Posted on 09/19/2014 7:29:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The media and advocates for income redistribution are creating a continual stream of stories about the student loan crisis. We are inundated with sob stories about people suffering under a crushing debt burden. The New York Times alone has had stories on how student loan debt is now a problem for senior citizens, how young people’s lives have been ruined, and how a whole generation will be unable to buy homes because of their student loan debt. Luckily, these stories are based simply on a few scattered cases. In reality, there is no student loan debt crisis and it is time for the media to report the facts, not the sob stories.
The New York Times informed its readers last week that there are now two million people over 60 years old that still have student loan debt, with an average loan balance of $21,000. To put this report in context, those two million seniors represent only three percent of all people in that age bracket and the average balance of $21,000 is only 78 percent of the size of the average car loan ($27,000). Assumedly many more than three percent of Americans over the age of 60 have car loans, yet nobody thinks that is a crisis.
Earlier this summer, The New York Times also implied that student loan debt is blocking younger Americans from buying homes. In reality, as the Times admits later in their article, the rate at which young people are buying homes is simply returning to its previous level because today’s young can see that the twenty-five year real estate bubble is over and there is no need to rush into home ownership.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Money laundering for the DNC. Nothing more, nothing less.
Okay, I agree.
However, there is a good argument to be made that any undergraduate major should be concentrated in science or engineering.
The really intelligent students will have no problem with the math, and those who wish to obtain a B.A. would have the option of pursuing a real liberal arts education on top of all the hard science.
The hilarity is when colleges promote living on campus to promote “independence”, doubling the cost of attendance.
The kids live at home in their mid-20s to help pay off living on campus at 18-22.
I do think it’s wrong for people to start their lives in debt, especially considering college educations are mostly worth less than we pay, careerwise and knowledge-wise. But I live in a world where I have to explain to people why buying a house on credit is not an “investment.” That battle is lost.
wrong. Law is way underemployed!
I agree. If the lenders could lose their investment, they won’t loan money to C students needing a year or two of remedial courses and little chance of graduating - driving up costs for everyone else and resulting in half the freshmen who never finish because the lacked the skills and capabilities to do so.
Then vocational/technical will come back into vogue.
“The Rules”
- Don’t go to University just to have “the experience”
- If you go, get a degree that has actual VALUE when you graduate. Spending 4 years painting is garbage
- Don’t just take loans for everything.
- Get a summer job and pay as much as possible out-of-pocket.
- Try to have some work during school months.
- Try to get good grades and apply for grants/scholarships.
- If parents can contribute some that’s great but shouldn’t be perceived as an obligation.
- Try to finish in 4 years, you’ll just get more in debt if you take longer.
- Don’t switch majors unless you’re really unhappy.
- Don’t go to a “top school”, that is way more expensive, when a “lesser” school will give you the same ability to get the same job. We all know that it’s what you do AFTER you graduate that counts, not what school you went to.
- There are MANY other ways to earn a living that don’t require a degree. Follow the right path.
You’ll still have debt but it’s manageable. It isn’t easy but that’s what is REALLY best for you during these years. Remember, 50% of freshmen never graduate, it isn’t in the best interests of everyone.
For people whose majors are socially relevant and based in a high-need field (such as nursing), the likelihood of finding work is greater and thus the "burden" of repaying the loans is not so great. But when one majors in fine arts, women's studies, French literature, or any other socially-irrelevant area, the likelihood of finding work is very poor indeed.
I would wager that the Liberal Arts crowd is doing the most whining about this. My answer to them is that they should have thought harder about their majors.
What friends of mine have done is tell their kids, cannot help BUT after graduation each kid was invited to move back in and work and put the bulk of their checks to their loan. They all cleared their loans out within a couple of years, some sooner. Then they each saved enough to move out. Cost the parents: food.
Today's students & former students with $1.1T in student debt certainly will not pay for your generations health care and social security. Nor will they buy this generations real estate at anything near todays values.
Eat them up. You may be soyent green.
Fuzz,
You will find that often times critical classes required to complete in 4 years are unavailable. It’s very nice when you can increase revenue by 20% by making a 5th year mandatory.
I can see that working for some. For others I can imagine the last thing they want to do is move back home...but it does make financial sense.
I will admit though, the cost of the education is artificially high and disproportionate to income/tuition ratios in decades past. This is partly due to the government “help”, the never ending ability of the government creating the problem they claim to be trying to solve. They know it, they just use it as a campaign issue for votes, which is exploitation.
When the hyperinflation comes, the college bubble will burst, and half the colleges will close their doors. And we’ll be better off.
True on all counts.
Yes, my son experienced this. He was allowed to take an alternate class. There are many games they play, which should be better regulated. My son switched schools, most of the credits wouldn’t transfer and you have no recourse. Things like phys-ed, english lit, speech, etc...just another rip off. The first school wouldn’t give him phys-ed credit for the Marine boot camp he’d just graduated from....because, ya know, it wouldn’t meet their “standards”.
-— Supporting these type of idiotic programs has jacked up tuition rates to absorb every available government dollar and then some. Government student loans are easy to obtain and interest rates are jacked up to support the entire infrastructure. -—
That’s the cause of the problem.
We need to focus on the cause, not the symptoms: silly courses, overpaid professors, etc.
Vinny agrees it’s why he invests in baseball bats.
I graduated from a state school in 93. A year for my kids at the same school in 2014 is equal to 4 years.
It’s another nail for the middle class. The rich and poor both don’t have to worry about rising costs.
Yep. The Education Industry — self-aggrandizing its need by young people and industry. Enabled by easy loans (now government owned, along with our mortgages). And enriching cadres of anti-American progressives and furthering their Frankfurt School agenda.
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