Should government make a profit off student loan debt?

[fskimospy]

Of course I would.

You might also ask why we should house people, or medicate people only insofar as market forces allow. Because these products have prices attached to them. Essentially, that's the whole role of prices: to ration scarce resources. If people want a house, or want medical care, or want an education, it is rightly their responsibility first to pay for these things. In a perfect world they'd be free.

Really? So you believe America would be better off if literally millions of children were unable to attend primary education? On what basis are you making such a statement? If you really do believe this is a superior method I'm going to ask you for some evidence to back up the idea that such an arrangement would lead to better outcomes than what we have today as it's an extraordinary claim.

So again is universal housing and medicine.

What are the consequences of universal advanced education? Perhaps one is that we have young people going to college for its social purpose (partying, hooking up, relaxing), sort of as a rite of passage. All on the taxpayer dole or at any rate at little immediate cost. Whereas they should be going out of a sincere desire to learn. What do we gain by sending people to places they don't care to go?

Funny you mention that, as the market still pays college graduates of basically all types significantly more than it costs them to go to college. This implies that the market thinks there are too few college grads, not too many. That means that for whatever negative things you think people go to college for, the market wants more more more and is willing to pay premium prices for it.

Does that impact your view on what might be happening in our colleges? Furthermore, can you explain a mechanism by which our savings from not spending on education will lead to a superior overall outcome and on what basis you would make that judgment?

 

[OverVolt]

My uninformed opinion: But you're still relying on regulators, local or distant. To me it's more effective to allow schools to grow only insofar as their income merits it. In other words, according to the market.

Yea you'd need a certain group to enforce that, like regulators or something. Crazy huh.

 

[OverVolt]

Why do you think that we should educate people only insofar as market forces allow it? Would you want to apply the same dynamics to primary education as well? If not, why are they different?

To me it is a no-brainer that universal advanced education is a huge plus to the country as a whole. The only question is how we should be financing it, not if we should be financing it.

I like systems like the one in Germany where they have a test to weed out the ones who are a good fit for higher education vs the ones who are not and the ones who are not are still given good opportunities in trades and apprenticeships, that way they waste less resources and money trying to educate people who aren't suited for it.

Its a balancing act between giving people ample opportunity to get an education vs wasting resources on people who shouldn't be there for whatever reason. We went too far down the path of "everyone needs a degree" I have all sorts of stories. Some guy outside microbiology was like "you passin man gotta get that C this teacher sucks and this class sucks" and I was like "yea man sure" just to get him to go away but I was rockin an A. It wasn't the classes fault like he was trying to make it out to be. There were people who were there for like 5-6 years in an endless cycle of failing and partying. The graduation rates are dropping badly. Lots of people are classified as having "some college" and they are bidding up the tuition and ultimately do nothing with their half-education.

 

[LegendKiller]

Why not?

I have explained, repeatedly, that the private market cannot absorb the $120bn/yr.

The problem is *NOT* the government loans, it is how the government loans are made. It is how *ALL* loans are made, government or private. All loans need to be fully underwritten and *ALL* student debt needs to be dischargeable, to a certain degree.

 

[Zorkorist]

The problem, is easy money (or the illusion there of.)

Since Government can borrow money at 0 points, and give money at -0.x points, all logic is lost.

You have fuckheads in government, driving our nation into debt, driving individuals into debt, and no one seems to care.

Regular they call, it. Normal, they call it.

It's very, very, wrong.

-John

 

[OverVolt]

The solution is obviously to grab a time machine and become a college administrator and laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[Zorkorist]

Or someone in Government...

With unlimited deficit spending.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

It's truly sick what Education thinks they can get by with today.

They couldn't care less, about educating people, but rather, how to get rich.

-John