[kcmastrpc]

While I can empathize here as someone with no degree and a job at FAANG, it's hard for me to have a lot of sympathy. I put the blame squarely on these institutions and our government for this situation.

The institutions should be held liable for this debt, not the tax payer, and our government should not guarantee or subsidize these loans. Higher education is important in our society, but the situation we're in now is a complete disaster.

18-year olds taking on huge debt for useless degrees that can't be bankrupted, what could possibly go wrong?

[kgdiem]

> The institutions should be held liable for this debt, not the tax payer, and our government should not guarantee or subsidize these loans.

This seems fair to me. Many universities have tremendous endowments and should be in a position to offer financing to their students. The extent of government subsidy could be no tax on the interest gained from the loans they write.

It seems like the paradise papers at large and especially the connection to higher ed have been largely forgotten and maybe never fully acknowledged in the mainstream.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/universi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers

[ThrowawayR2]

Anytime you hear somebody claiming that university endowments aren't being used or aren't fully being used to aid students, you can safely dismiss their other opinions as being uninformed.

There's a lot of articles out there about what endowments are and the restrictions on how they can be used, e.g. https://www.case.org/resources/debunking-5-myths-about-endow...

[webworker]

> Many universities have tremendous endowments and should be in a position to offer financing to their students.

This is exactly why every time my university comes calling for donations, I decline. Sorry, but I'm not making a donation that you'll use to rebuild a stadium when you're setting your students up to graduate with six-figure debt. Figure your priorities out, whether you want to educate students or play tone-deaf real estate developer.

[lapcat]

> The institutions should be held liable for this debt, not the tax payer, and our government should not guarantee or subsidize these loans.

A lot of the institutions are government entities, taxpayer sponsored public universitites.

It's analogous to suing police departments for police brutality: it's not the police officers who end up paying (police officers don't have millions of dollars to pay out) but rather the taxpayers of the cities.

[caseysoftware]

> The institutions should be held liable for this debt, not the tax payer, and our government should not guarantee or subsidize these loans.

Yes. I'd have a lot more compassion about the debt forgiveness if they were enacting some plan to FIX the problem at the same time.

[lapcat]

> I'd have a lot more compassion about the debt forgiveness if they were enacting some plan to FIX the problem at the same time.

The problem is that typically the very same people who are opposed to debt forgiveness are also opposed government-sponsored higher education that's free for students, like higher school and earlier; likewise, the very same people who are in favor of debt forgiveness also advocate government-sponsored higher education.

I don't think there is a fix as long as higher education is treated like a luxury good. And if that's society's choice, so be it, but then I don't want to hear another word about so-called "meritocracy" when it's pay-to-play.

[nradov]

Higher education in subjects with poor employment prospects is a luxury good. If wealthy people want to pay out of their own pockets to study those subjects then go ahead, but as a taxpayer I resent being forced to subsidize students who just want to goof around and pontificate for 4 years. Where is the return on my investment?

To be clear, I am not taking an extremist position here. There is value in having an educated populace and students should have some coursework in a broad range of liberal arts subjects. But for college majors we have to be more pragmatic at both an individual and social policy level.

[caseysoftware]

When your solution to any societal problem is always "make it free!", maybe you need to broaden your thinking.

[lapcat]

What's your solution?

I considered the alternative in my second paragraph. You didn't respond to that point. How do you reconcile meritocracy with pay-to-play?

[caseysoftware]

"Make it free" doesn't work when costs are out of control, regardless of the product, service, or industry.

An idea solution would more closely connect the buyer (student) to the consequences of their decision (both good and bad) while holding the seller (university) accountable for the quality of their product/service.

Until you can address all three, there's no solution just pandering after the fact.

> I considered the alternative in my second paragraph. You didn't respond to that point. How do you reconcile meritocracy with pay-to-play?

Because it wasn't worth responding to. Most meritocracy has pieces that are pay to play. Maybe it shouldn't but acting like it doesn't is foolish.

The more interesting question is: How many students get a net benefit - financially, socially, etc - from college?

[alistairSH]

The more interesting question is: How many students get a net benefit - financially, socially, etc - from college?

From a policy perspective, the question we should be asking is "how much does society benefit from college graduates?"

If there's a net benefit to people attending college, then society should be funding it, as it's essentially "making a profit".

I also agree that changes to the funding model need to address the spiraling costs of attendance. But, I also believe much of that spiral is due to the funding model (near unlimited government backing and lack of dischargeability for the borrower).

[lapcat]

> Because it wasn't worth responding to.

If you're just going to be dismissive, why did you respond at all?

> Most meritocracy has pieces that are pay to play

Which other "pieces" come with a lifetime of debt?

> The more interesting question is: How many students get a net benefit - financially, socially, etc - from college?

Why is that more interesting?

[silverquiet]

I can say the exact same to those whose solution is to privatize everything. And frankly it seems like they're the ones who have governed the US for the last half century and the results do not seem great.

[caseysoftware]

> I can say the exact same to those whose solution is to privatize everything.

Health care and higher education have moved hard the other direction.

No clue if privatization would work here - not pitching that - but the current solution has failed us and the "make it free" mantra doesn't work as long as the price is spiraling out of control.

[silverquiet]

> Health care and higher education have moved hard the other direction.

How so? I have no option to get public health care that I'm aware of; it's actually hard to imagine getting health care without being forced to pay a premium to a private company.

[dansiemens]

> I put the blame squarely on these institutions and our government for this situation

Maybe we should advocate for some personal responsibility as well. Institutions may have offered dead end programs, banks may have financed it, but many individuals took out these loans quite thoughtlessly.

[silverquiet]

Systemic problems require systemic fixes; waxing on about personal responsibility might assuage your feelings, but it does not change the facts.

[pc86]

It can be both. There can be systemic issues but you can also look at someone with a Bachelor's in Contemporary French Literature or Gender Studies or Political Science (me) and say "that was pretty dumb of you." Being able to look at that objectively doesn't mean it's feelings but that was a pretty good attempt at turning that around.

[lapcat]

What's the alternative though? Having nobody study political science? Except perhaps rich kids, and having only rich kids study political science might be even worse than having nobody...

[pc86]

The world does not want for lack of Political Science graduates. It's pretty high on the list of "I have no idea what to study but I need a degree" choices, as evidenced by me gravitating toward it after successively eliminating basically everything else (except, ironically, Computer Science, which would have served me much better in hindsight).

Poli Sci is - perhaps not surprisingly - a lot like law where there are pretty good jobs you can get that the degree prepares you decently well for even at the undergrad level. The problem is there are 10 applicants for every one of those jobs, so they come with long hours and subsistence wages. It is objectively a "dumb" thing to do to bank that you'll be one of the minority who gets a job and you'll survive the grind long enough to make a decent living.

So there can be systemic issues where we make it way too easy for people who don't really care about politics, or gender, or contemporary French literature, to get a degree in that which is by almost all definitions a worthless piece of paper. And there can also be lack of personal responsibility on the part of that person when they've graduated a decade prior, have never gotten a job relevant to their degree, and think their debt should be forgiven because it's hard to pay it back.

[lapcat]

> The world does not want for lack of Political Science graduates.

I don't know about that. I think our electorate could use a lot more political science education. In any case, your statement takes for granted the student loan system. Would the world want for lack of polisci graduates if there were no student loans?

> It's pretty high on the list of "I have no idea what to study but I need a degree" choices, as evidenced by me gravitating toward it after successively eliminating basically everything else

That's just your personal anecdote. My personal ancedote is that I also got a degree in political science, and it was because I was genuinely interested in political science.

> It is objectively a "dumb" thing to do to bank that you'll be one of the minority who gets a job and you'll survive the grind long enough to make a decent living.

I would say objectively "risky" rather than dumb. It does pay off for some. Would you say the "winners" were dumb? Would you say that professional athletes who are now fabulously wealthy are dumb because it's "dumb" to pursue a career where most people fail?

[nradov]

Just to play devil's advocate here, what would be the down side if no one studied political science? The country managed to survive pretty well before that field of study was even a thing.

[lapcat]

> Just to play devil's advocate here

Sorry, I don't play with devil's advocates.

If this is your actual view, then just admit it, and don't pretend to hide behind an imaginary devil.

[silverquiet]

I got a STEM degree and worked as much as I could to pay it as I went (with significant help from my parents as well), essentially doing a "996" style schedule for years on end, and got out of school with no debt. In other words, about as individually responsible as it was possible for me to be. I don't think people should have to do that to get a degree either.

[jrozner]

I agree that personal responsibility is important and both things can be true. I also think anyone who believes our taxes are going to go down if we don’t bail students out is delusional. With that belief, I’d rather my taxes directly improve the lives of tens of thousands of people than funnel more money into defense contractors, poorly run construction companies that can’t build infrastructure, and other already wealthy people’s pockets who aren’t actually returning what I think is enough value to the country for what we’re paying.

[ElevenLathe]

> The institutions should be held liable for this debt, not the tax payer, and our government should not guarantee or subsidize these loans.

Isn't this just "dealer financing" but for college degrees? It's predatory in autos and real estate. Why is it a better fit for education?

[brodouevencode]

I too took a non-traditional route. My employer paid for my degrees, and they reaped the benefits of that. The whole notion of "you have to go to college right after high school" is rather ignorant.

[listless]

Ignorant is a bit of a strong word here. The reason why people index on college so much is they are looking at the data...

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/02/11/the-ris...

This is not to say that college is causal here, but it is a variable and at least one you can control.

The problem is that everyone wants to go to a nice college and live the dream. Nobody wants to do 2 years free at community college and then transfer to a state school even though the outcomes would be nearly identical as if you went to some high-end private university (ivy not withstanding). This is an entitlement problem, and the universities are exploiting it.

[randomdata]

> it is a variable and at least one you can control.

But that's the thing. You can't control it. Colleges aren't admitting you with that crippling mental disability you were born with no matter how much you wish it to be so. You aren't likely even going to be allowed to graduate from high school. And guess what? The economy won't put much value on you either for the same reason the schools don't want you.

Your idea that the kid with Down Syndrome will see his symptoms go away if only he manages to attain a college degree as poorly analyzed data suggests is a fun idea, and one I wish were true, but that's not how things actually work in the real world.

Only if you are already economically valuable might colleges accept you into their hallowed halls. Of course, that questions: If you are already economically valuable, why not delay college until you have reaped some economic rewards to pay for it? It is not like there is a rush for a college education. I expect there will still be colleges to attend when you are in retirement.

Of course, when you get right down to why people attend college, it is for the curated dating pool (even if they don't like to admit it). Yes, there is somewhat of a rush to find dating partners while you are still comparatively young. For sure, dating in your 80s isn't quite the same. But then that questions why dating requires such a high cost? Surely there is a better, more cost-reasonable, way?

[brodouevencode]

Maybe I didn't do a good job of stating my point, and my example reenforces that college is ultimately a good thing. So please let me clarify:

The point was that everyone graduating high school in the 1990s and onward were constantly fed this idea that you graduate high school and then do your four years (even if that requires racking up a ton of debt) that you'd live a successful, productive life making enough money to at least be comfortable. The averages are proving this to not only to not be true, but that debt incursion is causing major drags on the entire economy.

Incursion of debt without a plan of payoff is ignorant. No bank would ever lend money to you for a business if your business plan didn't contain sufficient enough detail of how you planned to pay them back. Working while in school (and thereby avoiding debt) is IMO the best solution to those who want to attend college but may not be able to get full-ride scholarships and aren't financially well off.

To be fair, many (if not most) university systems do not make this easy. Night classes are generally hard to come by, there are tons of fees that non-traditional students don't see benefit from, many coursework plans are so rigid to the point where pre-reqs will derail schooling for semesters at a time, etc.

[Traubenfuchs]

Putting MDs, computer scientists and religious science graduates in the same cohort, for statistics or arguments sake, is extremely misleading.

[yareal]

A lot of neurological development happens between 18 and 24, college is not just a practical skills education, it's also a space you're allowed to practice being an adult while that neurological development happens.

Ideally everyone can go to college and the costs are manageable and the counselors there help people understand what their degrees might be worth to them at the end of the process.

[caseysoftware]

> A lot of neurological development happens between 18 and 24, college is not just a practical skills education, it's also a space you're allowed to practice being an adult while that neurological development happens.

If true, asking people to make potentially catastrophic life-changing decisions prior to then is risky for them and predatory by the person asking.

And if we follow that reasoning, we have to reconsider many things we allow/ask sub-24yo's to do and provide them a way to prove they are able to make those decisions.

[nradov]

That hardly seems like an ideal. Many people, perhaps the majority, are simply not suited to college.

While I am aware of the research on neurological development I think some people are too ready to use that as an excuse for immature behavior. When Horatio Nelson was 19 he was already the commanding officer of a warship, leading men in combat and doing a pretty good job of it. And I don't believe he was really unique; many young people are capable of taking on adult responsibilities when necessity thrusts it upon them.

[brodouevencode]

Why would you take on any debt especially given that there's a chance you're not neurologically developed enough to understand the risks?

[yareal]

I mean, I'm out here saying college should be a public service that everyone gets and we all fund because it's a net good for our society for young adults. I don't think it should require debt at all.

[randomdata]

> it's a net good for our society for young adults.

Nearly 70% of Canadians 24-35 have a post-secondary degree and is considered the most educated nation in the world. For comparison, only 51% of Americans and 37% of Germans have the same. The trend is the same when expanding out to the entire population.

What net good is found in Canada that is not seen in the USA and especially Germany to the same degree? It is not economic. Canada is quite poor, comparatively. It does not appear to be political. Germany is considered much more democratic than Canada (Canada beats the USA, granted). It does not appear to be in, say, happiness. Canada is unhappier than both Germany and the USA. Cost of living? Haha. Don't even try to talk to Canadians about that. You will make them cry. Maybe health? Canada does seem to be more healthy than the other two. But is still not as healthy as many other countries that are less educated, so I'm not sure we're actually seeing any correlation there. I'm not sure there is correlation, let alone causation, in any of these cases.

So what is it? Let's say we implement your plan. What measures are we using to ensure that it is and remains a net good?

> I don't think it should require debt at all.

Indeed, it shouldn't. The idea that it requires debt is built on a false premise.

The utility of college can only be useful after you have established a clear goal and need to engage in research to achieve your desired result. Young people who haven't yet contributed anything to the world lack that. Interestingly, it turns out that those who are truly ready for college and those who have already saved up for college by way of productive efforts on the way to finding a meaningful goal are the same set. The reality is that debt isn't needed if college is to be used for the role it claims to serve.

But, let's be honest, the only reason most people go to college is to access a curated dating market. Here, there is something to be said about the people being 18 years old and not 45. Now, you might argue that should produce a net good (more children being born), but the data shows that is not the case[1]. In fact, once people get the uninhibited college sex (with protection) out of their system, it seems they are less likely to have children.

[1] In fairness, there is the perspective that fewer children born domestically with more immigration is the greater good. But at the same time these nations will only accept top immigrants, not any old random Joe who wants to emigrate, which is quite bad for the countries losing those people. As such, I am not sure this take is being honest.

[yareal]

To be fair, I genuinely don't know how to measure "is capable independent without trauma". I was independent at around 14, but that was due to having to survive trauma. My path was awful and I carry scars. I'd love for kids to have a space where they learn to work, pay rent and bills, navigate social environments, balance their budgets, learn and meet obligations, etc. But I don't know how to measure it.

[nanolith]

As a counterpoint to this, I went to college in my late twenties. I did this specifically to resolve some gaps in my knowledge regarding higher mathematics instead of getting a degree. It's certainly possible to self-study math, but the classes covered exactly what I needed at the time.

Anyway, what I noticed is that most of my classmates simply weren't equipped to study or pass these classes. It wasn't for a lack of skills: they went through the motions as they were taught. It was a problem of maturity. I was approaching these classes as a way to gain valuable knowledge. To them, it was a means to a nebulous end (obtain a degree). Their maladaptive behaviors, which got them through public school, were simply not scaling for harder subjects.

I got As, often perfect scores, on my tests. This is because I studied and did the work. I wanted to be there, and I wanted to excel, because I needed that knowledge. Credit hours were some silly "degree points" metric I didn't care about, because I didn't really care about getting a degree at that point. I was paying out of pocket to be there. I wasn't racking up debt or burning through a grant / scholarship to be there.

Empathy is another thing that gets stronger as our prefrontal cortexes mature. Our mirror neurons deepen as we get older. So, I took pity on these folks. It wasn't really their fault. From my perspective, they went to college too soon. They should've taken a decade off to grow up, like I did. I organized study groups for these classes. To sweeten the pot, I made it a rule that for every 30 minutes of hard work doing board problems, there was 30 minutes of socializing and venting. Then, rule 2 was that everyone did board problems, and new people were up first. I won't go into more detail, but everyone who attended the study groups started getting As on their tests. The results and the social aspect made these study groups popular. Pretty soon, most of the class was in these groups, and that made it very easy to work with the professor to get classroom time instead of schlepping to the college library or the public library for a meeting room.

Although these classes were requirements for engineers and medical doctors, most of the folks who I stayed in contact with eventually changed majors / declared different majors, dropped out, or got unrelated jobs after graduation. I also saw this as a problem with maturity. I knew exactly what I was doing when I started these classes. These kids were burning money to try to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Eh... that's a broken system. Kids shouldn't be saddled with debt nor should they have to make a decision about what they want to do for the rest of their lives before their prefrontal contexes have finished forming.

[alistairSH]

In general, the lifetime earnings for a college graduate exceed those of a non-graduate by in excess of $1,000,000. There is nothing "ignorant" about choosing college.

The debt situation isn't sustainable. But "go to college to earn more money" continues to be largely true.

edit - fixed a typo

[Traubenfuchs]

Once again: Counting MDs, computer scientists and religious science graduates as a combined group opposed to a "no college" group that consists of electricians and McDonalds toilet cleaners is extremely misleading, makes absolutely no sense and quite frankly, dumb.

One needs to discern between mostly useless degrees and degrees that almost guarantee a life in the upper class.

[alistairSH]

My response was to the comment that going to college as a young adult is "rather ignorant".

Slicing and dicing the data and making informed policies choices needs to be done, but a blanket statement that college is dumb is, well, dumb.

[rufus_foreman]

>> the lifetime earnings for a college graduate exceed those of a non-graduate by in excess of $1,000,000

Is correlation causation?

[alistairSH]

There's certainly selection bias at play.

If you look at 2-year degrees vs no degree, the lifetime payoff is still hundreds of thousands.

[derbOac]

I agree with you, but also think corporate hiring and HR practices also deserve a lot of blame as well. I think this is a big part of the antimeritocracy sentiment that's started rising in the US. It's not so much antimeritocracy as much as it is anticredentialing, and I'd go so far as to say debates about standardized testing fall under the same umbrella. It's a general pattern: take some thing — a degree, a test score, whatever — that bears some legitimate but also weak signal of skill, ability, or aptitude, and then mindlessly apply it as a criterion as if it were the underlying thing you're interested in.

If corporations and HR wouldn't use these kinds of credentials mindlessly, there wouldn't be quite the unchecked demand that allows universities and colleges to feed off of it, and we wouldn't have all these debates about student debt. I've seen it in practice in administration at large companies, making certain kinds of degrees required for positions that absolutely do not require them, even of people currently working very successfully in those positions (i.e., they have to go get a degree to maintain a position they already have), because HR basically decides it will make the company look good, and the management gets a monetary bonus for implementing it successfully as policy.

Debtholders get a lot of criticism on HN, but I usually feel very differently in these discussions. I have no debt, but it's hard for me to blame people getting masters in religious studies when they see people will other bullshit masters degrees in administrative positions basically because HR has decided a masters degree in something, anything, is required for administration. It's also absurd that we can see the value in a manifest self-taught computer science or math skillset but then somehow imagine that someone getting a degree in philosophy means they can't also have those skills.

There's probably a lot more that could be said about a general problem in our society, of using weak metrics and algorithms as if they were precise, substituting poor measures for the thing itself. We have these neverending debates about whether the test score, or degree, or whatever, is a valid indicator of skill or not, as if that's the actual problem; it's never that these things aren't valid indicators of something, it's how much of an indicator they are and whether we should rely on them so heavily. It feels like it comes up everywhere: educational debt, medical regulation, everything.

Reading stories of earlier times are really sobering to me. I'm sure there's a certain amount of survivorship bias in the stories themselves, but it never ceases to amaze me how often people would actually apprentice in positions, or actually work themselves up the ladder, or just show up at places and get jobs. That still happens today but it's like we can't function without a rubber stamp that has the flimsiest of basis to it. It feels like admittance and hiring decisions are basically nonsense in a lot of places, so rather than fix it we just play pretend with these proxies.

[ryandrake]

> If corporations and HR wouldn't use these kinds of credentials mindlessly

Keep going down the root-cause trail. Corporations would not be using "college education" to filter for people who are literate, numerate, and can accomplish basic tasks if high schools were graduating people with that baseline. But K-12 education is not doing its job, and a high school diploma is no longer a reliable sign that someone can even function as an adult.

[nradov]

Educational credentials are just an easy way for HR departments to filter applicants down to a manageable level when there is a labor surplus. They quickly throw out that requirement as soon as they have trouble filling jobs.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/

[randomdata]

> just an easy way

More importantly, one of the only legally acceptable ways. Most other filtering mechanisms that you can possibly think of open you wide for a discrimination lawsuit.

Which is problematic because an increasing number of people are attaining degrees, making it an increasingly useless filtering mechanism. We've recently started allowing DEI to try and fill the void, but I'm not sure that scales.

[Traubenfuchs]

> taking on huge debt for useless degrees

That‘s the one and only mistake here and for societies sake, it would probably be best to forbid this. If someone wants to take a loan for a useless degree, they are not mentally fit to do so.

[spywaregorilla]

You don't think it's their fault but have no sympathy for them?

[kcmastrpc]

The two aren't mutually exclusive, and that's also a misrepresentation of what I said. I believe I said something to the effect of I don't have a lot of sympathy for them

18-year olds make poor life choices all the time, but not all of those choices have repercussions which last 30-50 years.

[spywaregorilla]

Well if somebody is entrapped in a situation and you don't it's their fault you probably ought to have a lot of sympathy for them.

[pc86]

This seems good in theory but as someone who just started grad school in my late 30s I have forgotten just how Kafkaesque dealing with higher education administration can be. I'm in the midst of an ordeal trying to get an itemized $25 receipt right now for my employer reimbursement. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's been weeks, talking to multiple departments and multiple people in each department. I still do not have a receipt.

I can think of no scenario where letting these idiots manage financing for 18-year-olds ends well.