Student debt "Crisis"

[Kootenay Hunter]

Secondary education in the states is a big business....like massively huge.

Now if you business's clients can get guaranteed gov't loans to access your product....sweet...and you can charge 10's of thousands of dollars for something that most or world receives at a fraction of the price? Even better.

Like most things, when businesses get too big and predatory, the mile high castle of cards starts to fall down.

I have a degree, but I endeavored to start saving in highschool and worked every summer since I was 14, also took a co-op option during university which, extended my degree by one year, but allowed me to gain 20mo experience in my field and helped pay for the following terms. Not trying to toot my own horn, just saying that it was a planned event and I just didn't follow the obligatory 'must go to college now.....I'll figure it out when I get there" type of mentality which does get very expensive very quick. If you don't have a goal in mind which will get you a job, don't bother going. If you want to 'learn' new things...libraries and books are much cheaper

I agree with above, highschool is woefully inadequate and does not prepare kids for life. While I understand it's supposed to spark interest and expose kids to different fields, it's very narrow minded and somewhat designed to 'feed' the university system for those that can get there. Life skills, which seem to be ever increasingly lacking, are more important: finance, health, get a job, read, write, math, converse, research, observe, etc.

 

[eamyrick]

The college debt crisis is no different than the “debt crisis” that permeates everything in this country. Did you see that Stone Glacier now offers financing on packs?!?

 

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

-Just to add fuel to the fire-

disclaimer- I know not all women desire to be married and have a family.

My wife got a degree to be a social worker, luckily she had her education paid for as she was only making about 40K in a very high stress job. We met and were married with kids shortly after. She couldn't imagine having to leave the kids at home and go back to work. If she had loans It would be difficult to cover with one income in addition to the cost of a family.

We have talked about her degree and if it was worth it. She will likely not work for another 5-6 years outside the home and will be probably making about the same amount if she works in the social worker field. She wouldn't trade the experiences she has gained but thinks it didn't make financial sense. I wonder how many women have to go back to work because of student loans and wish they never went to school.

Obviously the value of family has degraded over the years and many women want the security of providing for themselves.

 

[S.Clancy]

Some interesting takes here. My experience is I have 2 degrees (Ecology and Civil Engineering). I paid for both with a combination of scholarships and working. Mom and dad weren't gonna pay for college (there are 4 of us). So far we have 3 college grads, a total of like $20,000 in debt for 4 degrees between us. The 4th is a sophomore at the real UW (University of Wyoming) on a golf and academic scholarship.

My youngest brother's interests vary daily. My advice to him was to get a degree in Math stuff, preferably engineering. My basis for this is if you like it great, if you dont like it then you can still get a real good job while figuring it out. I know several people who went to various grad schools and med school with engineering undergrads. My advice is pick something that is difficult and teaches you skills that are transferable to many fields, few know what they want to do at 18. The ones that do have a huge leg up. The strategy should be not to dig a giant hole while you're figuring it out.

 

[ODB]

-Just to add fuel to the fire-

disclaimer- I know not all women desire to be married and have a family.

My wife got a degree to be a social worker, luckily she had her education paid for as she was only making about 40K in a very high stress job. We met and were married with kids shortly after. She couldn't imagine having to leave the kids at home and go back to work. If she had loans It would be difficult to cover with one income in addition to the cost of a family.

We have talked about her degree and if it was worth it. She will likely not work for another 5-6 years outside the home and will be probably making about the same amount if she works in the social worker field. She wouldn't trade the experiences she has gained but thinks it didn't make financial sense. I wonder how many women have to go back to work because of student loans and wish they never went to school.

Obviously the value of family has degraded over the years and many women want the security of providing for themselves.

A great example. This is exactly what I was referring to in my other post.

We have some friends in CA, he is a rocket scientist (literally), his wife went to a private x-ray school for about 30k a year for two years. She got out of school, had a kid...two years later had another kid, and now, 4 years later, she has no plans on going to work outside the home. She has never worked a single day as an x-ray tech, not one. Yet still has the debt to pay off.

Like you found out, things don’t always end up as you think they will, and are subject to change on a dime...

 

[S.Clancy]

The college debt crisis is no different than the “debt crisis” that permeates everything in this country. Did you see that Stone Glacier now offers financing on packs?!?

I saw that, WTF? I guarantee it will result in more gear sold. I own 1 SG item, rifle carrier, and don't plan on getting anything else.

 

[mb6355]

The economic impact will affect everyone.

The current estimate is 1.56 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. You are correct, that money is coming out of the rest of the economy. And the statements about supply and demand being artificial are also correct. Take away the government backing and bankruptcy protection, allow the markets to price the loans and see what happens. A lot of these BS programs go away and colleges would be forced to compete pushing tuition prices down or least keeping them in check with inflation.

 

[ODB]

I saw that, WTF? I guarantee it will result in more gear sold. I own 1 SG item, rifle carrier, and don't plan on getting anything else.

Amazing isn’t it? My wife at one time had to be in two unions in Seattle for work. They would send out brochures for things like couches, coffee makers, shoes, clothes, about every thing you could find in a wal mart. You could finance it ALL (even a single pair of shoes) through the union! And take a guess when they sent these brochures out...Thanksgiving, to capture the impulse buying that goes on between then and Christmas. Yes, school debt is a problem, but the normalization/de-stigmatization of debt across our culture is even more pernicious....

 

[5MilesBack]

It's always "the government to the rescue" it seems, and that never turns out well. The government has no more business giving out student loans than they do getting involved in your healthcare or insurance.

We have lost that "independence and personal responsibility" that Americans used to have.......that Americans actually WANTED to have. Now it seems everyone wants and expects the government (federal, state, or local) to take care of them, while the rest of us just wants them to stay the heck out of our business and lives.

Just yesterday authorities here closed a section of river that is popular for surfing, especially with high runoff like we're getting now. They said it's much too dangerous for people to be out there. That's not your call! Leave people alone and let them decide if it's too dangerous. If something happens to them, it's on them. How difficult is that to figure out. Stay out of people's lives. If the majority thinks that "it's her body, so a woman can do whatever she wants with it"..........then the majority also believes that everyone has a body that they can do whatever they want with. Too dangerous is their call, not the governments.

It's rule after rule after regulation after regulation. We're tired of the King (i.e. government), that's why they all came to America. And now these days, all the illegals come to America for the "free ride" from our government. Just look at what CA is doing........now giving free healthcare to all illegals. Holy crap.........most Americans and Californians don't even get that. Our nation has become an embarrassment.

 

[MuleyFever]

But you do acknowledge that a significant chunk of the population who are in their earning prime are partitioning a significant amount of their income to pay for education and that there are economic ramifications because of this and these ramifications may very well effect you directly or indirectly now or in the near future?

My wife and I will pay around $20k on student debt this year. That’s a good chunk not going into the economy or our retirement.

 

[Poser]

I went to college in the mid to late 90s. Maybe it was the twilight of the golden era of college: I never had an adjunct faculty member, only full time faculty, though I may have had a grad ass’t teach a class or 2. (Having taught some college at different institutions as an adjunct where upwards of 50% of college faculty are now in that status, I can attest to not really giving a **** because it wasn’t worth the money to care).
So there’s that.

But, as a person of slightly above average intelligence who was woefully under challenged in high school, I will say that college gave me a Chance to be intellectually challenged as well as the ability to create a template for how to excel at anything I decide to excel at. Never really directly used my college degrees outside of some on and off college instruction, but I also ended up eventually teaching some higher level classes in a field which I had no degree in, but professional experience+ teaching experience qualified me for. I ran my own business for a few years, taught some more college, experimented with a blue collar, trade type job when times got lean, and now work in a completely unrelated specialized field where I am the only employee without a degree specific to the field.

For me personally, I believe that college served its general purpose of higher education. Very few of my peers from that time ended up in fields which their degrees prepared them for, but they are excelling nonetheless. Ideally, high school would have served that same purpose, but it does not. I never think about, and haven’t thought about in years, the specifics of my college degrees, only the general application of understanding how I learn to get good at something.

Tradeschool is a great option for certain people. I recently helped a friend’s kid apply for a Mike Rowe scholarship to diesel mechanic school. Military is a great option for certain people as well. BUT, there are still quite a significant number of career fields that require college, be it finance, law, medical, education, engineering, science, mental health etc. consider, for example, being a detective in the year 2019 and all of the technical and forensic study and knowledge one needs to execute the modern job expectations. And, being a detective or a nurse practitioner or a special education teacher, while these jobs pay ok, are we now expecting that only the people who can afford 80k+ for an education at 18 years old be the only ones to pursue them?

The american workforce increasingly has to compete in a global competitive market. On that front, we have to develop the ability to produce highly educated and highly skilled workers regardless of their fields and do so in a way that competes with other countries.
Whatever that means is, it will require investing in education for sometime beyond high school, be it start up money, military, college, tradeschool... whatever. We need scientists. We need soldiers. We need teachers. We need welders. We need entrepreneurs. We need translators, linguists and sign langue experts. And we need them to be good at their jobs and excel in life or this social fabric that we call America will fail.

It’s easy to get stuck in the “it worked for me, so it should work for everyone else” mentality and there is a lot of that going on in this thread. There are many moving parts and what worked 10 years ago may not work 10 years from now.

 

[jspradley]

There’s a lot going on here. As faculty at a large university I see this everyday and there are many angles to this problem.
1. Getting useless degrees while taking out student loans, by useless I mean a degree that will never see a return on investment
2. Many people at college shouldn’t be there.
3. High school counselors are telling kids and parents that if you don’t go to college you will never amount to anything.
4. Not having a career path or goal when you decide on a major
5. Parents that are in massive amounts of debt, so students think that debt is normal, and have no idea how to live within or below your means
6. Keeping up with the Jones’s. Students lease/buy cars on student loans, buy insanely nice clothes, eat out constantly, new phones, etc.

/professor soapbox

Exactly, everyone involved needs to take ownership.

Everyone wants to cry about "kids these days" well guess what buttercup YOUR generation made them this way!!

 

[Beendare]

Simple solution;

Require these folks to analyze the impact of those loans as part of taking out the loan.

A statement that your XXX,XXX student load will cost you X,XXX per month for 8 years when you get out of school will help.

I'm a firm believer in higher education- its going to make the world a better place.

I told both of my kids, "We are in a service economy and you don't need to go to college" I can help them get into the construction industry, plumber, electrician, etc- and after a 4 year apprenticeship they can start their own business and be making big $$$,$$$. People will always want their lights to come on...and their toilets to flush.

My kids took the college route....as the above professions didn't sound rewarding to them. I told them I would cover any expenses for college to whatever school they could get into- THATS costing me big time...Stanford, Notre Dame- but I think its worth it.

..

 

[jmez]

Supply and demand

Not entirely true. When gvmt is paying the bills on the supply side simple concepts like that go out the window.

The problem goes far deeper than student loans.

I would also encourage parents with children that want to go to college to think about it before they get into high school. Make academics a priority. Kids can come out of high school with 2 years worth of college credit through advanced placement classes.

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[cuttiebrownbow]

College is too expensive for that average degree. I have the average degree and I make average college graduate earnings and I had the average amount of student debt. I do have above average self control so that let me pay off my loans fairly quickly. Now I am completely debt free and just putting money into my retirement accounts and my house savings. Plus whatever I want to spend on new outdoor gear. (First Lite grabbed quite a bit from this year LOL)

College degrees are a dime a dozen and my company requires a four year degree to make 13 dollars an hour. There is now way in heck I would have accepted a job making less than 20 dollars an hour with a college degree and I graduated in 2010 when it was almost impossible to find jobs for recent grads.

I think part of the problem is people are so desperate to get any job because of their student loans they undersell their worth. Employers know that and low-ball the crap out of graduates. If I had accepted the first thing I would probably still be paying off my loans instead of enjoying western fishing trips, nice equipment and vacations with my girlfriend.

There are so many sides to the student loan 'crisis' and there is no magic bullet. Getting the government out of the student loan game and closing colleges would be a good start though.

 

[jmez]

Agree on the closing colleges. It is asinine that South Dakota has 6 public university's.

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[zach14]

Lots of good comments here.

A quick google search shows that tuition has increased 170-200% depending on in state and out of state over the last 20 years. Have wages kept up with that increase in tuition? Has the quality of education increased by 200% over the last 20 years? What these universities, and most are public, are charging should be criminal! A lot of blame is placed on the students for signing up for this, but the entire higher education system is a joke. Students are getting ripped off by universities and they are emboldened to continue because of the seemingly endless supply of cash coming in the form of student loans. I graduated college in 2014 with about $8k in debt that I paid off within 6 months, but my same degree for a student graduating in 2019 would have cost 50% more in 5 years! WTF! Give me a break.

 

[Billinsd]

Watch this, it will make you cry....

Colleges have become like resorts and the costs are soaring.......

I've been grooming and prepping my kids since they were little for a great university. They are both still young, doing their best and pretty well. Graduating from a well respected university with a "useful" degree is a long and difficult road. I should have enough money saved for them to go to any college they can get into, to get at least a 4 year degree. If my kids didn't have the aptitude for university work or just didn't want to do it, I would encourage a trade. The bottom line, is I want my kids to have really great career options and be gainfully employed after graduating. Bill

 

[dwils233]

The current estimate is 1.56 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. You are correct, that money is coming out of the rest of the economy. And the statements about supply and demand being artificial are also correct. Take away the government backing and bankruptcy protection, allow the markets to price the loans and see what happens. A lot of these BS programs go away and colleges would be forced to compete pushing tuition prices down or least keeping them in check with inflation.

Honestly this is the first real response in 4 pages to the original point of "why should I care about stupid college loans?" The similarities in the housing crisis and the current college debt crisis should give everyone cause for concern. Lots of other posts here have gone into the the various mechanisms that led us to the current debt-load but the truth is a pretty simple logic:

As a society for the last 30 years, we (including the government) have propagated the idea that a college education is of value to anyone and everyone who gets one, and therefore, everyone should get one. And to a point this is true, a college education has frequently proven to be the best avenue for social mobility in this country statistically. However we then we lowered the barrier (cost) to get one by offering student loans. Along the way we devalued a college education because it was no longer rare/valued, and have seen astronomic increases in the cost of higher ed (during the recession for example, to balance the budget, WA state did 14% increases year over year starting in 2008, that compounds pretty quick for a 4-year education). Of course once you are in college, you just eat those incerases because you already sank a ton of money into your degree program that you need to finish. And since we devalued the 4 year degree so much, now people need masters degrees or doctorate to actually have a higher ed degree with value, especially in the soft-sciences/non-stem tracks. Which just compounds further debt and further devalues a 4-year degree- unfortunately that doesn't make a 4-year degree worthless, it just makes it a new minimum standard for so much of our societal expectations.

I think anybody in this country could agree that our k-12 education program leaves people woefully unprepared/under-educated for adult life. So there is a place for post-secondary education for pretty much everyone, its just a question of how to grant access to it. Some well-rounded basic courses at a set rate from community colleges would be a great place to start- and should be required for any degree or trade program. These would be basic science, math, and humanities options to "finish" where our k-12 falls short.

Many people love to critique graduates with huge student loans who got "worthless degrees" and while there is room to critique those loans, I think its insulting to call a degree that isn't STEM/trade worthless. Something like Onx Maps wouldn't exist without geographers/archeologists doing huge lifting in the GIS world. Art majors are huge part of the graphic design and UI world. Major companies hire Anthropologists to manage international cultural relations and HR. Steve Rinella was a English major after all and look what the degree has allowed him to do. The fundamental problem as I see it, is that we allowed college educations to be commoditized- with an explicit value attached to some degrees and not others and then started charging the crap out of all of them while pushing the value of all of them significantly lower

 

[ODB]

Oh, and billion dollar endowments...look them up. Don’t give me the crap about “well, mr rich dude earmarked the money for a specific building, etc”. Universities have billions in the bank making them an assload of money. And these are the same universities whose student rail, whine, bitch, and moan about the 1%. It’s “be rich, act poor.”

And state funding...and tenure.... it never ends...