The Student Loan Crisis: The Future of America is at Stake

I just checked my student loans and discovered that they're accruing over $143 every 30 days... So basically, I owe more now than when I started paying a year ago. What the ****!

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: olaru12
Education like healthcare is big business. It's capitalism...you got a problem with that?

Education is no more about teaching real world solutions than healthcare is about healthcare.

Neither of those are free markets. Their problems are entirely the result of progressive policies...

Free markets, lol.... supply and demand has been replaced by speculation. Perhaps "the chosen one" can take us back pre 1964 and fix everything.

originally posted by: trollz
I just checked my student loans and discovered that they're accruing over $143 every 30 days... So basically, I owe more now than when I started paying a year ago. What the ****!

The power of compounding interest. You should always try to pay something to at least cover the interest accruing.

a reply to: olaru12

It's not capitalism. It's cronyism. It is the golden parachute of leftist university administrators that will NEVER dry up because it's guaranteed by the government.

Healthcare has been on a downward spiral since Lyndon B. Johnson thought he could do better than the market. (Spoiler alert: He couldn't.)

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: olaru12

It's not capitalism. It's cronyism. It is the golden parachute of leftist university administrators that will NEVER dry up because it's guaranteed by the government.

Healthcare has been on a downward spiral since Lyndon B. Johnson thought he could do better than the market. (Spoiler alert: He couldn't.)

Then what is your solution to turning back the clock from crony capitalism to a more user friendly system.

Actually, I don't think it's possible with government MIC and corporate corruption in bed with eachother. Playing the blame game of blaming everything on progressives is pointless at this point, besides the neocons are to blame as well....play the partisanship game if it makes you feel better; The global economy doesn't give a flyin fu** about politics; However politics is useful tool to manipulate the intellectually challenged and to keep them consuming sh!t they don't really want or need.

howtheworldreallyworks.info...

a reply to: olaru12

I don't blame "everything" on progressives. But if you're going to tell me that the current education system isn't packed full of leftists and that they don't benefit from the status quo...well, something about beachfront property in Kansas comes to mind...

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: projectvxn
We never should have monetized education.
However and for whatever reasons.
College is NOT for everyone. That needs to be told.
We need better colleges, universities, trade schools....
And the education system is in disrepair....what are people even learning anymore? From Grade One to Advanced Degrees.
Thanks for posting!!!

The Chinese pegging the Yuan to the dollar at 6 to 1 has destroyed all our factories. The dollar is unit labor cost. Why have a factory in the US when a corporation can get 6 Chinese workers for every one American worker. Nobody can compete with 6 Chinese workers. Even the people of Ohio and Michigan who are the best workers in the World.

If you don't get a college degree you are a slave working at McDonalds. Why would you ever think students don't desperately know this and take on so much debt?

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: olaru12
I don't blame "everything" on progressives. But if you're going to tell me that the current education system isn't packed full of leftists and that they don't benefit from the status quo...well, something about beachfront property in Kansas comes to mind...

So the low-brow solution is to elect Trump because his campaign message of eff the ruling class has a lot of appeal. Trump won only because because he was the anti-establishment candidate. People simply HATE politicians. I'm really surprised we do not have more rioting in this country. Maybe it's happening all the time and the media just ignores it because they don't want to incite copycat riots by reporting it.

a reply to: olaru12

Then what is your solution to turning back the clock from crony capitalism to a more user friendly system.

We need to repeal a few laws first. One, the federal government should not be guaranteeing student loans. This is a component of this crisis that is driving tuition costs higher and higher. There is no risk in any of these transactions, save for the burden placed on the borrower.

The debt will always be backstopped and as I have shown, the federal government is willing to issue bench warrants for FTAs for unpaid student loan debts (something I've never even heard of until recently) since these are federally backed loans, we get federal enforcement with US Marshalls.

It's a backchannel debtor's prison system and it is getting worse. I say we end that too.

It should be illegal for any student to enter into loan contracts without an assessment for repayment potential based on the market projections for any specifically chosen fields. These loans should be reflected in the price and scope of the certification or degreed field classes, materials, labor, facilities, and other considerations focused on exactly what the student is paying for day to day. In this way you can actually reduce the prices of degreed courses because no one will issue a loan contract for 100,000 without a reasonable accounting of how it will be repaid upon completion of the degreed course.

This would also force schools to drop these nonsense classes that offer no economic value at all. I do not speak of liberal arts either. I'm talking about nonsense intersectionality, racist classes, and other divisive and wasteful "courses" that offer nothing but debt to the student and a pocket full of cash to the "professor" it keeps fat.

Dropping those classes and "professors" would open up money and resources/space for real arts and academics to thrive.

I'm in favor of freezing interest rates because, at this point, most of these loans will NEVER be paid off.

It's easy to talk about what tax-payers should and should not do. But we already created this mess, WILLINGLY, and then balk at the notion that we might have to take a knee to the nuts to fix it.

a reply to: dfnj2015

You will notice that at no point is Trump or Obama or any other politician mentioned in this. Because this has been going on a long while. In the meantime and since you bring it up, Congress is ginning up a bull# impeachment after 3 years of threats over the Russian Hoax, and all of that time that could have gone to start addressing these problems and more has now evaporated. Behind it leaves a crisis that is far worse than 2008 in the making. The government is completely exposed to it, which means WE are completely exposed to it.

a reply to: projectvxn

That's fresh, honest writing.

Sorry nothing cool to add. S+F

Yes its always been a USA type scam thing for you people.

Its infecting my country too.

Incredibly, 90%+ of Billionaires and Millionaires in the World don't have a "Degree" or most of them didn't finish their Uni courses.

Gates, Jobs, Zuckerman etc etc are all dropouts.

What they DID have behind them was they are all from Rich, Wealthly Families.....and had the luxury of doing what they want on Ma and Pa's pay packet......therefore could be creative, not forced to do some menial job, wasting their time and brainpower.

Maybe everybody should get a Million $ when they turn 21......and see what comes of it....

They money would still circulate in the economy, no hopers would remain so, but some Will get lucky and strike it big.

I read about Bezos and how he started his company...if he wasnt already rich being some great stock broker....
Apparently he asked 21 of his Friends and Family to buy shares in his idea for $50,000- each share......
Just think about that.....he had friends and family that were so rich, they have 50K sitting around to waste on someones crazy idea!!
His parents apparently bought $350,000 s worth.......

Well good for them all, they won out..........many many dont make it.

Money makes money.....in the old days, people with ideas found rich mentors to set them up.....still happens in a way with the venture capitalists.

So yeah, unless you want to be a Doctor, or scientist, or a specific career path.....University is basically a scam.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

It used to be that you could qualify through private lenders for education loans. That's how I got mine done. Then in their infinite wisdom, the federal government took over all student loans at the beginning of the Obama Admin to make college affordable. The predictable happened and now no one can afford their affordable college.

My private loans have been paid off. The private lender was very easy to work with in getting payments set on a schedule and terms we could realistically handle.

My husband went through government, and we're still fighting through those. They've ballooned in amount over the years, and the so-called income sensitive payments seem great until you look past the term and realize the payments immediately jack up an unrealistic amount. He got his long before government become the sole issuer of loans, so the problem has existed for a while. Government is inflexible because it's a large bureaucracy and they have no interest in you paying them off sooner. It's like taxes of another kind.

We'd be very well off if we weren't saddled with his government issue loans. And when government is the issuer of all loans, then there is also no downward pressure on tuition or fees either. The government is basically shifting money through a student middle man to the universities and earning interest on the deal through those loans.

a reply to: dfnj2015

If you don't get a college degree you are a slave working at McDonalds. Why would you ever think students don't desperately know this and take on so much debt?

This is a massive fallacy contributing to the coming debt crisis described in the op

a reply to: JinMI

This is how I'm certain some people actually took the minute or so it takes to read the post and who didn't.

These fallacies come up again and again because they are assuming that a college degree in China is equal to a college degree here. It is not.

They have a strict rote system of education. They are not innovators. We are running dangerously close to scraping up against that system in our colleges. Our elementary, middle and high schools are doing it already. We teach to tests.

It is, of course, all nonsense and can't possibly be sustained. But hey..."Get that degree or don't eat, right?" But this poster doesn't understand that there is a massive economy out there and you don't need advanced degrees to get ahead in most things. I have a tech/trade school education and work in a start-up biotech company building, testing, and evaluating, interesting circuits that drive interesting products. I do not have a college degree. In fact, I have no inclination to go to college for anything other than skill certs or maybe associates in something else that is technical for the resume boost. That can be done at a community college or private tech/trade schools for a fraction of the cost.

My wife's cousin got his welding certificate and went from making nothing to being a homeowner in 4 years in his trade.

I have a buddy that became an electricians apprentice and now makes more money in a week than most people I know in a month as a journeyman.

Trades are where it's at. Millions of jobs will go unfilled even during the bad years of the Great Recession. People have been told that the trades are a "low-brow" idiots way.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Supply and demand my dude, nobody is forcing them to take loans out to go to school, they are all willing and get upset when reality sets in. Maybe k-12 should focus on reality and not objective or anecdotal curriculums to help our children succeed? Just a thought.

a reply to: trollz

Did you not read or understand the loan conditions? You signed a paper, someone gave you money that you had to pay back under specific conditions, and you didn’t know how you had to pay it back? When you signed for that money the ONLY person/entity responsible to pay it back, and HOW, was on you the signee.

It is no ones fault but your own how that played out. Predatory lending isn’t a thing, personal fiscal responsibility if paramount to prevent you from falling into debt under normal circumstances. Personal liberty and all that, capitalism, free market blah blah blah.

The problem is pretty complex....Uncle Sam started handing out loans awhile back to make education available.to more people. The universities went CHA CHING! and started upping tuition costs because there was all this "free" money.

In the mean time....the guidance councilor system in high school is kaput so students and parents are signing up to 4 year degrees that make 18k a year....with 80k in student debt.

Student debt iz the only debt that is 100% non dischargeable. Even if one declares bankruptcy.

A large segment of these debt holders are parent and grandparent as well...and when tgey peg it....the debt goes to the child.


Anyway it parallels the housing crisis....except it 10x more money....and you cant sell it.

a reply to: projectvxn

What that poster doesn't understand is that there are far too many degrees you can get that only lead you to working at McDonald's or the slightly more hipster prestigious Starbucks.

The other effect of the easy student loan money is a proliferation of trash degrees that don't offer any return for investment in the real world, but they cost just as much as the rest. Another issue is larding down of all degrees with credits no strictly necessary to an understanding of the degree field itself.

A third problem is the degradation of the public school system such that all too many students coming into university end up paying university prices for remedial classwork that covers subjects and knowledge they should have learned at the high school level.

Sure glad I didn't go to college, this is one albatross i'm glad isn't around my neck