can conclude that part of what one is paying for is the privilege of sitting in classrooms for another four years of one’s life and to listen to lectures in which much of the content one will soon forget and also never use. Ultimately though, and let’s be honest, what we are paying for is be assessed by a professor via a letter grade and hopefully, through those grades, get that piece of paper which deems us worthy to work in a so-called “white collar” job.

trouble13 said:

Im trying to keep this as an apolitical discussion. The issue isnt political as much as it is in peoples attitude toward education in general. The education industry is preying on peoples insecurities.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Part of the marketing strategy of the industrial education complex was to convince (or brainwash as I like to view it) as many Americans as possible that the so-called American Dream meant sending your children to college to get that fancy, high paying, white collar job with a cool title! And hey it worked! How much money did people borrow to go to college and rack up billions of dollars of debt!