No you don’t. Community college is not that expensive, plenty of jobs offer partial or more tuition reimbursement, and if you get good grades you will have scholarships and grants available. You may have some need left over if you need housing but that’s where loans and a summer job come in. It’s not a free vacation to go to college and be housed there, need to do it with a plan. It’s simple to get a great education without needing huge loans. America is great.
I agree. They should be sued. Of course it’s incredibly hard to prove and even harder to sue someone you like. And lawsuits where neither side has money are tricky.
Probably universities or departments as a whole should be sued.
17 year old you should be able to default on student loans and get a clean slate, like any other kind of debt. If student loans worked exactly like regular loans (e.g you could declare bankruptcy, they weren't subsidized, etc.) then no one would give 17 year old you a loan unless you were statistically likely to be able to repay it (i.e majoring in something with good outcomes at a half-decent university). AND schools wouldn't expect you to be able to pull out 50k/year, they would have to adjust tuition accordingly, and we wouldn't have this crazy university tuition inflation.
We're in this mess because federal student loans live in a bizarro world where they're not subject to any of the normal market forces, checks, and balances that make regular debt work well for society. They are handed out without any kind of real due-diligence, and have absolutely no incentive to be good investments.
If we want to redistribute wealth to invest in education, that's fantastic, but we should just give it in the form of grants, scholarships, or (only in my dreams) some free regional federal universities and technical colleges. Instead we tried to play with the market and got burned, which isn't surprising to anyone with who has studied economics.
> they had to [take a huge loan] in order to study.
This isn't true. If you go to a state school and work part time to cover your living expenses, you can get an undergrad degree very cheap. And the most prestigious of private schools (e.g. Ivy league) offer very generous needs-based scholarships, so if you come from a poor family you don't have to pay.
You "have to" get a huge loan if you choose to attend a very expensive private school that won't give you a needs-based scholarship. But nobody has to do that, it's a choice some people make. It's a decision made by naive kids straight out of highschool so I still have some sympathy, but this narrative of necessarily having to take huge loans is part of the problem and helps to normalize this. The belief that huge loans are necessary in America is wrong and contributes to the real problem.
> The 2021-22 average tuition and fees sticker price for full-time, in-state students at public four-year colleges ranged from a low of $6,100 in Wyoming to a high of $17,750 in Vermont.
> Following Wyoming, the least expensive states were Florida ($6,370), Montana ($7,265), Utah ($7,387), and North Carolina ($7,389).
> After Vermont, the most expensive states for four-year universities were New Hampshire ($17,040), Pennsylvania ($15,312), New Jersey ($14,963), and Illinois ($14,667).
> Over the past five years, average in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions fell in 18 states after adjusting for inflation. During that same time period, only six states (Alaska, Connecticut, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon and Rhode Island) saw their average in-state tuition increase by 10% or more.
> According to the report, in 2019-20, 75% of first-time, full-time students attending public two-year colleges received federal, state or institutional grant aid. At public four-year universities, 78% of students were awarded such aid.
> The average net tuition and fees paid by first-time, full-time in-state students at public four-year institutions was estimated to be $2,640, the lowest it’s been since 2006-07, down more than a $1,000 from a peak in 2012-13 of $3,720 (in 2021 dollars).
Finding for state schools has dropped so low many private schools are cheaper than state schools. That doesn’t mean all schools are unaffordable without loans, living at home while going to school can make a huge difference.
But scool for some doesn’t mean there’s no problem.
VT is certainly more expensive than the national average, but that $32k figure is the sticker price, not net tuition. Net tuition is what actually counts when you're talking about how much debt students will incur. Everybody is made to apply for financial assistance, grants and scholarships, etc etc. Nobody pays the sticker price unless their family is quite wealthy. The Virginia Guaranteed Assistance Program is a state funded needs-based grant for in-state students with very low performance requirements (keep your GPA above 2.0.) Depending on your degree of need, they will pay up to the full tuition price, including all required fees and book costs.
> summer expenses
Cost of living expenses will be incurred whether you go to college or not. Regardless, most people go home for the summer and 'mooch' off their parents. Summer is also a good time to find an internship. With good internships you can pay off much of your debt before you even graduate. If good internships don't exist for whatever you're studying, that should be taken as a warning..
My part time job paid me 7.50/hr, federal minimum wage. At the end of each semester I didn’t even have enough to pay for my “technology fee” much less my living expenses.
> The average net tuition and fees paid by first-time, full-time in-state students at public four-year institutions was estimated to be $2,640, the lowest it’s been since 2006-07, down more than a $1,000 from a peak in 2012-13 of $3,720 (in 2021 dollars).
Even if you have to take out a loan while attending a state school, it doesn't have to be a huge loan. And even a crappy part-time job will reduce that burden, even if it doesn't cover your tuition fully.