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by Tanjreeve 1619 days ago
>But that’s because such measures exclude the very asset the person borrowed to buy—an education that increases lifetime earnings. That’s like assessing a homeowner’s wealth by counting their mortgage balance but not the value of their home.

The value of a higher education that it's sold to young people with is the income it allegedly brings in. If that's the case someone uses the product and their income goes up then we already have a means to tax that income it's called income tax. If the product fails to deliver that income but the money is still taken (and as others mention in a non dischargeable way) then I don't see how that isn't fradulent.
1 comments
twoodfin 1619 days ago
If you think it’s fraudulent for the federal government to give a 22yo a $120,000 loan for a Master of Fine Arts program in theater, then you have to argue that such loans should stop. Only the rich or the beneficiaries of private charity will be able to access MFA programs—or perhaps the taxpayer should make degree programs like that “free”?

I think that’s a defensible argument, but it’s regressive in a different way from the status quo.

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padastra 1619 days ago
It’s arguably more harmful to give a poor person $120K in debt to study something that almost certainly returns little, especially as those same people (statistically) may not know that some college degrees are worth significantly less than others.

This isn’t fully fleshed out, but the government could set a cap in loans based on anticipated the future earnings. Johnny gets into Med School and wants a $400K loan? Great! Iowa Central College wants to charge $200K for a dance major? Good luck finding students to enroll!

This also has the benefit of placing downward pressure on college tuition.

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Tanjreeve 1618 days ago
If you're saying maybe something should be done with the cost of education and incentivising making it a valuable product rather than a way for middlemen to skim money off both students and educators who also haven't benefited from skyrocketing costs then I'd agree 100%. If the programmes are poor then the resulting failures and bankruptcies should be thinning out poor products same as anywhere else.

If some rich people benefit with valuable education (or the ever loved MFAs in this debate), so what? That's what income tax is for. The rich having skin in the game too is a good thing.

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