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A college degree is a lousy investment

Heh, and biff and jh stick with their demeaning of humanities and social science degrees. Is the function of higher ed just to gatekeep the good jobs? To produce a very expensive piece of paper, a diploma as a ticket to the next social strata? The function of education should be to teach students things, to engage their curiosity, and to produce a generation of thinking people. Ask any MBA making mid six figures what they learned in business school that they couldn't have learned on the job and with any undergraduate degree as the foundation. Surely for those positions that do require actual job certification (doctors, lawyers, plumbers) we can find a path that makes sense to certifying them that doesn't put the government in the place of needing to subsidize their lives for decades in this free market system. I can think of a few ways.

In a generation we went from affordable college and affordable housing to unaffordable college and unaffordable housing, all while the cost of goods and medical care have skyrocketed. I'm not sure addressing this on the demand side was the right way around either, but for those it materially helps in the day to day, I think we should all be thankful people in positions to help are trying things. Lord knows we bend over backwards to help those in absolutely no need whatsoever.
 
tiltdeac said:
So the group that subscribes to this line of thinking, do you feel the way about companies that fail and declare bankruptcy? Immoral? Should be saddled with the debt forever no matter what?
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Arbitrarily waiving student loan debt is a bit different from bankruptcy - and of course bankruptcy itself is nuanced. Sometimes companies fail and declare bankruptcy. Sometimes companies use bankruptcy immorally as a shield against creditors
 
If y'all want go after MTG's the PPP money be my guest. Seems to be the sticking point here.
 
I'm cool if we collect every single PPP loan in full. Maybe use the proceeds to help the 50%+ of adults 25-34 who didn't graduate from college
 
TownieDeac said:
Heh, and biff and jh stick with their demeaning of humanities and social science degrees. Is the function of higher ed just to gatekeep the good jobs? ***.
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If they produce their value, then why are we forgiving the debt?
 
To address the unfairness factor, just give the 10k payments to people who paid off their loans in the past 20 or so years, too (assuming they meet the other criteria). A lot of people in that group have a big wealth hole that they may never catch up from because of the sacrifices made to pay off the debt.
 
ProfessorDeac said:
To address the unfairness factor, just give the 10k payments to people who paid off their loans in the past 20 or so years, too (assuming they meet the other criteria). A lot of people in that group have a big wealth hole that they may never catch up from because of the sacrifices made to pay off the debt.
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What about the people who created their big wealth hole in advance (parents) so they didn't have to take out huge loans in the first place ? What do they get ? Pat on the back ?
 
BiffTannen said:
What about the people who created their big wealth hole in advance (parents) so they didn't have to take out huge loans in the first place ? What do they get ? Pat on the back ?
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So people who have wealthy parents should get $10K too? For fairness?
 
WokeandBroke said:
If they produce their value, then why are we forgiving the debt?
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I'll flip this on its head. Academic research output has somewhere between a 10-100x ROI depending on the field and the year. We fund NIH, NSF, and other grant giving institutions with research $ from taxpayers which produces pharmaceuticals, biomedical supplies, treatments, and in the social science space, everything from urban planning to criminal justice reform to social work. That production of value often times ends up in the hands of private business (pharma/biomed companies most often) who reap the benefits from the basic research produced at public and private institutions alike. We taxpayers subsidize it and then pay for it as consumers.

I don't subscribe to a notion that a graduate of college should be measured by the value of their output, but economic research suggests that forgiving this debt will grow the GDP, and not reasonably increase inflation (especially paired with lifting the debt freeze in January '23). It's easier when discussing macroeconomic policy to think of the outcomes here, and a better faith discussion to have than "derp gender studies degree paid off, let's go Brandon!"

The funny part about this to me is that the GOP and Fox News will try to sell this back to their constituents as a bad deal with lines about how this will help the rich, and YET it is primarily the rich doing the complaining.
 
TenaciousKory said:
oh man this is good
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For real. Religious texts say way more about immoral lending than immoral borrowing.

But yeah, I’d love to hear more from the “taxation is theft” crowd about how not paying all the interest on government loans is theft.
 
BiffTannen said:
First it does matter what I think and it matters what everyone in this country who bothers to vote thinks. There are people all over this country who are up to their eyeballs in debt who may or may not have a marketable college degree who aren't getting any sort of loan forgiveness outside of declaring bankruptcy. And yes, I understand that student loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

You're right that it is bad for the country. Something should be done about our college system and students should not be borrowing money that they can't repay. Both of these things can be true. This does nothing to fix that and further emboldens the student debt folks, like Elizabeth Warren, to continue to demand more loan forgiveness.
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If you want to forgive other types of debt for people making less than 120k then please, be my guest. Don’t threaten me with a good time. Unlike you, I’m not trying to insure that lower income people are held properly responsible for their bad economic decisions. I don’t have your weird punitive fetish.
 
PhDeac said:
For real. Religious texts say way more about immoral lending than immoral borrowing.

But yeah, I’d love to hear more from the “taxation is theft” crowd about how not paying all the interest on government loans is theft.
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Is that what you tell your bank when you sign your mortgage ?
 
ImTheCaptain said:
does anyone have access to the San. Francisco Chronicle's archives? b/c good luck trying to read the actual article/op-ed from 1970

just curious b/c it's an oft-cited quote but im curious what the rest of this spicy take's message was
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I thought we were anti-handouts on these here boards
 
BiffTannen said:
If y'all want go after MTG's the PPP money be my guest. Seems to be the sticking point here.
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Nah I want you to write me a check for $0.01 to cover the amount of money I threw down for your (likely) ostentatious McMansion in the Charlotte suburbs when you claimed the MID, you crabby old fuck.
 
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