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A college degree is a lousy investment

that is impressive, especially the piece about the up front assessment and telling kids what they are likely to make for a given major.
I do remember they use to have pamphlets for both majors and industries, detailing the types of work, career paths, and expected starting and median salary. Didn't really advertise it, though. Pretty sure that is actually how I found out about consulting.
 
will this slow down the constant whining by Tribble kids?
 
Did not realize that Andy Chan used to run the career office at Stanford Business School. That is impressive. Sounds like he has made some great progress.
 
I have an MA student who wants to get his PhD. He and his sister help take care of his dad. He can't apply to our PhD program because he got his BA from here. The only other PhD program is about 90 minutes away. So he's probably going to just get a job because getting a PhD would make it harder to fulfill his family obligations.

Is there any sort of waiver or appeal process for situations like this? Seems like there ought to be.
 
It clearly wasn't a wise investment for the Stratts.
 
Article on a documentary about this subject

Nothing particularly new except there is a billionaire paying kids to drop out of college? What kind of offer is he making? What would your offer have to be?

Here's one.

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I can think of a few more, too.
 
The offer is 100k for 2 years. No way would I do that.

500k...absolutely. Just investing conservatively would turn that into 5 million in 40 years.
I gotta assume there's significantly more benefit to being one of those fellows than just the $100k. And I'd assume you'd be able to still go to college afterwards if you wanted, probably a better one than originally accepted to.
 
The problem is that a college degree used to be a symbol of achievement and everybody wanted one and you needed one to make that jump from pretty good job to really great job.

Then the government decided to help support that dream and made college attainable for those for whom it wasn't previously. Then colleges realized that they could raise tuition and people would keep going and paying because it was so easy to get loan money.

I've got friends from law school that are 250K in debt right now.

$250K????? I'd kill myself, and I don't say that to be mean. I owed about $20K after undergrad & law school. Paying that off was one of the great moments in my life.
 
The President acknowledges tremendous student debt is a problem.

What he should do, IMHO, is repeal the law passed during GWB that exempted student loans from bankruptcy proceedings. This is a major driver to the education bubble and student loan crisis. Schools should not be exempt from market risks in making loans. Under ACA, we need young, healthy graduates to get good jobs and support the sick and aging by overpaying for insurance. They can't do that under crushing debt.
 
The President acknowledges tremendous student debt is a problem.

What he should do, IMHO, is repeal the law passed during GWB that exempted student loans from bankruptcy proceedings. This is a major driver to the education bubble and student loan crisis. Schools should not be exempt from market risks in making loans. Under ACA, we need young, healthy graduates to get good jobs and support the sick and aging by overpaying for insurance. They can't do that under crushing debt.

Except then anyone with significant debt and few assets would just declare bankruptcy as soon as they graduated. 7 years later, they would be good to go, with 10s of thousands of more dollars in their pocket.
 
Right, which is exactly why they made the law. Default is always a risk when making a loan. They can assess assets and debt loads when making future loans. I think the law has created a larger problem than the one it fixes. I'm open to hearing alternate solutions.
 
Ask, and ye shall receive

The bill includes restoring bankruptcy protections for federal and private student loans and limits collections efforts to six years—instead of allowing an endless chase.

“The soaring cost of college is not only hurting students and their families; it is hurting consumer demand and, in turn, hurting our economic recovery,” Wilson told TakePart. “I’m introducing student loan reform now because I think it can improve lives, boost Americans’ purchasing power, and help promote job creation.”

In biblical times, this was called jubilee.
 
The President acknowledges tremendous student debt is a problem.

What he should do, IMHO, is repeal the law passed during GWB that exempted student loans from bankruptcy proceedings. This is a major driver to the education bubble and student loan crisis. Schools should not be exempt from market risks in making loans. Under ACA, we need young, healthy graduates to get good jobs and support the sick and aging by overpaying for insurance. They can't do that under crushing debt.

http://www.finaid.org/questions/bankruptcyexception.phtml

Student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy prior to 1976. With the introduction of the US Bankruptcy Code (11 USC 101 et seq) in 1978, the ability to discharge education loans was limited. Subsequent changes in the law have further narrowed the dischargeability of education debt.

The exception to discharge for private student loans evolved over time. Prior to 1984, only private student loans made by a "nonprofit institution of higher education" were excepted from discharge. This was intended to protect the National Defense Student Loan Program (NDSL), the predecessor to the Perkins Loan Program. Those loans were made by colleges using a revolving loan fund created using matching federal contributions. The Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984 made private student loans from all nonprofit lenders excepted from discharge, not just colleges, by striking the words "of higher education". The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 expanded this to include all "qualified education loans", regardless of whether a nonprofit institution was involved in making the loans.

Sorry but you can't blame this all on GWB.
 
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