I think many of those folks would be successful without those degrees. If your going to subsidize University why not trade schools?

hey all:

One of the problems with education and student loan debt is that once a student has graduated, the school has no vested interest in the graduates outcome.

You have a TON of skools that are providing diplomas that have little to no value in the "real world". You've also got a TON of skools that provide a degree that arguably has some use...but NOTHING like what it cost that student to acquire. Law Skools are great example of this. If you graduate from Harvard, Yale, Stanford (or top 20 law school), you have a GREAT shot at getting a good job. A job that provides enough money to pay back your loans and provide you with a middle class standard of living.

If you go to a middle or low ranked law skool, and borrow the money to do so, you are likely to be relegated to borderline poverty.

So you've got a bunch of students that simply can't earn enough to live off of AND pay back their student loans. I knew some attorneys who were making $40k to $50k a year, and still living with their parents. They have (had) student loans of well over $100K. Some of them had student loan debts of $200k+. Under no reasonable circumstances, can somebody making $45k a year pay off $200k of student loan debt.

These people are stuck for sure...but the government is STILL making loans available to skools and students that will have no reasonable chance of paying them back. This has been going on for a long time now.

WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT MAKING MONEY WIDELY AVAILABLE FOR EDUCATIONS THAT CAN'T JUSTIFY THEIR COST?

That is the thing i do not get ....
Education is massively beneficial for society for for not being ****** and adept of thing like Qanon.
And for the financial aspect , ALL THEIR LIFE they will pay higher tax ( the point of having a ladder taxation) due to a better income provided by a better education, hence paying their "education debts" toward society many times over.

Its funny people focus so much on debt loans of 1 trillions but totally forget the other 26 trillions (near 30 now maybe ?) of where it came from which is far more problematic and fraudulent , for the benefits the oligarchs of this country and corporations....

give me a break...

ps: formerDJ, yes you worked hard for your education and for it you did not spend much interest in debts...and I’m pretty sure during your time an education was much lower .

Perfect example of guy not realizing is getting screwed by the private sector already by paying too much for his health care, shrug.

Having a free health care by the government actually forces the private sector to lower its cost because it called , having competitive market...

Fwiw, it would help massively the economy, reducing the cost of health care for the private sector and on top of that , providing a healthy work force is certainly a plus for the economy.

its pretty amazing how blind people are towards taxes, thinking its the main problem in the US .

There is plenty of country with super low taxes for its citizen and almost no government intervention, lot of them are in Africa....pretty wealthy place to live i suppose.

after the trump era, isnt it obvious maybe in the US the lack of those teaching hurt more in a macro perspective ?
Wasnt the cost in body count and economically pretty much higher than providing education in those fields ?

I paid the equivalent of 80 dollars for my last two years in Uni as a student, it was a good university too and a very solid institute. Granted I worked full-time on the side, so living expenses was not a factor. That said, it helped that my employer gave me two weeks paid leave per semester and a ridiculously high grant (of which I only used a fraction to pay for some books).

I think if I had been born in the US, chances are slim I would have ever gotten a higher education, if we assume a similar socio-economic status when growing up.

I'm from Portugal where we have free healthcare. I wish we didn't

I've heard that commie stuff can make people lazy. Cut the cord and come on over to the big leagues

yeah, most human never appreciate to the full extent what they have for free.
IE: It is only when a person get sick it realize are happy he was and lucky when he was not sick.

You should make the move to the US so you would actually know what you wish for.
If you traveling the US, do not take any insurance and you will actually realize how much luck you have of being a Portuguese .

More to the point, a well-rounded education that's at least somewhat grounded in the liberal arts has been a pretty solid concept since antiquity. "Oh god, why are people learning history in college" is a pathology that's probably unique to the modern-day Republican party.

unfortunately we have a significant % of this pathology in Canada as well .

I agree, and alluded to it in passing in my earlier post - "useless degrees" is something people like to throw out there that I don't often agree with. Sure, there are degrees that make one more obviously employable, but I'm not sure that incentivizing degrees and courses considered by some to be the most useful/employable is the best way to approach things.

Debating stupid hypotheticals is always fun particularly when there are good empirical examples that shed no light on the matter. College education is essentially free in Germany, for example, but it would never be a good idea to examin that particular case before speculating.

If you have to hire professionals for a big business enterprise the single best indicator of future success is almost certainly average marks in the university. That and parents who work in the government.

If you want a liberal education read books and like it.

All the material things we enjoy come from productivity so when you're dealing with a budget, spending money on things that largely pay for themselves is a much wiser choice.

Grade school(which needs massive reform) is the place, I think we've decided, that much of the purpose is to enable students to enjoy life more, etc, like to appreciate art, for eg, not just to be productive.

Your teachers failed you badly if you think that's all there is to education.

SO to lower collage cost in USA, make free loans/grants harder to get and force these colleges to compete for students alla tuition cost against each other?

Just feel if we do this, long term maybe its correct but I think it kills the lower class middle lower class the next 5 years or so which we wouldnt want to do

I borrowed 18k initially, I now owe 92k. I've paid over 18k. I don't want college to be free, but I'd like maybe a low fixed interest rate and the predatory fees/penalties to be waived though. I think that's a fair compromise.

So much of what schools spend money on has very little to do with cranking out students for "the real world", something like 12% of employers think university is doing an adequate job of this.

So much of the money goes to bloated admin budgets, making the university have a "college experience", upgraded facilities.

One of the reasons school is so much cheaper in most of Europe than the US is because it isn't a 4 year country club.

Obviously you've decided - not so sure about "we".

Most on this forum live in societies which deliver far more resources to us so than we need due to primary needs. Many in our countries are literally dying due to lifestyle-diseases and excess, and our planet is creaking in the seams from exhaustion of resources and garbage-dumping.

The idea that we can somehow only afford to educate in order to stimulate production of goods is therefore something I find completely absurd.

Why?

To me it’s a bit mesmerizing isn't ?
To wish to pay double the cost of your health care just so it be private instead of public , to make sure someone less fortunate than yourself could benefit health care ....
Paying double ! It’s not even a question of saving money ...
I guess it is a form of empowerment over the lesser ?

I don't like forced redistribution of wealth (of which 'free healthcare' is a form of) because I think stealling is wrong.
Government run services are always less efficeint than private sector.
Some people are waiting several years for a surgery.

Like I said let me opt out and it's fine. But of course governments never let you opt out of their stupid programs (social security etc).