[adastra22]

How old are you? That’s how I felt when I was younger. Now that I’m approaching 40, I have a really hard time thinking of anyone under the age of 25 as an adult. We may legally treat them as such, although that’s mainly out of historical reasons having to do with war and reproductive biology. But in 18-year-old lacks the capability for mature thinking that we characterize as “adult.”

I think it is entirely fair to say that the college loan system is predatory on people who lack the life experience necessary to properly evaluate the burden they’re taking on themselves. If a bank makes predatory loans to the financially illiterate, the bank could get in massive trouble. But for student loans no such provisions are made, and to make matters worse they are not even dischargeable in bankruptcy.

[OrangeMonkey]

Since you asked, I am positive I am older than you are.

I absolutely believe an 18 year old is an adult and they have their own free will and capacity to make decisions. They are not a puppet worked by the heavens.

That said - I think we agree more than we disagree. Let students declare bankruptcy and force universities to once again have skin in the game.

[marcosdumay]

> although that’s mainly out of historical reasons having to do with war and reproductive biology

It's because whatever age we start treating people as adults, they will only actually become adults a few years later.

But I'm pretty sure a large share of the actual adults aren't able to evaluate non-dischargeable debit either.

[adastra22]

Physiologically we know the brain keeps developing until age 25. In particular, the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for decision making isn’t complete until then.

[dsfyu404ed]

These people lack the life experience to sniff out a potentially poor deal because people like you have removed opportunities to gain such experience in the name of protecting them.

The average 15-16 year old has the mental faculties to function as an adult least as well as a "below average but good enough" adult. We as a society fail to give them opportunities to hone those skills.

People cannot be functional adults without practice. If we keep nannying people until older and older ages they will not gain proficiency at adulting until even older ages.

[howeyc]

That's a cop out. I'm nearly 40 as well, and I know I was making coherent financial decisions at 15. Expecting individuals to think rationally at 18 is completely valid.

I will admit though, a lot of my peers at that age were making dumb decisions, but quite a few knew they were doing so at the time, and did it anyway. Their concerns were not for the future, and they readily admitted as much. Facing the consequences later in life is the result.

[acuozzo]

> Expecting individuals to think rationally at 18 is completely valid.

How do you account for my case? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33318674

[howeyc]

You made a decision and are dealing with the results. I don't see the issue.

If you "didn't know" how to do math (I learned the math required in high school, perhaps you didn't), you could have spent an afternoon learning what you needed to make a decision affecting the rest of your life.

Here it is in 5 minutes:

30K per year, 4 year degree, 120K total.

Calculate payments of 120K loan with X% interest over term of Y years. Mortgage calculators all over the place will work as substitute if you can't do it yourself.

Decide if this is what you want to do.

[acuozzo]

> I don't see the issue.

I replied specifically to this: "Expecting individuals to think rationally at 18 is completely valid."

I quoted it within my reply to point out exactly what I was choosing to address; no larger issue, no hidden agenda requiring you to read between the lines.

I don't think it's valid to expect 18 year olds to think rationally about matters like this because it requires speculation.

18 year olds don't have 18 years of steady life experience to guide their predictions for the future. They don't have 18 years of clocking in and out at the same job. They have, instead, 18 turbulent years of childhood and adolescence, even in the best case.

With that out of the way…

If wall street can't time the market, then how can 18 year olds? Do you really expect them to sit down and accurately calculate projected inflation and the probability of various economic downturns?

What about the graduating class of 2022? Do you expect them to have accurately predicted a 40% drop in the value of the USD back in 2017-18?

What would be the value in their arithmetic if they hadn't?

[orwin]

You forgot about inflation, can you add it in 5 minutes?

[orwin]

You are ignoring the elephant in the room, and that's capital. Cultural capital.

I'm from a rural area. Luckily, i'm not in the US, so me and my peer don't have outstanding debt, but i was around when the "Revolving credit" (also called "credit revolver" in my country) came full force in my area. Well, actually, revolving credit were here for already ten years. The suicides came full force (hence "Revolver". Get it?).

All adults. Mostly women, but not only. I was 13 when the first one offed herself in my village. She was around forty, and i knew her kids. "It takes money to make money" and all this crap worked well until that time. They were rational: their parents contracted debt in the 50s and 60s to build their business/farm or build their houses. Why couldn't they do the same? But the inflation was 10 to 15% at the time. They had no financial education, and the only example they had was from a time where everybody indebted themselves and it worked well. We had shows talking about "lever effect" and praising how clever the company was to indebt itself.

Circa 2005, the procedure to bankrupt yourself in my country became way more accessible and nowadays the revolving credits are less predatory.

Still "Expecting individuals to think rationally at 18 is completely valid." have nothing to do with endebtment.