Obama Tackles College Loan Relief

[Coito ergo sum]

And by the by-- taking care of a kid is different from grooming a lawn. Society does have a stake in its citizens being kept safe, raised well, educated...

(But no-- I'm not asking the government to pay for it. Still, it could be good for society if it did.)

Arguably, and I've heard a lot of folks arguing this, having kids is detrimental to the planet, including environmentally, and especially given the fact that we're at about 7 billion people.

The grooming the lawn is just another life choice. You chose to have a child, someone else might choose not to, in order to not have that responsibility, or because they feel it's better for society that they don't contribute to the population problem. It is not "objectively" better for society that more people have children - it may well be argued, and is argued by some, that it would be better if we halved the population of the world....

Yup.

Still, once those children exist, they're part of society, and have needs and rights that a lawn does not.

But my original comment (lest this get lost in the shuffle) was two different points-- one was picturing possibilities that Obama's proposal would open up for my family, and another that was about economic incentives.

Well, of course, free stuff is great for the people that get it. However, it is another way of rewarding the non-frugal. Think of a person who slugged it out for a decade -- I'm one of them - paying that damn loan back, month in, month out, even when it hurt. Get that thing paid off, and then the government says - no worries - don't have to pay it. I'm sure I won't be getting a refund.

I've never maintained that other people should pay my bills so I don't have to have a job.

But when I picture my life if my husband and I didn't have loan debt, the first thing I thought of was that I wouldn't have to worry so much about daycare, etc., etc., because I could afford to stay at home and only work gigs as it made sense schedule-wise. I like the picture, I have to admit.

That picture isn't real. Someone has to pay, and the bills don't go away because the government doesn't make you pay them. And, when the person utilizing a service doesn't have to pay for it, there is no incentive to worry about how much is used, or how much it costs. And, when the customer doesn't care how much it costs, and the bills are going to the government, then the provider of the service is much more free to raise prices. It destroys accountability. And, that's why what the klr was saying happened in Ireland happened. They got free college tuition - yay! rah! - then a few years later there are all these side-fees and costs that now add up to several thousand Euro. It also is demonstrated in the high cost of public high school in the US. The amount of money spent per pupil would buy a person a nice college education at a pretty good school - for high school (and they graduate borderline idiots half the time.

Government does not make things less expensive. Insurance does not make things less expensive, it invariably makes things more expensive because it removes the incentive to control costs from the person utilizing the service.

[Ronja]

Should this thread be merged with http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=32489 maybe?

[Ronja]

Should this thread be merged with http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=32541 maybe?

[Coito ergo sum]

If the State would keep footing my bills, I'd stay in college forever. Sleeping late - partying three nights a week, minimum - license to be stark raving mad and get away with it.... ah, those were the days...

I say yes to Ronja....Looks like they are on the same topic....

[Xamonas Chegwé]

2 threads on the same topic merged.

[Schneibster]

But everybody has a RIGHT to go to college! And nobody should have to pay for it! It's not fair that some people go to Harvard and some people go to Texas A&M! If I want to study Early Minoan Art History you have to pay for it!

Your histrionics imply you don't think it's a good idea.

I disagree. Strongly. You get as much education as you can handle. Free. As long as you stay serious and keep not failing.

Once you're done, that's it, you're done. But you get once.

Education is the tools people use to contribute to society. Denying them the tools they need and then denigrating them for not contributing to society seems stupid, arbitrary, and unfair to me. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Schneibster]

There's a recession on in case you hadn't noticed.

Not true, but it may as well be for recent graduates. They're hit especially hard.

I should maybe have qualified it, "there's a recession on, on Earth?"

I'm just being literal. A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. The recession in the US was from Dec. 2007 through June 2009. There's been positive (albeit generally slow) growth every quarter since, though unemployment is still stubbornly high - particularly for twentysomethings.

You know, I thought about this, and there's a blog you should look over. I'll post a graph from it that I think you'll find interesting. This is a Professor of Economics at California State University at Berkeley named Brad DeLong; he was an economics czar of some kind in the Clinton administration. He thinks we're still in the Lesser Depression, and is in fact currently covering it as a topic in his class.

Here's the graph, and I think you'll find it interesting to follow up on:


Here's his blog: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/

Enjoy.

[Schneibster]

( Late Minoan history for a start)

Snicker.

[Schneibster]

Making higher education available to the poor is the way to end poverty, not by supporting them with free room and board. Let them get an education and become self-supporting. Win-win. Them and the taxpayers.

You're assuming most people want to work.

It's a pretty good assumption in my experience. Most people are too proud to beg. That's why they work.

[Schneibster]

But everybody has a RIGHT to go to college! And nobody should have to pay for it! It's not fair that some people go to Harvard and some people go to Texas A&M! If I want to study Early Minoan Art History you have to pay for it!

Yes, there's an element of frivolity in higher education that its probably unfair to expect taxpayers to subsidise. What is frivolous and what is not is open to debate, of course.

Also, when a person achieves a degree there's no guarantee they're going to use it to earn an income, to give back something of the knowledge they gained to society ... and if they don't, is the taxpayer subsidy wasted?

On the other hand, many people do work hard, both in study and upon obtaining their degree/s and using what they learned to contribute something back into the society that supported their education.

Skipping forward here and getting to the point ... On balance, and with the premise that an educated population is a progressive one on many levels, I prefer to subsidise education for its benefits to society and to pragmatically absorb the waste while continuing to find ways to minimise it.

[MrJonno]

If someone can show they can contribute sufficiently to human knowledge (ie prove before fellow scientists that a PHD is justified) than absolutely the state should be funding them for life for as many as they can do. Currently salary for a phd is around £12-18k $18-27k so no one is doing this for the money and the workload is horrific.

Universities should of course be trying to make money out of their discovered of course.

Still slightly confused by the description of American post 18 education, in the UK its very simply there is a first 3 year degree at a tax payer funded (heavily cut these days) university and just about nothing else. (There a couple of private universities these days but its still the same academic level).

Are people saying you can get something in between what 18 year olds get A levels (high school diploma) and a Batchelor degree which you generally get at 21?

[Schneibster]

Still slightly confused by the description of American post 18 education, in the UK its very simply there is a first 3 year degree at a tax payer funded (heavily cut these days) university and just about nothing else. (There a couple of private universities these days but its still the same academic level).

Are people saying you can get something in between what 18 year olds get A levels (high school diploma) and a Batchelor degree which you generally get at 21?

It's a 2 year degree called an Associate of Sciences or Associate of Arts, usually from a junior college which is generally administered by the State (that is, for example, California, or Massachusetts or New York). Costs are generally low, and low-income folks generally get in free, but this is much more prevalent in blue states and coastal states, and is getting cut left and right. There are also "vocational schools," run privately, for skills like electronics technician, technical writing, secretarial work, nursing, and other professional services, and these also generally are 2-year degrees.

A Bachelor of Sciences or Arts is a 4-year degree and is what most people in the US mean when they say "a college degree." There are a few private vocational schools that go to this level, but costs are higher and often not covered by any government program at all. Most if not all (I can't think of one that doesn't) States have a university system, and many are two-tier, with a lower and higher tiered school system geared accordingly; for example, you might hear about the University of California system, and the California State system, and they are the higher and lower tier respectively. In addition, there are a fair number of completely private universities, most of which are very well known and most of which do not accept students reliant on government money. Stanford, for example, is one of these last. All of these schools offer Bachelors' degrees; most if not all also offer Masters (6 year) and PhD (8 year) degrees. These are often called "post-graduate" degrees, meaning after the Bachelors' degree. Many of these universities, state, university system, and private, have world-famous research programs in various arts and sciences; those programs employ scientists, often as Professors who teach for a living and do research in addition to the teaching. It is financially advantageous to have research programs, and that helps defray some of the costs (or line some folks' pockets, in the case of the private ones). The government funds a fair bit of the research in the public interest.

There are special programs and degrees for doctors and surgeons and certain other professions, and academies for soldiers, sailors, and airmen who will be officers, as well as police.

That about covers it, I think. Someone else will have to answer further details; I went to a state school for my EE, and they weren't a big research school because we didn't have money for me to go to a big fancy school and my parents had faced me with a lot of problems while I was trying to get good grades in high school so I could get a scholarship. In addition, Ronald Reagan had stripped the California school system and destroyed the chances I had to get into college, the bastard. But enough of that. I did all right, but no fucking thanks to any shitass Republican.

[MrJonno]

It's seems a lot more granular in the US then and probably explains why you have a lot more graduates.

All 1st degrees here are in theory at exactly the same academic level and are 3 years (they do of course vary massively in reputation with a degree from Oxford and Cambridge universities going to be worth a lot more than one from say Coventry but they are the same difficulty to do).

Problem a question for Americans are these 'lower' tier degrees worth doing/funding?. We did used to have something like that through polytechnics were more of a vocational thing but now they are all universities

[Seth]

The plan, consisting completely of actions the executive branch can take without further Congressional interference, continues. This time college loans come under scrutiny; Obama will allow loans to be combined at lower interest rates (reasonable since interest rates are now lower) and start forgiving loans older than 20 years rather than 25; and reduce the required repayment from 15% to 10% of discretionary income yearly. Since college students are generally low-income, they will spend the money soon, overall, and the velocity of this money will therefore be high, improving the economy. Best of all, it costs nothing. That's why Congress doesn't get to interfere.

Read all about it in the no-doubt highly controversial and left-wing slanted Associated Press.

Costs nothing? Hardly. Who do you think is going to bear the costs of forgiving those loans exactly? Do you think the money came from the Money Fairy and the debt will simply evaporate because Obama wills it to be so?

Lunacy.

The taxpayers will end up paying for those defaulted student loans, and the lost interest on renegotiated loans, and the taxpayers will also get soaked again when the new crop of student loans are defaulted on because Obama has just told anyone who has, or will get a loan that the government isn't going to bother to collect on them, really, so what the students will get is a free college education at the expense of taxpayers who thought they were LOANING money to the students based on a PROMISE TO REPAY THE LOAN.

And Congress can interfere all it likes, because it's Congress. If it wants to, it can overrule ANY executive regulation simply by passing a law to the contrary and overriding a Presidential veto. And, the next President, who will not be Barack Obama, can undo anything Obama does as well.

Evidently you fail to understand the Separation of Powers Doctrine and the nature of the powers of the Legislative and Executive branches.

[Seth]

Make the colleges back their own student loans.
Let's seem them graduate idiots with nonsense degrees and $100k in debt then.

Now THAT'S a fucking GREAT idea! It's so great I may write a column about it.

But seriously, it is access to easy student loan credit that drives up the cost of college. Remember, if only the wealthy could afford college universities would lose 80% of their student body.

Yup. There's substantial evidence that tuition rates at many colleges are set to match the maximum available loan amounts for students.