Thats a pretty good comparison. Lemon laws make the manufacturer buy it back; the government doesn’t pay off the car loans, while those who paid cash for the car are just stuck with a lemon.
The question is, how do you define a lemon degree? And if the quality of the degree is the issue, how does loan forgiveness help those with the same quality issues but paid cash (or already paid down their loans)?
I don’t understand why people have to do college searches to figure this out. Do high school juniors/seniors not have enough adults in their lives that they talk to to figure out what sort of job they should someday get in order to support themselves? Are kids not willing to go to big state schools with hundreds of majors as “undecided” and wait a year to figure out what they might want to do for a career out of school? We shouldn’t expect a 19 year old to know what he wants to do for the rest of his life. But can’t we expect a 19 year old to have an idea of what sort of job he’d get right out of college with a degree in a certain major and what the starting salary is for that job?
You are right on, meed18.
Many high school students depend so much on their parents to make all these decisions. Parents should be telling their children to ask questions at school. Talk to their counselors. After that, its the time for your children to come home with ideas & then talk.
But true many parents want & need to make these decisions for college searches. Let loose of their hands. It’s hard to release, let your children talk about various jobs of interest. It doesn’t hurt to attend a Jr College for a year or two.
Some do.
Others make decisions about college for next year based on what they want next year, excluding parents/adults and their long term outlook from the decision. They dont view college as a tool that produces it’s benefit 4-5 years down the road - the immediate gratification is as much a factor as the long term value.
That’s the other reason I object to student loan forgiveness. Plenty of students dug their holes because they gave their ongoing social edification as much priority as the education itself. So half the debt is attributable to the ‘college experience’ they chose, and again, they got exactly what they chose to pay for.
I understand private loans having for profit incentives, but why should the fed loans programs be run like that? I thought consolidating thru UHEAA etc quasi govt. agencies would preserve my fed. gov benefits
I thought I was under the 20 year forgiveness program, with interest payments=principal over that time and paying tax on the forgiveness, but 15 yrs and 55k later I’m told too bad… so sad we’re FFEL not really fed. gov? We need to get these “for profit” incentives out of fed. loans
This depends on the student. If your student qualifies for merit scholarship, you’re getting nothing if you attend community college first. The merit scholarships are only for first-time students, not for transfers.
I don’t think you can easily unless you put more skin in the outcomes for the colleges themselves. Basically tie their bottom line to that of their students. Maybe that’d remove the viability of some of the worst bottom feeders. And maybe we would not going to continue to push students who are not college material into it at all costs.
I think that’s the biggest problem. People forget that the historical success of college graduates has been mostly because colleges focused on those who were most inclined to succeed. Ram-rodding lower achievers into college was never going to grant them the same level of success, it only dilutes the reputation of everyone’s degree.
Edit: To clarify, I dont consider those who do not attend college to inherently be “lower achievers”. I only mean lower achieving within the college environment. Plently of people have achieved as much, if not more, success by following non-college paths.
Most of my closest friends I met my freshman year in college. Hard to put a price on that 
. So I’d guess that it does hurt to attend a Jr College for a year or two, because IMO transfer students have a harder time making lasting friendships. It’s definitely warranted for some students, but it is a trade-off.
Many parents don’t or can’t provide this guidance. I received little guidance and I had a decent upbringing, good private high school education, etc. It worked out OK for me but could have gone much worse. I don’t even begin to understand what someone from a poverty environment would face in this regard.
I think parental advice can often worsen things or be no value.
Half of parents sending kids to college now didn’t go themselves. So they often don’t know much about it or how to best succeed in a career w/ college credential.
Parents who did get degrees did so often 20 years ago and entered a job market 20 years ago. Theyr’e giving advice now in todays enviornment based on their experience from the past which may not apply as well. Plus many of them who got degrees flopped and have essentially useless degrees.
Then you’ve got the % of parents who just push their kids to the highest $ earning & status jobs regardless. “Doctor or Lawyer” … guess its now often “software developer at Google”.
Altogether I bet the majority of kids are not getting anything very useful from their parents.
Yes friendships are important. I still communicate with high school friends, but college no.
As far as I was talking upward about attending a JC. I think some students right out of HS need some extra time for decision making & a JC is available. It also helps financially.
If you have a Full Ride Scholarship, of course you need to go for the Big Name schools. But for many young people going into “big time” college debt should be considered.
I think getting more people to go to 2 year colleges would be best really. It would suit a lot of students more. Theres more need for 2 year degrees in the economy. Its a lot cheaper for all involved.
Agreed. And vocational / tech schools. We will need plumbers, electricians, etc…
have a parent like that. The funny thing is dad was very successful in business himself but wanted me to be a dr.
Now employers may provide each employee with up to $5,250 a year in combined tuition and textbook assistance and student loan repayment assistance, tax-free.
Hmm this should help my wife getting tuition assistance that we typically to pay taxes on/ gets added to her W2 . I wonder if this will apply to 2020 and 2021?
Makes sense to me. Business success is not inheritable, but doctors are needed, respected, and usually well-compensated everywhere.
Could have inherited the business though. Funny thing is I ended up with an Exec MBA after my doctorate and in the corporate world now. Probably explains the $100K+ student debt 
I kept rationalizing it as time value of money @ 2.5% but it’s starting to add up
I’m not sure that’s true regarding success and lots of kids go into their family businesses, but certainly business success is a lot more risky than a professional career and no one knows that better than a business owner who’s seen the issues first hand.
I just meant that being a child of a successful businessman doesn’t guarantee you’ll also be a successful businessman.
I didn’t say “parents,” I said adults. If you had a decent upbringing and a private high school education, how could you claim that you didn’t have the adults in your life that you could talk to about your future prospects? It’s one thing to say that you didn’t bother having that conversation because you were too busy goofing around as a teenager without a care in the world (I know plenty of people that fell into this category), but it’s another to claim you didn’t have anyone to have that conversation.
Regardless, my comment was in response to Shandril’s comment about college searches. Did you learn everything there was to learn about your college options during college tours and from brochures? That’s like picking what car to buy after going to a few dealerships and talking to salesmen - a terrible way to research a choice like that. I don’t understand why more high school/college aged kids aren’t seeking out successful people in their lives, or in the lives of people they know, to help them figure out what they should be aiming for with their college educations.