[anamax]

> These loans should be absolvable in bankruptcy

The current bankruptcy rules wrt student loans came out of some experience with different rules. (For example, speciality MDs had some cute hacks to dump their undergrad loans, which were very old by the time they had money.)

How does your knowledge of those rules and that experience inform your proposed policy?

[HarryHirsch]

In the present environment it is people who got a worthless degree from a third-rate technical school, like Devry, Kaplan or the University of Phoenix that are saddled with student loans they cannot ever hope to repay.

The legal environment has changed, as have those who take advantage of it.

[anamax]

> In the present environment it is people who got a worthless degree from a third-rate technical school, like Devry, Kaplan or the University of Phoenix that are saddled with student loans they cannot ever hope to repay.

I know personally folks who have degrees from two of those three that were extremely valuable to them, degrees and education that made it possible for them to make a very good living.

Of course, my anecdotes aren't data, but I'm pretty sure that you're just bloviating from an even less sound basis.

That's not counting the tradesfolk (mechanics, plumbers, etc) for whom such schools are the only source of education. They were abandoned by the non-profits long ago.

I note that you ducked my question, so I'll repeat it

How does your knowledge of the bankruptcy rules and experience with past rules inform your proposed policy?

[HarryHirsch]

Kaplan's default rate is 17 %, Phoenix' is 13 %. If that is any guide, spending any money on that kind of school is a bad investment. For comparison, the default rate at public universities is 6 % and at private ones it's 4 %. (There are reputable for-profit colleges with default rates less than 5 %, so this isn't painting with a broad brush.)

Student loans need to be dischargeable in bankruptcy, because the only reason a bank lends to students at those places is that the creditor is backed by the law as it is currently written. If it were different the students would go elsewhere, the banks would have to find someone more profitable to lend to, and Kaplan-Phoenix-Devry would go out of business as it ought to. Society in general would be served better.

Training in the trades is a different issue. In other countries (Germany comes to mind) this is done by the employer, and it works well for them.

[anamax]

> Kaplan's default rate is 17 %, Phoenix' is 13 %. If that is any guide

There are lots of public schools with much higher drop-out rates. Maybe those folks don't go into default, but they're still paying for an education that they didn't get.

> Training in the trades is a different issue.

Nice duck, but until there's another mechanism for training tradesfolk exists, it is insane to destroy the one that we have.

And, I'll bet that German employers rely on outsiders to do the training. Either that, or the training is useless outside the employer. While employers may like the latter, it's a bad idea.

If German employers use outsiders, we're just quibbling about who signs the checks, not who actually pays.

[HarryHirsch]

> There are lots of public schools with much higher drop-out rates.

We were discussing what is appropiate policy wrt student loans in bankruptcy, not who else is a bad actor.

> And, I'll bet that German employers rely on outsiders to do the training. Either that, or the training is useless outside the employer.

Examinations are organized by the trade organizations ("Handwerkskammern"), who also set the curriculum. This is how training becomes portable between employers. Training itself is done in-house.

[anamax]

> We were discussing what is appropiate policy wrt student loans in bankruptcy, not who else is a bad actor.

You originally and repeatedly asserted that non-profit schools were far superior to for-profit schools.

Now we find that said assertion isn't true....

As to the German system, surely you're not suggesting that we abandon what we've got until it's in place....