People keep making the claim that the colleges somehow scammed the borrowers. I haven’t seen any evidence that they did any such thing. No colleges gave a guarantee that any student would miraculously become rich after attending their classes, etc.
Add to that businesses who require a college degree for almost every job.
It wasn’t a guarantee, but they strongly implied it.
When I was a kid, there were public service announcements - one of them had the tagline of “you ain’t going nowhere without that sheepskin.” I don’t know if it was the government or the colleges that were behind it.
> I haven’t seen any evidence that they did any such thing.
If you pull your head out of its current location, you might see what everyone else sees - an industrialized scam preying on the young.
“People keep making the claim that the colleges somehow scammed the borrowers. I haven’t seen any evidence that they did any such thing. No colleges gave a guarantee that any student would miraculously become rich after attending their classes, etc.”
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You’re right. But, under the current system; easy student loan money, there’s little incentive for universities to improve their product, increase productivity and reduce cost. There are ever so vague signs of hope though. I read an article a few days ago that many universities because I’d declining applicants for their MBA programs are either shutting them down or switching to on-line programs. There are lots of things that could be done to reduce cost though; one that comes to mind is why is it necessary for elementary school teachers go through a four year college program? You got to be kidding me. A two year associate degree would do just fine for aspiring elementary school teachers to learn what necessary to teach at elementary school level. And, being an associate degree can be earned at most regional community colleges many could earn the degree while living at home, working part time, etc. like I said, there’s lots of things that “could” be done to reduce higher level education cost. Just have to blast through inertia, unions, etc.
They encouraged and enabled loans for plenty of nonsense degrees that were never going to lead to employment enabling payback of the loan.