Author Topic: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?  (Read 20284 times)

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #50 on: January 31, 2016, 02:42:13 PM »
No you don't and your dumb ass liberal arts degree that pays Jack shit should pay Jack shit.

It's hard to take much of what you are saying seriously when you make statements like this. In fact, I would argue that much of what you write, which lacks clarity and displays a tunnel-visioned view of what is causing high student loan debt (To paraphrase: "It's them dumb underwater basket weavers who didn't major in a STEM field!"), underscores the ongoing importance of the liberal arts and the humanities.

As someone with a BA from an LA program, I used to agree you Jane...but looking at the syllabus for most LA classes today doesn't resemble what I was taught in the least... Dare I say it's been hijacked by grey pony tailed activist cry bullies not preparing undergrads for real world skills that I wouldn't pay an employee "jack shit" for.   

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Weedy Acres

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #51 on: January 31, 2016, 02:45:45 PM »
I didn't say that I personally should be paying anybody's loans back. If the government chooses to forgive loans that doesn't affect me.

Um, hello, where do you think the government gets its money?  From trees?

justajane

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #52 on: January 31, 2016, 03:09:34 PM »
No you don't and your dumb ass liberal arts degree that pays Jack shit should pay Jack shit.

It's hard to take much of what you are saying seriously when you make statements like this. In fact, I would argue that much of what you write, which lacks clarity and displays a tunnel-visioned view of what is causing high student loan debt (To paraphrase: "It's them dumb underwater basket weavers who didn't major in a STEM field!"), underscores the ongoing importance of the liberal arts and the humanities.

As someone with a BA from an LA program, I used to agree you Jane...but looking at the syllabus for most LA classes today doesn't resemble what I was taught in the least... Dare I say it's been hijacked by grey pony tailed activist cry bullies not preparing undergrads for real world skills that I wouldn't pay an employee "jack shit" for.   

Can you provide some examples of this supposed shift? Some actual course names or descriptions from actual universities that bother you? And can you please provide a link to the department so that we can know this is "most liberal arts classes today" and not a cherry-picked list?

In other words, let's deal in specifics and not in generalities.

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #53 on: January 31, 2016, 03:19:16 PM »
So justajane give a certified case and point of why liberal arts and humanities should be taught at the level they are being taught now. And then reference the cost of that education to the probability of receiving a job in your degree field and being paid well enough to support yourself without society stepping in.

Bc as far as this post is concerned your only argument would be that people who got stem degrees should fund the LA degree people's choice to do what they want. 

Art actually used to be a science. How to get the pigments you want to last on a canvas and maintain that color. It was a research science and a way of documenting pictoral history.  Now we do all that with a camera that can cost 10bucks.

Davinci and van gogh etc were on the cutting edges of pictoral history. An art degree now. Isn't stem. Then it was.

Society is evolving.


LeRainDrop

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #54 on: January 31, 2016, 03:26:14 PM »
The problem is that you both (LeRainDrop and boarder42) think that making college free, or forgiving loans hurts individuals. I didn't say that I personally should be paying anybody's loans back. If the government chooses to forgive loans that doesn't affect me. Neither of you can see the forest for the trees. As a society if we choose to make grade school free, we can do the same for college. . . .

Alright you guys can have the last word. Say something crazy about humans devolving or some such.

As I have said from my very first post here, I empathize with the many people who are struggling with overwhelming student loan debt, it is an unfair burden to expect many of them to carry, I think there should be something done to help many of them, but I don't have the answers as to precisely what.  My posts have been consistent from the outset that I see both sides of the argument, and I do not come out on the side of doing nothing to help.  Please stop lumping me in with boarder42 because I have never once agreed with him or said anything flameworthy about this situation.  My position is that this is a very difficult issue to handle, and I personally do not know how to do it.

randymarsh

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #55 on: January 31, 2016, 03:42:37 PM »
No you don't and your dumb ass liberal arts degree that pays Jack shit should pay Jack shit.

It's hard to take much of what you are saying seriously when you make statements like this. In fact, I would argue that much of what you write, which lacks clarity and displays a tunnel-visioned view of what is causing high student loan debt (To paraphrase: "It's them dumb underwater basket weavers who didn't major in a STEM field!"), underscores the ongoing importance of the liberal arts and the humanities.

As someone with a BA from an LA program, I used to agree you Jane...but looking at the syllabus for most LA classes today doesn't resemble what I was taught in the least... Dare I say it's been hijacked by grey pony tailed activist cry bullies not preparing undergrads for real world skills that I wouldn't pay an employee "jack shit" for.   

Can you provide some examples of this supposed shift? Some actual course names or descriptions from actual universities that bother you? And can you please provide a link to the department so that we can know this is "most liberal arts classes today" and not a cherry-picked list?

In other words, let's deal in specifics and not in generalities.

I don't know whether it's the courses that changed or our economy (well I know our economy changed but maybe the courses did too), but for many decades, a "liberal arts education" was enough to get a great job. It meant you could think critically and were prepared for many many white collar jobs. Now though, employers want concrete skills. Few want to spend time training you. Hence why STEM degrees have become so valuable.

As a side note, I think liberal arts fields are suffering from a terrible image. Some of that is deserved, some not. You had the Duke "group of 88", the majority of which were liberal arts professors, you have Columbia's "mattress girl", etc. The field is hyper political and I can't blame people for thinking not much value is coming out of today's liberal arts departments. Lots of outrage though.

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #56 on: January 31, 2016, 03:50:08 PM »
As far as an LA degree being critical thinking. What do you think STEM  is. We're critical thinkers.  We solve complex problems daily.

justajane

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #57 on: January 31, 2016, 04:22:51 PM »
So justajane give a certified case and point of why liberal arts and humanities should be taught at the level they are being taught now. And then reference the cost of that education to the probability of receiving a job in your degree field and being paid well enough to support yourself without society stepping in.

Bc as far as this post is concerned your only argument would be that people who got stem degrees should fund the LA degree people's choice to do what they want. 

Art actually used to be a science. How to get the pigments you want to last on a canvas and maintain that color. It was a research science and a way of documenting pictoral history.  Now we do all that with a camera that can cost 10bucks.

Davinci and van gogh etc were on the cutting edges of pictoral history. An art degree now. Isn't stem. Then it was.

Society is evolving.

Once again, your inability to write cogently is rather telling.** If society is evolving away from the need for people to be able to read fluently and write well, then I think it is evolving to its detriment. There is a reason why colleges demand that all students take courses in the liberal arts, and it's not to keep old-fashioned and irrelevant departments going. It's because the liberal arts excel at teaching students how to write and engage in nuanced thinking. These skills serve you well in any career path.

As far as the ROI of humanities degrees, you are creating this scenario that doesn't exist in reality. In other words, most people who major in the liberal arts don't end up working exactly in the field in which they studied. That's not the purpose of a liberal arts degrees. It's to give you a well-rounded education, which will behoove you in any field.

You don't have to be an English teacher if you majored in English. Go to any corporation today and you will find loads of people who majored in the humanities. My neighbor majored in Art. She works for a major university in fundraising. My husband majored in film studies. He works for a major financial institution in corporate support. And on and on and on. 

Just because there are a bunch of entitled liberal arts graduates who lack the motivation to get a good job post-college doesn't mean the degree they got is useless. That's on them that they haven't been creative enough to use it.  You're not reading a story about all the liberal arts graduates who did in fact pay their loans off and got a good job out of school.

**Note this is not to imply that many, if not the vast majority, of people in the STEM fields don't write well. This forum is proof that this is not true. I just think boarder42's posts are funny in that respect.

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #58 on: January 31, 2016, 04:26:54 PM »
I'm typing in an online forum from a phone. I'll laugh my way to the bank while you liberals try to take money from people who know how to make it. And making sentences in proper engrish in an online forum doesn't gain you much.

That's great you know people who got degrees in fields that pay nothing only to find a position that doesn't use it. More power to them. And congratulations to them.

I keep talking in dumb setneses so u keep on laugh

ender

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #59 on: January 31, 2016, 04:29:31 PM »
I'm typing in an online forum from a phone. I'll laugh my way to the bank while you liberals try to take money from people who know how to make it. And making sentences in proper engrish in an online forum doesn't gain you much.

That's great you know people who got degrees in fields that pay nothing only to find a position that doesn't use it. More power to them. And congratulations to them.

I keep talking in dumb setneses so u keep on laugh


.... wat.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #60 on: January 31, 2016, 04:36:12 PM »
I don't know whether it's the courses that changed or our economy (well I know our economy changed but maybe the courses did too), but for many decades, a "liberal arts education" was enough to get a great job. It meant you could think critically and were prepared for many many white collar jobs. Now though, employers want concrete skills. Few want to spend time training you. Hence why STEM degrees have become so valuable.
For many decades, these jobs existed because human labor cost less than automation. That's not the case any more. We don't begrudge travel agents for having earned their income from the 1960s to the early 2000s, but we're not going to hire them back either.

Schumpeter's gale and all that.

Note that even the enlightened STEM workers aren't immune to the sense of entitlement of what type of job and wages they should be able to get. Just read the comments on any tech site that discusses H-1B visas and Indian IT shops, this coming from an industry that has been displacing workers for the last 20 years. Oh the irony, it hurts.

(disclaimer: like many here I program jobs-destroying computers for a living)

boarder42: go home, you're drunk.

justajane

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #61 on: January 31, 2016, 04:41:32 PM »
I'm typing in an online forum from a phone. I'll laugh my way to the bank while you liberals try to take money from people who know how to make it. And making sentences in proper engrish in an online forum doesn't gain you much.

That's great you know people who got degrees in fields that pay nothing only to find a position that doesn't use it. More power to them. And congratulations to them.

I keep talking in dumb setneses so u keep on laugh

Once again, they do use their degrees. At this point, I feel like we are just talking past each other. You clearly don't understand the purpose of a liberal arts degree. That is abundantly clear to me.

You view the world in very binary and bizarre ways. Liberals versus money-makers, STEM versus liberal arts people, ...I honestly can't keep track of it all anymore.

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #62 on: January 31, 2016, 04:44:29 PM »
To get back to the op.

What reform do you propose to resolve the student loan(spending) crisis in America.

We'll all end up paying for it in some way bc society is about supporting the grass hopper at the expense of the ant.

My whole point on this op was that this post doesn't make sense in a forum of financial responsibility.

To worry about what you can't control gets you nowhere. So if that was the point congrats.

I almost deleted my entire first post on here when I wrote it.

But I'm glad I didn't bc we have one post(mozar) who doesn't want to pay for reform personally but would like the govt to.

I mean cmon. The govt money comes from us. The tax payers.

So I ask those of you out there what reasonable reform do you propose that could actually pass thru our legislative system.


ShoulderThingThatGoesUp

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #63 on: January 31, 2016, 07:23:10 PM »
No. The universities are too big and powerful now to let their free money and total lack of need for cost control go away. And even in this thread people are complaining about the lenders, but it's the universities that are the salesmen here.

MrsPete

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #64 on: January 31, 2016, 09:12:35 PM »
This already is changing -- to some extent. 

When I started teaching, the general feeling from both school staff and parents seemed to be something like this:  Our seniors deserve to attend THE SCHOOL they want to attend.  They deserve the college experience.  Anything less is cheating the student out of his or her opportunity to be what he wants to be.  Anyway, student loans are GOOD DEBT because they build credit scores and will lead to good jobs in the future. 

Today many people still buy into this, but most people have become more realistic about the financial aspect of college -- even the students.  More students are considering community college as a viable option, and fewer students are considering the more expensive private and out of state schools. 

I definitely still see a general acceptance of borrowing -- or maybe it's more fair to say some students see borrowing as an unfortunate necessity -- but I hear more and more students who are concerned about borrowing too much

Thing is, what I see among my high school seniors won't show up in society for 4+ years.  Students have to have time to finish school, get out into the world and either make it or not make it. 

teen persuasion

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #65 on: February 01, 2016, 08:19:51 AM »
If we are creating reforms for generation Y, can we please define who is in generation Y?  Late 30's sounded much  closer to my generation X age, rather than my 20ish generation Y kids.

Looking online for definitions, I found way too much imprecision.   Most of the consensus put the start of generation Y around 1984 (as a nice, even 20 years after the end of the baby boomers/beginning of generation X), sometimes 1980-81.  The endpoint of generation Y varied from 1992 - 2004, with most consensus around 2000.  So depending on definitions, I have anywhere from 1 to 4 of my 5 kids in generation Y.  Poor, 10yo DS5 - is he generation Z?

Lanthiriel

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #66 on: February 01, 2016, 09:04:29 AM »
While I think it's pretty clear that the cost of education needs to go down, probably at the expense of things that make college "fun," I wonder if some of the ire here is about the two examples. Both are people who went back for MBAs later in life, one of them online.

For the first person from a top tier school, why didn't they get a scholarship or assistantship? Are they not leveraging the degree enough? Were they honest with themselves about their abilities outside of the classroom?

For the second person, this is just stupid. Half an hour of Googling will tell you that 90% of online degree programs are worthless (there are exceptions for decent programs through respected brick and mortar universities). If this person is intelligent enough to pursue an MBA, surely they can do a modicum of research on job placement rates and the like.

It just seems hard to swallow that people who are intelligent enough to finish a degree program lack the level of critical thinking to realize what they're getting in to. When my husband graduated with almost $60k in debt after almost 8 years of pursuing a BS in Civil Engineering, he suggested a grad program to after having trouble finding a job. I laughed at him. Instead he took a materials testing job and proved himself to his company by working 90 hour weeks in the field until they moved him to an engineering position. People just seem to think that the degree somehow stops them from having to earn their way and they are owed the position of their dreams just because of their education.

mozar

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #67 on: February 01, 2016, 10:18:31 AM »
I hear you that you find it hard to understand that people who can finish a program have a hard time thinking about the big picture in terms of careers, but that's how it is. You think it would be obvious that you should wear a seat belt when you are in a car, but people still don't do it. That's why its a law. I understand that I am further left than a lot of people on this particular thread. I'm saying we can use our tax money to make life easier for everyone. 
My suggestion is for states to restore funding to universities.

boarder42

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #68 on: February 01, 2016, 10:34:03 AM »
I hear you that you find it hard to understand that people who can finish a program have a hard time thinking about the big picture in terms of careers, but that's how it is. You think it would be obvious that you should wear a seat belt when you are in a car, but people still don't do it. That's why its a law. I understand that I am further left than a lot of people on this particular thread. I'm saying we can use our tax money to make life easier for everyone. 
My suggestion is for states to restore funding to universities.

at the expense of what.  The taxpayers or some other social program. 

mozar

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #69 on: February 01, 2016, 10:45:48 AM »
I have lots of opinions about what tax money should be spent on but I don't think its worth arguing about with people with whom I have large ideological differences. What's important is that everyone vote in local state and federal elections.

Capsu78

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #70 on: February 01, 2016, 11:00:04 AM »
Once again, they do use their degrees. At this point, I feel like we are just talking past each other. You clearly don't understand the purpose of a liberal arts degree. That is abundantly clear to me.

You view the world in very binary and bizarre ways. Liberals versus money-makers, STEM versus liberal arts people, ...I honestly can't keep track of it all anymore.

If I'm having my gallbladder removed, I prefer the procedure be performed by someone with a STEM background... If I'm ordering a latte at Starbucks, pretty much any Fine Arts or  (Insert) Studies major will do.  :-)

Please note: Liberal Arts graduate here so I have a "get out of jail" card from triggering micro aggressions.

Tjat

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #71 on: February 01, 2016, 11:19:02 AM »
Getting here late to the party, but it's not clear what sort of "reform" is being advocated for by the OP. Should we identify people that made poor choices and bought something they couldn't afford and then "bail them out?"

Student loan reform will come when the education bubble bursts and people get it through their heads that 6 figure debts for a piece of paper don't make sense. Once college demand falls (and government subsidies), prices will fall and the amount needed for loans will lessen. Retroactively "fixing" the situation for people doesn't make sense as it would be paid for by:

1) People that made the same mistakes they did but worked their tail off to live frugally and/or make a bunch of money to pay it off
2) People that were responsible with their life choices and didn't take on stupid debt with no known means of paying it off


 

MrsPete

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #72 on: February 01, 2016, 11:22:44 AM »
While I think it's pretty clear that the cost of education needs to go down, probably at the expense of things that make college "fun,"
Thing is, lots of people rail about the increase in the cost of education ... but then want their own kid to live in a nicer dorm (i.e., she just can't be expected to use a bathroom down the hall!), and want small classes, and want various support programs provided by the school, and want a new rec center built on camps ... but, oh yes!  Do all these things AND reduce the cost. 

Jack

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #73 on: February 01, 2016, 12:23:09 PM »
Why free school. You don't need to go to college to be a tradesmen. We're runinng out of these.  The whole "college dream" and the fact that you HAVE to go to college to be successful. No you don't and your dumb ass liberal arts degree that pays Jack shit should pay Jack shit.

Hey, why'd you have to go and make it personal? ; )

Anyway, the trouble with the "what about being a tradesman" argument is that even though you're perfectly correct, the problem is that dumbass parents, teachers and high-school guidance counselors push "you must go to college to get a good job" so fucking hard that most students don't even realize it's a viable option. Back at my high school, vocational classes were for people too stupid for college-prep classes (let alone honors or gifted) -- the only people who picked those were considered losers. The idea of a high-end/well-paying vocational career was simply unknown.

My wife and I made it out of college without an unaffordable amount of student loans through sheer dumb luck -- my wife graduated more quickly than usual (because she wanted to be done, not because she was consciously trying to save money), and I ended up at a public university because I wasn't accepted at MIT. Still, looking back we were totally stupid about student loans, and my wife regrets the expense (I was lucky that "following my passion" landed me in engineering, but she got a fine arts degree).

Art actually used to be a science. How to get the pigments you want to last on a canvas and maintain that color. It was a research science and a way of documenting pictoral history.  Now we do all that with a camera that can cost 10bucks.

Davinci and van gogh etc were on the cutting edges of pictoral history. An art degree now. Isn't stem. Then it was.

DaVinci, maybe. But Van Gogh's work had nothing to do with "pictoral history!"

mm1970

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #74 on: February 01, 2016, 01:50:17 PM »
The whole going to school bc you "think" it will get you higher pay doesn't even hold water

You can go online and research what careers are in need and what those careers pay then you can pick one that you think is of you aptitude or push yourself to one outside your aptitude. If there isn't one there that involves something you can do then look to the trades. If you can't do that. Then survival of the fitest.
I think this is why we need to focus more on this sort of thing in high school.  Because it seems like we haven't caught up with reality.

When I look back decades within my own family (which was poor).  You know my parents' generation, nobody went to college.  So there was no need to worry about borrowing money.  You got a job out of high school.  In many cases, the military.  My mother's family, well, the youngest uncle went to trade school, because there was money for it by then.

Within my own family, it was similar.  Out of 9 children, I am the only one who went to college out of high school (and I borrowed money to do it).  I'm #8.  My eldest sibling was an X-ray tech.  Number 2 got married and had kids, then went to college and got an MBA as an adult - as in, over 30 years old.  One sister got a job and then took night classes to get her degree, for about 10 years.  So the loan thing really wasn't much of an issue for them, because it wasn't "common".

In a town like mine, which is rural "what kinds of jobs are needed" are pretty simple, as it's a service-based town.  Grocery clerks, teachers, plumbers, auto mechanics, prison guards, office assistants, nurses.

If you have any intention of "leaving" town, then the research gets a little bit trickier - partly because you are completely reliant on the internet for your research - there aren't adults who have personal experience to help you.  (I cannot speak for the OP, but I'm 45, and the internet did not exist when I went to college and borrowed money.)  The scary thing to think about is that more than 65% of jobs that will exist for my kids?  Don't exist yet.

So anyway, you have a 17 year old kid who has to figure out "what to do with their life".  There's research, but the hard part is that it's a little young to be deciding what you want to do, well, forever.  If you are bombarded by people telling you "go to college", it can start to drown out any modicum of common sense, or thought of doing research.  I mean, if you are 17, how do you know?  We are relying on 17 year olds to make a good decision.  When my dad was 17, he was about to go into WWII.  My parents were still living at home at 17, 18, 20 for the most part, as were many of my older siblings.  The ability to borrow a crap-ton of money simply didn't exist.  So the risk of making a bad decision?  Super low (well, except for my dad might not have survived the war).

I find it fascinating that people who are adults, and have clearly "made it" and have "made the right decisions" find it *very* easy to shit all over people who either made bad decisions, had bad luck, or trusted the wrong people/ places for advice. 

LeRainDrop

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #75 on: February 03, 2016, 08:17:09 PM »
On a lighter note, thanks to me reading this thread just before bed the other night, I had a dream that largely grew out of the concepts here.  I was back at my high school, though still my current age -- let's call it early 30s -- and I walking through the pathways and halls and such.  There were all these weird things happening around me.  In any event, at least a significant portion of the action was people standing on the grass next to the footpaths and trying to convince the students who were walking by that they should take out huge loans.  The marketers were not allowed to step on the actual footpaths; they had to respect the paths as barriers, similar to how we have election laws preventing the candidates and their supporters from campaigning too close to the polling locations.   At one point a lady started following me trying to talk me into getting a loan for college, and I was just like, first of all, I am way past the point of student loans, and second of all, I'm too old not to know any better than to fall for your schemes!  Leave me alone!

ETA:  To clarify my concept of student loans and why I have a distaste for colleges pushing them, I don't just think of direct tuition/books, but also how they try to convince you that you need all these excessive "living expenses," like pricey food, housing, student activities, etc.  The private loans in particular are like poisoned candy.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2016, 09:09:59 PM by LeRainDrop »

JZinCO

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #76 on: February 03, 2016, 08:44:25 PM »
I don't understand why the hang up on student loans. The primary issue is the cost of higher ed (10$ meals in the cafeteria, fancy apartment-like dorms, constant tearing down and rebuilding of buildings). Back to student loans..

Where I am coming from is that I decided to go into a not-so lucrative field. I know it wouldn't pay well (though at the time I was very content with idea of not making much), so I decided to shop around and go to a well respected university, for my field, with an annual tuition of 7,000. I also worked my ass off and got scholarships. Then, I worked every summer in my field. I was able to pay off my undergraduate with my Americorps education award, scholarships and summer jobs (making between $15-18/hr doing manual labor).

I use myself as an anecdote because I was not so naive. Unfortunately, some young adults are and do not understand the ramifications of taking out loans. There exists a simple underemphasis on financial literacy. Is naivete an excuse to have others pick up the slack for you?

Whatever the answer is, I know individuals that take out huge loans on programs with little ROI, or engage in financial idiocy under any other method, will burden society. What I do know is that I'm alright with individuals paying back their public loan debts through public service. Plenty of programs already exist but are being underutilized. I see no reason for new debt forgiveness programs. Talk about a perverse moral hazard.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2016, 08:48:42 PM by JZinCO »

EconDiva

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #77 on: February 07, 2016, 11:47:46 AM »
To get back to the op.

What reform do you propose to resolve the student loan(spending) crisis in America.


When I posted this thread I didn't have any particular suggestions in mind which is why I posted this topic.  I just know I had been having these conversations with people in our 20s and now we're in our 30s and I'm having some of the same conversations with the same people and have been wondering what could be done differently.

On a micro level my primary contribution to this situation is sharing my own story with others and suggesting that those I know obviously do not go down the wrong path when it comes to borrowing too much.  If I were to have children due to my own experiences I would honestly try to steer them away from student loans altogether.  (As of now I do not plan on having children though.)

I would agree that educating students in high school would help alleviate this problem; personal finance courses could help them make better informed decisions about not just student loan debt, but how to handle money period. 

As far as those already indebted; I don't have the answer. 

EconDiva

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #78 on: February 07, 2016, 11:52:20 AM »
This already is changing -- to some extent. 

When I started teaching, the general feeling from both school staff and parents seemed to be something like this:  Our seniors deserve to attend THE SCHOOL they want to attend.  They deserve the college experience.  Anything less is cheating the student out of his or her opportunity to be what he wants to be.  Anyway, student loans are GOOD DEBT because they build credit scores and will lead to good jobs in the future. 

Today many people still buy into this, but most people have become more realistic about the financial aspect of college -- even the students.  More students are considering community college as a viable option, and fewer students are considering the more expensive private and out of state schools. 

I definitely still see a general acceptance of borrowing -- or maybe it's more fair to say some students see borrowing as an unfortunate necessity -- but I hear more and more students who are concerned about borrowing too much

Thing is, what I see among my high school seniors won't show up in society for 4+ years.  Students have to have time to finish school, get out into the world and either make it or not make it.

I'm glad to hear this. 


EconDiva

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #79 on: February 07, 2016, 12:07:36 PM »
While I think it's pretty clear that the cost of education needs to go down, probably at the expense of things that make college "fun," I wonder if some of the ire here is about the two examples. Both are people who went back for MBAs later in life, one of them online.

For the first person from a top tier school, why didn't they get a scholarship or assistantship? Are they not leveraging the degree enough? Were they honest with themselves about their abilities outside of the classroom?

For the second person, this is just stupid. Half an hour of Googling will tell you that 90% of online degree programs are worthless (there are exceptions for decent programs through respected brick and mortar universities). If this person is intelligent enough to pursue an MBA, surely they can do a modicum of research on job placement rates and the like.

It just seems hard to swallow that people who are intelligent enough to finish a degree program lack the level of critical thinking to realize what they're getting in to. When my husband graduated with almost $60k in debt after almost 8 years of pursuing a BS in Civil Engineering, he suggested a grad program to after having trouble finding a job. I laughed at him. Instead he took a materials testing job and proved himself to his company by working 90 hour weeks in the field until they moved him to an engineering position. People just seem to think that the degree somehow stops them from having to earn their way and they are owed the position of their dreams just because of their education.

For the first person from a top tier school, why didn't they get a scholarship or assistantship? Are they not leveraging the degree enough? Were they honest with themselves about their abilities outside of the classroom?
-They had scholarships but they didn't cover the entire cost of the program.  By the time they graduated they figured they should get a Masters, as their undergrad major was NOT a lucrative one.  So think 50-60k undergrad debt...job making maybe in the 40s or so.  Also I will go ahead and add in the assumption that because this person came from poor means (knows what it's like to see your parent live in a car), and then goes to an Ivy school amongst others graduating with 6-figure income jobs, then comes out with debt, all of this I assume had to play a role in the decision they made to go back to school for a Masters, as they just knew they'd come out making more money.  And don't get me wrong, they did, but again still not enough to warrant the additional debt from the Masters.  Now on the other hand, the husband took a similar route, but upon graduating with his Masters makes a TON more than she does so it all worked out for him in the finance industry.

For the second person, this is just stupid. Half an hour of Googling will tell you that 90% of online degree programs are worthless (there are exceptions for decent programs through respected brick and mortar universities). If this person is intelligent enough to pursue an MBA, surely they can do a modicum of research on job placement rates and the like.
-I guess.  I won't say it was the best decision for this person obviously.  Maybe not the best example to include?  For me personally I vowed "no more" after the undergrad loans.  And this was after hearing from some of my own friends that another degree would be the best route.  For me I decided I also "needed" a higher income in order to pay off my debt, but that it would have to come by means other than another degree as I was unwilling to take on more debt.  For me, it meant leaving all of my family and friends and taking a job in another region of the country to support myself.  And it meant a little job hopping to get the pay increases.  (So now that issue is pretty much resolved but I have a new issue of decline in quality of life due to the move away...but that's a "whole nother" topic.)

Dee18

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Re: Will student loan reform come for Gen Y?
« Reply #80 on: February 07, 2016, 02:16:53 PM »
I teach at a university.  I went through undergrad myself on scholarships, part time jobs, and a bit from my parents.  I went to grad school borrowing money for tuition, but living a totally frugal lifestyle with many roommates, part time jobs, and a $10/week budget for eating out. 

What drives me nuts with my students is that they are borrowing enough to live in private luxury apartments, coming to class with giant Starbucks drinks every morning, and bragging about the concerts/bars/great restaurants they go to Thursday through Saturday.  So while I am for funding universities with tax dollars, I do not support "forgiving" the majority of student loans.  When a group if students was talking to me about the bar scene one afternoon this week, I said, "I just don't understand borrowing money at 6% interest rate to go bar hopping."  They looked stunned.  One of them said, "I never thought of it that way."