Posted on 05/26/2012 7:51:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is what I see when i think about higher education in this country today:
Remember the housing meltdown? Tough to forget isnt it. The formula for the housing boom and bust was simple. A lot of easy money being lent to buyers who couldnt afford the money they were borrowing. That money was then spent on homes with the expectation that the price of the home would go up and it could easily be flipped or refinanced at a profit. Who cares if you couldnt afford the loan. As long as prices kept on going up, everyone was happy. And prices kept on going up. And as long as pricing kept on going up real estate agents kept on selling homes and finding money for buyers.
Until the easy money stopped. When easy money stopped, buyers couldnt sell. They couldnt refinance. First sales slowed, then prices started falling and then the housing bubble burst. Housing prices crashed. We know the rest of the story. We are still mired in the consequences.
Can someone please explain to me how what is happening in higher education any different?
It's far too easy to borrow money for college. Did you know that there is more outstanding debt for student loans than there is for Auto Loans or Credit Card loans? That's right. The 37 million holders of student loans have more debt than the 175 million or so credit card owners in this country, and more than all of the debt on cars in this country. While the average student loan debt is about $23k, the median is close to $12,500. And growing. Past 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.
We freak out about the trillions of dollars in debt our country faces. What about the TRILLION DOLLAR plus in debt college kids are facing?
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.businessinsider.com ...
I really don’t know what to do here. What bothers me is that there might be some sort of “forgiveness” (which I believe to be an OUTRAGEOUS idea), and then loans tightened up a lot without any corresponding price drop in education (have you ever seen the price go DOWN on anything that is not a piece of consumer electronics). This would effectively “pull up the ladder” for others.
Do these loans need cosigners and if so, aren’t they the ones who should be most concerned?
How does the tuition of UH compare to now, from 12 years ago?
My daughter is 19. She takes 3 clases at the community college. With books, 800 bucks. And now she is working full time.
The entire reason that education costs have gone up 10 times the inflation rate is because students were willing to borrow the money.
If you are not willing to break the cycle, you deserve to suffer the consequences, not the taxpayers.
No problem ... it’s all going to be inflated away.
I'm pointing out that parents and students are caught in a changing paradigm, where they cannot provide for their children what their parents provided for themselves...and end up falling for the trap that the despicable University crooks have set, along with the government. This is distressing.
Why can't the middle class afford to send their own kids to college, the way they went themselves? It's not like the education has improved along with the higher costs. I know why, of course (rhetorical question)--it's because a bunch of ne'er do wells have glommed on to the "academic life" of no work and lots of leisure and huge benefits...
I despise these slacker, thieving PhDs.
Obama is going to make the banks FORGIVE all student loans they hold and the government now controls all the rest, so with his signature, ALL DEBTS for SCHOOL DISAPPEAR!!! EVERY PARENT AND STUDENT WOULD VOTE FOR HIM!!!!!
He's a HUGE DEMOCRAT CREEEP.
The better the private school, the CHEAPER it is for middle class and working class kids, because of more generous grant financial aid. At the high end, private school can be cheaper than public: if your parents make under $100,000 Harvard and Yale are FREE. The big scam is low-end private schools; they suck out every dime and deliver less than a public school at half the after-grant cost. (Honest for-profit schools are a better deal than low-end private: cheaper tuition than private and no misleading airs about prestige.)
Many of these loans are the result of money hustlers in cahoots with the schools and universities. Many so called students shouldn’t be given money/funding for these schools as they, the students, just are not capable of handling the course studies/academics the schools should be offering for life’s sustenance and societal purposes. To go into years of debt to learn or be told that there are many kinds of people you have to get along with in life,for example, is folly.
When these articles and opinion pieces appear, when Obama mentions it, I just have this gut feeling that the ultimate intended step is to allow discharge of student loans in bankruptcy. Which, because of the proportion of government backed student loans, is a transfer from taxpayers to student debtors.
That was never part of any sort of implicit social contract re: student loans. Taxpayers may have subsidized the interest rates on the loans, but it was never assumed they would shoulder principal and interest. It will be an outrage if taxpayers, many of whom never got near college, end up taking this hit.
If you're expected salary will not allow you to pay off your student loans, ever, then you cannot afford a college education.
Besides which, most college degrees nowadays are garbage.
If you're not majoring in a hard science of engineering, you're majoring in BS and would be better off getting a job.
You do realize that Bill Gates does not have a college degree?
The ability to send one's child to college (BTW, I managed to do so three times and I am safely out of this woods) is part of the American Dream, whether or not you can afford it.
We *used* to be able to afford it easily. A BA degree *used* to be more meaningful.
College tuition, even for non-Ivy or "unimportant" schools is now unaffordable, not because of feckless families but because of a corrupt relationship between BigEd and the government--student loans and excessive lending and borrowing.
You are repeating the point that we shouldn't bail out the loans. Of course we shouldn't. But the loans should not have been made in the first place--they created an appetite for BS studies and they created phony jobs for PhD slackers and grad students.
I agree with what you said, but I'd like to point out that the fact that we can no longer afford college tuition is a stunning setback in the American standard of living.
We have gone way, way backwards. Our kids will have it much worse than we did.
No need to read any further.
You're obviously not a big believer in reality.
There are million of children who shouldn’t even have their eyes on college...they just aren’t cut out for it. Of course; our industrial base is gone, so they are just SOL.
And whatever you learned in school, it sure wasn’t manners. I suppose your kids are as rude as you? Maybe they just weren’t college material.
And as far as the fact that I pointed out that you don't believe in reality when it comes to your "feelings," check it off to tough love.
“Laws are made for the law abiding.”
Exactly! That’s why they don’t bother the illegals - too much paperwork.
You are assuming that college is absolutely essential - it’s not. And if you do want your kid to go to college, there are a lot of choices - you can even go to college online now. There’s also the military services and service academies.
Also, don’t forget - you don’t owe your kid a college education. If they want it, they’ll find a way to get it.
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.