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Old 11-10-2013, 04:15 AM
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Default Student Loan debt

We need a catch all I think

I Might Not Send My Kids to College | Sarah Stewart Holland

The author can't put away 1000/month for her kids future college education because she is paying that for her own education, and will be for years.
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Old 11-10-2013, 11:46 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

My wife's employer picked up about 2/3rds of the cost of college for her, but she still has tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt she hasn't even started paying yet. All of her take-home pay from job she has right now would just barely pay the payments on it.
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Old 11-10-2013, 01:53 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

I keep hearing reference to the "student loan bubble". Like the housing bubble and the credit bubble. Banks are starting to pull out of the program (like JP Morgan Chase). So what happens when this one bursts?

Seriously, I've told my kid that he will either need to get scholarships, or join the military, unless things drastically change in the next decade-which they might. We can't save enough to put him through school...we can't save enough to retire on...we no longer have home equity to borrow against (which was not a good idea even when we did, so we didn't do it), and student loans have become some kind of indentured servitude for so many people it scares the shit out of me.

Quote:
"We just don't see this as a market that we can significantly grow," Thasunda Duckett tells Reuters. Duckett is the chief executive for auto and student loans at Chase, which means she's basically delivering the news that a large part of her business is getting closed down.

The move is eerily reminiscent of the subprime shutdown that happened in 2007. Each time a bank shuttered its subprime unit, the news was presented in much the same way that JPMorgan is spinning the end of its student lending. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101012270
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Old 11-10-2013, 02:02 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

I think payments on student loan debt should be limited to a certain percent of a person's income. I think Obama actually proposed limiting payments to 10% of discretionary income. Current law caps it at 15% and any amount still owed after 25 years is forgiven. But, I think that only applies to federal government student loans, not private loans.

Still, I'm not sure why my wife is being asked to pay $400 a month when she only brings home $600. I think she might have to talk to someone about refinancing that.
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Old 11-10-2013, 02:09 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Certainly the country has an interest in affordable payments...if a whole generation has zero discretionary income to spend on consumer goods, we have no economy to speak of.

Dingfod, she works for an employer who paid a chunk of her debt but makes only 600/month? How does that work? I am imagining indentured servitude indeed! "Oh hey, we'll pay off a bunch of this looming debt, BUT you have to work for us for low pay for X amount of time!"

This may or may not be related, but I think it might be. I have noted that there just aren't many young people getting married, or even moving into their own places these days. Maybe it's just my area, but it's different enough from my observations in past decades to have struck me several times.

Last edited by LadyShea; 11-10-2013 at 02:22 PM.
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Old 11-10-2013, 04:37 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

The consequences of government making college affordable for everyone.
Most are left debt-ridden with a practically useless degree.
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Old 11-10-2013, 05:13 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyShea View Post
I keep hearing reference to the "student loan bubble". Like the housing bubble and the credit bubble. Banks are starting to pull out of the program (like JP Morgan Chase). So what happens when this one bursts?

Seriously, I've told my kid that he will either need to get scholarships, or join the military, unless things drastically change in the next decade-which they might. We can't save enough to put him through school...we can't save enough to retire on...we no longer have home equity to borrow against (which was not a good idea even when we did, so we didn't do it), and student loans have become some kind of indentured servitude for so many people it scares the shit out of me.
Student debt is definitely a bubble. The question is how harmful the bubble actually is. If the banks aren't creating derivative markets based on student loan debt, and people aren't speculating on the outcome of student loans, the effect of the student loan bubble is primarily going to be disastrous to the students who want to go to college and the colleges who rely on student loans. It (probably) won't threaten the entire banking system like the mortgage crisis did.

That isn't 100% bad, as there exist some private colleges whose marketing plan is to suck up as much student loan money as possible and issue a useless degree. It's not a tragedy if these colleges fail or are required to shape up.

The trouble is, lives will be ruined before it all shakes out.
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Old 11-10-2013, 05:26 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyShea View Post
Dingfod, she works for an employer who paid a chunk of her debt but makes only 600/month? How does that work? I am imagining indentured servitude indeed! "Oh hey, we'll pay off a bunch of this looming debt, BUT you have to work for us for low pay for X amount of time!"
I should have said her previous employer, who happens to be my employer as well. They have a education reimbursement program that pays for up to $7500 per year of tuition, books, and fees. They don't even require the degree to be job-related.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyShea
This may or may not be related, but I think it might be. I have noted that there just aren't many young people getting married, or even moving into their own places these days. Maybe it's just my area, but it's different enough from my observations in past decades to have struck me several times.
Delaying marriage and having children later in life or even not at all is a thing now. I suspect being saddled with student loans is in part responsible for that.
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Old 11-10-2013, 10:41 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Those generalized estimators are kind of misleading, IMO, because tuition costs vary so wildly that an average is really only useful for statistical purposes. I just looked up a sampling of Colorado college costs, and the tuition and fees range from about $3K to $44K per year. Books probably add about another $1K, at least at the lower end.

So it is still possible to get a college education out of pocket or with only minimal loans if you apply for FAFSA and stay with your parents and work part time or summers, start with community college and then transfer your credits to a four year school, things like that. It's not as easy as it used to be, and make no mistake that shit is fucked up and bullshit, but you can get a college education for a lot less than those estimators say.

I do agree with that lady that most kids shouldn't go to college right out of high school, though. It helps to spend a little time working and being a sort of grownup first.
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Old 11-11-2013, 03:50 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

It can or cannot be a good thing to have a "gap year" before entering University.

Also for many fairly low paying jobs, a bachelor's degree is necessary to prove that one can read, write and function at a basic level. And that isn't necessarily all that either.
I have friends with pretty good employable degrees and what is really killing them is not so much the loans, but the interest and that it compounds.
One thing newer students have, that I don't have is the ability to have one's loans (federal subsidized for graduate school) forgiven after 10 years of non-profit work. Payments are income dependent. I have an income dependent loan that I'll be paying after I retire ($200 a month for 30 years, for an approximately $30,000 loan). The problem is if the loan doesn't afford you a basic income, you're hosed.
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Old 11-11-2013, 12:50 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

I was only going to take a year off, but that turned into never going. A younger family member took a year off, then did the CC, grants, loans thing. He went into teaching which pays part of your loans back. He's doing pretty well.
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Old 11-12-2013, 02:30 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea View Post
I do agree with that lady that most kids shouldn't go to college right out of high school, though. It helps to spend a little time working and being a sort of grownup first.
lol check that olds privilege, with all the job opportunities for youngs with (or without) a degree nowadays!

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Old 11-12-2013, 02:10 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Angry Bear » Ripping Off College Students’ Economic Future

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The Tom Friedmans, James Freemans, and others suggest baby boomers are ripping-off the X, Y, and Z generations with these programs. From the well-heeled segment and do not have to work anymore 1-percenter population, we find Stan Druckenmiller, Pete Peterson, the Koch brothers, etc. spending portions of their advocating the discontinuance of Social Security to save the country, students, and themselves. Some are taking to college campuses with false data and advising students to protest the rip-off of their futures in a Days of Rage manner. All tend to ignore the real threat to students and their future. The threat is not likely to come from Social Security, Medicare, etc.

What is threatening the future wealth and income of college students is the increasing debt taken on by students seeking the education necessary to have a chance in a global economy where investments are seeking fewer Labor intensive opportunities. The increased funding necessary to go to college is the result of decreased governmental funding of schools, declining or stagnant household incomes, financial strategies delineating the increased risk of student loans (CBO, The New America Foundation, Heritage Foundation, etc.), and the increased cost of attending colleges and universities (which as Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice Org. states cost increases have outstripped CPI and even Healthcare) .

Student Debt has quadrupled from 2003 to 2013 going from ~$240 billion to > $1,000,000,000. Up from 41% in 1989, 66% of all students now have an average debt of ~$27,000. The rise in average student debt can be traced to a sharp decline in state funding of public colleges of 25% since 2000 and a stagnation/decline of household income for the vast majority of US households over a similar time span.

...


Burdened with student debt, a student can expect to lose lifetime wealth of ~$208,000 when compared to unburdened students.
Read the whole thing, obviously. Also, follow studentloanjustice.org, which I can't get to at work because "corporate decision", lol.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think it's misleading to think of the problem as being chiefly about student loans. The problem is chiefly about a sharp decrease in public funding for education at a time when education is more crucial than ever for anyone who wants to participate in the economy, coupled with a pronounced trend toward running institutions of higher learning as profit making enterprises. So, increased demand, decreased supply, add profit motive and stir like crazy. That leads to soaring tuitions, which are especially unaffordable in an economic situation with mostly stagnant wages, thus, debt. The first reform I think the industry itself needs it to repeal the ridiculous law that student loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy like basically every other freaking debt.

In conclusion, Elizabeth Warren for President.
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Old 11-12-2013, 02:18 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

I'm up to my eyeballs in student debt and have no clue how I'm going to pay it off. I'm barely making enough to get by, let alone pay off loans. It's bad.
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Old 11-12-2013, 03:06 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dingfod View Post
I think payments on student loan debt should be limited to a certain percent of a person's income.
In the UK this is how it works. Above a certain threshold, the loans company takes (around) 9% of my (after-tax) income as loan repayment.

In fact, until recently, these loans were pegged at the Bank of England base rate + 1%, or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. That makes my student loan the best loan I will ever have in my life, and I wish I didn't have to pay it off at all! Within the next decade I will probably pay it off, but until then it basically functions as an extra graduate 'tax'. Then I don't have to pay it any more.

New students have interest rates that push 6% but a similar repayment threshold, as well as insane loans. Mine came to £16,000 (four years of living expenses loan, and the government paid my fees in lieu of my low-earning parents). Today's students will have similar, but growing, living expense loans, and a loan on their fees even for low income parents.

If I studied today, I would emerge with at least £20,000 of living expense loan and £36,000 of tuition fee loan. At a low 4% interest rate (the new loans have interest rates of between 3% and 6% weighted on income) that accrues over £2000 a year in interest; it would take a salary of about £40,000 for a graduate to pay off just the interest (and they would have a higher interest rate than 4%!). I would never pay such a loan off, and I doubt most will.

Apart from this effectively functioning as a tax that got brought in via the backdoor, it's not so bad: it gets wiped on death, or 25 (35? 45?) years after graduation.
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Old 11-12-2013, 05:25 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam View Post
Maybe I'm biased, but I think it's misleading to think of the problem as being chiefly about student loans. The problem is chiefly about a sharp decrease in public funding for education at a time when education is more crucial than ever for anyone who wants to participate in the economy, coupled with a pronounced trend toward running institutions of higher learning as profit making enterprises. So, increased demand, decreased supply, add profit motive and stir like crazy. That leads to soaring tuitions, which are especially unaffordable in an economic situation with mostly stagnant wages, thus, debt.
This.


On a related note, I've mentioned it before, but I think we've oversold the whole idea of college. If you want to be a mechanic, or an auto salesperson, or work in manufacturing, you shouldn't have to have a degree from a 4-year school, I think.

The plain fact of the matter is that there are a lot of kids in college nowadays who -- quite frankly, in my opinion -- don't belong. Quite a lot of them don't want to be there, and quite a lot of them are unwilling and/or unable to do the work. But we've sold the idea that you have to have a college degree if you're going to be a "success." So there's a huge demand.

And more and more, colleges (especially community colleges, it seems) are being taken over by people who seem to be a lot more concerned about bringing in money than whether or not the students are actually learning anything. Heck, some colleges flat-out guarantee that you'll "earn" a degree if you attend. But if a college degree is something that anyone can earn, it's essentially worthless.

Don't get me wrong, I think that everyone who wants a college degree -- and who's willing and able to do the work -- should be able to get one. I'd go further and say that anyone who wants a college degree and can pass the entrance examinations shouldn't have to pay a nickel for their education.

Of course, while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony and my very own Constitution-class starship ...


There is nothing wrong with vocational training, in my opinion. If all you're interested in is becoming a Physician's Assistant, for example, and you're not interested in jumping through all the hoops to get a 4-year degree, then vocational training at a technical or community college is nothing to be ashamed of. But a lot of people seem to think that an Associate's Degree isn't a "real" degree, and is, if anything, something to be ashamed of.


And that brings me to a real pet peeve of mine, one that I think is very destructive. I've mentioned that more and more, community colleges in particular seem to be adopting a business model. This is happening at 4-year schools too, to be sure, but it seems to be especially common at community colleges, from what I can tell.

In the competition for students (or more to the point, the money the students bring in), it seems that more and more, community colleges are trying to poach students from 4-year schools. For example, from discussions I've had with colleagues, it seems that a recent trend is for community colleges to take the "Community" out of their names, and just call themselves "X College." But they doesn't change their programs in any way. Do they think they're fooling anyone?

More and more community colleges are offering bachelor's degrees as well. Well, in theory they are.

This has been a topic of numerous discussions with colleagues over the past couple of years, and as far as I can tell, we uniformly think it's a terrible idea.

Why?

Because Associate's Degrees and Bachelor's Degrees are not the same. They're designed to address entirely different needs, and they have entirely different goals. Just as a Master's or Doctorate addresses different needs than does a Bachelor's, and has different goals.

An Associate's Degree is all about vocational training. If you want to be Physician's Assistant or an Auto Mechanic and you don't want to waste time learning nonessential stuff, then an Associate's is entirely proper.

A Bachelor's Degree is all about making you a well-rounded scholar who has some degree of specialization in a particular branch of scholarship -- say, Biology, or English. All the classes you take other than Biology or English classes aren't distractions -- they're kind of the point. They're to help you explore your options and also to gain a greater appreciation for the breadth of human knowledge.


So, long story short: an AS and a BS are entirely different degrees. If community colleges, in an effort to poach students from 4-year schools, are offering "Bachelor's" degrees in popular fields like Nursing, are they revamping their curricula to ensure that they're turning out well-rounded scholars? Are they really giving those students degrees that are comparable to what they'd earn at a good 4-year school? I doubt that very much.


***


I left the university I taught at previously, because they were so obviously concerned more with bringing in money than they were with educating their students. There was constant pressure to "dumb down" the courses, to ensure that we "passed" as many people as possible. The morbid joke amonst the faculty was that the Administration wouldn't allow us to fail a student, no matter how poorly (s)he performed.

How bad was it? During my time there, I served on the Assessment Committee. We gave the students standardized tests when they entered as Freshmen and again when they were Seniors. The goal was to see how much they had improved during that time.

Our school scored in the 96th percentile. Maybe that sounds good. No, it wasn't. That means that only 4% of the schools we were being compared to were doing a worse job than us of educating our students. And I lay the blame squarely on the fact that the Administration made it very, very clear that they were much more concerned about bringing in money than with educating students.

So I left, hoping for someplace better. And found myself someplace that's much worse.


And I just spent 90 minutes trying to explain Sodium-Potassium Exchange Pumps to a classroom full of barnacles. Honestly, I think I would have gotten exactly the same response level and comprehension (namely none) if I'd been speaking in Klingon.

I'm honestly looking forward to the end of the semester because this class makes me fear that I'm going to snap one of these days and ask: "Just why the hell are you in this classroom? Clearly, you don't care one whit about the material. As far as I can tell, only one of you is making any effort at all to learn it. So why are you wasting my time and your [or more likely, you Moms' and Dads'] money?"

Thank goodness my other classes are much better, because at the end of this class, I'm this close to going out and looking for a high building to throw myself off of.
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Old 11-12-2013, 10:18 PM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

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Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
On a related note, I've mentioned it before, but I think we've oversold the whole idea of college. If you want to be a mechanic, or an auto salesperson, or work in manufacturing, you shouldn't have to have a degree from a 4-year school, I think.
Agreed, but there are many employers who have not gotten the message. My degree has gotten me a few jobs, it's a BS in education so my first job was as a teacher, I hated it and didn't do well, so I left.
The BS was in Industrial arts so my next job was in a machine shop, based on the degree, I liked that job but left for a better one.
The next job was a draftsman, based on my degree, I liked the job but not the environment, so I was let go, because I wouldn't 'kiss ass'.
I owned a hobby shop, but closed it because I wasn't a good businessman.
I then got another job in a machine shop that I liked, but I was making parts for a company that then took their business elsewhere.
Most of my employment was due to the degree that I had.

The company where I worked as a draftsman was looking for another draftsman and the requirements included an associate degree. The personal dept sent the application of a person with a BS degree, with the advise that they were over qualified. The head of the drafting Dept. rejected him as not qualified at all, the degree was in biology. He had no experience in drafting but the personal dept. saw the BS degree and thought it exceeded the Associate degree required.
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Old 11-13-2013, 12:33 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
On a related note, I've mentioned it before, but I think we've oversold the whole idea of college. If you want to be a mechanic, or an auto salesperson, or work in manufacturing, you shouldn't have to have a degree from a 4-year school, I think.

The plain fact of the matter is that there are a lot of kids in college nowadays who -- quite frankly, in my opinion -- don't belong. Quite a lot of them don't want to be there, and quite a lot of them are unwilling and/or unable to do the work. But we've sold the idea that you have to have a college degree if you're going to be a "success." So there's a huge demand.
You know, I can and sometimes do agree with that in the abstract. But the thing is, I cannot apply it to anyone I care about. The kids who shouldn't go to college are all kids I don't know or don't like. I'm sure it's true that some people really don't have the interest or abilities for a college education, but I don't think that's what we're selecting for.

I have seen kids being subtly and not so subtly guided toward vo-tech at very very young ages, often for stupid reasons. Things like being a troublemaker or having a manageable learning disorder or otherwise behaving in ways that affect the school's bottom line. It's very much a selector for social class too.

Just as an illustration, 31% of public school students in Colorado are Hispanic, but the largest vocational high school in the area is 85% Hispanic, and the smaller ones all seem to hover around there as well. And many of the 'career tracks' are some bullshit. They have video game design, crime scene forensics, fashion design, firefighting, and a whole bunch of other stuff that probably sounds pretty cool to teenagers but isn't likely to set them on a decent career course. They're just ways of pushing troubled kids out of the regular schools by luring them with classes about Batman and explosions.

And until I start seeing vocational schools with about the same social class makeup as liberal arts schools, I'm going to suspect that a lot of the kids who are unprepared for college have been specifically selected to be unprepared. You know, they just get put in the "well, someone has to empty bedpans" category very early in their schooling, and their parents don't have the clout or even the energy to fight it.

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There is nothing wrong with vocational training, in my opinion. If all you're interested in is becoming a Physician's Assistant, for example, and you're not interested in jumping through all the hoops to get a 4-year degree, then vocational training at a technical or community college is nothing to be ashamed of. But a lot of people seem to think that an Associate's Degree isn't a "real" degree, and is, if anything, something to be ashamed of.
I think those things get conflated a whole lot. A liberal arts education is not supposed to be vocational training, but it does provide vocational benefits in ways far less concrete than (this made me mad) that lady in that article saying that she was working in social media, which isn't even part of a college curriculum! As though her educational background was somehow completely irrelevant because it doesn't exactly match her current job title. She doesn't really think she'd have that "social media" position with just a high school education, does she?

I mean, yeah, you don't need a bachelor's degree to get a job as a physician's assistant (I learned this today--I thought it was always a master's program) or an auto mechanic. But if that's the only post high school (or middle school) education you have to work with, you're likely to be stuck with the choices you made as a teenager, or worse, with the pigeonhole someone stuck you in before that.

The business model you talk about, and the largely vocational narrative, just strikes me as more insidious pigeonholing, too. Kids are treating liberal arts classes like they're obstacles because schools are presenting their education to them solely in terms of concrete job benefits, and they don't understand the benefits of actually getting a liberal arts education as opposed to just having one, and that a lot of the skills you learn are more abstractly about problem solving and cultural awareness, and that those actually are lucrative skills largely because they're not just concrete, easily quantifiable 'job skills.'

As a practical matter, yes. A lot of people are getting out of high school without the fundamental skills they'd need to get anything out of a college education. And with the increase in costs and generally troubled economy, college education is out of reach financially for a lot of people. (Not just because of the cost of the education itself, but because of the lack of support systems.) But those are issues I think need to be addressed at the source, by improving our K-12 systems so that most kids come out of it college ready, and so that the resources are available for everyone who wants to pursue that.

But I keep seeing this solution coming from the elite class that we need more vocational training to fill the skills gap, but they always seem to be talking about other people's kids who'll make up this feudal class that will be emptying all the slop buckets and painting all the fingernails.

I'm not saying you're wrong that these kids in your classes aren't college material. I'm sure they're not, but I'll start believing they were just born that way when I start seeing successful college educated parents happily pointing their own kids to this vocational track.

Which they're not:

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show - NYTimes.com
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Old 11-13-2013, 01:22 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

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Originally Posted by lisarea
The business model you talk about, and the largely vocational narrative, just strikes me as more insidious pigeonholing, too. Kids are treating liberal arts classes like they're obstacles because schools are presenting their education to them solely in terms of concrete job benefits, and they don't understand the benefits of actually getting a liberal arts education as opposed to just having one, and that a lot of the skills you learn are more abstractly about problem solving and cultural awareness, and that those actually are lucrative skills largely because they're not just concrete, easily quantifiable 'job skills.'
And that's fine in a world where you don't have to make a living/support yourself, jump through ridiculous hoops (which FAFSA is seriously a fucked up nightmare, I tried it out. And I am great at red tape.), and factor the ability repay loans and/or come up with cash into the decision. It's expensive and time consuming, and unless that changes then whether or not it leads to a job is going to be a huge factor.

It's the difference between investing your time and money into creating marketable skills, or spending your time and money on an experience for the sake of experiencing. I am all for experience, hell it's my favoritist thing, but if I had the money and a choice I would spend it on world travel over going to school.

ETA: The term I was looking for and failing to find last night was return on investment.

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Old 11-13-2013, 01:25 AM
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Don't under estimate the influence the parents have in their children's choice of a carer path. I learned from my parents what not to do with my own children, they chose their own path and I encouraged them in whatever choice they made, even the ones that turned out to be not so good.

When I was growing up I took an interest in cars, working on them and fixing them. Apparently that was beneath the dignity of one of my fathers children. My father owned two different service stations and his next to last jobs was repairing heavy equipment at a quarry, yet when I tried to do anything mechanical with a car he never offered any help or encouragement. His idea of the ideal job was working for the government, a big company, or something government related like teaching. So I ended up getting a BS in education and teaching, which I didn't like. I can't imagine the disappointment when I quit and started working in a machine shop actually making things.

One of the things that really used to bug the shit out of me was my mothers habit of saying that because my brother and I had done so well that they must have been really good parents. I don't think my brother told them everything and I know I didn't. Still I know that if we did do well it was more in spite of our upbringing than because of it.

Parents, listen to your children and try to know what would really make them happy, not what would make you happy. Happy parents often mean miserable children.
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Old 11-13-2013, 04:06 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

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Originally Posted by lisarea View Post
I mean, yeah, you don't need a bachelor's degree to get a job as a physician's assistant (I learned this today--I thought it was always a master's program)
Either this varies from state to state or there is more than one thing called a "physician's assistant" or something, because my brothers' girlfriend is going to school for this, and hers is a master's program.
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Old 11-13-2013, 04:09 AM
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http://www.aapa.org/the_pa_professio...em.aspx?id=755
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Old 11-13-2013, 10:03 AM
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Default Re: Student Loan debt

I don't think university has been about getting appropriate skills for the workplace for a long time, if ever in my lifetime. It is about distinguishing yourself from the other people all trying to get a good job - educational Peacock tails.

A free market in education should eventually push costs up so high that the lifetime financial benefit of going to university is pretty much the same as the lifetime costs - perhaps it will even be more expensive, as university is good fun. We may already be there. The case for subsidising the education of bright kids from poor backgrounds becomes a lot harder to make, I think, when this happens. Which is a shame: in the past, when education was less of a Peacock tail, it was a genuinely solid way of improving social mobility. That tool now seems to have been removed, or at least severely diminished in effect.
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Old 11-13-2013, 12:44 PM
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So, what about not getting a student loan, by means of not getting tertiary education at all? And going straight into The World? Whether that means a job or unpaid work in its many forms. Such a young person wouldn't be guaranteed well paying, satisfying work, and wouldn't be able to move out of the parental home in places like Britain ... so, no difference from someone who did get a degree.

Little Miss JoeP is looking at art degrees. One nephew has gone to university. One son of a friend has got straight into employment (retail mgt) while his sister is applying to university.
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Old 11-13-2013, 12:53 PM
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educational Peacock tails
"educational Peacock tails" - Google Search

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No results found for "educational Peacock tails".
However, watch this space ... :plzhold:
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