Student loan bubble gonna go POP?

a reply to: ketsuko

Cognitive dissonance in action. You'd think there'd be a college course to educate people on how to avoid that, ya?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: TrueBrit


Ah, irony ...

Do you know who send the military out on these errands of which you do not approve? The government! The very same people you would like to just up and pay for everyone to have a college education.

If we cannot trust them to handle the military in any reasonable fashion, why on earth can we trust them to handle paying for everyone to have a reasonable degree of college education or access to it?

If the government are forced to pay every fee associated with university education itself, then they will not have as much money to employ terrorists and other assets with. I like that just fine. Put another way, if the NSA can lose a few billion dollars, and not be immediately liquidated, then they can fund university education for every potential student who wants a crack at the entry exam.

This is inconsistent. Either the government is trustworthy or it is not. You cannot have it both ways.

Btw, do you know WHY there will never be free college? Not even with a Utopian Unicorn Fart government? Because the government now controls all the loans ... and makes lots and lots of money off the tears of the kids it bilks for payments forever and ever.

That same government you hate for its military is also the same one who demands payments in perpetuity from the students who get their underwater basketweaving degrees from Harvard. And these two positions are entirely consistent.

Yes, they are. Have you ever wondered though, how under heel the government would become if it had to spend all its money on its citizens, not on employing the next Bin Laden, or the response to the next monster they create, if it had to fund things like healthcare universally, rather than selling its guts to private interests?

If it was prevented from milking the student body, if it was forced to provide instead of take, if it was forced to become actually useful to its people, rather than oppose their every aspiration with a pay wall, what do you suppose would become of Washington? I will tell you now, the lobby groups would run out of there so fast you would have thought their tail bones had spontaneously combusted.

Win, win and win. The is no downside to depowering government while empowering the people.

I worked for a well know Student Loan Provider a few years ago and it was a disaster. The process of approving or denying a loan was called judgemental lending. As an ex Mortgage loan officer, it was the complete opposite of every recommended practice you should follow in regards to making a lending decision. 1st of all, you had 11 minutes over the phone to render a decision. That's 11 minutes to review a credit report, review financial statements, review how much outstanding student loans they already had, what the new amount was they were requesting and ask them questions. A process that should take days or weeks to do correctly was being done in no more than 11 minutes.

I still remember 1 person requesting a loan of 130k. They already had 390k in student loans and were requesting another 130k to finish their schooling. They were going to be a doctor which is great and explains they crazy amount of loans. However the issue was that she was foreign, already had her own medical practice in another country and had no intention of ever working in America. So here is an American company giving over 500k to someone who does not live in America, practice medicine in America or help anyone in America. The thing was that if you were a foreigner, you were pretty much approved from the get go with no questions asked. If you were a single mother asking for 15-20k to be able to better yourself and provide for your child, your chances of being approved were slim to none.

This company broke every lending regulation there is. They made decisions based on the age of the applicant, based on the school they were attending, the subject they were studying and everything else you could think of. They used different terms internally to get around those regulations such as age being referred to as how "seasoned" the applicant was. If you were applying for a certification course, forget it. An architect or even an attorney, it was a long shot. If you wanted to be a line tech, a doctor or a dentist, your chances were pretty good. Needless to say I walked out on them, it was just too dirty. The place and it's practices are awful and I hope they go down in flames.

a reply to: TrueBrit

OK, serious question man.

Have you ever wondered though, how under heel the government would become if it had to spend all its money on its citizens, not on employing the next Bin Laden, or the response to the next monster they create, if it had to fund things like healthcare universally, rather than selling its guts to private interests?

Why not have a much smaller government which takes far, far less in taxes, leaving its citizens with more of their own money to do with as they wish: including spending on THEIR OWN education?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Because education and information are not commodities.

They are things which responsible people would want to spread as far and as wide, and as deeply throughout their societies as humanly possible, regardless of the ability of students to pay for the access to them.

ETA: Large government is fine, as long as it is a slave only to the population, not to a small number of financial powerhouses within that nation, or indeed, external to it. Effectiveness and responsiveness of a government is more important by far than its size.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: LifeMode

Oh that's fantastic.

I will tell you what... If you went to University as part of your USMC time, let me tell you what you ACTUALLY did. You worked for a government which sends its military to do things that should not have been done, to people who were paid by your nations intelligence community and political insiders, as well as others, to do what they were doing.

And while you did that, you got an education that should have told you what a crap shoot being in the military during the War on Terror is. Clearly you learned not a damned thing from your time in education, because otherwise you would not boast about it, except to warn people not to hand over their time, their bodies, their lives or their free will to a military which receives its directives from the political establishment or any other nest of untrustworthy corporatist bastards.

Most of it was dealing with natural disasters. I was only deployed once for war. As for boasting, I'm stating facts of how I earned a degree, nothing about rank earned or medals. That would be boasting. I could absolutely do that but not my style. I have the medals in a drawer somewhere collecting dust. I did claim one medal for free tolls but I don't feel guilty at all about it. Almost lost my arm, still dealing with it so if it saves me some money so be it. I earned it. Not a hand out.

Thing is, even if that didn't work out I would have worked offshore or worked in Alaska to earn a big bag of coin then go to school. No way I would ever take out a loan. I only get what I earn.

a reply to: LifeMode

You know what, I can appreciate the "getting what you earn" thing. I really can. I am running a business on a shoestring right now, did not take a loan to make it happen, and had literally nothing in my bank account to get started with.

But you have to understand, information, education... These are not commodities, they are necessities, for society, for individuals... Learning for its own sake is the most utterly necessary thing that any human being has ever done. Imparting knowledge to those who want it, purely because they want it, is what educators, great educators would love to do exclusively. Physics professors do not want to teach physics to kids so that they can grow up and work at a nuclear plant. They want to teach the young people who want to know about the quantum foam, BECAUSE IT IS FASCINATING! Do you know why they have that preference? Because the people they are teaching who love the subject that much, would take the data and do greater things with it, than those who simply want to be able to work the reactor controls better than Homer bloody Simpson.

Universities are where the minds that shape the future are filled with the knowledge they will use to get the job done. They are not supposed to be factories which produce working stiffs, gestation locations for worker drones. These are places where the technology of tomorrow is born, where learning and thinking which changes history are done. They are not meant to be places where profit is made, but places where the species is saved from countless miseries which used to infect and affect it!

They cannot be both, and for too long there has been far too much focus on making them a business. They are not. They never were, because knowledge is not a commodity, it is a necessity. To a mind worth teaching, it is as necessary as air in the lungs, and no one should be paying to breathe. If you would not pay a tax on every litre of air you breathe, why the hell would you pay for tuition?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: LifeMode

You know what, I can appreciate the "getting what you earn" thing. I really can. I am running a business on a shoestring right now, did not take a loan to make it happen, and had literally nothing in my bank account to get started with.

But you have to understand, information, education... These are not commodities, they are necessities, for society, for individuals... Learning for its own sake is the most utterly necessary thing that any human being has ever done. Imparting knowledge to those who want it, purely because they want it, is what educators, great educators would love to do exclusively. Physics professors do not want to teach physics to kids so that they can grow up and work at a nuclear plant. They want to teach the young people who want to know about the quantum foam, BECAUSE IT IS FASCINATING! Do you know why they have that preference? Because the people they are teaching who love the subject that much, would take the data and do greater things with it, than those who simply want to be able to work the reactor controls better than Homer bloody Simpson.

Universities are where the minds that shape the future are filled with the knowledge they will use to get the job done. They are not supposed to be factories which produce working stiffs, gestation locations for worker drones. These are places where the technology of tomorrow is born, where learning and thinking which changes history are done. They are not meant to be places where profit is made, but places where the species is saved from countless miseries which used to infect and affect it!

They cannot be both, and for too long there has been far too much focus on making them a business. They are not. They never were, because knowledge is not a commodity, it is a necessity. To a mind worth teaching, it is as necessary as air in the lungs, and no one should be paying to breathe. If you would not pay a tax on every litre of air you breathe, why the hell would you pay for tuition?

Utmost respect for you and anyone for that matter running a business. It's not easy. Probably one of the most difficult things a person can do from a financial aspect. I'm not bashing people taking out loans for education either. I'm fine with the loans. Just accept the terms when bad things happen...job prospects, economy failing. I paid a lot of dues to not deal with it. Now people want me to pay for the dues they are not willing to pay. I have a serious problem with that aspect of it. It's not fair to me.

a reply to: Lucidparadox

Our parents and the people who went to college in the 90's were able to follow the plan. Go to school.. get paid.

I don't mean to sound harsh but I have to ask.... If your parents went to school and got paid... why didn't they have the foresight to put some money on the side over the years so that you wouldn't have to go into tremendous debt to obtain a higher education?

To be candid, I think the parent part of the equation seems to be entirely absent.

I want to say that of course life can throw many curveballs at people. There are accidents and illnesses and worse that happens over 18 years. However, every expecting parent or parent of a newborn knows full well that in about 18 years their little bundle of joy will be of college age.

Why is it essentially assumed that everyone that goes to college needs to go so deeply into debt? Yes, there are and always will be "rich" people who don't have to "worry" about sending their kids to school. However, I don't understand how parents manage to raise a child for 18 years and put almost NOTHING aside for their kids' futures.

I'm not trying to say that my wife and I are angels, and we really don't have tons of disposable income, but our now 5 year old's college has been on our minds for years already. We had an account set up for that expressed purpose from before he turned one. Every payday we make sure to put SOMETHING in there. Sometimes its as little as twenty dollars. When overtime is coming our way it can go up to over a hundred dollars. We put it in slow-growth, low-risk investments and so far, so good.

Note: All this is not necessary aimed at you, Lucid. It was just your post that got me thinking.

a reply to: LifeMode

But no one is asking you to pay for it in reality.

They are asking the government to pay for it. Government should, if it wishes to be seen as reasonable and responsive to the needs of its people, do as it is bid, and use funds it already possesses, from allocations it has made to lesser pursuits, like war, like mass surveillance programs, and the like, to pay for it.

The banks got bailed out, despite being responsible for financial collapses so awful, that their like had not been seen since the 1930s. University students, the doctors, nurses, aircraft designers and engineers, physicists and great thinkers of tomorrow never collapsed entire markets by way of greed. Most of them are getting degrees because they want to bring the future and the present closer together, physicists may even mean that in a literal sense!

One of these groups deserves help but will get none, because their intentions are noble. The other did not have noble intent, but was bailed out to the detriment of entire nations full of people. How is that right?

originally posted by: TrueBrit

But no one is asking you to pay for it in reality.

They are asking the government to pay for it.

IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Jesus God where do you think those bastards take the money from? I'll give you a hint, it starts with T and ends in "ax payers."

a reply to: loam

THERE ARE NO JOBS BECAUSE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, CHINA AND MEXICO HAVE OUR JOBS!

When illegal cheap labour is stopped....when Mexico & China get heavily taxed...then you will start seeing employment go up.

On the other hand...instead of waving a sign out about forgiving student loans...they should go cut grass or paint fences while applying for jobs...do something. All I see are people who eat more than they work.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: TrueBrit

But no one is asking you to pay for it in reality.

They are asking the government to pay for it.

IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Jesus God where do you think those bastards take the money from? I'll give you a hint, it starts with T and ends in "ax payers."

I can not and would not speak for TrueBrit.... but this is one of the problems I think we face. People don't understand that there is not such thing as FREE.

a reply to: loam

I think they should forgive the debt if you can prove that you put the effort into trying to get rid of it (aka: maybe you were only able to pay 70% of it, but made regular monthly payments for 3 years). Another one that might lessen the blow to everyone else affected is maybe instead of forgiving the loan in full, they lower or remove the interest rate on the loan itself (meaning: You only owe whatever you are left with; if you took out 45K for a loan, then you only owe 45K...you'd still have to pay it by a certain time, but the amount will never go up).

I don't qualify for any of this forgiveness, but I can feel for some of these people that chose good fields, but cannot find a job. It's not that all of them are lazy, either: I have a friend that went for chemical engineering; all interviews he's been to wanted you to have "20 years of experience + the degree". He's currently doing fast food because it was the only job that would take him. He'd be one of those that would benefit from having the loans forgiven; let him start over and pick a more accepting field of study. I've only got 2 more years of surviving before mine are all done.

-fossilera

a reply to: fossilera

To the first part of your post, something along those lines could possibly be worked out. Although, I don't think a straight dollar to dollar payback is appropriate. If someone takes out a $45K loan I don't see how they could ever repay only $45K. There is a cost of the loan and maintaining the loan from the lender. Depending on the situation, it is also appropriate that the lender make some profit from extending the loan to begin with.

He'd be one of those that would benefit from having the loans forgiven; let him start over and pick a more accepting field of study.

Are you saying that on top of forgiving his loan, he should be extended another one to change his field? What happens if/when that one doesn't work out either? (Or, perhaps I misunderstood your post?)

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: ketsuko

Cognitive dissonance in action. You'd think there'd be a college course to educate people on how to avoid that, ya?

but then it wouldnt be as easy to brainwash them into subservience

originally posted by: eluryh22

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: TrueBrit

But no one is asking you to pay for it in reality.

They are asking the government to pay for it.

IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Jesus God where do you think those bastards take the money from? I'll give you a hint, it starts with T and ends in "ax payers."

I can not and would not speak for TrueBrit.... but this is one of the problems I think we face. People don't understand that there is not such thing as FREE.

Unless your a wall street insider with info.

originally posted by: Darkmadness

originally posted by: eluryh22

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: TrueBrit

But no one is asking you to pay for it in reality.

They are asking the government to pay for it.

IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Jesus God where do you think those bastards take the money from? I'll give you a hint, it starts with T and ends in "ax payers."

I can not and would not speak for TrueBrit.... but this is one of the problems I think we face. People don't understand that there is not such thing as FREE.

Unless your a wall street insider with info.

If you want to go after investment bankers that are doing dirty deeds... I'm with you 100%.

However, don't use one group's bad behavior as an excuse for further bad behavior by others.

If some bankers steal... it does not make it alright for people to steal from me.

a reply to: eluryh22

Wait... let me clarify I wasn't very clear my apologies.

Where does their money come from???

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: loam

Well one of the basics of democracy is equality.

No it isn't. The basic of democracy is majority rule by direct citizen involvement. The majority can (and will) overrule the minority.

Not very fair.

You might be thinking of socialism or communism that *claims* to be based on equality, but always ends up with one group of people being 'more equal' than all others.

Education should be free and available for everybody.

Not really. Something that is free is not as valuable as something that must be worked for and earned.

This is one of the battlegrounds capitalism vs. freedom/democracy.

Nope. This is the battleground of common sense vs. assumed entitlement.

Therefore they are absolutely right to demand not to be enslaved before their lifes even have started.

Maybe they should try things like
1) working for a year or two before going to school, deciding what they want to do with their lives
2) saving
3) starting at a junior college or smaller institution
4) get a degree in a useful vocation

...instead of complaining.