cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21841560
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Late Stage Capitalism
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University costs are also one of the few things that have far out paced inflation, and wages for decades. It's not about getting handouts, it's about not saddling an entire generation with debt they never should have had in the first place.
p.s., it's not "intellectual" to oppose this. You're just an ass.
Starting at the bottom...
I'm curious that it makes me an ass to believe that no matter who your are, you should pay your debts. That goes for banks, industries, farmers, and students.
As I mentioned in another comment. I do believe the law needs to be changed to make student loans dischargeable in a bankruptcy.
The rest of your comment will take a lengthy reply, so I hope you stick around.
You are correct that education has far outpaced the rest of the economy when it comes to inflation. I believe there are two factors at work there.
First, we have glorified education at the expense of the trades. I grew up in the 70s and the roots of that were already beginning to take hold. The adults around me praised and respected (though that's not quite the right word) the "educated". They would say things like "if you want to amount to anything you need a college education!" While at the same time complaining about what the plumber, or electrician, or mechanic charged them.
When I went to high school I went to a school that had been "boys only" (a bad thing) until shortly before I started in 1977. They taught the trades. In fact I had to take eight introductory courses in various trades my Freshman and Sophomore years (a very good thing).
But educators bit on the whole "if you don't go to college, you will suck as a human being" thinking. Parents of course want what's best for their children, so they pushed their kids into colleges. Many of those kids would have been far happier elsewhere.
As an aside, my high school still exists, but I don't think you'll learn the trades there anymore (I may be won't about that as I haven't paid attention in many years, but I think I'm on pretty solid ground with my claim.)
More customers competing for limited resources raises prices. That said, it's not the main culprit.
The main culprit is the fact that there is no means-testing for student loans. Need a loan to go to school? Here's a check.
There was no financial pressure for universities to constrain costs. They knew that lenders would pay for someone's schooling regardless of cost, because those lenders had absolutely no risk!
This created a horrible downward spiral. Too many highly educated individuals competing for too few jobs has created a morass that will take generations at least to resolve.
We have too many highly educated folk, and too few folk willing to do manual labor in the trades. I can't count the number of trades people who have told me that they just can't find good help!
Of course too few people working in the trades has created another sort of inflation. That in turn impacts all of society.
I dont quite get how you can write all that out, and even admit that student loans are predatory and then turn around and say, whelp, you signed up for these loans when you were a kid, so you should just buck up and pay them..
Because "i grew up in the 70's" that's why. They didn't witness it first hand, so they don't fully realize the extent of how bullshit it was.