May 30, 20232 yr 2 hours ago, Lazarus said: The core problems are that a)too many people are going to college b)colleges have no incentive to control their costs c)colleges are spending huge amounts of money on recruiting. I tend to agree with your opinion that we are expecting too high of a percentage of the student population needs a 4-year degree, and more high school students are agreeing with us -- the percentage of high school graduates going to college is actually falling. Additionally, there's an overall downward trend in the number of college-age students, as well. Perceived "lower quality" colleges are having trouble filling their freshman classes. That means fewer students, and more students that have to be enticed to attend with at least partial scholarships, both of which means lower revenue for colleges overall. Other than the expense of scholarships, how have colleges been tempting the shrinking pool of potential students -- amazing fitness centers, lovely manicured lawns and gardens, food courts and "fancier" meal options, plush student centers, high-speed internet in every spot on campus, travel abroad programs, sports, etc. -- all of which increases college expenses. Plus healthcare costs continue to rise, and colleges necessarily rely on employees to teach, clean, cook, garden, etc. It's a perfect storm of fewer potential students, lower percentage of those fewer students choosing to even attend college, and colleges offering as many scholarships and non-academic amenities to try to attract those fewer students choosing to go to college to attend THEIR college. Here's just one of many articles about the problems colleges are facing. https://hechingerreport.org/how-higher-education-lost-its-shine/ Diminished supply and higher costs of doing business make it nearly impossible for colleges to focus on "controlling their costs." And yet, to some extent they do! 2 minutes ago, DEPACincy said: The actual cost of attending college hasn't gone up in awhile. In 2014, adjusted for inflation, the average annual cost of tuition and fees at a four year public institution was $9,499. In 2020, it was $9,375.
May 30, 20232 yr 39 minutes ago, GISguy said: The average ppp loan was $107K, why aren't we talking about this more? I saw your personal anecdote above and it's pretty obvious how you feel about tuition and young borrowers but there's truth in the fact that these loan forbearances have helped people get on their feet and save money vs paying anywhere from $200-1000 in student loan payments (at 5-10%+ interest) every month in perpetuity. When rent starts at $1k and you're only making $40k, good luck "contributing to the economy" when you can barely survive. You don't get to "hold out" for the good job, you have to take the ones where they are pulling people off the street with a shepherd's hook while the good stuff makes you call back for 10 months. This along with H1-Bs made the $60k average income for new college graduate jobs we were all beat over the head with back in the '90s disappear. Edited May 30, 20232 yr by GCrites80s
May 30, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, Foraker said: Here's just one of many articles about the problems colleges are facing. https://hechingerreport.org/how-higher-education-lost-its-shine/ There is also the pesky matter that many if not most college graduates cannot demonstrate that they've learned much at all: https://www.amazon.com/Academically-Adrift-Limited-Learning-Campuses/dp/0226028550 I trust that the atmosphere is very competitive at the top schools, but it absolutely is not at many flagship state campuses and definitely is not at branch campuses and community colleges.
May 30, 20232 yr Credit card debt reaches nearly 1 Trillion https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/americans-continue-to-pile-up-credit-card-debt-edging-close-to-1t/ar-AA1bdMF0 Edited May 30, 20232 yr by dski44
May 30, 20232 yr 2 hours ago, Lazarus said: I know a girl who graduated from UC in Fall 2022 with $27,000 in student loans...but her dad took out a $50,000 Parent Plus loan...and he's currently in jail. She has made no attempt to get a professional job since graduation and just went to Europe for two weeks last month. I assume that her loan payments start soon. No telling what happens to her dad when he gets out. When I was in college, my roommate maxed out his student loans to lend the money...to his dad. So then his dad was paying him back for the next ten years. I had friends that took out student loans to get engagement rings for their girlfriends (now wives) in college. I know a few others who got a better deal on a student loan to purchase a car (still a dumb idea) than using the traditional car loan path. I know people who have played the arbitrage game too.
May 30, 20232 yr Personal anecdotes don't equal a phenomenon- also, they still had to pay back student loans, no? Oh yeah, and they aren't able to be discharged in bankruptcy so don't worry, the banks still get their money. Meanwhile we can bail out a corporate bank and the execs get golden parachutes - or a company goes bankrupt and the execs get to raid the ruins without consequence (Kodak is a famous case) while thousands are out of work. If y'all are so angry about $14K/per student in lost payments/interest at least apply your anger across the board and not at students who are being framed as modern "welfare kings/queens". More on anecdotal evidence from wiki: "Similarly, psychologists have found that due to cognitive bias people are more likely to remember notable or unusual examples rather than typical examples.[4] Thus, even when accurate, anecdotal evidence is not necessarily representative of a typical experience..Misuse of anecdotal evidence in the form of argument from anecdote is an informal fallacy[6] and is sometimes referred to as the "person who" fallacy ("I know a person who..."; "I know of a case where..." etc.) which places undue weight on experiences of close peers which may not be typical." Edited May 30, 20232 yr by GISguy Updated to reflecf BB's comment
May 30, 20232 yr 44 minutes ago, GISguy said: Personal anecdotes aren't facts Actually they are. If it happened to you, it was a factual occurrence. Just because it was not reported in the news does not make it factual. No, you cannot cite the data in an academic paper, but that does not mean a personal anecdote is not a fact (assuming it truly did happen). You probably want to phrase it as an unverifiable fact or event.
May 31, 20232 yr 3 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said: Actually they are. If it happened to you, it was a factual occurrence. Just because it was not reported in the news does not make it factual. No, you cannot cite the data in an academic paper, but that does not mean a personal anecdote is not a fact (assuming it truly did happen). You probably want to phrase it as an unverifiable fact or event. except actually that is worthless because one incident doesn't give you any basis whatsoever to steer toward or away from an opinion on anything. more often making such a big deal about an anecdote as you are is just a way for one to show their bias. so, is an anecdote worthless then? no. its just interesting at best is all.
May 31, 20232 yr I don't know about all that, but the commercial real estate bomb is scary as hell. There really isn't an answer for filling millions of office and retail propeties across the country, especially in downtowns, unless RTO becomes mandatory and retail spending habits reverse. I'm talking to my broker next week about shorting some REITs since we will be seeing more and more emptying buildings - let's just call them vertical dead malls - as existing leases continue to expire. Edited May 31, 20232 yr by TBideon
May 31, 20232 yr 22 minutes ago, TBideon said: There really isn't an answer for filling millions of office and retail propeties across the country, especially in downtowns, unless RTO becomes mandatory and retail spending habits reverse. If people actually went to work, they might collect these things called personal anecdotes. 23 minutes ago, TBideon said: I'm talking to my broker next week about shorting some REITs since we will be seeing more and more emptying buildings - let's just call them vertical dead malls - as existing leases continue to expire. This is not a good idea. I'd bet that most losses have already been priced in. You'd need insider knowledge of many specific leases and commercial loans to really know who is in trouble. For example, I owned BXP several years ago, when it was trading over $100. Luckily I got out of it with a small gain. It's now at $49: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BXP/
May 31, 20232 yr 16 hours ago, GISguy said: Meanwhile we can bail out a corporate bank and the execs get golden parachutes - or a company goes bankrupt and the execs get to raid the ruins without consequence (Kodak is a famous case) while thousands are out of work. Many commercial loans are secured loans. Zero student loans are secured loans. They're completely different things. Student loans need their special status or else everyone would begin adulthood by intentionally going bankrupt, meaning no lenders would lend for that purpose.
May 31, 20232 yr 11 hours ago, mrnyc said: except actually that is worthless because one incident doesn't give you any basis whatsoever to steer toward or away from an opinion on anything. more often making such a big deal about an anecdote as you are is just a way for one to show their bias. I would not quite go that far. Anecdotes are important because they are real and personal and provide individual perspective. No, they cannot be measured by data or may just be a blip in the data, but just because you can't capture it by data does not mean it was not real or factual. You want to argue that in a negative way it allows people to openly show their "bias." and you act like that is a bad thing. Bias is a natural thing, everyone has a bias. You show your bias, I have bias, everyone has their bias. It is shaped by perspective and their life events. It is not necessarily bad, but it needs to be recognized as such. Bias can be a good thing in many cases because it allows you to check the data you are seeing and determine if it makes sense. Oftentimes, and you see it mostly in government, people are too dogmatic to data that it leads them to make bad decisions. Oftentimes, data can be misleading, inaccurate or even just downright false. Without perspective, and what some may say bias, people are unable to check against bad data and make decisions that can lead to disaster. Anecdotal evidence or "the smell test" allows decision makers a way to show prudence when the data may be telling the decision maker something that may be contrary to common sense.
May 31, 20232 yr 16 hours ago, GISguy said: If y'all are so angry about $14K/per student in lost payments/interest at least apply your anger across the board and not at students who are being framed as modern "welfare kings/queens". 7 minutes ago, Lazarus said: Student loans need their special status or else everyone would begin adulthood by intentionally going bankrupt, meaning no lenders would lend for that purpose. Student loans are one of the dumbest concepts ever created. How much sense does it make to give someone a loan with zero collateral attached (only future potential work earnings of the student) yet alone give it to an 18 year old kid who has no idea what he/she wants to do in life and keep giving them such money regardless of what they choose to do or study. 18 year olds make poor decisions and when it is really easy to get money in the form of a student loan, it leads to bad decision making. The only people who do well with student loans are the colleges who have no recourse to ensure the student on the loans succeeds. It is free money to them and allows them to become bloated unaccountable organizations.
May 31, 20232 yr I agree. We should make college education essentially free for prospective students. Why make kids borrow the money?
May 31, 20232 yr SSU is now free for students up to two counties away from Scioto if they have a 3.0 high school GPA. Is this the first state school in Ohio to do so?
May 31, 20232 yr 5 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said: Student loans are one of the dumbest concepts ever created. How much sense does it make to give someone a loan with zero collateral attached (only future potential work earnings of the student) yet alone give it to an 18 year old kid who has no idea what he/she wants to do in life and keep giving them such money regardless of what they choose to do or study. 18 year olds make poor decisions and when it is really easy to get money in the form of a student loan, it leads to bad decision making. The only people who do well with student loans are the colleges who have no recourse to ensure the student on the loans succeeds. It is free money to them and allows them to become bloated unaccountable organizations. Ignore all those college graduates from poor families. (Or if you prefer, I know this guy who grew up on a farm and as the youngest of six was the only one to go to college -- thanks to student loans -- and he's now the town doctor. Three of his brothers inherited the farm, two filed for bankruptcy before selling out to the third who was just hanging on until his wife got cancer....) 18 hours ago, Lazarus said: There is also the pesky matter that many if not most college graduates cannot demonstrate that they've learned much at all: https://www.amazon.com/Academically-Adrift-Limited-Learning-Campuses/dp/0226028550 I trust that the atmosphere is very competitive at the top schools, but it absolutely is not at many flagship state campuses and definitely is not at branch campuses and community colleges. I think there is a lot of variation in the quality of education. How much did the student WANT to learn? How good was the professor at TEACHING? I think a lot of "top" schools are ranked highly for the research and publications they put out, plus the test scores and grades of their students who did well early (as 14-18 year-olds in high school), not the quality of their teaching. I have a friend who went to Harvard for law school and had several outstanding professors and several complete duds. I'd argue that that isn't so different from my time at a state school. I also knew a guy who graduated from Harvard in engineering who didn't know what "CAD" was, even after I explained the acronym. Freaked me out at the time. He's done very well, nonetheless. We would expect that people who demonstrated success in high school would be more likely to succeed in the Ivy League or a community college -- the difference is in the connections made and the kind of first job you can get upon graduation. The Harvard grad has a leg up from all the wealthy, well-connected alumni that the Tri-C grad does not. And if you didn't succeed in high school you could "get it" later and really take off and have great success. The state schools do a good job of giving everyone that opportunity. Are there too many colleges? Yes, I think so. And I think we'll see a lot of colleges folding if student enrollment continues to decline, which seems likely. Small town, private colleges, without a large endowment are probably high on the list. Student loans might be the only thing keeping them afloat. Private student loans will continue, they're profitable for the banks, and Congressional campaign contributors, until people wise up and choose colleges based on affordability. State support for public education is waning as well, and student loans probably carry more of the load now than in the 1980s. And I would guess that Kent State, Akron, and Cleveland State, being in close proximity to one another, might be very nervous about their future should the state decide to pare back even further. I could see an Akron-Kent State merger, with Akron retaining business and engineering and Kent State retaining the liberal arts and aviation --- not unlike the Purdue-Indiana split.
May 31, 20232 yr 11 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: SSU is now free for students up to two counties away from Scioto if they have a 3.0 high school GPA. Is this the first state school in Ohio to do so? Columbus Public Schools have a free tuition to Columbus State I believe. It’s called the Columbus Promise, but it seems it is only for the classes of 22, 23 and 24. Hopefully they keep it going.
May 31, 20232 yr 26 minutes ago, ryanlammi said: I agree. We should make college education essentially free for prospective students. Why make kids borrow the money? Or hold schools accountable for the results of their students on loans. Maybe it will make admissions policies tougher and actually drive prices down. There are certainly a place for loans, but they should be more restrictive. Make sure the right kids are going to college. College is not for everyone. some HS kids need to work or experience the world to be ready to take on college at 18, otherwise you give loans to kids who are not ready. Giving them free college does not help the problem. Things like the GI bill or maybe something tied to Americorp volunteers to provide college tuition for students to work for 3-4 years in a program like this and allow them to mature enough to take on college would be beneficial. There are a number of ideas out there that could ensure that student loan debt could be minimized and that it would flow to students who could provide the best chance for positive outcomes.
May 31, 20232 yr I knew about that. It's funded by the levy that passed a few years back. I suppose that's more of a "county school" since the whole county was able to vote on it.
May 31, 20232 yr 29 minutes ago, Foraker said: I think there is a lot of variation in the quality of education. How much did the student WANT to learn? How good was the professor at TEACHING? I think a lot of "top" schools are ranked highly for the research and publications they put out, plus the test scores and grades of their students who did well early (as 14-18 year-olds in high school), not the quality of their teaching. I have a friend who went to Harvard for law school and had several outstanding professors and several complete duds. I'd argue that that isn't so different from my time at a state school. I also knew a guy who graduated from Harvard in engineering who didn't know what "CAD" was, even after I explained the acronym. Freaked me out at the time. He's done very well, nonetheless. I attended two research schools and two non-research schools. I also worked for 13 additional professors at one research school. On average the non-research professors were far more charismatic than the research ones and had way better stories. There were a few interesting research ones but not like the non-research which were almost all memorable.
May 31, 20232 yr One thing is for sure: student loans being nondischargable is utter bulls**t. It's okay to ruin impressionable 18-year-olds with 6-figure debt and compounded interest, but Trump can file four business bankruptces and still be worth 100s of millions? Something is terribly broken with the system. Me thinks it begins with an R and ends in traitors. Edited May 31, 20232 yr by TBideon
May 31, 20232 yr 53 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said: Student loans are one of the dumbest concepts ever created. How much sense does it make to give someone a loan with zero collateral attached (only future potential work earnings of the student) yet alone give it to an 18 year old kid who has no idea what he/she wants to do in life and keep giving them such money regardless of what they choose to do or study. 18 year olds make poor decisions and when it is really easy to get money in the form of a student loan, it leads to bad decision making. The worst decision I made in my college education was trying to work enough to avoid getting student loans. I was in a highly-competitive program at a state school right before Bob Taft started cutting higher-ed funding, and lived at home to save money on room and board. I should have taken the hint when pretty much all of my classmates either took out loans or had parents helping pay for things, though I did not have that luxury. I was extremely burnt out after my first year, having essentially zero days off, and started dropping electives/requirements (that had to be made up later) since it was the only was to barely keep up with the coursework for my major. I eventually gave in and got minimal loans to cover tuition. By my pre-junior year, it was obvious even working weekends was eating up time I needed to be spending on schoolwork - so I quit my job, and got enough loans to help cover the expenses that went beyond what I saved up in co-op quarters. There is a point at which you can only be so financially responsible, sometimes stuff just costs what it costs. Students loans were a good investment and literally the only way I was able to finish school, and I've worked in my field since graduation.
May 31, 20232 yr A lot has changed in the last 20+ years. Well, except for wages. Edited May 31, 20232 yr by TBideon
May 31, 20232 yr 37 minutes ago, Foraker said: gnore all those college graduates from poor families. (Or if you prefer, I know this guy who grew up on a farm and as the youngest of six was the only one to go to college -- thanks to student loans -- and he's now the town doctor. Three of his brothers inherited the farm, two filed for bankruptcy before selling out to the third who was just hanging on until his wife got cancer....) I did not mean to sound harsh that student loans have no place. They certainly do. The problem is that they are given out without any restrictions as to if they will benefit the student or serve as a hinderance. Using your town doctor as an example, he probably knew and had a plan from the time he was in high school that he was going to be a doctor. He was also geared toward academics from high school so he had a strong liklihood of success (at least in college). Too often, especially of late, you are sending kids to college that have no business being there or no real idea of what they want out of college. I am someone who is supportive of a liberal arts education but at the same time, you have to have a plan for when you get to college. Going and taking college classes for the sake of going to college since it is the next step in life is not a plan and students who take on such loans are likely going to do themselves a long term disservice. They would probably be better off waiting for a few years and working before going back to college.
May 31, 20232 yr Working where though? Ohio's minimum wage of $10.10 and federal minimum of $7.25 isn't going to help anyone trying to save for school or figure out their life.
May 31, 20232 yr 5 minutes ago, mrCharlie said: The worst decision I made in my college education was trying to work enough to avoid getting student loans. I was in a highly-competitive program at a state school right before Bob Taft started cutting higher-ed funding, and lived at home to save money on room and board. I should have taken the hint when pretty much all of my classmates either took out loans or had parents helping pay for things, though I did not have that luxury. I dont disagree with you, and I had since clarified my earlier comment. However, you had a plan when you went there and appeared to know what you wanted to study. Loans can be fine. Heck, I even took out student loans for school. My biggest issue with loans is that they are given out like candy at a parade to anyone and everyone who requests one. This puts certain people at a huge disadvantage because they are attending college without a purpose and financing that on loans. They have no plan for what they want to do or how to get there but they take out costly loans that they will never be able to repay in the process because they never had a purpose for their education. There should be safeguards to prevent loans from being given to students who are not prepared for the rigors of college or even have the focus to achieve the goals in front of them.
May 31, 20232 yr 10 minutes ago, TBideon said: Working where though? Ohio's minimum wage of $10.10 and federal minimum of $7.25 isn't going to help anyone trying to save for school or figure out their life. Everywhere is paying $15+ now. The minimum wage doesn't matter. We've got a warehouse that fills up with high schoolers every night who are making $16.50.
May 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, Brutus_buckeye said: Student loans are one of the dumbest concepts ever created. How much sense does it make to give someone a loan with zero collateral attached (only future potential work earnings of the student) yet alone give it to an 18 year old kid who has no idea what he/she wants to do in life and keep giving them such money regardless of what they choose to do or study. 18 year olds make poor decisions and when it is really easy to get money in the form of a student loan, it leads to bad decision making. The only people who do well with student loans are the colleges who have no recourse to ensure the student on the loans succeeds. It is free money to them and allows them to become bloated unaccountable organizations. this is one if the dumbest and most negative things i have ever heard. you must really hate the usa. there is no sense even beginning to remind you what college degrees have done for business, community and lifting people’s ses above their parents. 70% of students use them and most for grad school. uncle sam takes the gamble based on the hs student being accepted and enrolled in a college, or along the way, they aren’t given out of thin air. but i suppose you have a personal anecdote about someone who didnt pay it back, so therefore student loans suck lol.
May 31, 20232 yr 10 minutes ago, TBideon said: Working where though? Ohio's minimum wage of $10.10 and federal minimum of $7.25 isn't going to help anyone trying to save for school or figure out their life. It does not matter. It is not about the actual "saving money for college" it is about taking time to understand yourself and make sure you are ready for the financial commitment once you get to college and are mature enough to take on the investment and student loans that will accompany it. if you are going to college because you graduated high school and do not have a plan for what is next in life and your plan is to take a bunch of college classes to figure it out, then taking on a large amount of student loans at this time is not a good idea. If you know you want to be a doctor and have a plan when you get to school, then taking out loans to accomplish the goal makes much more sense. It is more about the maturity of the student taking on the loans than anything
May 31, 20232 yr For me personally it took a long time to better understand college and what I wanted in life when I first went in. I was lucky I played football and had scholarship money to a community college, so with the scholly and going to a community college I saved a lot of money. I transferred to a state university and did poorly/basically mailed it in (lot of wasted money), then went to work in concrete that summer thinking I would do that the rest of my life. My foreman was like "you don't want to do this s**t you can do way better and your back will blow out in 15 years". That motivated me, I went back to community college, got my A.A. and drastically improved my grades. I then was determined to push myself with economics and math using the backing of loans. I graduated with a degree in economics with one course shy of a minor in math, but still couldn't find a job besides sales. So many people in the business center had great jobs at John Deere or Rockwell or something, because their parents or aunt or uncle worked there and they got in, but me with my econ and math couldn't get an interview while people with a 3.0 in business logistics were making $65k at John Deere fresh out of college. I was the first one in my immediate family to graduate college (parents and siblings), so no connections. Lost out on so many interviews, etc. Got a sales job selling nuts and bolts, pushed super hard, started to network with other people when I was doing that and finally people started seeing the value outside the resume too, and landed a great job in Cincinnati and been here since. It really is up to the person in a lot of ways, connections are huge, but I do feel people should push themselves with hard degrees like math / econ, accounting if that's your thing (CPA), engineering / physics, etc. That is where more of the money is if you also have connections and people will get you in and working for them if you have that 4 year degree. I used student loans and it helped me a ton, I wouldn't have been able to finish without them. But I was bound and determined to do well after a bad start. So many people started and never finished and are now in construction or trades, etc. Different from my wife's family, they all went to catholic schools, all had like 3.7 - 4.0 GPAs, all went to private colleges with 3.7-4.0 GPAs, all have great high paying jobs now. A lot of people don't have that structure around them to push them, these are the ones we should target for the trades etc. then if they want to go to school afterwards when they figure out what they need to live on their own comfortably and have a goal, they can then get into college after a year or two. Just my thoughts, we as a society should be pushing that more.
May 31, 20232 yr 17 minutes ago, IAGuy39 said: For me personally it took a long time to better understand college and what I wanted in life when I first went in. I was lucky I played football and had scholarship money to a community college, so with the scholly and going to a community college I saved a lot of money. I transferred to a state university and did poorly/basically mailed it in (lot of wasted money), then went to work in concrete that summer thinking I would do that the rest of my life. My foreman was like "you don't want to do this s**t you can do way better and your back will blow out in 15 years". That motivated me, I went back to community college, got my A.A. and drastically improved my grades. I then was determined to push myself with economics and math using the backing of loans. I graduated with a degree in economics with one course shy of a minor in math, but still couldn't find a job besides sales. So many people in the business center had great jobs at John Deere or Rockwell or something, because their parents or aunt or uncle worked there and they got in, but me with my econ and math couldn't get an interview while people with a 3.0 in business logistics were making $65k at John Deere fresh out of college. I was the first one in my immediate family to graduate college (parents and siblings), so no connections. Lost out on so many interviews, etc. Got a sales job selling nuts and bolts, pushed super hard, started to network with other people when I was doing that and finally people started seeing the value outside the resume too, and landed a great job in Cincinnati and been here since. It really is up to the person in a lot of ways, connections are huge, but I do feel people should push themselves with hard degrees like math / econ, accounting if that's your thing (CPA), engineering / physics, etc. That is where more of the money is if you also have connections and people will get you in and working for them if you have that 4 year degree. I used student loans and it helped me a ton, I wouldn't have been able to finish without them. But I was bound and determined to do well after a bad start. So many people started and never finished and are now in construction or trades, etc. Different from my wife's family, they all went to catholic schools, all had like 3.7 - 4.0 GPAs, all went to private colleges with 3.7-4.0 GPAs, all have great high paying jobs now. A lot of people don't have that structure around them to push them, these are the ones we should target for the trades etc. then if they want to go to school afterwards when they figure out what they need to live on their own comfortably and have a goal, they can then get into college after a year or two. Just my thoughts, we as a society should be pushing that more. No personal anecdotes allowed.
May 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, TBideon said: One thing is for sure: student loans being nondischargable is utter bulls**t. It's okay to ruin impressionable 18-year-olds with 6-figure debt and compounded interest, but Trump can file four business bankruptces and still be worth 100s of millions? Again - completely different situations. Fish and bicycles. By Trump's admission, he intentionally tricked the banks. He was smarter than the bankers. I remember a quote from his book (I read it maybe 20 years ago) - it went something like "If the bank loans you $1 million and you default, it's your fault. If the bank loans you $100 million and you don't pay them back, it's their fault".
May 31, 20232 yr One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. Quotes rock. Doesn't change the reality that we're allowing vulnerable, barely adult people to be preyed upon while the great geniuses can discharge debt. It's immoral and unhelpful to a healthy economic ecosystem.
May 31, 20232 yr Here are some numbers which is pretty astounding to me when I saw them: n-school$118 billion6.4 million Grace period$41 billion1.6 million Repayment$16 billion0.5 million Deferment$113 billion3.1 million Forbearance$968 billion24 million Default$112 billion5.1 million https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/ Maybe the fix is not just cancelling student debt but having a robust look at each individual and putting a plan in place, ie not just giving it away but making considerations based on the individual ie # of kids, mortgage, work history, etc. ie if you are single with no kids but have a well paying job, you don't quality or qualify for 10% of your loan to be cancelled thus lowering your monthly payments. If you are married with two kids and have a mortgage, maybe you get additional off your federal taxes etc.
May 31, 20232 yr means testing these things are often more expensive than if we just did a blanket cancellation. And the number of variables in someone's life are so complex, that you can't really do it super effectively. You have to have a whole bureaucracy set it up, analyze it, and then go after people who try to cheat the system.
May 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, Lazarus said: No personal anecdotes allowed. Use all the anecdotes you want but don't try and frame it like a massive systemic issue without some facts to back it up. Millions of people have student loans and pay them diligently but since you and BB saw two people do something malicious it's apparently massive systemic issue. To which I say who cares? You can't discharge it so whatever way they accumulated the debt they'll be paying it back. If the feds discharge 10k I'm sure those people have another 10k+ in loans at 8-15% interest that they're on the hook for. Edited May 31, 20232 yr by GISguy
May 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, TBideon said: One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. Quotes rock. Doesn't change the reality that we're allowing vulnerable, barely adult people to be preyed upon while the great geniuses can discharge debt. It's immoral and unhelpful to a healthy economic ecosystem. And now video games is a major. I can't imagine the allure of that to a 16-year-old boy especially now that they're not into cars anymore.
May 31, 20232 yr Video games design and development, game art, animation, etc, are certainly legit majors and programs. Or are you saying playing video games is in itself a major in colleges? Not saying you're wrong, but I'm not seeing any evidence of that after a 10 minute google search. Edited May 31, 20232 yr by TBideon
May 31, 20232 yr While they are legit majors, we are graduating 10 times the amount needed. Now Nvidia claims they can almost AI all of them.
May 31, 20232 yr 31 minutes ago, GISguy said: Millions of people have student loans and pay them diligently but since you and BB saw two people do something malicious it's a massive systemic issue. First of all, I do not find them malicious. As I have pointed out in other less provocative posts, they are an important tool for college and necessary evil. As mentioned, I even took out student loans myself. The problem, and anyone who thinks college should be free crowd should agree with is that too many people have student loans who will never be able to repay them. The majority of these loans are in the $30k of less category but they have them and they are accruing interest. They come from schooling which was started where the individual did not have a passion for and never realistically was going to finish. These would be considered bad investments. This is not to indict the entire system but certainly presents an issue. I review a lot of credit reports and the big issue that keeps people in poverty is outstanding student loan balances that will never be repaid because the individual dropped out
May 31, 20232 yr 12 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: While they are legit majors, we are graduating 10 times the amount needed. Now Nvidia claims they can almost AI all of them. I don't know if that's true or not, or how transferable the skills are to peer industries, but gaming is enormous and growing. It does seem like a pretty good field for those with talent and interest. https://gamerhub.co.uk/gaming-industry-dominates-as-the-highest-grossing-entertainment-industry/#:~:text=According to recent data%2C the,%2C mobile games%2C and esports. Gaming Industry Dominates as the Highest-Grossing Entertainment Industry Edited May 31, 20232 yr by TBideon
May 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, GISguy said: You can't discharge it so whatever way they accumulated the debt they'll be paying it back. If the feds discharge 10k I'm sure those people have another 10k+ in loans at 8-15% interest that they're on the hook for. I know this isn't intentional misinformation, but as the resident bankruptcy lawyer here: Student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. It is significantly more difficult than doing so to a normal unsecured debt, but it is possible, and has become more possible based on the Justice Department's guidance to Assistant United States Attorneys issued November 17, 2022, which permits AUSAs defending the federal government (the creditor of almost all student loans now) to "roll over" and consent to judgment in the debtor's favor when certain facts are present (if you really care, you can see the categories of information the DOJ seeks here) that the DOJ thinks would meet the "undue hardship" test for discharging student loans in bankruptcy. Discharging a student loan is still much harder than discharging credit card debt, medical debt, etc., but it is not impossible. Also, lesser point, but the federal student loan rate for the 2022-2023 school year was 4.99% (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/student-loan-interest-rates). It goes up to 5.50% next year.
May 31, 20232 yr 5 minutes ago, Gramarye said: Also, lesser point, but the federal student loan rate for the 2022-2023 school year was 4.99% (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/student-loan-interest-rates). It goes up to 5.50% next year. I appreciate the bankruptcy clarification. As far as runaway rates, I was referencing private student loans (I had a few that were 10-12%), I was fortunate to be able to get rid of them, but it's the reality of a LOT of students from low to middle class families.
May 31, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, GISguy said: As far as runaway rates, I was referencing private student loans (I had a few that were 10-12%), I was fortunate to be able to get rid of them, but it's the reality of a LOT of students from low to middle class families. Curious, what college graduating class are you? The federal government is now the creditor on 92% of total U.S. student loan debt (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/). However, that was not always the case. When I graduated (OSU 2004, law 2007), the blend was very different. This may be something that changed a lot while you weren't looking.
May 31, 20232 yr 39 minutes ago, TBideon said: I don't know if that's true or not, or how transferable the skills are to peer industries, but gaming is enormous and growing. It does seem like a pretty good field for those with talent and interest. https://gamerhub.co.uk/gaming-industry-dominates-as-the-highest-grossing-entertainment-industry/#:~:text=According to recent data%2C the,%2C mobile games%2C and esports. Gaming Industry Dominates as the Highest-Grossing Entertainment Industry If the industry wasn't oversupplied with applicants they wouldn't be able to treat people like crap which they are notorious for doing. Forced extreme overtime, firing people at the drop of a hat, layoffs galore, threatening, harassment etc.
May 31, 20232 yr 25 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: If the industry wasn't oversupplied with applicants they wouldn't be able to treat people like crap which they are notorious for doing. Forced extreme overtime, firing people at the drop of a hat, layoffs galore, threatening, harassment etc. Same thing as the movie, music, magazines, fashion, etc. A certain percentage of the population really, really, really wants to be around famous people and famous things, and there is always a Sylvester McMonkey McBean keen to butter them up and take their labor and ideas. College administrators do the same thing. The minor level of prestige that accompanies tenure is the carrot. A small number of tenured faculty buy them legions of grad students and adjuncts willing to work without benefits for next-to-nothing. There is no incentive for them to change because people keep piling into grad programs and parents keep sending their kids off to undergrad programs where grad students and adjuncts teach close to half of the courses.
May 31, 20232 yr 2 hours ago, TBideon said: I don't know if that's true or not, or how transferable the skills are to peer industries, but gaming is enormous and growing. It does seem like a pretty good field for those with talent and interest. https://gamerhub.co.uk/gaming-industry-dominates-as-the-highest-grossing-entertainment-industry/#:~:text=According to recent data%2C the,%2C mobile games%2C and esports. Gaming Industry Dominates as the Highest-Grossing Entertainment Industry You have to figure there are interchangeable skills. From what I read, professional gamers have a short shelf live and like their professional athlete counterparts, they are often out of the business within 5 years after turning pro and are still pretty young to do something else. My question on the gaming industry is that many of the gamers have to specialize in a specific game (from what I understand). You have Call of Duty pros and you have Madden pros and you have other games that have their professional circuit. It seems as if it will lead to a very fragmented industry for the gamers to truly capitalize on their fame
May 31, 20232 yr Few people stay in the games industry past the 10-year mark. The lows are too low. I made it 13. Most people get in when it's really hot like I did.
June 1, 20232 yr 3 hours ago, GCrites80s said: Few people stay in the games industry past the 10-year mark. The lows are too low. I made it 13. Most people get in when it's really hot like I did. Is part of the problem the specialization of games? For example someone who dominates in Call of Duty, would it be the same for another first person shooter or would the skillset be a bit different? Also, how do different versions of the came change things?Does that level the playing field between the experts of the older version when the new one comes out?
June 1, 20232 yr I'm talking more about selling games. Sometimes the people's wallets just close. Yeah you get males under 25 on a constant basis but people with money just disappear for years sometimes.
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