this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Loans aren't the problem. Insane loan debt is a symptom of an unsustainable higher education system.
You can learn a lot on your own, but many careers require a formal education (medicine, law, engineering, etc.). By itself, banning student loans within our current system merely makes it harder for poorer people to attain those careers.
Loans that can't be discharged are the problem. Tuition went out the roof when universities discovered this gold mine.
But on the other hand, if loans were subject to bankruptcy, most poor people would never be approved to get them.
We could go back to government guaranteed loans based on financial circumstances. And we could go back to tuition rates that were compatible with working your way through college. That system worked pretty well. It did drop some students through the cracks because their families were too wealthy for them to qualify and they couldn't or wouldn't work their way to tuition, but it seems like it did a lot less damage than the current system.
Student loans seem to be a massive part of the problem of out of control tuition increases. The National Bureau of Economic Research published this study in 2016 that showed that changes to the Federal Student Loan Program accounted for the majority of the 106% increase in tuition between 1987 and 2010. Whether that's some right-wing scheme to divert attention from reduction of states' funding of public universities I haven't looked into, but it seems to me that it's at least a significant factor on its face.
On the flip side, consider this. If few can afford university, then the universities will have a reduced income and they'll be forced to adapt by shrinking and lowering tuition rates. Cheaper institutions will end up with a competitive advantage. This could ironically make degrees more affordable.
Your logic completes ignores costs of business. Property taxes. Utilities. Staffing. Those must still be covered
We can lower all of these costs by shrinking the university. Fewer buildings, fewer utilities, fewer classrooms. Not to mention the many extraneous amenities that don't directly relate to coursework.
What about online university? Then you don't even need a building and students don't need to travel to the campus.
Your also skipping the dual function of universities as research institutions.
What you're describing is a community college. Which are fine, and do a great job. But they don't excel at giving deep specialized knowledge, or advancing the frontiers of human knowledge.
They're just not equipped with the staff or materials.
Reworking the foundation of how we do advanced education and research in our society seems quite a bit more work than making a program where the taxpayers just pay for qualifying people to get as much education as they want.
That's a good point, research would be affected. However it's worth mentioning that the US government already subsidises research, which might cushion the impact.
You're talking about changes that will take a generation or more to settle. While these things are in flux, professors will lose their jobs, research grants and budgets will be gutted, and educational assets will be liquidized (imagine museums being sold off to private collections - this is incredibly damaging to the collective knowledge base). Meanwhile, the generations that wait for prices to come down will be left having to educate themselves on the internet, which not everyone has the motivational drive to do or the ability to spot which sources are providing reliable, accurate material they can learn from.
I get that something's gotta give, but banning loans altogether ain't it unless your entire goal is to turn Gen A's moniker into Ass-Backwards.
Yes, I acknowledge that this would be a shock to society in the short term. But do we really want to maintain the current status quo?
When I wrote Internet, I don't necessarily mean people will have to teach everything to themselves. I mean services like online classes which offer similar curriculums to a university course.
I think if you read my comment again, you'd find I acknowledge things need to change, I just think your proposed solution is bad.
I can imagine ways to accomplish these goals more gradually, with less complete and utter destruction, but I don't think someone who proposed something so extreme from the word go really wants to discuss the moderate stance, so I'll leave it with you as a thought exercise.
I agree with you that we could do this gradually. I'm just creating a what-if scenario in this thread.
Old people lose good jobs...
I am sure all the young people who never had a good job will suffer from this
You snark, but unironically yes? Obviously?
If you think the professors that will be left will be the highest quality instead of the longest tenured, you're being willfully ignorant. And that loss will ripple down through every generation those passionate and skilled educators would have taught. Plus, "the olds" or whatever have families (which include young people) that would be suffering even more directly to boot.
E: I see we're doing the whole "disregard the overall point and only snark about the lowest hanging fruit you can intentionally take out of context" thing. Into the void with you, redditor.
Yes children of high income earners might also suffer...
The horror!
Not all degrees can be done in a classroom with a projector
Context.
I am a non traditional student, who has spent a significant amount of time working between highschool and college. The degree is about $18k/year for tuition. My STEM degree has a track record of 100% job placement, in your degree field, within one year of graduation. and, with a BS, average starting salary is approaching $80k.
With average rent and stuff, lets call it about $25k/year for the degree. Maybe $30k.
Is there stuff that the university is spending money on that they shouldn't? Yes. But, we also have many millions of dollars in equipment, some for undergrad, and some for graduated program use. All that equipment/lab spaces takes up space, and that equipment, our professors, and the reputation of our graduates are what makes the companies want to hire from pur school. We're not even that big of a school, but we have a large reputation for academics.
If you started cutting funding and forcing downsizing, you're losing decades of experience im teaching, many hundreds of millions in labs and equipment, and reducing the quality of the education that can be offered.
Now, I will grant you that some schools are too expensive, or degrees aren't worth the cost. And yes, changes in student loan structures are needed, but blanket statements, like that loans should be made illegal, is painting the issue with too broad of a brush stroke. What about making student loans able to be discharged in bankruptcy, and not being federally guaranteed? That could create an environment where loan companies are denying loans based on the cost vs income potential of the degree. Even with that though, we want to be very careful that it is structured in a way that is not going to disenfranchise low income students or minorities. Some degrees will either disappear, or get a lot cheaper. If you can't get a loan for a $400k underwater basket weaving degree, then it will either go away, or get cheaper.
A lot of programs need space and equipment to effectively produce a good product. You don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
The quality of education would go down.
You are saddling the horse from behind.
Yea, the education must get cheaper. A lot. But the lever to do that is a cost adjustment for the education, not artificially lowering demand by discriminating against the poor even more.
This only works if the product isn't in demand. Degrees are in high demand - jobs require them, better jobs require multiple and higher prestige degrees. That isn't going to change.
Instead those rich enough would still get a degree, but middle and lower classes would be cut out. In the end it would create a wider gap between the classes.
A. That would only be true in a culture where employers don't think you need a degree for basic jobs. From what I've seen, the US isn't like that.
B. Even if people are practically able to turn down uni, all the universities will most likely agree to keep prices high, similar to what landlords do. If all of them keep their prices high, then all of them get more money.
If no one could get a degree, employers would have to change their requirements to reflect this. Otherwise they won't be able to find any employees.
Universities need to have their classrooms filled to stay in business. If attendance plummets, then they will be forced to adapt by reducing tuition prices and reducing expenses, i.e. providing less amenities.
They wouldn't change the requirements. We see it now. When a company can't find "qualified" candidates, they outsource it to international contractors.
It cost 70k to get my degree. Any idea how much tuition would have had to be for someone living out of a trailer to be able to afford it? If your answer was zero dollars you are correct.
I don't believe encouraging someone to go into crippling debt over a certification will help them.
Education is how people get out of poverty op. The issue is that the US has a dog eat dog fuck the poor mentality that keeps the ladders out of poverty out of reach then blames them for their situation. The only thing that should determine whether you get into college should be your capability to do the work or not. Not what is or is not in your bank account.
The actual solution is to make college free given academic benchmarks are hit and institute mechanisms to keep costs under control that go beyond "how can we maximize profit?"
I was low income. This idea that the poor have enough aid is so divorced from reality. But youre right, the academic requirements probably should be weighted according to demographic because the rich are so heavily showered with resources by their parents. But youre wrong about free college benefitting them more than the poor.
I started college in 2005, had to leave because things happened in my life halfway through then finished my degree in 2020. So I have an idea of what it was like over the last 15-20 years as I worked on my degree. But by all means continue telling me what it is like to go through something you have never experienced yourself.