[ryzvonusef]

The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job... but the purpose of a college LOAN is 100% a job, and it's very important to differentiate between the two.

The whole point of the loan is to buy time; you don't want to wait for when you have savings to purchase the degree, you want to do it now. If you are not doing it for the job, then why the loan, what's the rush?

If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

But if you are doing it so you can start earning as soon as possible, when you are still young and energetic... then you are doing it for the job, and in that case the degree better be financially worth it.

You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

[class3shock]

"The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job"

Check the marketing literature for any college and you will find that is not true.

The only people doing degrees for knowledge and prestige are the filthy rich and while they may make up a significant percentage of students at the top 5 schools, they make up a tiny percentage of all college students.

The last point is where I end up aswell though and I think no matter how you look at it colleges are doing a disservice to young people and taxpayers pushing worthless degrees backed by government loans that they (the colleges) don't have to worry about repaying.

[Aurornis]

> Check the marketing literature for any college and you will find that is not true.

I actually had the opposite takeaway. The last university literature booklets I saw were all about the experience, the facilities, the sports, the events, and the fun. I don’t even remember if they included content about getting a job at the end.

[ThrowawayR2]

That seems to depend on the category of the institution? The websites of two R1 universities for CS I skimmed don't mention jobs but websites for two local community colleges mention career and earnings benefits front and center.

[Aurornis]

It does. Community colleges aren't big student loan targets because their tuition is lower and they're often more transactional with a higher proportion of commuter and employed students. Universities have become more of an expensive all-in lifestyle for 4 or more years.

[aleph_minus_one]

> The only people doing degrees for knowledge and prestige are the filthy rich and while they may make up a significant percentage of students at the top 5 schools, they make up a tiny percentage of all college students.

I already wrote it quite some times on HN: at least in Germany, where university is rather cheap, the situation is typically different:

- The really rich kids will typically have a "career on rails", for example because of family connections. They thus often consider getting the university degree as an annoying obstacle on their way towards a certain career.

- If you, on the other hand, don't come from a wealthy background, you better are very idealistic with respect to your chosen degree course (with the only typical constraint that it will not be not be some "useless degree" (including what is called in German "Orchideenfächer" (i.e. small, obscure degree courses for which there is often no real job market))). If you are not in deep love with the subject that you study, family and friends will likely "suggest" that you should drop out of university and get a form of tertiary education that is a better fit for you, such as Fachhochschule, Berufsakademie (both offer a much more applied tertiary education than universities do) or Ausbildung (vocational training).

TLDR: In Germany, typically not the rich kids get a university degree for their seek of knowledge (the rich kid rather often consider attending university as an annoying obstacle on their certain career), but rather the smart, idealistic kids from a less well-off family background.

[thisislife2]

That is interesting! Wish more countries emulated the German education system as affordable education (and healthcare) is a basic necessity and a human right. I especially like the German vocational training "earn and learn" programs - not just the paid internship part but also how the course content is 20-30% theory and 70-80% practical. India, in association with the Indo-German business chamber, has now started offering similar vocational programs. One major difference though is that in India, this is formatted like our 3 year Diploma engineering courses ( https://articles.findmycollege.com/diploma-courses-polytechn... ). Thus, after getting a Diploma, one can also aspire to complete a Bachelors in Engineering in 3 years (i.e. if you have a Diploma, you can skip the first year and directly join the second year of the respective engineering course). I was surprised that Germany doesn't offer a similar pathway to a Bachelors in Engineering for its vocational program students.

[aleph_minus_one]

> I was surprised that Germany doesn't offer a similar pathway to a Bachelors in Engineering for its vocational program students.

Germany does, though in a different way:

Normally, to study, you need an Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife) high school diploma from your school [1] to study at a university (Hauptschulabschluss or mittlere Reife (these kinds of high school diplomas are hard to translate into English)).

Recently, it has become possible that if you got your vocal training in a technical area and have work practice, you can also study for an engineering degree without gettting Abitur via an evening school.

[1] There exist exceptions like Fachhochschulereife oder fachgebundenes Abitur, but let's not complicate things.

[thisislife2]

But does it take 3 years or 4 years to get the engineering degree, after completing vocational training?

In India, you have two paths to earn a Bachelors degree in Engineering - the most popular one is to complete 12 years of schooling (i.e. high school), and then join a college / university to study Engineering for 4 years. Or, you can complete 10 years of schooling, and then join for a vocational Engineering program in a Polytechnic College. These are usually 3 years program. Once you get a Diploma from the Polytechnic college, you then become eligible to join the usual 4 year Engineering Bachelor programs. But, as you have already completed 3 years of Engineering study in a Polytechnic College, you are allowed lateral entry directly to the second year of the Bachelor Engineering program. This means that under both pathways, you get a degree in the same number of years - 12 years of schooling + 4 years for the Bachelors course = 16 years or 10 years of schooling + 3 years for Diploma Engineering course + 3 years for the Bachelor's course = 16 years. (Note that in both cases, this is in a regular day college, and not a part-time or evening college. Those who have done their 3 years Diploma Engineering courses, but also have to work due to financial constraints have the option to study part-time for a Engineering Bachelor's degree in evening classes too. But these usually are 5 or 6 years program if I remember right).

[aleph_minus_one]

> But does it take 3 years or 4 years to get the engineering degree, after completing vocational training?

You will have the ordinary amount of time at the university.

As I wrote: the time that you save is getting "(fachgebundenes) Abitur" via evening school, which was historically necessary. So you do save time, just not during attending the university.

In the vocational training, one learns practical skills, while the university is there to teach you the theoretical grounding. So, basically nothing that you learned in your vocational training transfers to university. There is a reason why vocational training vs university were historically two completely different and separated kinds of tertiary education.

[ryandrake]

The real rich don’t have “careers on track”. They don’t need careers because they and their descendants will be wealthy forever. If these guys are attending university, it is not because it is an annoying requirement needed to be an Investment Banker in daddy’s firm—that’s what the lesser rich people are doing. The actual rich are doing University just because it is an interesting side quest.

[rdsubhas]

I think everyone would have been up in arms had the OP said the opposite.

[ryzvonusef]

Perhaps I should have written it a bit more clearer, but in my mind I was comparing degrees with certifications. I feel studies/degrees that have an associated certification (possibly legally mandated) linked to it should have a different loan profile as compared to open-ended degrees.

Whether you are going to Trade school to become a Plumber, or Med school to become a Doctor; in both cases there is the study part (that may or may not issue a degree also) and then there is the certification part, and that certification part is what's important for the job and thus directly linked to it. You studied medicine but your certification is specifically for Cardiology, so THAT's you career path. Please stop looking at kidneys, you are disturbing the Nephrologist.

But ordinary college degrees NOT linked to certification, just have the study part... and there is NO direct linkage with a job.

An English degree can be done just for the sake of it, or to become a Teacher, or to become a Journalist or Author or whatever.

The degree itself isn't linking itself to one single career or closely related group of careers; they may waggle their eyes and pose innuendoes, but unless there is a specific certification, they are open ended, and that's deliberate by choice.

They WANT it to be open-ended because then the responsibility isn't on them. Oh you did Chemistry? Look at ALL the career options you have! We are just here to broaden your mind with the wonderful world of chemicals!

You might have the potential to become a chemist or pharmacists or a lab tech or who knows even a famous researcher; look at this example of XYZ who become world renowned in lithography machine lubrication who studied chemistry at this very institution! Or look at ABC, they now work at NASA, wouldn't YOU like to be an astronaut-chemist doing stuff on the ISS? Go forth, the world is your oyster!

The possibilities are limitless, and therefore the degree is NOT about the job, it's just about the education. Whether you end up as a chemistry teacher or a drug dealer in like Walter White is up to you.

And thus it's your duty to research, what job options do you feel are possible for you after the degree? and is a loan worth it for you?

Compare that with career-specific certifications, and there you have exact data of how many jobs are in demand and more importantly you KNOW you will be locked to a certain path and thus you (and the loan giver) can plan accordingly.

Sorry if this reply was a bit of a ramble, but I hope I was able to clarify what I meant.

[nradov]

I think you might be a little confused about how the practice of medicine works. State medical boards license physicians. Earning a license usually requires an MD/DO degree, passing the USMLE exam, and completing some amount of post-graduate training (residency). Once you're licensed you can legally perform pretty much any medical procedure regardless of whether it's in your specialty or not. There may be separate contractual restrictions on scope of practice imposed by insurance or employment agreements. Some physicians also choose to seek certification from private medical boards such as the American Board of Medical Specialties; this indicates that they take their job seriously but it isn't required.

[treis]

They didn't say license. They said certification which is issued by the relevant board. While theoretically a medical license gives you the right to perform heart surgery without the relevant certification no hospital will let you, no insurance company will cover you, and your license will be immediately revoked.

[nradov]

Medical licenses are not revoked based on lack of certification. There are plenty of working and employed physicians who lack board certification. Hospitals and health systems in areas with a shortage of doctors can't afford to be too picky, at least not for primary care.

[treis]

There aren't any practicing cardiology or nephrology which is the GP's point and my point.

[ryzvonusef]

Again, maybe I could have phrased things better, but I feel you are digging to deep into the analogy rather than seeing the broader picture that I was attempting to present.

The point was that certifying/licensing exams have a more direct correlation with a specific job/set of jobs than a simple degree, which are more open-ended.

[armchairhacker]

I'd say the purpose is usually to get a "career" i.e. good job, possibly as a paid researcher and/or professor.

[dragonwriter]

> The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job... but the purpose of a college LOAN is 100% a job, and it's very important to differentiate between the two.

No, the purpose of a college loan is to enable a student to pay for college with future earnings. It can be perfectly rational even if the loan/degree doesn't improve job prospects (and even more especially so if it doesn’t “improve” them in a purely financial sense that ignores the borrower’s actual utility function.)

The purpose of this test (like the special accounting rules imposed on the postal service) is not to better fulfill the purpose of a college degree or the purpose of a college loan. The purpose of the test is to increase the administrative compliance cost of participating in the college loan program as a means of stifling the program. Like the special accounting rules imposed on the Postal Service, its how you use the political power you have to chip away at a public program that you feel is too popular to abolish directly.

> You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

You have an inherent right to neither, but while any public policy must observe rights, it need not be limited to them.

[scoofy]

This is a fine thesis, but under this thesis student loans should be discharged under bankruptcy just like any other liability.

The previous poster is arguing that the underlying rules that block student loans being discharged under bankruptcy, generally speaking, mean that the loan is about a job, and not just about borrowing for education.

[atomicthumbs]

yes, they should

[someguydave]

But also the taxpayers and dollar holders have a right to ask for good management of their taxes and savings

[foco_tubi]

Individually-scoped education is objectively a good national investment

[nradov]

Can we quantify that? Does it apply equally to every college and major?

[foco_tubi]

Yes, of course you can. On average, higher education tends to produce positive national returns. This has been studied over and over and over. The selection of major and college is largely irrelevant. Even though individual returns vary significantly by major, institution, completion rate, and labor-market conditions, the average measured return to higher education is positive enough that most competent economists view it as a productive public investment.

[ryzvonusef]

> No, the purpose of a college loan is to enable a student to pay for college with future earnings.

Aren't you and I saying essentially the same thing? If you are taking a loan, there better be a job that helps pay for it.

[WillAdams]

I would argue that a child has a right to a certain number of years of education.

The best school which I attended divided classes between academic and social --- the latter were attended with one's age peers (so homeroom, social studies, PE, &c.) while the former were attended at one's ability level (with a cap of four years through 4th grade, so I was in 4th grade but taking 8th grade science, English, and history classes) and for older students, some teachers were accredited as faculty at a nearby college, so it was possible to take college courses while still in high school --- it was even possible to earn a college degree (or even multiple degrees) at high school graduation.

There was also a trade school track for students so inclined.

[bitmasher9]

> I would argue that a child has a right to a certain number of years of education.

I would also argue society is better if its people are more educated.

[quacked]

I admit this leans into pedantry, but I think it's important not to conflate "amount of education received" with "amount of knowledge possessed". In the US our people are more educated than they've ever been, but I wouldn't say they're more knowledgeable than ever.

I completely agree that the more knowledgeable a society is the better off it is, but if the education industry is allowed to prop itself up with the widespread belief that more years of education necessarily result in a better-off population, you get the military-industrial-style propagation of institutions, loans, debt, and wasted time that we're familiar with today.

[ndriscoll]

To that point, how many university educated American adults have actually read, say, Locke? It's been freely and easily accessible for decades, e.g.:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370

How many university (liberal arts even) educated Americans have read the Federalist Papers? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution?

[aleph_minus_one]

> How many university (liberal arts even) educated Americans have read the Federalist Papers? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution?

To give a counterpoint:

C. P. Snow. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures (overview)

> https://web.archive.org/web/20170508085255/https://www.rbkc....

[ndriscoll]

I don't think that's really a counterpoint. My point was that I get the impression that even those in the humanities seem to be losing familiarity with liberal ideas. So it's even worse now (or we've just lied to ourselves as we pretend to expand access to higher education).

[WillAdams]

Those texts were a standard part of grade school social studies when I was young, and my children read all in the course of a typical public education long before graduating.

[ndriscoll]

They might be part of the curriculum, but apparently ~half the country doesn't know what we just celebrated[0], so I somehow doubt they actually did their reading. It's pretty easy to pass or even do well in classes without really engaging with the material at all, even at the university level. Like I got an A in a philosophy course by just reading the professor's notes on exam morning and spitting them back out on an essay. I've still never gone back and actually read Grotius.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2026/07/03/nx-s1-5881451/cato-institute-...

[WillAdams]

Absolutely agree, and if we could work up a way for there to be endless education, I'd be down for that (and would sign up in a heartbeat --- I'd love to have the wherewithal to pursue a PhD --- one of my most favourite books is Roger Zelazny's _Doorways in the Sand_ and a big part of that is envy for the protagonist's situation, his rich uncle's will provides for his full tuition, room, board, and a generous stipend for so long as he attends his uncle's _alma mater_ which he has been doing for decades --- naturally, the story opens with his having been assigned a special advisor whose assignment is to get him graduated).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61998.Doorways_in_the_Sa...

[Bratmon]

I'm genuinely curious why you think that.

Like, how specifically has our society gotten better since High School became universal and college became the norm?

[WillAdams]

Not the person you are responding to, but please see:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870955

and consider how cancer used to be a death sentence and now, many forms are quite survivable.

EDIT: Moreover, what is the great benefit of vast swaths of uneducated peons? Do you really feel that the oligarchy needs more minions to sway?

>The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines which he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. --- H.L. Mencken

[blfr]

Is it? We have piled on tons of new years of education, are we that much better off as a society, more cultured than, say, the French in the 50s when most people had like 8 classes under their belt?

[parineum]

> are we that much better off as a society ... than ... the French in the 50s

Everyone in the western world is, including the French.

> are we ... more cultured than, say, the French in the 50s

That's a pretty meaningless question to me.

[ericd]

Sounds great, if you don’t mind sharing, what school was it? We have a couple of young kids that that seems like maybe a good fit for.

[WillAdams]

It was a school in rural Mississippi which was next to an Air Force Base and filled primarily w/ children of base personnel --- apparently it was changed away from that shortly after my father retired, I had thought because of legal challenges, but that was from the uncertain organic memory of 10 year old me of half a century ago.

[selimthegrim]

Was this Keesler by any chance?

[WillAdams]

No, Columbus.

[ericd]

Dang, ah well. Thanks for answering, anyway.

[WillAdams]

With the wide variety of charter schools which were set up, I'm surprised it wasn't tried --- I would really like to see this educational mechanism revisited and re-tried --- seems like a good fit for remote learning (remote classes are academic and done at ability level, in-person classes are social and done by age level w/ peers.

[ericd]

Yeah, good point, especially at the higher levels. Our public high school offered differential equations as the level after calc only because they randomly had a really exceptionally capable math teacher who was a teacher as a passion project after he'd made his money elsewhere, but most schools don't have access to that sort of capability. Remote learning could offer that sort of headroom in every subject. I guess local colleges sometimes offer that ability.

Maybe some charters do, I'm definitely not an expert.

[xyzelement]

// The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job

I think we are past the age where the folks who went to higher education were scholars in pursuit of some higher truth and a broad elevation of themselves. The percentage of people who care about that is very low.

As college became "a universal must." Nearly 40 percent of US adults have a bachelor's degree or higher, and obviously 40% of any population aren't inherently scholars.

So yes college today is primarily either "something people just do" (I believe this is the attitude that leads to proliferation of obvious worthless degrees) or at best "a way to get a better job."

An obvious internet-era reality is that a true scholar can find access to knowledge and like-minded peers outside the universe much more easily.

[ozim]

Really not fun part is that loads of office jobs can be done with high school education level where companies require a degree.

I guess it is because there are not enough office jobs and not enough masters/bachelors level jobs so we are all at rat race.

[nradov]

Right, economists describe this as a signaling mechanism. Most regular office jobs don't require skills beyond the high school level. But a college degree signals to employers that the candidate has some discipline and ability to complete tasks. That allows employers to cut down the candidate pool to a manageable size and somewhat reduce the risk of a bad hire. When labor demand is high, employers are quick to eliminate college degree requirements in order to fill critical roles.

[ozim]

Big corporations or decent companies are not quick to drop requirements.

Sweatshops or „Joe Shmuck” companies that will make you swipe floors after you finish filling in TPS reports are quick to drop requirements.

[red-iron-pine]

high school education is highly variant and, at least in the US, based entirely on funding from local property taxes; the quality varies greatly

universities are generally funded by other methods, and usually have real or practical minimums in terms of GPA and SAT/ACT requirements

put another way, someone coming out of Big State U may not be a superstar, but I can generally rule out the dumb-dumbs

[N_Lens]

Unless you specialize in Egyptology, which then leads to getting tenured somewhere so you teach Egyptology to others. A pyramid scheme, if you will.

[ryzvonusef]

I actually wrote Egyptology in my comment but then deleted it and wrote XYZ instead ;p

[sib]

>> The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job >> If knowledge and prestige is all that matters

I disagree. The primary purpose of the college degree is the job. If you don't need a job (which derives from the signaling factor of the degree == the prestige), you can just study the same material and gain the knowledge by yourself without getting a degree.

[bitmasher9]

Self study can only go so far, and often when someone self studies there are obvious gaps in their education compared to someone that entered a formal program.

Studying in a university has the advantage of learning from experts and being surrounded by people that are also learning from experts. This has significant advantages.

[newsoftheday]

> Self study can only go so far

I retired last year after a career as a software engineer for several decades, 99.99% self-taught. I'm not unique. I've known many others who did the same.

> Studying in a university has the advantage of learning from experts

Whether they are experts is something I highly doubt when thinking about all the graduates I interviewed and worked with over the years. In my experience, the better software engineers came from the self-taught route.

> being surrounded by people that are also learning from experts

Homogenized learning produces likewise results; the quality of the result is highly subjective and debatable.

[xboxnolifes]

Software engineering is a pretty unique field as far as self study goes. There are others since the dawn of the internet, but many domains dont have great online learning resources. And then there's labs and research.

[treis]

I don't think that's really true. Big ones like medicine and law have very well developed programs. To the point where something like half of med school students attend class rarely or never. More esoteric and less explicitly goal oriented fields aren't going to have as developed options but I doubt there's any undergraduate degree that you couldn't fairly easily mimic with self study.

The difference is that software engineering more or less doesn't use a comp sci degree to gatekeep.

[xboxnolifes]

Most undergraduate, and certainly almost all first few years of undergrad, could no doubt be replaced with self-study. I agree with that. I was mostly thinking science/engineering fields that need either an extensive set or expensive set of lab tools and machinery. Or as you bring up medicine, things such as autopsy and hands-on experience. And then there's just having people around (teachers and classmates) that push you toward thoughts you wouldn't even be aware of to think about.

Software engineering's main difference isn't even the lack of credentialism, though that certainly helps. The big thing is the core feedback loop of coding. It's short, has immediate feedback, and practically everything you need to become a good developer is freely available due to FOSS culture.

[ronjakoi]

I think it's best for universities to train their own future researchers. Research, science, and the university's own core goals should be the focus of teaching.

Anything that spills over from that can be jobs, industry, innovations and all that.

[rayiner]

> I think it's best for universities to train their own future researchers. Research, science, and the university's own core goals should be the focus of teaching.

If that were the goal then universities would have like 300 students. This function just doesn't require that many people.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Anything that spills over from that can be jobs, industry, innovations and all that.

Most companies are not interested in applying the trove of knowledge that graduates have even for the company's own economic advantage.

[Hizonner]

Few people can do actually do that effectively.

[grayhatter]

> If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

This is a nice idea, are you younger, or older? I find younger people say you have all the time in the world, where older people more often advocate for not wasting time, and to do it now. I know neither are arguments from your comment, but the context around the difference you see is interesting.

Other than compounding interest, why? Shouldn't everyone do what they find fulfilling as early as possible? Wouldn't acquiring knowledge earlier be as good as acquiring money earlier?

> You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

I find arguments like this incredibly stupid and shallow. The whole point of a society is to improve reality. The ability to do things together that you can't do alone. No one is owed a society, but we're all forced to live within one with dubious consent, (excluding people who've opted out completely from society). Just by the expectation that you'll obey the social contract, you're are owed the benefits of said society.

I *HATE* dealing with stupid people. I'm fine with my tax dollars being used to provide free education, at every level. To quote Stewart:

> How about this, you reimburse me for the [pointless war for oil] and [college education] is on me!

I've gladly payed taxes; and I'll eagerly assert that everyone does have the right to taxpayer funded education. It's what I want my money to go towards.

[RandomLensman]

If it is quite profitable to get a certain education, why would it need the tax payer to provide the loan for it? Shouldn't that be easy to fund from the private sector?

[HPsquared]

Student loans aren't your standard private sector loan though. They are a special legal category, which is why they can't be discharged in bankruptcy. All the usual borrowing standards don't apply either. No commercial lender would give that size of loan to an 18 year old with no collateral. The collateral is effectively a claim on the person's future earnings. What a crazy contract to have young people routinely pressured into.

[ourmandave]

You can discharge them through bankruptcy but it's not automatic. You have to prove repayment would cause "undue hardship".

https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation...

[whatisthiseven]

What that page doesn't tell you is the precedence courts have set for those tests is so high that nearly no one qualifies for them, and thus it is the case that the loans are virtually impossible to discharge even if it means losing your home and all your possessions.

[HPsquared]

Interesting, but that seems to be for exceptional circumstances ... A few hundred cases per year apparently. But maybe this route could grow substantially. Interesting reading-

https://www.ablj.org/bridging-the-student-loan-bankruptcy-ga...

[Spooky23]

lol no. They were designed initially so that law and medical students wouldn’t be able to skip out on loans as was common early on.

There are the paths out: repayment, death and fleeing the country.

[ClumsyPilot]

> The collateral is effectively a claim on the person's future earnings

Back in the Russian empire a person could buy themselves out of serfdom if they could come up with the money… which was difficult for obvious reasons.

And this feels like a modern reincarnation of the system.

It’s categorised as ‘ Unfree Labour’

[nekusar]

Its the same too with renouncing citizenship.

If you have federal student loans, you are trapped as being a US serf. And with usurious interest rates, you will never be able to buy your freedom.

[toast0]

Are federal student loans at usurious interest rates?

From what I could find [1], the caps look fairly reasonable. The unaffordability seems to come from the financed amount.

[1] https://mohela.studentaid.gov/DL/resourceCenter/DLInterestRa...

[selimthegrim]

These are for government loans. I really wish my private loan north of 13% was capped.

[arenaninja]

I'm not convinced it's necessary but it sure as hell is nice. I got through undergrad with subsidized loans and it was nice to not worry about interest while I wasn't working yet.

The private sector does fund some loans but I think the current program just needs re-working. Forgiving all these loans is a no-go so this measure is a step in the right direction. I'd like them to lock down the interest rate to 2% + inflation next. The government does need to incentivize a certain degree of higher education for innovation.

[threetonesun]

Assuming you’re not talking about a loan to do this (at which point you’ve reinvented indentured servitude), back when there was a smaller pool of college graduates it was easier to find a company that would pay for your education, some even offering bonuses if you completed it.

[RandomLensman]

Not sure I understand: why would a loan be indentured servitude if it funds an education (not binding employment etc.)?

[delusional]

If there is no expectation of future income or employment, and no collateral since you don't have any. Then who would lend you the money?

I don't think anyone is stopping the private sector from extending "student loans" if they were such a good business.

[RandomLensman]

Of course, there would be an expectation for loan repayment (most likely from employment somewhere). Is any unsecured/uncollateralized loan indentured servitude for you then?

[delusional]

If what you're imagining is a zero equity zero income dischargable unsecured consumer loan to 18 year olds, then nobody is going to provide that loan.

[techpression]

So company A pays for your education to go work for company B (their competitor) and all they get is a lousy interest rate with no security? If they don’t get ten years (or whatever amount) of your output, why waste the time and energy when someone else will do it for them?

[tyleo]

I think the point is that it’s so beneficial to society for people to get these degrees that we should lower the barrier even further. I think you are right that having the private sector fund it is a good base state, I suspect you’d find that you can improve on that base by funding it with some public money. We’ve probably gone a little too far in that direction though.

[beej71]

One thing to add to your argument is the cost of the degree, which is now 5x more (inflation adjusted) than when I went to school. None of these programs would be at risk under these new rules back in the day.

[Vaslo]

Very sensible take. If you want to study Latin American gender roles and it’s your own money, and a college can break even on its cost to teach you that, you should be able to. When it’s someone else’s money, the outcome changes.

[watwut]

There are not that many of those students. But oh boy, conservatives hate that kind of research regardless of how students do in the market.

It is ideologically inconvenient, because the whole premiss is that gender roles depend.

[braiamp]

> The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job

Superior education is the ladder towards self-sufficiency because that's what the labor market does, it requires you to hold a degree. Now, you may be right that the degree by itself doesn't guarantee it but you are ignoring that the students don't have any choice to do so. So your solution actually punishes the students rather than fix the labor market inflated requirement values. Fix the labor market and suddenly education doesn't have to be financed to allow youngsters be able to look after themselves.

[aleph_minus_one]

> If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

I think there is a middle ground: If knowledge (and prestige) is what matters, you avoid taking a loan. But even if you take no or a very small loan, it does not mean that you can afford to go the scenic route and get the degree slowly.

[delusional]

> If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

Do you see no value in young energetic people being educated while their brains are still maximally plastic, and society get maximal value out of the education? Is there no value in handing over our knowledge to the new generation BEFORE they act without it? Is there no value in knowing something the "free labor market" has not priced in?

Rights are something we grant each other. If we see a value in an educated public, we can grant each other the right to get an education. There are no "rights" in nature, so the statement "you don't have the right" is meaningless in matters of politics, where the whole point of the discussion is to figure out if you should "have the right".

Your inner world must be a dead hellscape if you believe that the only things that exist are "prestige", arbitrary "knowledge", or a job.

[ndriscoll]

Assuming you were educated, your assertion that natural rights are meaningless is a good argument to me that the project of universal tertiary education is simply not worth it. If we can't even get people to see that there's a difference in kind between e.g. your right to reciprocal force in the event someone attempts to take your life vs. your "right" to have people work for you to do nothing but attend classes (when all of the information is already free online, so really it's just social hour for years on end plus a credential), then the value of the "education" we're providing seems dubious to me.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

> Do you see no value in young energetic people being educated

This is what the public school system is for. Post-secondary education was not meant to be for everyone. But the world has changed and universities and colleges only service as the gate-keepers to degrees and diplomas that every employer now has required to get a job (regardless of whether that education is needed for the actual job). It's not that young people passionate about learning as much as they can in a given field don't exist, its that university is not about them anymore.

[LPisGood]

Why not expand “public school” to include post secondary education to reflect the realities of the modern economy?

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Some countries do in fact do this by making post-secondary education free. But the key problem is the artificial requirements imposed by employers to people to have degrees to do jobs that in no way require them. Instead a degree is used as a proxy metric, and like Betterbridge keeps hammering at us, it stops being a good one once the everyone abuses it.

[ndriscoll]

If a program doesn't leave the student [economically] better off, then it wasn't about the realities of the modern economy.

[LPisGood]

If we need to meet in the middle for now and only make all degrees required for jobs free I would be willing to do that, but I also won’t deny the obvious societal benefits to having a collection of people educated in the liberal arts.

[ndriscoll]

I'll go ahead and deny the benefits of widespread tertiary liberal arts education. I honestly don't see it working; if anything modern "liberal arts" seem to be undermining liberalism. Certainly it's not obviously beneficial.

I do also think we need to reduce degree requirements. e.g. it should not require a university degree to teach elementary school. If we actually allowed people to fail high school, then a diploma would more than suffice. Likely the same for most "any degree required" type of jobs. Then we should have merit scholarships for things that actually require the additional education. Engineers and doctors should not have to pay for their degrees, but it should be hard to get them, and most people will not be capable. That's fine; you want very competent people there.

Some credentials could also be granted purely through tests again. e.g. my mom self-studied for her CPA. Now you can't do that. There's absolutely no reason you should need school for that.

[ericd]

> Do you see no value in young energetic people being educated while their brains are still maximally plastic, and society get maximal value out of the education?

Eh, I’ve often thought that going to college would’ve been much better after a few years of building software in the workforce. I didn’t understand the “why” of going into a lot of the subjects I studied, they didn’t have much real experience to attach to in my brain, and retention was worse.

I think Waterloo’s mix of school and working is a pretty solid way to tackle this.

[delusional]

> I think Waterloo’s mix of school and working is a pretty solid way to tackle this.

We dont disagree at all here. I attended a university that did project based learning, where each semester was organized around a single semester long group project. That worked wonderfully well for me, and I enjoyed the more freeform learning environment immensly. Those connections you describe is exactly what I could feel forming as I tried to apply what I learned to my project.

There's plenty of room too for what we call "profession schools" that do placement in the workforce. I don't think that fits everyone, but it's not a "worse" kind of schooling at all, and some people really like it. It's honestly quite difficult to accomodate on the workplace side, but if structured well, it's great.

I'm not against post teens/20s education either. I'm honestly for all kinds of education.

[ericd]

Ah yeah, another good method. We had some project-based labs, and those were definitely some of the most impactful classes for me. But those still tended to be somewhat "synthetic" projects, and we'd never really used even basic professional tools like SQL. I definitely would've had more motivation to spend more time learning about databases, for example, query planner, how to build, etc.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree."

Are you a US taxpayer. Profile says you are located in Pakistan

[ryzvonusef]

I'm Pakistani, and I'm just stating the facts as I see them.

Many countries have free college education, but at the end of the day some one has to pay for it, and those are the tax-payers.

And frankly, if your country's tax payers are, for whatever reason, NOT willing to subsidise it (in whatever way or form)... what can you do?

It's not like I like this situation, but those are the facts. The wave of anti-social trend going in the west is because of this belief; tax payers in those countries no longer feel program XYZ is worth it... so it goes.

[selimthegrim]

I could ask you the same question about government schools. Why is it that my uncle could go to government school in Pakistan in 70s and get good education and that’s not possible now.

[newsoftheday]

> The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job

I agree, I think the purpose of college is supposed to teach students how to learn and the importance of commitment to lifelong self-learning. The output quality of graduates the past two or three decades suggests to me that doesn't seem to actually happen very much.

[jclulow]

I mean, says you? We live in a society and to some extent we decide what that means. I believe many countries outside the US have heavily subsidised loans or cost deferment mechanisms, or just outright government funding for school. Certainly in Australia you essentially don't have to pay back your HECS debt if you don't end up with a salary of sufficient magnitude, and then the rate at which you pay it back is scaled to what you earn.

[reactordev]

In the US, college is considered a privilege for those who can afford it or are poor enough to be granted it from poorly designed taxpayer funds. Then we set the bar for hiring to requiring a degree making it so that if you want anything above minimum wage, you’re going to have to get a degree. This is how the predatory lending prior to 2008 started with student loan debt. Glad to see that 20 years hasn’t taught us anything.

Other countries where University and Education are rights or are provided via better taxpayer systems don’t understand the pure chaos the US system is.

[codedokode]

There is always a catch.

We (Russia) have so called "free higher education" but it doesn't mean anyone can get a degree for free. There is a limited number of budget-funded places, and only students with better scores are accepted. For top universities like ITMO, you need to have 100/100 points on 3 subjects + 10 extra points for scientific activity to get "free" education. Otherwise, pay money.

Furthermore, within that government-funded quota almost half of places are reserved for olympiad winners and participants of a military operation, so the number of available places is even lower.

Of course, if you do not want to study computer science in a top university, the bar is much lower and you do not need to have the top scores. But then you will be working some job nobody wants for a low salary.

Furthermore, the government now puts a limit to number of paid places in cities like Moscow and Saint-Petersburg because they do not like that young people move to large cities to get an IT profession instead of studying in the college in their small city to work in the factory for a low salary.

I wonder what is the reality of "free education" in other countries. Can you get an IT, AI-related degree in a top university for free.

[jltsiren]

In Finland, the government and the universities negotiate on how funding will be allocated between the fields. STEM fields are generally easy to get in, while places in arts, humanities, and social sciences are more limited. When I was a student, cultural anthropology had the reputation as the hardest field to get in, with the acceptance rate usually around 2%.

[delusional]

> In the US, college is considered a privilege for those who can afford it or are poor enough to be granted it from poorly designed taxpayer funds.

Here in Denmark, part of the organized labor movements was also a focus on the duty of the worker to acquire new skills. That reframing of an education, of something you should be grateful for receiving, towards something you had a duty to continually pursue, is extremely important to how education is seen and practiced.

We've lost a lot of that philosophical backing, but that's one of the cool things of organizations. Even years after we've forgot why we've organized education like this, the gears continue to turn. I do think we're in the middle of a pretty frighting turn away from it, but hopefully we can fix that in time.

[anonym29]

>Then we set the bar for hiring to requiring a degree making it so that if you want anything above minimum wage, you’re going to have to get a degree.

While this may have been true in the past, this is no longer the case, and it has not been the case for at least a decade and change now, at least in the US.

If you are intelligent and self-motivated to learn in-demand skills, and you can demonstrate those skills, and adapt well to a corporate environment, there is a path for you even without a degree. Yes, not every door is open to you, but that doesn't mean all the good doors are closed.

I've been on hiring committees where I interviewed Ivy League CS grads for SWE positions who couldn't do leetcode easies, tasks like defanging an IP address, in a language of their choice, with clear instructions, active guidance from me, and permission to search the web for syntax (but not solutions), and an entire hour to solve it.

As a means of delivering credible social proof of competency, legacy admissions and grade inflation have all but ruined college degrees.

We live in era where essentially all recorded human knowledge is available for free, instantaneously, 24/7, from a device that fits in your pocket and works from just about anywhere, and this has been the case for my entire career. As of more recently, $20/mo gets you a personal 1:1 tutor that knows more than every college professor you've ever seen combined, is available to you 24/7, never judges you for stupid questions, never gets tired of re-explaining concepts to you that you're struggling with, will write a study plan / syllabus perfectly tailored to your existing knowledge and schedule, complete with links to reading material, generate interactive quizzes and tests for you, etc.

College as a means of delivering information is about 30 years out of date at this point, and college as a means of delivering a tailored education is now about 4 years out of date.

In the words of Peter Gregory, college has become a cruel joke on the poor and middle class.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> working fully remote for Google, also with no degree.

Aquihired? My understanding, is that Google is infamous for requiring, not just degrees, but degrees at prestigious STEM colleges.

Apple is known for hiring folks with patchy educational creds. They showed interest in me, a couple of times, and I’m as scruffy as you can get.

[Spooky23]

Old Apple was definitely like that, I worked with them as a customer and all of the tech people i was directly exposed to were “weirdos” (in the best expression of the word) from a background perspective, a lot of musicians by training in particular. They were all smart people passionate about their work.

My anecdotal 1/1 story re Google from a long time ago was they recruited me via a high level referral for a gig, went through an pretty strenuous (and interesting) interview process and got to the final boss for a vibe check go/no go. I was ghosted at that point. A lot of things could have killed that, but the dude name dropped his Ivy League experience no less than 5 times, so I suspected my attendance at Peasant State was a personal issue.

[reactordev]

I too have spotty educational credentials and for a while it was fine but once you hit mid 30s it becomes an issue for some people in executive power. Then there are jobs and companies that won’t even speak to you without a masters degree. I’ll admit the spectrum is wide but in the last decade more and more emphasis has been on where you went to school, not what have you done.

[anonym29]

No, and removed anyway because n=1 of me isn't a load-bearing pillar of my broader point, and came across as braggy in a way that detracts from the message I want to present upon a re-reading.

[sgerenser]

I have only a bachelors degree from a school ranked #57 in U.S. news undergraduate engineering programs (not terrible, but hardly prestigious). Google still interviewed me a few times (including back in the old days when that meant flying out for a full day on-site interview). I’m not convinced they really even looked at my college beyond seeing that I had a bachelors degree.

[ThrowawayR2]

Google used to have such policies but gave them up sometime in the '10s. A casual search finds: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013...

[ryzvonusef]

> We live in a society and to some extent we decide what that means

Precisely my point! Tax-payers/Voters (effectively the same thing) get to decide how much indulgence they want to give.

In Australia you are happy to extend the base, but in the US it seems they are reducing the base, and thus they are limiting options.

Some countries limit the indulgence not by limiting access to loans/aid, but by limiting available seats in university instead.

Ultimately it's up to the paying party how much risk they want to tolerate.

[metaphor]

> You have the right to a degree in XYZ...

No, you don't.

[ryzvonusef]

As in, you and the college can decide privately if they want to teach you XYZ in return for money from you. Getting tax payers to chip in brings in a 3rd party and then they have right to decide whether you get to learn or not.

[gottorf]

I think the GP's point was that the college is also bound, privately by accreditation bodies and publicly by a duty to society not to devalue the meaning of a degree, to not grant you a degree in XYZ if you fail to learn.

[whateverboat]

> You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

you said a lot of things with a lot of assumptions in that sentence

> You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree

If it becomes unreasonable/unfeasible to have a degree without a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan, then right to a degree implies right to that aid.

> unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

You are assuming that the only way a person pays back that money is by tax payer account. They could also be paying back that money by being a nurse improving people's healthy making population more productive.

At the end of the day, you are looking at this all wrong by being very ideological about it. You need to look at it from what's best for the country in long term.

[insane_dreamer]

That may have been true in the past. But in today’s world the purpose of a college degree is 100% a job — it’s the entry level requirement to be considered for almost any position. It’s basically the new high school degree. So we should treat it the same way we treat high school which is taxpayer funded to ensure as many people as possible get one

[newsoftheday]

> So we should treat it the same way we treat high school which is taxpayer funded to ensure as many people as possible get one

There are no college graduates I've interviewed in the last two decades, whose quality of output suggests to me college is something the tax payer should be on the hook for.

[Arubis]

I want my taxes to go towards a more educated populace, full stop.

[roenxi]

Then they don't need to tax you and you can just give the money to educational institutions. The argument for taxes is either "I don't think it is fair for me to pay for this alone since others are benefiting" or "this absolutely positively must be a group effort" (eg, the military).

"I want my taxes to..." is a generally a bad start, because the point of taxes is it doesn't matter what an individual taxpayers wants to happen to them. Most taxpayers want the taxes to not be spent the way they will be. That is why they are taxes. If people had an actual choice then in all likelihood they wouldn't pay them.

[dqv]

> "this absolutely positively must be a group effort" (eg, the military).

Which, by extension, means education absolutely positively must be a group effort, even if taxpayers can't understand the n-order effects of severing tax money from education. If society needs the military, then it definitely wants soldiers who understand figurative language so that those soldiers don't shoot themselves in the foot. Being able to communicate well, critically think, understand history - these all come from the humanities (although the learner must go beyond the entry level courses to benefit).

[Arubis]

Okay.

I want all my nation’s taxes to contribute to a more-educated populace and I’m willing to vote to effect this.

[ryzvonusef]

I do too, but you need buy-in from your fellow tax-payers/voters if they are willing to fund it also.

I live in a 3rd world country, and due to the limitation of our weak taxpayer base, we can afford to fund only limited number of seats, which are won by certain competitive exams, and anything beyond that is considered 'self-finance' (i.e. figure it out on your own). Your country will have to decide its own limits.

[lionkor]

This is such a shitty American take (or any of the countries that somehow decide the USA is a good model to follow), it's kind of baffling that this is a popular opinion and explains a lot of the social issues (or near lack of social system) you guys have.

You know that technically, people are allowed to have fun and not strive to be a billionaire, right? Its everyones right to pick a path they want, and enjoy, and if they end up providing a service with it, or just contributing to art or science, thats good for humanity and for society.

In fact, this works, if you look at capitalist countries with social support systems, free universities (or very cheap), and so on.

> unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree

Obviously everyone should make some money for themselves and pay taxes, but you're acting like the system falls apart if a couple ten thousand art students decide to live a bit more frugally and instead add to the local culture.

It's embarrassing that we are all part of the same species. Life can be so fantastic when your society accepts that you can just go study whatever you want, and then take a job in that field (or not). Individual success doesn't need to be measured ONLY by your contribution to the tax pool.

If you tax the rich and a couple large companies, spend a little less on harassing poor countries, your entire society can lean back and live a significantly better life. Instead you focus on reducing culture, removing any fun that isn't AI driven corporate data gathering slop, denying poor people health care, denying poor people an education, and leaning back and saying "well, they should try harder to contribute to society".

[tyleo]

I think folks would agree with you in valuing arts and humanities, just that they shouldn’t do it on someone else’s dime. I suspect you’d find that a widely held belief and not just an American one.

It’s hard out there and I have some non-college educated family who also struggled in life wondering why we should pour money into degrees people can’t pay off when they received no help themselves.

[atomicthumbs]

This sort of attitude is how you get a culturally impoverished nation.

[tyleo]

Yeah, I don’t know why people worry about feeding themselves when they could be reading books and looking at art instead.

[rightbyte]

> do it on someone else’s dime.

Money is just a social construct and the amount of tax dollars spent on classes in progressive tea pot clay handcraft is minuscule.

Non-tech academics were more or lessed forced into getting degrees by the job market.

There were no choice involved on part on the victims of a systematic issue, which is, gatekeeping access to middleclass jobs by the parents' bank account size with usury lending as some sort of pressure release valve.

[tyleo]

> Money is just a social construct

I'm not sure what you're trying to say but it hardly matters if "X is social construct" if having it is the difference between struggling and not.

TBH this is the exact thing that frustrates people who get screwed by the system, "Silly peasants! Don't they know that money is just a social construct!"

[rightbyte]

I am trying to say that the game is rigged and the profitability of different university studies is a very bad indicator of anything.

I don't know what to say to those "screwed by The Man" to make them feel better.

[beej71]

> amount of tax dollars spent on classes in progressive tea pot clay handcraft is minuscule.

Seriously. Our debt goes up by $1T every 7 months, but I'm sure dropping even all student loans from all education won't stop it.

I guess I get way more value from having artists in society than most people do. I get a lot of value out of city parks and libraries, too, both perpetual money-losers.

[nradov]

And yet many of our greatest artists never attended college at all.

[rightbyte]

Computer science is not about computers anympre than liberal art studies is about singing etc ...

[arenaninja]

Why not gather up with other like-minded individuals and fund scholarships and grants if you feel strongly about this? I disagree that taxing the rich is our way out of this. There's a reason the starving artist is a cultural trope.

Not only that but the higher ed industry has abused the hell out of this program. I'm close to people who were studying degrees they will never come close to paying and now they're $100k+ in the hole. The reality is that degree shouldn't have been available to them.

[lionkor]

> Why not gather up with other like-minded individuals and fund scholarships and grants if you feel strongly about this?

Because I live in a country where University is nearly free (like 200-300 bucks per semester). If the third strongest economy in the world can do it, I don't think it's necessary for the other top economies to pull it off without activism or private funds.

[LPisGood]

The reality is the degree should have been entirely funded by the government’s coffers. Funding arts and humanities education is so cheap and provides so much relative societal benefit that it’s a no brainer.

[nradov]

OK but how many? There has to be some upper limit. It's hardly fair to ask citizens who went to work or joined the military out of high school to pay taxes to fund free education for an unlimited number of liberal arts scholars.

[lionkor]

How is that unfair? They still have to work, you know? Free education doesn't mean that you get free money to play with, it means your college or uni is paid for. You still have to work to live, and that's not something anyone can change easily.

> joined the military out of high school to pay taxes to fund free education

If you think that's fair, and that changing it would be unfair, I'm not sure there's a basis for discussion. I think it isn't fair to make people go to the military so they can afford an education, in fact that sounds like something from a backwater 3rd world dictatorship that is struggling to get their military staffed, not a first world country.

[LPisGood]

The military industrial complex is a massive socialist jobs, housing, education, and healthcare program. For some reason it’s one of the only ones people on the right support.

[bluGill]

You are allowed to have fun. Do what you want I don't care. I don't even know you.

However if you want me the taxpayer to pay for the fun it needs to be a good investment for me. Otherwise I want to use my money to have fun myself.

[LPisGood]

Having people highly educated in the arts and humanities is a good investment, albeit not a financial one.

[bluGill]

I don't know. There seem to be a large number of people in the arts and humanities who are communists. Which I consider a terrible investment.

[nagaiaida]

dang, and here some us were doing it for free like suckers

[Zetaphor]

There's so many more things my taxes are being used to fund that I think the majority would agree are a symptoms of waste and corruption, that focusing on people getting a degree in the arts is laughable. The current cost of this war could have paid for decades of healthcare or education.

[mlrtime]

The post is full of inaccuracies. USA has more Art degree graduates as a % of population than Germany, almost double. It is incredibly difficult to get a subsidized art degree in Germany.

Only under 0.4% of the total yearly graduates receives a subsidized state art degree

[lionkor]

Getting an art degree in Germany costs you around 600 euro a year, same as a comp sci degree, a medical degree, etc.

Not sure why you need that subsidized. That's why it's difficult to find subsidies, it simply doesn't make any sense at all for 50 bucks a month (which includes, by the way, free public transport, bus and train).

[ryzvonusef]

I'm not an american, my profile clearly states I'm from the 3rd world.

My father grew up dirt poor, and a basic associate degree (gotten via his saving from a factory job plus a partial scholarship he won) changed his entire trajectory from being a random labourer to an white collar office worker with enough funds to educate his own kids, especially his daughters.

My father and my siblings helped fund my education, a privilege I'm very cognizant of, and I'm very jealous of countries with free education.

But as someone living in a country with a very poor economy and an even poorer tax base, I also have very realistic expectations in terms of what tax money purchases and what reasonable expectations one should have.

I desperately want an expansion in the education base of my country, but also realise the current tax payer base has limit on how much they can pay to purchase this expansion.

And this fact also extrapolates to rich countries, they may have more money but at the end of the day the math is the same, there is a limit to how much they wish to indulge.

In fact I'm currently applying for a chance to win a PhD abroad, which would clearly be funded by foreigner tax payers. I would be at the whims of their largesse to get paid to study, and if I don't win, it's clearly because they do not wish to expand this indulgence to me, a bitter fact I must accept with grace and move on.

I may cry and moan about it, but one has to be realistic about these things.

[selimthegrim]

I don’t understand how IK got elected so many times and not once did he attempt to increase taxpayer base. Is that Jehangir Tareen’s fault?

[ryzvonusef]

bro i'm not touching local political drama with a 10 foot pole

[_DeadFred_]

My country (the USA) just cut taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent by a trillion dollars over the next 10 years

https://itep.org/year-one-of-trump-republican-tax-policy-con...

It is not a matter of being realistic with limited funds. Tax income is not an act of God that we are helpless to control. We chose to lower the tax floor versus having a civil, functioning, improving society where people have something to work toward, optimism that their life will be better, and an ever improving nation. Instead we want social Darwinism pushing people down instead of raising them up (benefiting us all), and people too busy fighting for scraps to improve anything.

I don't recognize post 2000s America. And I don't recognize post 2000s 'conservatives'. They definitely aren't trying to conserve American values nor the American dream. They don't care about fiscal health (see above tax cuts). They don't seem to care about anything. They claim they look out for 'the tax payer' but only in a breathless, we have to do something about this right now, low information high propaganda informercial style reactionary jerking about bullshit kind of way, not in a 'we are building a strong civilization' long term, thoughtful thinking kind of way.

[frogperson]

Very well said. i wish I could give you 1000 upvotes, or better yet a real vote.

[mlrtime]

Message aside, I'm surprised your post is tolerated here. If this same tone was used against the HN group think it would be [deleted]. Be a little more respectful if you want to win minds.

[sscaryterry]

> purpose of a college LOAN is 100% a job

Wow, what horseshit.

[burpingtree]

Yes, this is slightly incorrect. The purpose of a college loan is 100% that the default rate will be low enough that the interest payments will provide a positive return for the lender. The expected default rate is given by the lendee’s expected future income. The majority of the expected income is driven by the expected job of that lender, but some of that expected income could come from other income sources such as investments especially in fields such as finance.

[sscaryterry]

It saddens me that you are correct. This is just modern rent-seeking behaviour.