But think of the children!

[Synobun]

Your position feels weird when put in contrast to your being on the government dole all of your adult life, Ferocitus.

That's not a diss, mind, because the same is true for me for the most part. But it parses oddly to me when you go "boo hoo" to people existing in a system designed to maximize debt. It's my understanding that you had your expenses covered by welfare and had a free ride for your mathematics degree, but you must also be aware that the ability of everyone to emulate your path is pretty much nil. I feel your lived experience doesn't match with the sentiment you're espousing, or maybe I am just wildly misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

 

[Hygro]

(A)So what? So you chose to make giant financial decisions. You chose poorly.

Did I choose poorly?

(B) I agree that "free" education is now part of the Democrat's latest Party Platform. E.g.
Democrats are unified in their strong belief that every student should be able to go to college debt-free, and working families should not have to pay any tuition to go to public colleges and universities.
https://democrats.org/about/party-platform/#free-college

But that's now.

When was the last time universal free education was put to a vote in Congress and what was the result?

Yeah, that's now. We're talking about now. This wasn't an issue before so it wasn't a platform before. Probably because we're both as a generation voting for people who are for that and not voting for people who aren't that....

 

[Ferocitus]

Your position feels weird when put in contrast to your being on the government dole all of your adult life, Ferocitus.

That's not a diss, mind, because the same is true for me for the most part. But it parses oddly to me when you go "boo hoo" to people existing in a system designed to maximize debt. It's my understanding that you had your expenses covered by welfare and had a free ride for your mathematics degree, but you must also be aware that the ability of everyone to emulate your path is pretty much nil. I feel your lived experience doesn't match with the sentiment you're espousing, or maybe I am just wildly misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

I don't want them to emulate the way I did it, nor do I care if they do or don't.

If they choose not to find ways out of paying exorbitant fees then that's their considered path. They live in a scummy system, and the opposition to that system hasn't been able to muster anywhere near the numbers to change it. (It's the same here in Oz, BTW.)

 

[Synobun]

Putting the burdens of the collective on the shoulders of the individual is a really weird approach. I don't see what realistic option is available to most individuals if they are born into a system that tells them what they need to do in order to find success. It's unreasonable to expect every individual to simultaneously take proper action in denying those conditions, not only because that's literally impossible but, like, if that were possible... I feel as though it'd have already happened.

Legislate from the top.

 

[Hygro]

The only measurable goal of my parents was for their kids to go to top schools. The entire focus of my public school was to get us to go to college. My high school was particularly singularly focused. Your entire life here in any affluent-enough community is about going to school. It's like, imagine God only allowed Muslims into heaven. "Well you chose poorly" God said to the 17th century Bostonian for not spontaneously converting.*

What's at stake here is simple:
Home ownership among the young folks is down.
Procreating is down.
Entrepreneurship is down.

Basically the things that keep this whole America thing going.


*"Should have waited 6 years for coding bootcamps!" Thanks, God.

 

[Ferocitus]

Putting the burdens of the collective on the shoulders of the individual is a really weird approach. I don't see what realistic option is available to most individuals if they are born into a system that tells them what they need to do in order to find success. It's unreasonable to expect every individual to simultaneously take proper action in denying those conditions, not only because that's literally impossible but, like, if that were possible... I feel as though it'd have already happened.

Legislate from the top.

Student debt doing a Damocles over many US citizens has been a joke since at least the mid 1970's. (IIRC, student loans started to become a staple of US education around the time Russia launched Sputnik.)

Sure the total debt now is gigantic, and more people seem worried enough to address it, but it has troubled many people for far longer.
And nothing much happened, even when Clinton/Dems had control of Congress and Senate.

IMO it is up to individuals. How gullible do you have to be to place trust in politicians and parties who promise to do something to alleviate the burden but never actually even get it to a vote? How many times are people going to get suckered by the very people they vote for?
So, yeah, boo-bloody-hoo. They're stuck in a system that wrings as much as it can from them, and then they vote for more of the same.
Ha-bloody ha.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My grandmother paid $25 for room and board for either a semester or a year when Sputnik went up. You're way off base there. Even relative to the cheaper currency of the time, it was not a huge amount of money. Some may have taken loans but they weren't a problem for society because they weren't the equivalent of a mortgage or loan for a nice car.

And there were waaaay more high-earning jobs that didn't require a high school diploma, much less a formal four year education at university. And graduate degrees? Not nearly as common as today. Today, even kindergarten teachers have to get master's degrees if they want to avoid a major plateau on their already-depressed pay scales.

 

[Ferocitus]

My grandmother paid $25 for room and board for either a semester or a year when Sputnik went up. You're way off base there. Even relative to the cheaper currency of the time, it was not a huge amount of money. Some may have taken loans but they weren't a problem for society because they weren't the equivalent of a mortgage or loan for a nice car.

And there were waaaay more high-earning jobs that didn't require a high school diploma, much less a formal four year education at university. And graduate degrees? Not nearly as common as today. Now, even kindergarten teachers have to get master's degrees if they want to avoid a major plateau on their already-depressed pay scales.

I said they started to become a staple around Sputnik, not that they were at levels that were burdensome back then.

Debt that required more and more grads to work 2 jobs to pay off student loans started in the late 1970's to mid 1980's. (National Lampoon were among those using it for comic effect back then.)

And yes, it became a problem for US society when the total amount started to balloon and impact on other sectors of the economy.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Not sure how any of this really relates to the subject then.

 

[Ferocitus]

Not sure how any of this really relates to the subject then.

Because the problem has been festering and noted for many years, even to the point of parody.
Maybe the trend over the last 10 years was too subtle and only became apparent last year?

But look on the bright side - the USA has a gigantic military instead and they are winning yugely all over the world.

 

[uppi]

Yes, this could have and should have been addressed long ago, but it is a strange argument that this should stop anybody from doing something about it right now.

That this has gone on for so long does make it much harder to change anything about it, though. You would need large structural reforms to the entire tertiary education system. But if you wait even longer, the problem grows worse and the necessary reforms even harder.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Maybe the trend over the last 10 years was too subtle and only became apparent last year?

People knew this was an issue over the last ten years but you were just talking about the 1950's so I'm confused again.

 

[Ferocitus]

People knew this was an issue over the last ten years but you were just talking about the 1950's so I'm confused again.

I see it like this. YMMV.
1. There are clear "epochs" in the rise of student debt.
2. Early on, the debts were not as punishing as today, in absolute or relative terms, nor did they harshly affect anywhere near as many as today.
3. However, by the mid 1970s they were beginning to hurt more and more people.
4. Apart from a dip around 2005 (IIRC), the trend has been pretty obvious.
5. Despite many politicians expressing furrowed-brow concern and solid comittment to doing something about it, next to nothing eventuated.
6. Addressing the problem hasn't been a major concern for enough voters to punish the lack of action.
7. At what point on the graph of very recent debt levels I included did it become obvious that action rather than mealy-mouthed, patronising, faux concern would be required?

Maybe someone at the "top" will annul the entire debt, maybe by channeling it through Trump University LLC.
I'm not yet convinced a vote on forgiving the debt would get through all the necessary stages. To me that suggests the linear trend is going to continue for a few more years.
What odds would you give on it being of sufficient importance to get a majority of voter support in 2020?

 

[Lexicus]

Student debt won't be an issue after 2023, when I plan to lead a peasant uprising which will extinguish the debt by destroying the clay tablets on which it's recorded.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No free college. No more requirement for stuff people don't need to do jobs. This means employers stop putting meaningless crap on the job postings too. You're not allowed to put in a 60 pound lifting requirement for a cashier's position, so why are employers getting away with fake degree requirements?

It's annoying to see students coming out of college with inferior grammar to the above and math skills below what I had as a high school graduate. Tens of thousands of dollars of debt for what exactly?

I'm okay with kicking fraudulent loans to the curb, but not poorly thought out financial decisions in general.

 

[rah]

If a company is hiring an entry level position, that might be exactly what it is. "ENTRY" meaning it's the intention to nurture that person along the path to greater things. You start with 10 entry level people and hope you end with one leader. So while a degree may not be necessary to function in that entry level position, it may be required for a position farther along in their career. If a company is going to invest in those 10 people looking for that leader, I see no reason having higher requirements. And it's even smarter for them to make sure that the degree isn't one just in name and the person can demonstrate actual skills.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So while a degree may not be necessary to function in that entry level position, it may be required for a position farther along in their career.

Oh? I'd like to see evidence of this in most career paths. Not evidence that companies do it, but rather that the degree provides some substantive benefit beyond the capabilities the people who have worked well enough to otherwise earn leadership positions have demonstrated.

I learned some useful things in graduate school, but I can't shake the feeling that it was far from the most efficient way to pick them up, and for basically everybody they can't use the overwhelming majority of what they learn in any one position.

 

[rah]

Personally I've hired more devs without degrees (and they became my best hires) BUT. I had previous knowledge of all those non degreed hires. (mostly from gaming sites like this) That is not the norm. It's hard to size up a person in a 30 minute interview. I always thought a few steps down the line when hiring. The training an mentoring invested is not trivial. So without additional evidence, a degree (appropriate) was always considered a tie breaker.

If you think hires for a position are not expected to ever advance past the original position, I see no reason to discuss the issue with you.

But for the record, I'm not talking about jobs in the mail room. They don't need degrees.

 

[Lexicus]

"ENTRY" meaning it's the intention to nurture that person along the path to greater things.

This is, like, decades out of debt, nowadays "entry-level" means "we'll squeeze you dry then toss you into the garbage"

 

[rah]

The cost of turnover says to do otherwise. Smart business is still good business.
But yeah, that doesn't mean they won't try to take advantage of you. That will never change. (since that too is smart business)