[AnthonyMouse]

> Why can I, as an 18 year old, sign for a loan that _cannot_ be forgiven, graduate into a crashed economy, and still be held accountable for choices that impact me when I only had a small part in them?

Because you took the money promising to pay it back, spent it on something you wanted, and now it's gone and someone has to pay the money you spent.

It's like saying why can I, as an 18 year old, purposely drive a car into someone else's house, cause six figures in costs, and then be expected to be on the hook for that because auto liability insurance doesn't cover intentional acts? You're the one who chose to do that.

The price of tuition and the expectation that you pay back the money are not secrets kept from you until after you've already signed, or if they somehow are then maybe fix that.

[thatcat]

The money can't be spent on a house or any useful asset that could be resold. They wouldn't give you a loan for that at 18 because it'd be irresponsible since they know you don't know anything about finance or economics as you likely don't have an education yet. They'll give you a high interest credit card with a 500 dollar limit to buy what you want though.

[AnthonyMouse]

They give you the loan because the asset is you. In general if you get a degree, your future earnings increase by more than the cost of the degree.

The "problem" is that if you don't pay a mortgage the bank takes the house, but the only thing for them to take if you don't pay your student loans is your future earnings, which is just the thing where you have to pay back the loan.

[thatcat]

A educational program using "your future earnings" as collateral only really has a claim to some percentage of the delta between what you earn and what you would earn without the degree (after 4 years experience), which would incentivize them to not to structure programs in a wasteful manner or misrepresent the future economic value of a given program.

In many cases, that delta is negative. The school and lender should at least be forced to disclose that reality when you're filing FAFSA and taking secured loans.

[scottyah]

First, there's no way to track that.

Second, that doesn't hold true for other assets like mortgages so why would it apply here?

Third, the lender reaaaally should not be telling anyone what career they should do.

Fourth, If the lender and school made no claims that any degree would guarantee extra earnings, why on earth would they need to disclose the opposite? If you saw any marketing copy that claimed you'd be guaranteed more money you can definitely sue for false advertising.

At the end of the day, neither of those industries are guilty of more than helping rumors spread. There may be a specific person who felt ok to lie to you, but it wouldn't make it past their legal department.

[tartoran]

> Because you took the money promising to pay it back, spent it on something you wanted, and now it's gone and someone has to pay the money you spent.

How are they supposed to pay it back with a crashed economy? Look, I get it with personal responsibility and all that but these people were following the rules, did their part and now are burdened to their death while Big Co gets bailed out over and over and never learns responsibility. Why the double standard?

[AnthonyMouse]

Bailing out corporations went very poorly. They reinflated the housing bubble like they wanted to see how big they could make the balloon this time. I mean look at this:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1M8KZ

The peak in 2007 was the massive housing bubble that crashed the whole economy. Where are we now?

The only reasonable way to solve that is to stop bailing out corporations.

[derekp7]

Except that no one has been preaching at you for your entire academic life that you MUST drive a car into someone's house at 18 in order to be able to get more than a minimum wage hard labor job.

[AnthonyMouse]

But now we've arrived at the source of the trouble. Why are people being preached at to get a degree in subterranean cat washing instead of engineering or nursing, or for that matter forego a degree and pursue a trade?