Posted on 05/31/2012 6:39:59 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
Even as total outstanding student debt rises to $1 trillion, lawmakers have yet to allow loans to be discharged in bankruptcy.
Without an escape clause, these loans can strangle a person.
Take 36-year-old Nick Keith, who remains $142,000 in debt eight years after graduating from culinary school. He's featured in a new film, "Default: The Student Loan Documentary," in which several college graduates expose the pitfalls of the private student loan industry.
"I want to educate the public about the facts," Keith said. "My life has become a daily swim in a tar pit with very little hope of ever getting out."
Keith's father only agreed to co-sign a student loan if he stuck with an engineering degree at Iowa State University, but even with decent grades, he knew it wasn't a right fit.
He dropped out sophomore year and later turned to the California Culinary Academy–without his dad as a safety net–hoping to put his love for healthy eating to use.
"The culinary academy commercials were on the Food Network every 15 minutes," he said, and only required 12 months of study with a three month externship.
He fell for their sales pitch, hook line and sinker
"I should have seen all the signs. [The campus tour guide] had a used car salesman answer for everything," Keith recalls.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
the value of a university degree (and graduate) has gone waaaaaaaay down since then.
It is like law school. A short two or three decades ago it was look to your left look to your right, one will not be here. Now it is absurdly easy to get into law school. There are more first year seats than first year applicants.
These are cash machines for universities despite the utter over supply of facilities.
Hard reasearch can be done via outsourced grunt labor from overseas which only needs a tech degree.
It really is Brave New World.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek5vse2_Aq0
(full 1980 movie)
that is why you make the university liable for issuing the worthless degree.
The goal would be to restore meritocracy in admissions. If a university KNOWS that a worthless graduate will become a liability, then the university will have no incentive to admit unqualified students.
The lenders would be able to look to the university as guarantors.
Wow, that sucks. Not sure what CC system that is.
My brother’s AA degree got him into Johns Hopkins as a Jr. His diploma from Hopkins is the exact same as the one people who paid for 4 years there get.
Student loan aren’t dischargable because the government guarantees them, without that guarantee they’d be normal loans with the normal loan approval process and most students would be denied because nobody would give out loans based on possible future income.
All that being said though people need to stop whining. They have so few avenues to go after you on student loans, and once you show any level of delinquency your loan will get sold every 6 months. Yeah there will be phone calls and mails, get a job, get it together, start paying when you can. Though anybody going six figures in for any degree that doesn’t include letters like “dr” or “phd” is a moron.
“They will openly and repeatedly tell the kids they are an ‘adult’ and their parents don’t control them any more. Exactly what kids want to hear.
Sure this guy is dumb for getting that deep into debt. However what the universities are doing is unethical and immoral.”
Sure, but it is up to the parents to EXERT THEIR AUTHORITY, which exists until the kid can move out and exist on his own. In this case the dad did pretty good - he told junior to either get a degree that can make him some money, or go it alone. It sounds like good guidance to me. As to the college scamming him - yes, but it only works when junior doesn’t trust his parents.
“Today, both are engineers with zero student loan debt. We hated to urge them to postpone their “superstar” dreams, however impractical, but now they are free and equipped to live life as they wish.”
Don’t even think that. My mother insisted that I get a useful college degree BEFORE trying to start an auto repair business (my dream). I got the degree, make great money with it (especially since I live in low-tax Texas), and have enough tools and equipment to fix anything on my half-dozen cars.
If I hadn’t listened to her...I’d probably be working at Jiffy Lube doing oil changes.
Parents do serve a purpose and you (and my mom) certainly served that purpose.
I agree. It’s time to change the bankruptcy law. Hopefully, there’ll be grassroots movement to force Congress to allow students discharge college loans in a bankruptcy.
So you’re ok with what the schools are doing?
So you’re ok with what the schools are doing?
That one sentence tells me all I need to know. This "kid" no doubt frittered away his younger years watching the Food Channel and had visions of being the next Gordon Ramsey or Anthony Bourdain. Figured this "culinary school" would short cut him to the culinary big leagues.
If only this kid took some time to read some books by these people at the top of the culinary pyramid on just hard it is to break into the business. For the most part, if you are not "apprenticing" at a four-star restaurant by the time you are 20, forget about getting to the big leagues and accept the fact you will forever be short-order cooking at the Applebees or some golf club.
“So you’re ok with what the schools are doing?”
Pretty much, in that they are ‘educating’ kids on the real world (probably the only time they do that). I do have a problem with government being an enabler though.
The rules should be the same, whether or not the debt is for an education or a used car. If, via the rules, you can stiff the used car dealer, then you should be able to do the same to Harvard. If those aren't the rules, then God damn the rule maker!
The rule maker's involvement is manifest in the above chart!
College tuition should be like buying a sports car or a big-screen TV or whatever. It shouldn't be a protected category. There should be no protected categories. Protected categories are merely a way for 'Rat politicians to buy votes.
Going to college should be simple as a financial transaction. You pay your tuition, you go to school.
Oops, you borrowed your tuition, and now you can't pay? Tough cookies! That's between you and whomever you borrowed from! Same rules as if you put the big-screen on your credit card!
The only reason different rules exist is Democrat politicians buying votes! God Damn the Rule Makers!
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