Student Loan Debt

[MickintheHam]

I commend to any of you with a subscription, the front page article in today’s WSJ entitled “NYU is Top Ranked — in Loans”.

When did anyone with an ounce of sense believe it was a good idea to borrow more than I ever did for a mortgage to finance a degree in Public Health. The damn woman interviewed has over $135,000 in loans and post graduation has an $18,000 a year job working for a non-profit. She is considering selling her eggs for a second time for $50k.

How does a “prestigious” university create such a situation. These private universities are sitting on endowments worth 10s of billions of dollars and doing little to nothing to ease the tuition burden. Of wait! They offer helpful hints to students. Consider eating fewer meals. Work part time. Graduate sooner. Look for a website to find a babysitting gig. And there is my favorite: go live with a senior citizen. And in their defense NYU says they are working to control tuition growth by trimming its energy use and looking for lower cost suppliers.

Now the socialists think I should pay to forgive billions of dollars in loans as part of this scam. Let’s first put a raid on the endowment funds and then you will put an end to this party.

[Catonahottinroof]

At the end of the day, you gotta pay the piper……
My daughter’s tuition bill at the Citadel is almost $100K and she will head to the Air Force to allow the government to pay the bill. An 8 yr commitment to work to absorb the bill. There is no free lunch…


I commend to any of you with a subscription, the front page article in today’s WSJ entitled “NYU is Top Ranked — in Loans”.

When did anyone with an ounce of sense believe it was a good idea to borrow more than I ever did for a mortgage to finance a degree in Public Health. The damn woman interviewed has over $135,000 in loans and post graduation has an $18,000 a year job working for a non-profit. She is considering selling her eggs for a second time for $50k.

How does a “prestigious” university create such a situation. These private universities are sitting on endowments worth 10s of billions of dollars and doing little to nothing to ease the tuition burden. Of wait! They offer helpful hints to students. Consider eating fewer meals. Work part time. Graduate sooner. Look for a website to find a babysitting gig. And there is my favorite: go live with a senior citizen. And in their defense NYU says they are working to control tuition growth by trimming its energy use and looking for lower cost suppliers.

Now the socialists think I should pay to forgive billions of dollars in loans as part of this scam. Let’s first put a raid on the endowment funds and then you will put an end to this party.

[MickintheHam]

You both knew how the loan would be paid. Selling eggs isn’t a viable means for any of us. Good luck to your daughter in her impotant service to our country.

[CitizenBBN]

College has become a scam. Like public primary education they are bloated with administration and fancy buildings and the massive government student loan program lets them just endlessly raise tuition to make it work.

It's incentive based economics. The schools don't have to cut costs and be efficient and deliver value b/c kids can just go get more money with no real collateral to cover the bill.

Hospitals and health care have the same incentive problem. They charge $24 for a tylenol b/c they can.

Further, they have gone utterly off the rails in their mission of educating and preparing people for careers and life, and have become navel-gazing self-absorbed self-aggrandizing twits who don't teach much that is very useful. They are more a Marxist indoctrination center than a tower of higher learning and thinking.

Instead of teaching people to think and question and learn they are now all about quashing dissent and getting people to not think.

Then to top it off they give out degrees in any number of areas that are only good for going to another college to teach b/c they have no real world applications, or are not necessary for the applications they may have for jobs.

If I were POTUS I'd put Mike Rowe in charge of education reform and we'd go a whole different direction. People are spending six figures to get out and get job that will never pay what they could make as a skilled tradesman. Not everyone needs or benefits from college, and as colleges get off the script that group is getting bigger and bigger.

And I would further chap their asses by shifting funding to programs that prepare people to contribute economically. Engineering is a good choice, but without a foreign language and social awareness requirement. The government may loan on the classes so you can be an engineer, but classes that are the woke/socialist equivalent of basket weaving are out.

College administrators wouldn't like me much. basically b/c I'm interested in results, not platitudes. Are we training people who can contribute economically or in STEM? To me those are the two things government should maybe subsidize. Want to get a degree in Sanscrit? You're on your own. That's not very "academic", but it is very realistic.

Of course the big issue, as Mick said, is that they hoard their donations and build massive endowments but then stick the kids and thus the government with the bill for everything the endowment should be doing.

[MickintheHam]

Well said, Citizen

[VirginiaCat]

Amen Citizen. It used to be a Bachelors degree meant something. now they are a dime a dozen. In some fields even a Masters is not worth much.

Teachers make about $60K (starting less, experienced more). After 5 years you better have your masters level equivalent. That degree could cost $150K. Why would you do that? Same with Social Work and Public Policy.

It is just nuts.

[Catonahottinroof]

A lot of degrees are “feel good”, but not much pay off salarywise. STEM degrees still draw really good salaries and career building.
Thankfully that is what my daughter will have and once her time in the Air Force is over the transition to employment of her biosciences degree will provide a fine career.
For the life of me I don’t understand why you would get a degree with a pricetag of a Mercedes and the pay of a Kia, but it’s happening….at an alarming rate too.
Amen Citizen. It used to be a Bachelors degree meant something. now they are a dime a dozen. In some fields even a Masters is not worth much.

Teachers make about $60K (starting less, experienced more). After 5 years you better have your masters level equivalent. That degree could cost $150K. Why would you do that? Same with Social Work and Public Policy.

It is just nuts.

[MickintheHam]

CoaHTR, we are talking Lamborghini or Ferrari.

[Catonahottinroof]

Pretty much Mick…..

CoaHTR, we are talking Lamborghini or Ferrari.

[catmanjack]

Well I see the 4 year as a play ground with very little substance, kids and I have 3 step kids one went to whittenburg in Ohio, one to carnage Mellon and the other to northwestern and all went almost totally free because their mother is a teacher not even making 60K.
But each has used the 4 year college and play time while racking up debt buying cars using fed money and traveling at a whim.
Then going to grad school when they decide to grow up.
All three voted Democrat why? Because they believe oh papa joe was going to eliminate student federal debt.