Posted on 08/12/2016 8:22:16 AM PDT by george76
whom to blame for the student loan crisis; it’s big banks, big government and big corporations ... But if we are really honest, it is us, the citizens, who are to blame. We let our government enter into a crazy scheme of financing America’s colleges with debt.
As a taxpayer, you had the right to protest. At any time over the past 50 years, you could have elected leaders who would have replaced the federal student loan program. But you looked away. You accepted the indebted fate of your children.
...
Colleges responded by gulping up all the money they could get from the feds. .. tuitions exploded. Colleges operate like a cartel: Most increase tuition in lockstep with each other every year — by 3.5 percent, to be precise. And for this, the government rewarded them with $110 billion last year alone.
Who gets hurt? The students, of course
...
Over the years the liability to the taxpayer keeps on growing. Why? The students are not paying back their loans on time. Federal Reserve Bank of New York says 17 percent of student loans are delinquent, but if you add payments granted deferment and forbearance because students could not or would not pay on time, the number rises to 67 percent.
...
So, dear taxpayers, you have been floating on the good ship of student debt for decades. At first you were on a stream, then a river, and now you are on a really big river: $1.3 trillion in debt. It’s been pretty calm, right? But now the boat seems to be shaking a bit. Look downstream. See the white stuff? You are headed over Niagara Falls.
(Excerpt) Read more at wbur.org ...
A man after my own heart; been preachin’ that sermon here for YEARS!
If memory serves me correctly, they were for like $1000 and only for certain majors in the sciences. There were no basket weaving courses or art appreciation courses or black studies et al financed.
“The bubble is bursting. Schools are going under.”
All by design, Comrade. All. By. Design. ;)
Income tax started low, and only applied to a handful of Americans. Once the camel gets its nose under the tent...
Is there anything hat Lyndon Baines Johnson did that did not turn into a boatload of crap?
Gee...No idea why college is so expensive.
Insanity.
Proves my point. Open the door a crack for Democrats and they’ll find some way to use it to their political advantage.
Student loan = free stuff. The money is paying for big screen tvs and the good life. Student loans - it’s not just for education.
“No one forced these people to take loans.”
There you go. I’m 25 and married and a mom and all of my old friends are dealing with student loans and some of them are piling it on with a Master’s Degree or a Ph.D.
Most of them are going to have to wait until they’re 40 or older to be where I am right now: Debt free and raising a family.
The whole liberal/feminist paradigm of women getting careers and living like whores with one shack-up after another is a lie. Look at how many of these women are depressed...and for good reason!
My life isn;t perfect but I sure as heck don’t have to worry about a massive debt hanging over my head all my life!!!
>>>>Is there anything that Lyndon Baines Johnson did that did not turn into a boatload of crap?
>>Oswald’s Fault!
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What is really funny here is, for those who believe it was GHWBush behind JFK’s assassination, it really was:
Bush’s Fault!
Ha!
The job market has changed dramatically in recent years and for many people a college degree appears to be the only option vs flipping burgers for the rest of their lives. Increased demand allows colleges to charge more. Plus money is readily available to fund their education.
Unfortunately people have forgotten the purpose of college — learn skills and gain certifications for a future job. Nothing more.
Who’s At Fault For Student Loans?
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“It Ain’t Me”:
Same rough time frame. Co-op engineering student, so I got paid decent money every other quarter when I was working. No student loan debt per-se, but I did take out a loan to buy one of the original IBM-PCs on a great student discount plan late in my senior year, before grad school. The purchase served me well in developing job skills that employers wanted. Paid it off in a couple of years.
School debt can be hundreds of thousands of dollars — like a home mortgage — and it can take 30 years to pay off a mortgage. This helps to put it in perspective. They will be paying school debt for many years and even decades. Scary.
Never happen. The NEA , other teacher Unions , and such send in large campaign cash and free * get out the vote * volunteers to support the leftie gifters.
Lazy politicians also get lobbyist salaries after they get voted out of office.
<< called before a congressional committee and ask to justify the situation ...
Too many low information fools get a useless , feel good , expensive bachelors degree with no decent job prospects.
So the idiots then go for a masters degree in that same useless field with no decent future job prospects.
No wonder a record number of the * failure to launch * 30 some things, pajama boys then move back into their mom’s basement.
Just to say, I see some of their point. I don’t think parents are to blame at all. Colleges are to blame. And Government is the tool, which they use to cause the problem. Parents just have the wrong strategy. And colleges promote this wrong strategy.
As a father of five who has sent my kids to Hopkins and Bucknell and Wisconsin, I have decided that parents are thinking about it all wrong. The best strategy is not to send your kids to the hardest schools to get into. They are not the best schools. And they are not the best schools for your kids. And your kids will not get the best jobs going to them.
A dirty little secret, the best professors are not at Harvard. They are more likely at Alabama or Virginia or Michigan. They are at the schools that pay them the best and give them the best deal. If you get tenure and high pay at a well funded school, as a professor you’ll take the job.
Now after four of my five kids have gone to college, I will do it differently with my fifth kid. What I noticed is that colleges actually do a good job with the best kids. So, you worked really hard to get your kid into a “stretch” school and you find your kid is ignored by the school when it comes to jobs, internships, and research opportunities. And of course you have little negotiating power with regards to costs and scholarships.
So, I have come to the conclusion that the best school for most kids is the one that accepts them into their honors program. That means they will be treated very well. They are appreciated by the school and are often given preferred treatment for internships, jobs, and research opportunities. Also, grants and scholarships are assumed with honors students.
So, don’t stretch. You’re not helping your kid. Calculus is the same at Harvard as it is at Bucknell as it is at University of Illinois.
The best thing to do is to find the schools that really want your kid. You really need to have a portion of the students at your kids level. Maybe top 20%, is optimal. Those kids will all be in the honors program. So your kid will be with peers. And your kid will get the best professors, best jobs, sometimes the best dorms, at the best price.
It is really simple to solve the issue:
Make student loan debt dischargeable under bankruptcy.
Right now, making a student loan is about as gold-plated an investment as you can do. You are basically guaranteed a payback as there is no way the borrower can get out from under the debt. Yes, it may be deferred, but it cannot be forgiven except by the lender. They are explicitly excluded from bankruptcy proceedings.
So lenders have a guaranteed payback, and can even get liens on income and levies on assets to collect on the debt. Nothing can remove that debt - not even bankruptcy.
So lenders love to lend the money. It may be late in coming, but it will come.
So with all that money, universities know that students CAN get whatever funds are needed. So they raise their rates, far outstripping even healthcare increases. After all, money WILL flow, so why not charge as much as possible?
Making student loans dischargeable under bankruptcy would break this cycle. Suddenly lenders COULD be left holding the bag. They could see their loans go away, never to be repaid. So they’d quickly tighten the requirements for loans.
With a tighter money supply to students, tuition would HAVE to come down in price to keep the students attending. Too much tuition, not enough loans available? No students, and thus no university.
Simple change, just change the bankruptcy laws to include student loans. That’s all it takes. The threat of bankruptcy discharges would dramatically alter the way student loans are handed out, and that would dramatically alter what universities can charge.
And the student loan debt problem just goes away...
Spot on.
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