Posted on 09/27/2013 12:22:05 AM PDT by freedom462
The real conservative solution? Don’t get the loan. Don’t go into debt for ANYTHING especially a liberal indoctrination center degree.
Work hard, live on less than you earn, save, lather rinse repeat. A college degree is NOT necessary to a successful life. Today, a college degree that doesn’t translate to a 6 figure income is the fast lane to an unsuccessful life, a life of debt, and hardship.
But if one INSISTS on going deeply into debt, one had better figure on being a lawyer, doctor, engineer, or something that pays. I would guess 75% or greater of the college students today really shouldn’t even be there. Most are not ready anyway given the sad state of what their HS diploma has prepared them with.
Thanx Mac .. I really needed that.
My solution - pay it back! If you borrowed it, pay it back. Period.
But don't you understand, on FR we all must bow down before the Great God of Engineering and Science. No other studies are important!
Right—because students with no other major have a chance of becoming financially successful, and financial success is all that matters in the world.
I missed that—what’s the relationship between student loans and Obamacare?
Part of the ACA deems that all student loans will be from the federal government. Don’t have a link at the moment but it’s been well documented onFR. Also, I believe there is ONE bank in the country that can still do student loans. Big Obama supporter.
Try this for starters:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405154157021052.html
Financial success is key when it comes to student loans - since the majors with the highest chance of financial success mean the highest chance of paying it all back and thereby not being a burden on the economy. Ergo, those who say the standards should be different for STEM majors really do have a valid point. Are there majors outside STEm with high earning potential? Of course, but there are mixed in with the useless ones.
How about letting private sector lenders decide?
And smarts are ultimately more important than major.
I think much of that is valid, but in our times, paying your way through for all of college is simply not gonna be an option for everyone who wants to get a college degree.
For starters, there are many colleges where tuition alone is 20,000 - 40,000 dollars a year - which means that cost does not include room and board, books, additional fees and any other living expenses one might incur. The probability of students earning enough through part time jobs during school and during summer to cover all of that are increasingly low. Some will be able to do it but not all will. Especially if they are a STEM major.
In the short term, it is unlikely that this will change. Which is why I was thinking that one of the first 5 options I listed at the start of this thread.
I do think in the long term, your solutions would work for sure once we get rid of the idea that college is for everyone - which has become very deeply ingrained in people’s heads. Get more of them acclimated to the idea of trade schools and community colleges and bring academic standards back to where they were before. End the unproductive majors. Then, tuition could go back to where it used to be and students could afford it with a combination of scholarships and working, something that millions of them just will not be able to do right now.
BTW, as I asked another poster, I had listed the methods by which i had paid for college. Do you think that the methods by which I had paid for college were unreasonable? I would have to concur that if my family had no money at the time, I do may have incurred about 20000-3000 worth of student loans, and it would have been so I could work 14 hours a day 7 days a week in order to prepare myself for getting into a STEM PhD tack, which would allow me to earn more than enough to pay it all back.
I think you are right that that is the best option of all. I do predict, though, that if the private sector were allowed to make all the decisions by itself, they would for sure find that STEM majors are much more practical to finance than the majority of other types of majors, though of course there would be some notable exceptions in economics, pre law, business, accounting, finance and a few other areas (note I am counting pre med as STEM here just to avoid confusion).
I also think the free market would do a much better job than the gov’t on deciding who should get the loans based on what their complete educational plans are during and after college, i.e. Phd, Med School, Law School and so on. And I think they would end up giving the same kind of loans the feds currently do for STEM majors and then look at some of the other majors - as a favorite example, anything ending in Studies and most sociology majors - and decide they are on their own; there’s just no point in them giving those loans to people when a mighty percentage of them will end up with jobs they could have gotten right out of high school.
If there were only private lending, bankers would overwhelmingly look for collateral from cosigners (parents), as makes perfect sense.
Beyond that, the caliber of school and student matter far than study plans and long-range goals.
(And pre-law is a goofball major—most solid law students come with a history or English or some other substantial, traditional major.)
But yeah, point taken—EE majors are less likely to end up as baristas after graduation than are sociology majors.
And your point is also taken - in a private student loan scenario, the lenders would probably look at a student’s caliber and work ethic first and foremost and give out loan rates based on that first and foremost. I suspect that in due time, the most capable and determined students would be getting private loans at the same rates and with the same conditions that the feds currently give out for all students, regardless of how qualified (or unqualified) they are.
To be sure though, there is definitely some correlation between the caliber of the students and the major they choose. Some majors by nature attract the most capable and hard working students and others by nature attract students who have zero business of any kind going to college at all.
In any event, I fear that the above solutions could only be realistically implemented long term anyway. Before we do, we would have to get rid of the idea that finishing college in 4 years after high school is for everyone, . At the moment, there really seems to be national consensus that if you do not get a 4 year college degree after high school, you are an underachieving failure. And then drastically reduce the amount of excessive majors that lead to jobs you can get out of high school and eliminate the idea that a luxurious college experience with 4 star quality food, luxury dorms and health spas is a sort of basic right. After we get to this stage, then we can privatize student loans and take all other necessary steps to solve the crisis.
I agree about the majors, though there are only a few that aren’t also cluttered with marginal students.
I also agree with you on what needs to be done, but federal funding created those excesses (”the bubble”)—and I don’t see anything but a reversal of that changing our course.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.