OK so whats the punchline? DId you forget to finish the joke?
I agree. A large portion of the industry wants applicants with 2-5 years experience which is kind hard to get unless you are given a first job in the field. I see some universities setup partnerships with local companies to place what is basically internships to remediate this a bit but I wonder why it’s not possible to bypass the college stage for kids who are not a good fit for it and offer them a more specialized training directly from a business. If it worked in other developed countries, I think it’d be at least worth giving it a shot.
But you are right that simple tax incentives may not be enough. IIRC in Germany, large companies have to have some quota of those employees that came from a different path than college. Maybe because if not mandated, adoption would not be high enough.
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From recent experience, I wouldn’t say the ones we have been in contact with were idiots but to be honest, they were not very useful. Seemed to be there more to make sure that kids have some sort of plans for after high-school rather than truly help you with college research, personal exploration, etc. A lot of canned advice we had read already on the web. I feel bad for students who did not have any other help than the school counselors to help them sort out their options, especially those that did not fit the typical college candidate profile.
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Back to OP topic.
Looks like the Senate will be in Dem hands soon.
Even though I might agree in principle with no free lunch. if the Dems are handing it out, I want my share. How do I best position my FFEL loans? Consolidate now to Direct somehow or wait to see if FFEL + UHEAA will qualify
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Another issue with the “find a successful adult to talk to” idea is that really, that successful adult will have no idea what that kid will go through in college or in their job market.
At my high school during career day (early 90s) one of the people they brought in was a travel agent. They had no computer/technology people, no telecommunications people, and no project managers (for example). A lot of good that did people like me who were finishing up college around 98-2000. Fast forward to 2004 and I doubt career days had anyone specializing in SEO, corporate social media, or app development.
I think a case could be made that pre-Internet job and career advice was pretty set. After 1992 a lot of jobs and industries opened up that a successful adult in 1992 would have never thought of. The relevancy of someone’s career experience is compressing to an ever shorter period. A kid would need to find an aware adult who understands the kid will have entirely new opportunities and face entirely new roadblocks.
When I talk to kids I try to be as general as possible with my advice. My college experience from 25+ years ago was nothing like theirs is going to be. I keep it to things that I feel are universally applicable including mistakes I made, chances I wished I have taken/things I wished I’d done, subjects/classes that will help them regardless of major (business), relationships (don’t let a bad one pull you down), and grades (Cs get degrees), and how to conduct yourself once you do enter the workforce.
K-12 fails so many, and I don’t see much hope for the reform it needs. I’d like to see all secondary teachers have to work at a regular 8-5 office job for two years before teaching.
Epic bad timing, considering the airlines and internet basically vaporized the mainstream travel agent industry starting in 1992.
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Would it work to keep the status quo but just lower the caps on lending dramatically? No student can borrow more than whatever a decent used car is, for 4 years total. That would force drastic cutbacks from the colleges, and/or fewer people would attend,
I needed loans to get through school. If you slash the loan availability it would mostly just keep poor and middle class kids out of college.
I don’t think thats a great way to cut enrollment.
And what problem are we solving?
Disagree. If they cut loan availability then universities would stop hiring $200k a year diversity administrators and building $20M university building expansions, and reduce tuition.
Government availability of student loans has led to massive inflation in tuition.
As it has in healthcare.
As it has in housing.
As it will in any area the government wants to provide free money to and thus artificially inflate demand.
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That was sort of what I was getting at. Popping the loan bubble would eventually lower prices, at the expense of short-term pain for people who need larger loans and end up not going.
It doesn’t seem to me that “everyone can go to college” and “nobody should have to owe a lot in student loans” are compatible with other without some sort of compromise.
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The poor should be able to get need-based grants (federal, state, and school itself). The middle class (or more like upper middle) is screwed, because they make too much to qualify for financial aid, but not enough to actually afford college.
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THe #1 reason tutition has balloned up in the past few decades is the reduction of state funding.
We’ve always had student loans and the borrowing caps have been little changed for decades.
THeres little correlation between borrowing availability and tuition costs
THeres also really no reason to think that tution would go down much if at all if we kill peoples ability to afford college. People can’t afford healthcare and has that caused healthcare to drop in cost?
Yeah they’re mostly the ones relying on the loans and the ones that would be screwed if you slash loan availability.
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Again, what problem are we fixing?
If the problem is “college costs too much” then “remove peoples ability to pay” is not really a great solution.
It’s the “people are borrowing too much” problem.
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Sometimes it helps to ask the question the other way. For example, in NYC or SanFran, how much lower would rental / housing costs be if they got rid of rent control laws?
While I agree with you 100% because everything you said is true, something that is also true across space and time is… “Unless you plan on teaching high school english, you will not get a job using your english degree.” Similar advice is just as applicable for several other majors as well.
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From college board trends in education funding :
| Figure CP-13. Institutional Revenues per Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Student in 2017 Dollars at Public Institutions, 2007-08, 2012-13, and 2017-18 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net Tuition Revenue | State and Local Appropriations | Federal Appropriations and Federal, State, and Local Grants and Contracts | |||
| Public Doctoral | 2007-08 | $8,930 | $10,410 | $8,950 | $28,290 |
| 2012-13 | $11,100 | $7,230 | $8,650 | $26,980 | |
| 2017-18 | $12,080 | $7,750 | $8,440 | $28,270 | |
| Public Master’s | 2007-08 | $6,410 | $7,340 | $2,100 | $15,850 |
| 2012-13 | $7,710 | $5,350 | $1,870 | $14,930 | |
| 2017-18 | $7,990 | $6,630 | $2,200 | $16,820 | |
| Public Bachelor’s | 2007-08 | $4,880 | $6,710 | $2,050 | $13,640 |
| 2012-13 | $5,520 | $5,090 | $1,880 | $12,490 | |
| 2017-18 | $5,730 | $6,000 | $2,040 | $13,770 | |
| Public Associate | 2007-08 | $2,890 | $6,570 | $1,630 | $11,090 |
| 2012-13 | $3,510 | $5,130 | $1,410 | $10,050 | |
| 2017-18 | $3,660 | $6,690 | $1,860 | $12,210 |
And here is the spending per student :
| Figure CP-14. Net Tuition Revenues, Subsidies, and Education and Related Expenditures per Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Student in 2017 Dollars, 2007-08, 2012-13, and 2017-18 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net Tuition Revenue | Subsidy | Education and Related Expenditures | |||
| Public | Doctoral | 2007-08 | $8,930 | $8,920 | $17,850 |
| 2012-13 | $11,100 | $7,290 | $18,390 | ||
| 2017-18 | $12,080 | $7,910 | $19,990 | ||
| Master’s | 2007-08 | $6,410 | $7,090 | $13,500 | |
| 2012-13 | $7,710 | $6,250 | $13,960 | ||
| 2017-18 | $7,990 | $6,430 | $14,420 | ||
| Bachelor’s | 2007-08 | $4,880 | $7,270 | $12,150 | |
| 2012-13 | $5,520 | $6,330 | $11,850 | ||
| 2017-18 | $5,730 | $7,310 | $13,040 | ||
| Associate | 2007-08 | $2,890 | $6,740 | $9,630 | |
| 2012-13 | $3,510 | $5,850 | $9,360 | ||
| 2017-18 | $3,660 | $7,240 | $10,900 |
Yes theres some of that too for sure with spending increasing. See the chart above.
OK.
So why is it “too much” ? And why do we need to fix it?
We’ve got just about as much auto loan debt in the USA as student loan debt. But its not causing similar worry that the student loan debt does.
I personally think we should NOT be doing debt forgiveness in general. I think the possibility of debt forgiveness is the reason we’re all talking about it here right? If debt forgiveness wasn’t a possibility we wouldn’t be having the discussion.
The average student has $30k in debt on graduation. Thats a pile of debt for sure for a 22 year old with no assets. But if you’ve got a decent job its certainly manageable.
If individuals go out and borrow silly amounts like $50-100k for an undergrad degree then thats on them. The govenrment loans max out around 50k so those situations are caused by private loan borrowing. I don’t think we can stop private loans.
If people get low demand degrees then I think thats a problem too. Hard to pay off the average $30k debt if you’re workin gat Starbucks with your psycology BS. Of course that degree choice is the students mistake. But as we’ve all discussed and I think we mostly agree the typical 18-22 year old is prone to such mistakes and its kinda hard to blem them for getting it wrong based on all the crap advice they get.
People are borrowing more in direct reaction to college getting more and more expensive. You could limit borrowing and then hope that this causees college to get cheaper. But I doubt it will do that.
There are a lot of people who go to college and drop out. Then they have student loans that are harder for them to pay without a good degree/career. I’m not sure how much of the student loan debt problem this accounts for.
THis is getting long and maybe I’m starting to ramble so I’ll stop for now.
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