The Fora: A Higher Education Community

What is your opinion on student loan forgiveness?

I was all for it in principle (the semi-dysfunctional public service program that exists now and also the proposed blanket forgiveness that was promised back in 2020), but then I've been slowly seeing some of my successful and solidly middle class colleagues getting their student loans forgiven. I'm talking about colleagues, who already came from a privileged background even before entering college, who were living the good life with a stable TT position right after graduation, nice cars, a nice house, annual vacations, college fund for kids, happy family, etc.

I was shocked to find out that some of them had been holding massive 6-figure student loan debt, but they never really made an effort to pay them back beyond the bare minimum, even though they had the capacity to do so, and instead using their earnings for the good life. I'm not even sure how they managed to pull this off because I thought IBR would assure that everyone pays their fair share.

Quote from: lightning on April 20, 2022, 11:09:55 AM
What is your opinion on student loan forgiveness?

I was all for it in principle (the semi-dysfunctional public service program that exists now and also the proposed blanket forgiveness that was promised back in 2020), but then I've been slowly seeing some of my successful and solidly middle class colleagues getting their student loans forgiven. I'm talking about colleagues, who already came from a privileged background even before entering college, who were living the good life with a stable TT position right after graduation, nice cars, a nice house, annual vacations, college fund for kids, happy family, etc.

I was shocked to find out that some of them had been holding massive 6-figure student loan debt, but they never really made an effort to pay them back beyond the bare minimum, even though they had the capacity to do so, and instead using their earnings for the good life. I'm not even sure how they managed to pull this off because I thought IBR would assure that everyone pays their fair share.

This is one of the major problems with retroactively changing the rules on anything. It rewards people who ignored the rules, while identifying people who valiantly struggled to follow the rules as chumps.

I'm very much against it. The average student loan debt (less than $40K) is less than the cost of a new car which, according to our friend google, is around $47K. I took out some loans, paid them all back by myself, and made paying them off a priority over spending every dollar I made on other things. If someone makes bad choices on either the school they attend, the amount of debt they choose to take on, or the degree they pursued that won't get them a job, it should be on them fully to deal with the consequences. Even if those consequences land them hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

My opinion is the same as Marshwiggle's. However, if there was to be a massive forgiveness, my personal opinion is that requiring principal payback but forgiving accrued interest would be the fairest way to do it (if it could be consider "fair" in any way). This still penalizes those who scraped and paid for their loans, and those who paid them off long ago, but it is the interest that is tough. If you borrow $4000 dollars as a freshman and then accrue $4000 in interest before you start paying back...this way at least the original money loaned would get returned (minus all the inflation of course!).

Perhaps also only allow forgiveness of Federal loans but not private loans (this way tax payer money is not flowing out to private lenders, yet borrowers get5 some relief?)?

IDK--the whole thing is super-complicated. If tax payer money is used, is it fair to take the money from people who did not go to college to pay for the college experience of people who did? Just erasing the balance sheet on money long spent is one thing (though the income from the loss of loan payback would be substantial) but spending taxpayer $$$ (or printing money) to pay private loans is another...

I hope one of you finance gurus ways in on this!

QuoteIt rewards people who ignored the rules, while identifying people who valiantly struggled to follow the rules as chumps.

Not only that: Loan forgiveness now engenders expectation of and political pressure for loan forgiveness in the future. This means more loans than otherwise, on the expectation they paid for by somebody else.

But that's not the end. Colleges and universities will expect forgiveness, too. So tuition will be raised. In the short run, the full amount of forgiveness [less in the long run]!

And of course, it's regressive. The largest absolute amounts of debt are in the hands of doctors and lawyers. [I know of a married couple, both doctors, with a combined income well in excess of half a million who are bitching and moaning about their student loans.]

Quote from: dismalist on April 20, 2022, 11:55:58 AM

QuoteIt rewards people who ignored the rules, while identifying people who valiantly struggled to follow the rules as chumps.

Not only that: Loan forgiveness now engenders expectation of and political pressure for loan forgiveness in the future. This means more loans than otherwise, on the expectation they paid for by somebody else.

But that's not the end. Colleges and universities will expect forgiveness, too. So tuition will be raised. In the short run, the full amount of forgiveness [less in the long run]!

And of course, it's regressive. The largest absolute amounts of debt are in the hands of doctors and lawyers. [I know of a married couple, both doctors, with a combined income well in excess of half a million who are bitching and moaning about their student loans.]

Oh, yeah. I wasn't even thinking about my friends who hold massive student loan debt from medical school. Some of them work for public university hospitals, with some of them even holding an academic rank, even though they barely spend any time with students compared to those of us who have to hold down a 2/2. I'm guessing that they are hoping for forgiveness, too, even though they take much nicer vacations than I do.

I've never seen a sophisticated defense of the forgiveness. I'd want to see that it makes sense to forgive loans rather than to fund new students now.

I'm very much in favor of tax payers funding higher ed. But it seems it would make more sense to encourage more students to go to college in ways that will help the economy rather than rewarding people who made bad choices.

Do it.

My opinion is very self-serving in this instance.

Quote from: downer on April 20, 2022, 01:44:34 PM
I'm very much in favor of tax payers funding higher ed. But it seems it would make more sense to encourage more students to go to college in ways that will help the economy rather than rewarding people who made bad choices.

I would tend to agree.  I would like to see more funding available in the form of grants and scholarships - and by that I mean academic scholarships, not sports. Wouldn't knowing what to expect in advance help people plan more than betting on forgiveness in the future? Why not go back to the days (before my time) when states funded higher ed?

I struggled to pay back my loans and I still support some forgiveness program.  Some people can't pay back their loans and their lives are ruined.  The loans should never have been made in the first place.   They were sold a bill of good about all of those wonderful job opportunities waiting for them.   

Quote from: Anselm on April 20, 2022, 04:52:13 PM
I struggled to pay back my loans and I still support some forgiveness program.  Some people can't pay back their loans and their lives are ruined.  The loans should never have been made in the first place.   They were sold a bill of good about all of those wonderful job opportunities waiting for them.

1. About lives being ruined, student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Who thought of that moronicity?

2. Sold a bill of good ... . Why did anyone buy?

This is the only thing that could ever get me off the couch to vote Democrat. If they can't do this, they never get my support. I agree with people paying their own way, but as long as we have a system of bailouts, I want mine a d I'm not really concerned about the ideology. Gimme me freebie or I might as well vote GOP for good. I know a lot of people younger than me who think the same.

Quote from: dismalist on April 20, 2022, 04:55:32 PM

Quote from: Anselm on April 20, 2022, 04:52:13 PM
I struggled to pay back my loans and I still support some forgiveness program.  Some people can't pay back their loans and their lives are ruined.  The loans should never have been made in the first place.   They were sold a bill of good about all of those wonderful job opportunities waiting for them.

1. About lives being ruined, student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Who thought of that moronicity?

2. Sold a bill of good ... . Why did anyone buy?

To #1: Amen. Totally a lenders lobby win.

To #2: There is tremendous information asymmetry in higher ed, as well as extremely long timelines. OK, the cost of student loan debt is similar to a new car. But if you decide to buy a car, there is a ton of very good information you can use to decide what to buy. The best thing going in higher ed is USN&WR rankings, which are terrible. If you buy a car that turns out to be a poor fit for you, you can sell it--good luck selling the education that doesn't fit you.

The car analogy doesn't quite fit since you get a complete car. By contrast, many students end up with student loan debt without getting a degree. If there was a bill of goods sold, it was sold by society and politicians saying "everyone should go to college in order to achieve the American Dream" when only a minority of the population is realistically capable of graduating from college.

I'm not a fan of debt forgiveness, but I would want it to be means-tested.

 

QuoteThere is tremendous information asymmetry in higher ed,

There is a lot of propaganda aimed at influencing the uninformed.

The source of the propaganda is the education establishment -- us.

Lies, lies, lies.

Let's put it this way - if you can't afford college, what are your alternatives?

I went to college, borrowed and came out with debt. Yes, I chose in-state and that kept costs down. And I eventually paid them off.

Where would any of us be today without a college degree or beyond?

Debt forgiveness is already occurring -- piecemeal (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-forgives-40000-student-loans-provides-aid-millions-more-2022-04-19/).

Watch tuition go up at more astonishing rates!

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 20, 2022, 07:19:25 PM

Where would any of us be today without a college degree or beyond?

A college degree is necessary for some professions and occupations like a college instructor, but its necessity is greatly exaggerated. Using BLS numbers an economist a while back estimated that about 33% of college graduates were working in jobs that BLS listed as not requiring a bachelor's degree (it's not just your starving PhD student working as a barista @ Starbucks).

Unsurprisingly, I'm all for it. It seems like a good move to me, both economically and politically.

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country. Frankly, I think it's wrong for them not to universalize higher education, but that's another story. It's especially wrong when that debt survives bankruptcy, can see your meagre benefits garnished, etc.

It seems pretty clear, also, that the debt load is crushing. Something like 3/4 of all federal loans are currently either not being paid back at all, or are being paid back under partial relief programs like the IBR, which indicates that the debtor is under financial hardship. It's a concrete way to help a lot of people right now. Given the massive economic, political, and social benefits of a debt jubilee, it seems stupid not to do it.

I'm not at all bothered that a few freeloaders will win big. It's way more important to me that tens of thousands (or more) of people who are desperate and struggling will be materially helped. That's the whole point of having a government. If it can't do that, then you may as well not have one. Frankly, the argument that it shouldn't be done because you had to pay all of yours back is just childish, not to mention churlish.

Random points:

1) Outright forgiveness is almost certainly politically impossible, so long as 2/3 of the American adult population lacks a college degree and many if not most of these folks would see such forgiveness as a handout to spoiled middle class+ people... unless some corresponding give-away to people like this were also entertained.

2) It is certainly true that universities might well, in a post-forgiveness era, jack up tuition even more... maybe.... but even if they do not, we need to tie reforms such as loan forgiveness to serious restructuring of our overall higher ed system, without which it would soon become something that would be essentially unaffordable for most people, and college educations would largely go back to the pre-WWII status of something only for the rich, or those extremely intelligent non-rich kids who'd be able to access limited available merit scholarships... and this in an era where, like it or not, college educations are only going to be more needed to get and keep most middle class jobs (as well as being a public good, in terms of a solid college education's being able to foster information literacy, critical thinking, etc., skills needed in our population in general). 

3) Borrowing money for higher ed, whether undergrad or grad/ professional, just ain't the same as borrowing $40k for a new ride (I paid a tenth of that for my current ride, which, well, rides well enough).  And yet, the loans for cars, etc., can be discharged via bankruptcy.   That the college loans cannot be, is unjust.  And it just ain't right to criticize a person, however old they may be *now*, for making 'bad choices' as an 18yo, especially given the mis-, and also often outright dis- information propagated to them, well that's unjust as well.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 20, 2022, 08:32:24 PM

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 20, 2022, 07:19:25 PM

Where would any of us be today without a college degree or beyond?

A college degree is necessary for some professions and occupations like a college instructor, but its necessity is greatly exaggerated. Using BLS numbers an economist a while back estimated that about 33% of college graduates were working in jobs that BLS listed as not requiring a bachelor's degree (it's not just your starving PhD student working as a barista @ Starbucks).

Fine. Maybe when they just graduated from college, they were working as baristas. But in 5 years, who will be managing the store, district, marketing... who has a career path?

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The studies of social sciences and popular culture make excellent backgrounds for market researchers, human resources professionals, psychologists... you name it.

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 21, 2022, 06:57:47 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The studies of social sciences and popular culture make excellent backgrounds for market researchers, human resources professionals, psychologists... you name it.

Absolutely, especially if I'm doing business with, or hiring, Klingons.

One can claim that college makes one more productive. Then one can pay back one's loans with interest.

Or, one can claim that college doesn't make one more productive. Then student loans are consumption loans. They should be subsidized with a write off? Hell no.

And again, the bulk of the dollars in student loans are with the doctors, the lawyers, the MBA's. A tax system which subsidized these people at the expense of everybody else would rightfully be rejected.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The US student loan crisis is about undergraduate degrees, not graduate degrees. The issues are different.

Even so, I don't see a problem with undergraduates (or even graduates) majoring in whatever. Even if the hard skills are negligible, they bring the soft skills and experience back to their communities. A high general level of education benefits us all.

Besides, centralizing that kind of decision-making power is very difficult to do, and would be a bad idea (in much the same way that command economies aren't a great idea). Not to mention that if I'm in charge, there are whole swathes of the academy that I think are about as valuable as Klingon studies would be, if it were real--and my low opinion of those fields may or may not be adequately justified, and it may or may not be widely shared (for some, it definitely goes against the tide of popular opinion). That's why you wouldn't want to base your decision on my views about what's valuable: the chances of error are relatively high. Worse, however, there are plenty of courses it'd be worse for a student to take than no course at all, or plenty of instructors about whom the same could be said. But wading into such granular decision-making is inefficient, and isn't going to improve outcomes.

Better to just let everyone major in whatever they want to major in. Like any investment, there's a risk a particular student won't pan out. That's why the risk is distributed across many, many students; and besides, only 25% of federal loans are in repayment anyway, so it's not like that's a good rate of return.

Another point of contention over forgiveness could be push back on politicians from solid middle and lower-upper class taxpayers who scraped and saved and sacrificed to be able to pay for theirs children's education without them incurring debt--only to then turn around use their tax $$$ to pay for the education of those who racked up enormous loans--some, as we all know, sometimes irresponsibly in relation to future earning potential.

As far as well-paid professionals with advanced degrees--IF this were to be attempted, it would be easy enough to limit forgiveness to undergraduate programs or to exclude professional programs (MBA, PA, DPT, MD, DO, JD, etc.)  where the debt incurred is perhaps reasonable to a degree (pun intended)?? Honestly, what carpenter wants to hear his tax money is being spent to finance the education of doctors and lawyers?

Quote from: bio-nonymous on April 21, 2022, 07:14:58 AM
Another point of contention over forgiveness could be push back on politicians from solid middle and lower-upper class taxpayers who scraped and saved and sacrificed to be able to pay for theirs children's education without them incurring debt--only to then turn around use their tax $$$ to pay for the education of those who racked up enormous loans--some, as we all know, sometimes irresponsibly in relation to future earning potential.

As far as well-paid professionals with advanced degrees--IF this were to be attempted, it would be easy enough to limit forgiveness to undergraduate programs or to exclude professional programs (MBA, PA, DPT, MD, DO, JD, etc.)  where the debt incurred is perhaps reasonable to a degree (pun intended)?? Honestly, what carpenter wants to hear his tax money is being spent to finance the education of doctors and lawyers?

Not that anybody like that actually cares, but you could educate them about (1) how federal government finances actually work, and (2) how much (/little) of student loan debt is currently being repaid in other words, their opposition should stretch to the current system, and various forgiveness plans wouldn't change a whole lot financially, but would make a huge difference in terms of human suffering).

But since the argument is childish and churlish, and not offered in good faith, I don't think anyone should worry about it. (Of course, that's not how it plays out in real life.)

Quote from: bio-nonymous on April 21, 2022, 07:14:58 AM
Another point of contention over forgiveness could be push back on politicians from solid middle and lower-upper class taxpayers who scraped and saved and sacrificed to be able to pay for theirs children's education without them incurring debt--only to then turn around use their tax $$$ to pay for the education of those who racked up enormous loans--some, as we all know, sometimes irresponsibly in relation to future earning potential.

As far as well-paid professionals with advanced degrees--IF this were to be attempted, it would be easy enough to limit forgiveness to undergraduate programs or to exclude professional programs (MBA, PA, DPT, MD, DO, JD, etc.)  where the debt incurred is perhaps reasonable to a degree (pun intended)?? Honestly, what carpenter wants to hear his tax money is being spent to finance the education of doctors and lawyers?

The carpenter who is being paid by those doctors and lawyers to build their homes and offices.

And the same carpenter who brings his family to that doctor to treat them when they are sick, or who gets a lawyer to help him when a client refuses to pay or sues him.

Quote from: dismalist on April 21, 2022, 07:10:49 AM
One can claim that college makes one more productive. Then one can pay back one's loans with interest.

Or, one can claim that college doesn't make one more productive. Then student loans are consumption loans. They should be subsidized with a write off? Hell no.

And again, the bulk of the dollars in student loans are with the doctors, the lawyers, the MBA's. A tax system which subsidized these people at the expense of everybody else would rightfully be rejected.

Why can't the loan be transferred to the government who could then attach the debt to the paychecks of these poor working stiffs as the IRS does to college arrearage? If you don't have much income, the attachment is much lower. The government would then distribute the money to the debtors...?

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 07:04:32 AM

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 21, 2022, 06:57:47 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The studies of social sciences and popular culture make excellent backgrounds for market researchers, human resources professionals, psychologists... you name it.

Absolutely, especially if I'm doing business with, or hiring, Klingons.

Marshwiggle, this arrogant dismissal of any education that isn't STEM as worthless is both offensive and, frankly, ignorant.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 07:04:32 AM

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 21, 2022, 06:57:47 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The studies of social sciences and popular culture make excellent backgrounds for market researchers, human resources professionals, psychologists... you name it.

Absolutely, especially if I'm doing business with, or hiring, Klingons.

Or people who participate in that literary subculture in which Klingons play a social and political role that mirrors that of others in our actual social and political realms, thus using the power of metaphor to better understand and solve actual social and political problems.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

It seems pretty clear, also, that the debt load is crushing. Something like 3/4 of all federal loans are currently either not being paid back at all, or are being paid back under partial relief programs like the IBR, which indicates that the debtor is under financial hardship. It's a concrete way to help a lot of people right now. Given the massive economic, political, and social benefits of a debt jubilee, it seems stupid not to do it.

I'm not at all bothered that a few freeloaders will win big. It's way more important to me that tens of thousands (or more) of people who are desperate and struggling will be materially helped. That's the whole point of having a government. If it can't do that, then you may as well not have one. Frankly, the argument that it shouldn't be done because you had to pay all of yours back is just childish, not to mention churlish.

I'd stop short of declaring an all-out jubilee year on student loans, but you're right that there's a huge amount of bad (in all senses of the word) student debt out there that it only makes sense to forgive.  Any system that isn't hopelessly bureaucratic and impossible for many deserving people to get relief through is going to let some freeloaders through as well.  It's just a cost of doing business.  That said, there need to be some safeguards in place, or there's going to be massive gaming of the system.

Quote from: apl68 on April 21, 2022, 07:24:04 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 07:04:32 AM

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 21, 2022, 06:57:47 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

The studies of social sciences and popular culture make excellent backgrounds for market researchers, human resources professionals, psychologists... you name it.

Absolutely, especially if I'm doing business with, or hiring, Klingons.

Marshwiggle, this arrogant dismissal of any education that isn't STEM as worthless is both offensive and, frankly, ignorant.

It isn't dismissal of any education that isn't STEM, it's the question of why and to what extent taxpayers should pay for education regardless of any obvious benefit to society. As others have noted, professional programs provide vast benefit to the individuals that take them, and even though society needs doctors, it's not clear that taxpayers should foot the bill for everyone going through medical school.

If "education" has automatic benefit to society, then why aren't music lessons, sports camps, arts lessons, and any other kind of instruction paid for by taxpayers? Clearly having people more cultured, healthy, etc. has benefits to society.

Since universities can come up with their own programs, like Klingon Studies, what is the evidence that those automatically produce so much more societal benefit than the other things I've mentioned above to have them paid for by taxpayers while the others are to be paid by the individual?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 21, 2022, 07:21:35 AM

Quote from: bio-nonymous on April 21, 2022, 07:14:58 AM
Another point of contention over forgiveness could be push back on politicians from solid middle and lower-upper class taxpayers who scraped and saved and sacrificed to be able to pay for theirs children's education without them incurring debt--only to then turn around use their tax $$$ to pay for the education of those who racked up enormous loans--some, as we all know, sometimes irresponsibly in relation to future earning potential.

As far as well-paid professionals with advanced degrees--IF this were to be attempted, it would be easy enough to limit forgiveness to undergraduate programs or to exclude professional programs (MBA, PA, DPT, MD, DO, JD, etc.)  where the debt incurred is perhaps reasonable to a degree (pun intended)?? Honestly, what carpenter wants to hear his tax money is being spent to finance the education of doctors and lawyers?

Not that anybody like that actually cares, but you could educate them about (1) how federal government finances actually work, and (2) how much (/little) of student loan debt is currently being repaid in other words, their opposition should stretch to the current system, and various forgiveness plans wouldn't change a whole lot financially, but would make a huge difference in terms of human suffering).

But since the argument is childish and churlish, and not offered in good faith, I don't think anyone should worry about it. (Of course, that's not how it plays out in real life.)

Here's how federal government finances work:

The forgiveness that  is being implemented piecemeal gets added to government debt. That has to be serviced, now by taxpayers and their children instead of the beneficiaries of the loans.

The human suffering can be alleviated by allowing bankruptcy, as with any other loan. Then, taxpayers would be paying for alleviation of suffering only, not transferring sums to the non-suffering.

I think some degree of forgiveness under some set of circumstances is fine, but just cancelling debt with no rhyme or reason doesn't make any sense.

There is also the supply side problem: Reduce loans distributed in the first place and people won't have so much debt. I remember when I was in grad school I applied for a loan and they gave me twice as much as I had asked for. Fortunately I had the sense to go complain but a lot of people (including 20 year old Sun_Worshiper) would have taken that money.

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on April 21, 2022, 07:52:46 AM
I think some degree of forgiveness under some set of circumstances is fine, but just cancelling debt with no rhyme or reason doesn't make any sense.

One issue that hasn't been raised yet is the wide gap in effort by students, even in the same program. Should the taxpayers be on the hook for the student who got hungover and never came to class and failed out? Why?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM
Unsurprisingly, I'm all for it. It seems like a good move to me, both economically and politically.

I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

Whatever the benefit to society in income, innovation, standard of living, life expectancy, taxes collected, culture etc. is offset by the damage to race relations coming from higher education.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 08:29:10 AM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on April 21, 2022, 07:52:46 AM
I think some degree of forgiveness under some set of circumstances is fine, but just cancelling debt with no rhyme or reason doesn't make any sense.

One issue that hasn't been raised yet is the wide gap in effort by students, even in the same program. Should the taxpayers be on the hook for the student who got hungover and never came to class and failed out? Why?

In principle no, but in practice how would the authorities find out who was guilty of that sort of activity, and who wasn't?  Assuming the worst of anybody who failed to complete a course of study wouldn't be fair, as there are many circumstances beyond students' control that could lead to failure.  Putting the burden of proof on former students to prove that they weren't guilty of such things would weed out a lot of deadbeats, but it would also risk weeding out students who made a good-faith effort to go to college and were defeated by illness, family issues, etc. 

Of course we could simplify things by making student loan forgiveness conditional on actually completing a degree.  But, again, that would leave many former students out in the cold for situations that weren't their fault.  Ideally decisions like this would be made on a case-by-case basis, but trying to do that risks creating a big, cumbersome, expensive bureaucratic nightmare.

There are no easy answers here.  I do know this--there's no way to keep at least some undeserving cases from getting through, unless one writes the rules so stringently that large numbers of more deserving students will end up getting filtered out too.  Like I said above, some relief going to the wrong people is going to be a cost of doing business.  Keeping that cost down is a legitimate concern when writing guidelines and determining policy.  But so is trying to assist as many people as possible who actually need it.

Quote from: apl68 on April 21, 2022, 11:53:52 AM

There are no easy answers here.  I do know this--there's no way to keep at least some undeserving cases from getting through, unless one writes the rules so stringently that large numbers of more deserving students will end up getting filtered out too.  Like I said above, some relief going to the wrong people is going to be a cost of doing business.  Keeping that cost down is a legitimate concern when writing guidelines and determining policy.  But so is trying to assist as many people as possible who actually need it.

Going forward, the best way to do that would be to advise large numbers of people not to go to university in the first place; the time they waste can't be "forgiven", even if the money can.

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 21, 2022, 06:55:38 AM

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 20, 2022, 08:32:24 PM

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 20, 2022, 07:19:25 PM

Where would any of us be today without a college degree or beyond?

A college degree is necessary for some professions and occupations like a college instructor, but its necessity is greatly exaggerated. Using BLS numbers an economist a while back estimated that about 33% of college graduates were working in jobs that BLS listed as not requiring a bachelor's degree (it's not just your starving PhD student working as a barista @ Starbucks).

Fine. Maybe when they just graduated from college, they were working as baristas. But in 5 years, who will be managing the store, district, marketing... who has a career path?

The broader point is that the number of graduates is outpacing the number of jobs that truly need a bachelor's degree and that employers have been using a bachelor's degree as a cheap way to discover work habits and abilities. So producing more college graduates may make the task of hiring easier for employers but it's expensive for workers (out-of-pocket costs plus opportunity costs) and the government.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 04:49:51 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 20, 2022, 08:56:52 PM
I think it's wrong for the federal government to charge interest on loans which are investments in the future of the country.

If I want to do a PhD in "Klingon Studies", it's hard to see how that's an "investment in the future of the country". As long as students can study whatever they want, it's ludicrous to suggest that all of that is remotely equivalent in terms of its value to the entire nation.

From what I gather the student loan default rate is highest (26%) among people with degrees from nonselective colleges who major in the arts and humanities (https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2017/11/who-is-more-likely-to-default-on-student-loans/).

A solution would be to require borrowers to buy insurance (like mortgage insurance) and charge based on default rates.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 12:00:47 PM

Quote from: apl68 on April 21, 2022, 11:53:52 AM

There are no easy answers here.  I do know this--there's no way to keep at least some undeserving cases from getting through, unless one writes the rules so stringently that large numbers of more deserving students will end up getting filtered out too.  Like I said above, some relief going to the wrong people is going to be a cost of doing business.  Keeping that cost down is a legitimate concern when writing guidelines and determining policy.  But so is trying to assist as many people as possible who actually need it.

Going forward, the best way to do that would be to advise large numbers of people not to go to university in the first place; the time they waste can't be "forgiven", even if the money can.

Agreed.  As much as some of us would like to see more people get a higher education in principle, in practice we've had far too many students pushed into higher ed in recent years who were essentially set up to fail.  Expensively.  I appreciate how realistic our local high school guidance counselor is in trying to steer students who clearly aren't academically inclined into alternative work tracks.  We need more of that.

We also need to take steps to make sure that we never see a recurrence of the situation some years back where huge corporate bottom-feeders like University of Phoenix conned large numbers of unprepared students into borrowing billions of dollars to attend courses that they either couldn't pass or that were of little benefit to anybody except the schools offering them.  Those poorly-regulated vocational schools were where the real large-scale waste and fraud were taking place, not the alleged worthless English lit majors and such.

Quote from: apl68 on April 21, 2022, 01:03:42 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 12:00:47 PM

Quote from: apl68 on April 21, 2022, 11:53:52 AM

There are no easy answers here.  I do know this--there's no way to keep at least some undeserving cases from getting through, unless one writes the rules so stringently that large numbers of more deserving students will end up getting filtered out too.  Like I said above, some relief going to the wrong people is going to be a cost of doing business.  Keeping that cost down is a legitimate concern when writing guidelines and determining policy.  But so is trying to assist as many people as possible who actually need it.

Going forward, the best way to do that would be to advise large numbers of people not to go to university in the first place; the time they waste can't be "forgiven", even if the money can.

Agreed.  As much as some of us would like to see more people get a higher education in principle, in practice we've had far too many students pushed into higher ed in recent years who were essentially set up to fail.  Expensively.  I appreciate how realistic our local high school guidance counselor is in trying to steer students who clearly aren't academically inclined into alternative work tracks.  We need more of that.

We also need to take steps to make sure that we never see a recurrence of the situation some years back where huge corporate bottom-feeders like University of Phoenix conned large numbers of unprepared students into borrowing billions of dollars to attend courses that they either couldn't pass or that were of little benefit to anybody except the schools offering them.  Those poorly-regulated vocational schools were where the real large-scale waste and fraud were taking place, not the alleged worthless English lit majors and such.

Quite possibly, but the zeitgeist promoted by governments and the post-secondary institutions themselves encouraging everyone to go basically opened the door and rolled out the red carpet for the exploiters.

Yes, and every time someone tried to put accreditation blocks in place to stop or regulate them, they (and, one suspects, some of their highly-placed cronies) squealed like stuck pigs about it.

Pearson is (I suspect) tangled up with them as well. Wherever there's educational fraud, their books show up.

I'd guess collusion on getting pathways to more student pockets might have attracted them, too.

M.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 07:32:06 AM
If "education" has automatic benefit to society, then why aren't music lessons, sports camps, arts lessons, and any other kind of instruction paid for by taxpayers?

My dude, our society refuses to fund health care. Your argument is not terribly persuasive here.

Quote from: ergative on April 21, 2022, 04:16:47 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 21, 2022, 07:32:06 AM
If "education" has automatic benefit to society, then why aren't music lessons, sports camps, arts lessons, and any other kind of instruction paid for by taxpayers?

My dude, our society refuses to fund health care. Your argument is not terribly persuasive here.

Who is this society that owes us something?

We have Medicare, Medicaid, employer sponsored health insurance, and now, the Affordable Care Act. Anybody not covered, about 11% of the population, write to your congress[wo]man.

QuoteWe also need to take steps to make sure that we never see a recurrence of the situation some years back where huge corporate bottom-feeders like University of Phoenix conned large numbers of unprepared students into borrowing billions of dollars to attend courses that they either couldn't pass or that were of little benefit to anybody except the schools offering them.  Those poorly-regulated vocational schools were where the real large-scale waste and fraud were taking place, not the alleged worthless English lit majors and such.

But don't we need to keep U of Phoenix around to make the rest of us look reputable in comparison?

Someone said something fascinating upthread that makes me think that student loan forgiveness is simply the after-the-fact re-direction of government money that should have been left in place to begin with as truly state-subsidized reasonable tuition rates, so students didn't have to take out loans to begin with to pay for increasingly non-state-subsidized tuition rates.

I'm old enough to remember when students could work their way through college. Student loans that had to be taken out were very manageable. But, this was at a time when public institutions of higher learning were still properly funded, and public universities could still maintain state-subsidized tuition rates.

As states began to starve their public institutions of higher education, and increasingly so over time, schools had to make up for the shortfall with higher tuition rates, so students have been forced to borrow more and more.

They wouldn't have had to borrow so much if the tuition was truly state-subsidized in the first place. ("Reasonable" to me is if someone can hold down a part-time job during the school year and a full-time job over the summer, to pay for most of the college costs of attending an in-state public university.)

I see the forgiveness of student loan debt as re-directing public money that was supposed to fund affordable tuition for attending in-state universities in the past, and giving it back to the students today, who did not get to enjoy the state-subsized tuition rates and had to take out massive loans.

In principle, this is what I believe, but in practice, I don't even know how my thinking could apply to students who chose to go out-of-state and pay out-of-state tuition rates with loans, or go to an even more expensive private school that they could not afford, when they had an opportunity to go in-state university. Also in there is a sub-category of students who took out massive loans to fund an extravagant college lifestyle. If it were possible to separate them out, for these students who made bad choices, I say, your bailout is capped.

And then there was the clusterfvck that was UoP and their cohort of corporate higher education bad actors. I'm still not sure what to think about that. If it were possible and if the bankruptcy laws that are applied to students also applied to the for-profit universities that they attended, those corporate a$$holes should be the ones paying for the loan forgiveness of their own former students.

What lightning says is spot on, but, again, how are you going to sell this to those 2/3 of non college grads, who are mostly GOP voters?

Quote from: kaysixteen on April 22, 2022, 12:09:57 AM
What lightning says is spot on, but, again, how are you going to sell this to those 2/3 of non college grads, who are mostly GOP voters?

AKA people who don't believe you have to send thousands of dollars and several years of your life on "education" in order to live a full and productive life. (Hint: Just repeating louder and more frequently that they should isn't going to do it. Nor is calling them nasty names.)

Quote from: kaysixteen on April 22, 2022, 12:09:57 AM
What lightning says is spot on, but, again, how are you going to sell this to those 2/3 of non college grads, who are mostly GOP voters?

What I have not been able to figure out is if an authorization by Congress to allow Biden to forgive all student loans by executive order would require only a simple majority in the senate. If that's the case, there is no need to pay any attention to those 2/3 of non college grads who are mostly GOP voters.

My wife worked her way through college. In those days a lot of things were different. Colleges didn't have to make 3/4 of their decisions by taking into account the possibility of being sued. So many things were different. Just compare top administrator salaries.

ETA: Higher ed today does not even act like it wants the friendship of republicans. If it did it would abolish or seriously reign in the DEI regime. It's easy for a professor to claim that he's willing to give an A to a student who produces a well-written essay that goes against that professor's politics, and it's no doubt true a lot of the time, or would be true if the student felt safe doing that kind of work, but the Diversity mob doesn't give grades, doesn't have to read student evaluations of faculty, etc. And predictably, they're out of control with their flagrant politics.

10 minutes later: And I didn't even mention Randi Weingarten and the unions.

Quote from: lightning on April 22, 2022, 07:19:35 AM

Quote from: kaysixteen on April 22, 2022, 12:09:57 AM
What lightning says is spot on, but, again, how are you going to sell this to those 2/3 of non college grads, who are mostly GOP voters?

What I have not been able to figure out is if an authorization by Congress to allow Biden to forgive all student loans by executive order would require only a simple majority in the senate. If that's the case, there is no need to pay any attention to those 2/3 of non college grads who are mostly GOP voters.

Then again, November is coming.

Quote from: lightning on April 22, 2022, 07:19:35 AM

Quote from: kaysixteen on April 22, 2022, 12:09:57 AM
What lightning says is spot on, but, again, how are you going to sell this to those 2/3 of non college grads, who are mostly GOP voters?

What I have not been able to figure out is if an authorization by Congress to allow Biden to forgive all student loans by executive order would require only a simple majority in the senate. If that's the case, there is no need to pay any attention to those 2/3 of non college grads who are mostly GOP voters.

Given his reticence to forgive any federal loan debt, which he can just do at any time, I expect a Congressional authorization would go nowhere even if it only required (and survived) a simple majority vote in the Senate.

This is somewhat surprising:

QuoteIn a letter dated Thursday [March 28th], 21 Senators and 75 members of the House urged Biden to push back the May 1 date when federal student loan repayment is scheduled to restart. Biden most recently extended the pause in December. Biden's chief of staff said in a recent interview that the administration is considering extending the pause a fifth time. [This has since happened.]

The legislators also pressed Biden, a fellow Democrat, to "provide meaningful student debt cancellation."

"Although there may be different ideas about the best way to structure cancellation, we all agree that you should cancel student debt now," they wrote in the letter.

From https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/31/student-loans-congress-payment-pause-cancel-debt/7232434001/ (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/31/student-loans-congress-payment-pause-cancel-debt/7232434001/)

The 21 Senators and 75 Members of the House are all Democrats. Given the generality of the letter, that is an amazingly small number. Can anybody figure out why?

The unwillingness or inability of a substantial portion of borrowers to pay back their student loans is an indicator that there is too much time and money being spent on higher education. If any significant portion of student loan debt is to be written off, then there should be stricter criteria for college admissions and more financial controls like what was imposed for previous bank bailouts.

Majority Leader Schumer's short-term political calculation may be that the constitutionally dubious practice of Congress surrendering the power of the purse to the president (at least when a Democrat is in the White House) is fine in order to buy some middle class and progressive votes, but the political calculation of Democratic senators up for re-election in swing and red states is clearly quite different.

Well, it happened. A version of a blanket student loan forgiveness program is going to be enacted.

I didn't come here to continue the conversation. Rather, I'm glad we discussed the topic here, for my sake, because the hyperbole lighting up the boards and social media pages right now, is not giving me much optimism for reasoned discourse on the topic of student loan forgiveness.

Quote from: lightning on August 25, 2022, 03:17:32 PM
Well, it happened. A version of a blanket student loan forgiveness program is going to be enacted.

I didn't come here to continue the conversation. Rather, I'm glad we discussed the topic here, for my sake, because the hyperbole lighting up the boards and social media pages right now, is not giving me much optimism for reasoned discourse on the topic of student loan forgiveness.

A rational policy would be to correct the non-bankruptcy provisions of federal student loan programs. Treat them just like all other loans.

Forgiveness? For what? This is totally regressive. The poorer helping the richer.

Exactly right.  Make the student loan borrower able to go bankrupt.   Just like Donald Trump. 

Of course, this still doesn't address: 1) the vastly overpriced nature of American higher ed 2) the fact that many states have largely gotten out of the business of underwriting public institutions of higher ed, unlike the deal Baby Boomer students got, and 3) many Americans in the white working class, mostly GOP voters these days, have been bamboozled into hating the very idea of going to college, and will resent any help for college debtors, even (likely) allowing them to go bankrupt.

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 25, 2022, 07:07:45 PM
Exactly right.  Make the student loan borrower able to go bankrupt.   Just like Donald Trump. 

Of course, this still doesn't address: 1) the vastly overpriced nature of American higher ed 2) the fact that many states have largely gotten out of the business of underwriting public institutions of higher ed, unlike the deal Baby Boomer students got, and 3) many Americans in the white working class, mostly GOP voters these days, have been bamboozled into hating the very idea of going to college, and will resent any help for college debtors, even (likely) allowing them to go bankrupt.

I completely agree with 1). Too much signaling and too little content. Fix that and higher ed will nevertheless shrink.

2) States should get out of financing institutions. If they want, it's better to finance kids.

3) White working class voters are not stupid. They merely follow their own interests, not yours or mine.

I would have liked to have seen something more carefully targeted toward relieving those most in need of it.  At least it wasn't the extreme maximalist version of blanket loan forgiveness that it could have been.  It will help a great many people out. 

Although the usual parties will loudly try to make political hay out of this, I don't know that it will actually affect ordinary voters' attitudes all that much.  Whether the Democrats receive a shellacking in the mid-terms will depend mainly on what the economy is like at that time, and whether they can continue to show some success in passing actually useful legislation that isn't all about the culture wars and identity politics.  They've had some progress in that respect lately.

Is it the most rational way to promote higher ed and the good of the nation? No.
Is it a populist move aimed at getting votes? Yes.
Is it a terrible decision? No. There's something to be said for it.
Is it good material for politicians and tweeters to make stupid comments about? You betcha.

Quote from: apl68 on August 26, 2022, 07:24:41 AM
I would have liked to have seen something more carefully targeted toward relieving those most in need of it.

It actually is pretty targeted-- $125k income cap, and double the amount of forgiveness for borrows who received Pell grants. According to WH, nearly 90% of relief $ go to borrowers earning less than $75k.

This: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40990240/student-loan-forgiveness-biden-inflation-national-debt/

Quote from: jimbogumbo on August 26, 2022, 08:38:33 AM
This: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40990240/student-loan-forgiveness-biden-inflation-national-debt/

Contributing to inflation, yes. If the whole thing were financed by printing money you'd likely get a ca. 1% rise in the price level. [Back of the envelope, 1% rise in the money supply].

Finance by borrowing from the public? That has to be serviced, one way or another, either through taxes or through -- inflation.

There is no freebie.

How is $125K (or $250K couples) considered targeted when that is the top 5-10% of the income distribution? It's like giving a temporary SALT deduction to the upper middle class.

Loans should not be forgiven. Debtors should be given money to pay off the loans so that the budgetary costs are immediate and transparent. Giving money would also require action by Congress rather than by the president abusing executive authority (see what Nancy Pelosi said about it in the past), which makes the office ever more imperial.

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 26, 2022, 10:12:26 AM
How is $125K (or $250K couples) considered targeted when that is the top 5-10% of the income distribution? It's like giving a temporary SALT deduction to the upper middle class.

That was my thought on the matter.  No doubt in Manhattan and San Francisco $125K is considered poverty-line, but where I live very few people, college-educated or not, have that kind of money.  It's close to three times my annual income.  A lot of modestly-paid folks are going to think of this as a giveaway toward people wealthier than themselves.  So are any number of Republican tax cuts for upper income levels, of course, but taxes are so universally detested that there's less tendency to be jealous about tax cuts.

I never had any student loan debt, but I married into it.  Badly delinquent debt that they were making noises about foreclosing on.  For the first couple of years of our marriage we put everything we had above basic expenses toward paying down that debt.  She told all sorts of stories about how she had misunderstood and thought it was some kind of no-strings-attached aid for education majors, and I, trusting husband that I was, believed her. 

Only with hindsight did I realize that she had probably deliberately tried to welsh on the debt, in the belief that changing her last name to mine and moving to the state where I was already living would make her impossible to trace.  It was by no means the biggest deception she ever tried on me and on others.  They found her in almost no time, BTW.

There are probably as many cheats who will get away free due to this blanket debt relief as there are genuinely needy people who will benefit.  Any time you try to help the needy you're going to end up being taken advantage of by the greedy.  I wish there was at least an effort being made to minimize the latter here.

According to Wharton, the top 60% of the income distribution receives 60% of the benefit while the bottom 20% receives 14% of the benefit. That's how you'd structure debt cancellation if you're trying to maximize votes rather than help the worst off.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness (https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness)

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 26, 2022, 01:43:54 PM
According to Wharton, the top 60% of the income distribution receives 60% of the benefit while the bottom 20% receives 14% of the benefit. That's how you'd structure debt cancellation if you're trying to maximize votes rather than help the worst off.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness (https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness)

Who should I put more faith in, Wharton or the White House?

Quote from: Puget on August 26, 2022, 08:38:08 AM

Quote from: apl68 on August 26, 2022, 07:24:41 AM
I would have liked to have seen something more carefully targeted toward relieving those most in need of it.

It actually is pretty targeted-- $125k income cap, and double the amount of forgiveness for borrows who received Pell grants. According to WH, nearly 90% of relief $ go to borrowers earning less than $75k.

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 05:55:09 AM

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 26, 2022, 01:43:54 PM
According to Wharton, the top 60% of the income distribution receives 60% of the benefit while the bottom 20% receives 14% of the benefit. That's how you'd structure debt cancellation if you're trying to maximize votes rather than help the worst off.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness (https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness)

Who should I put more faith in, Wharton or the White House?

Quote from: Puget on August 26, 2022, 08:38:08 AM

Quote from: apl68 on August 26, 2022, 07:24:41 AM
I would have liked to have seen something more carefully targeted toward relieving those most in need of it.

It actually is pretty targeted-- $125k income cap, and double the amount of forgiveness for borrows who received Pell grants. According to WH, nearly 90% of relief $ go to borrowers earning less than $75k.

They aren't really different, Anon is just framing the data in a way which is pretty misleading by talking about the "top 60%". If you look at the actual data provided by the link, you can see that the bottom 3 quantiles get nearly 80% of the benefits, and the group that benefits the most is the middle quantile (median wage for US adults working full time is around $55k). The top 10% get less than 1% (the top 5% got nothing). So Anon's claim that the top 5-10% of the income distribution benefits is just completely factually incorrect. Whatever else you think of this as policy, it is pretty solidly targeting the middle class, not the wealthy.

Now, it is certainly true that only 14% goes to the bottom quantile, which is not surprising given that most of these adults probably did not go to college. But to me this is an argument for helping them in other ways, not an argument for not doing college debt relief for those who did attend college. Indeed, low-wage workers who do have college debt stand to benefit the most, not just because they likely had Pell grants (doubling their loan forgiveness amount), but due to the more generous income based repayment plan and coverage of unpaid interest that is also included.

The bottom 3 quintiles receive 74% of the benefit but the top 3 quintiles receive 62% of the benefit. If you were going to target those who are struggling you'd pick the bottom 40% ($51K/year or less), who receive only 35% of the benefit. Those in the top 40% ($82K/year for 60th and $141K/year for 80th) are far from poor and yet receive 26% of the benefit. Lots of votes to be harvested in those groups.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/22/democrats-more-educated-republicans-pew-research-c/

Re: targeting voters

As policy, it is not great. It does not get at the underlying problem and is not targeted in a way that exclusively helps the people most in need. There is also the question of what this means for future borrowers or past borrowers who paid their debt.

That said, it will help some people and it will probably not have any meaningful effect on inflation. Of all the policies to be outraged about, this one ranks pretty low from my perspective, and I think most people will similarly be unbothered by it. I doubt it will have any meaningful impact on future elections or on Biden's popularity (Edit - beyond adding to the growing, and accurate, narrative that he quietly gets things done).

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 11:10:56 AM*snip* I think most people will similarly be unbothered by it.

I don't have any student loans, but my spouse does. When she was 18, she was living in an area hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The only way she'd be able to attend college was via loans, and for a variety of personal reasons took out the max in order to escape to a college up the road. Neither she nor her mother had any idea of the ramifications of such a loan, given their poverty level. She deferred the first few years after leaving college, compounding the overall mistakes. Since then, her monthly payments are around 10% of her paycheck. For us, this amounts to some considerable debt relief.

That said, there are few people in our immediate circle of friends who have any sympathy. Comments like "she made dumb choices" and "she's just so lazy" and "I guess you want others to may for your dumb mistakes" are fairly common. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of people who are bothered by it -- will it change their voting habits? No. But I'm getting a bit weary of the near-constant beratement.

The data on which income quintiles the beneficiaries are in are smoke and mirrors. Those in the lowest quintiles didn't go to college all that much! So money is given to those who benefit from the college wage premium. Great.

The law will have a meaningful impact on future tuition, though. Roughly speaking, 60% of additional government aid to education gets eaten up by tuition increases.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf (https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf)

Quote from: RatGuy on August 27, 2022, 11:48:48 AM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 11:10:56 AM*snip* I think most people will similarly be unbothered by it.

I don't have any student loans, but my spouse does. When she was 18, she was living in an area hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The only way she'd be able to attend college was via loans, and for a variety of personal reasons took out the max in order to escape to a college up the road. Neither she nor her mother had any idea of the ramifications of such a loan, given their poverty level. She deferred the first few years after leaving college, compounding the overall mistakes. Since then, her monthly payments are around 10% of her paycheck. For us, this amounts to some considerable debt relief.

That said, there are few people in our immediate circle of friends who have any sympathy. Comments like "she made dumb choices" and "she's just so lazy" and "I guess you want others to may for your dumb mistakes" are fairly common. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of people who are bothered by it -- will it change their voting habits? No. But I'm getting a bit weary of the near-constant beratement.

Sure, some people will complain, but that's true of any policy. I'm saying it probably won't bother enough people, to enough of an extent, to move the needle in a negative direction for Dems.

Just curious: is the amount for anyone who qualifies unrelated to total debt? If so, $10,000 or $20,000 to graduates of a CC or regional public will really be thankful, as their total borrowed will be significantly less than for those who typically get highlighted in op eds.

I'm also for stopping federal student loans completely for privates with large endowments. Yes, I know it cuts off access for those the universities won't give scholarships to, but I'm okay with that.

We can't lose sight of the fact the worst default rates with worst ROI are in for profit institutions. After sitting drinking an iced tea and listening to a recruiter hard selling both a mother and daughter on enrolling I wanted to hurt him. Real bad, as we used to say.

Quote from: jimbogumbo on August 27, 2022, 12:22:23 PM
Just curious: is the amount for anyone who qualifies unrelated to total debt? If so, $10,000 or $20,000 to graduates of a CC or regional public will really be thankful, as their total borrowed will be significantly less than for those who typically get highlighted in op eds.

I'm also for stopping federal student loans completely for privates with large endowments. Yes, I know it cuts off access for those the universities won't give scholarships to, but I'm okay with that.

We can't lose sight of the fact the worst default rates with worst ROI are in for profit institutions. After sitting drinking an iced tea and listening to a recruiter hard selling both a mother and daughter on enrolling I wanted to hurt him. Real bad, as we used to say.

It's debt relief not a cash payment, so it obviously can't exceed the amount of federal debt (and it only applies to federal loans, not private), but other than that it is a flat amount, not tied to the overall amount. So yes, it will wipe out debt entirely for many who attended CCs or in state publics.

There is also a list of for profit institutions that have been deemed predatory for which all federal student loan debt is forgiven. This includes some big names in the scam education market, as well as obscure many trade schools. This will be a huge help to people who were tricked into going into debt for "degrees" that aren't worth the paper they were printed on.

There is some question wither it is legal though.

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 11:10:56 AM
Of all the policies to be outraged about, this one ranks pretty low from my perspective, and I think most people will similarly be unbothered by it. I doubt it will have any meaningful impact on future elections or on Biden's popularity (Edit - beyond adding to the growing, and accurate, narrative that he quietly gets things done).

There's nothing quiet about it. He timed the final decision so that he can shout about a direct and tangible benefit for a large group of voters in the upcoming election. Spending $500 billion on circuses (the poor don't get much bread) and stretching the president's emergency powers at the expense of Congress (like his predecessor did to fund the border wall) is another step in the sad descent into Caesarism.

Quote from: Puget on August 27, 2022, 12:47:49 PM

There is also a list of for profit institutions that have been deemed predatory for which all federal student loan debt is forgiven. This includes some big names in the scam education market, as well as obscure many trade schools. This will be a huge help to people who were tricked into going into debt for "degrees" that aren't worth the paper they were printed on.

How valuable are degrees from "nonprofit" institutions when their graduates struggle to pay off loans of less than $10K?

And don't forget the fine print:

The Income Driven Repayment [IDR] system gets amended such that
--"discretionary" income is redefined from 150 percent of the federal poverty line to 225 percent of the federal poverty line;
--For undergraduate debt, reduced the IDR rate from 10 percent of income beyond the threshold above in to 5 percent of income beyond the threshold above.
--Interest not capitalized, i.e not owed. [Sure, you work for a wage now, you'll get paid next year, without interest.]

And carryover:

--remaining balance forgiven after 20 years.

Christ, man, borrow to the eyeballs! Pay a small income contingent fee for education, and the rest is free.

This is already debt forgiveness, but of much more future debt, on account it pays to borrow no matter what tuition is, and therefore, tuition will go up one hell of a lot.

This is madness.

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 01:03:30 PM
There is some question wither it is legal though.

It will certainly be challenged in the courts.

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 27, 2022, 01:25:23 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 11:10:56 AM
Of all the policies to be outraged about, this one ranks pretty low from my perspective, and I think most people will similarly be unbothered by it. I doubt it will have any meaningful impact on future elections or on Biden's popularity (Edit - beyond adding to the growing, and accurate, narrative that he quietly gets things done).

There's nothing quiet about it. He timed the final decision so that he can shout about a direct and tangible benefit for a large group of voters in the upcoming election. Spending $500 billion on circuses (the poor don't get much bread) and stretching the president's emergency powers at the expense of Congress (like his predecessor did to fund the border wall) is another step in the sad descent into Caesarism.

Quiet in the sense that he is not tweeting or publicizing himself constantly like a carnival barker.

And, look, I am not a particular fan of the policy - see the section of my post that you did not quote - but I doubt this will make any meaningful difference in the midterms.

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 01:58:42 PM

Quiet in the sense that he is not tweeting or publicizing himself constantly like a carnival barker.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe was clear-headed enough to get out on the Senate floor and hold court. He was quite the orator at one time.

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 03:36:03 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 01:58:42 PM

Quiet in the sense that he is not tweeting or publicizing himself constantly like a carnival barker.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe was clear-headed enough to get out on the Senate floor and hold court. He was quite the orator at one time.

Certainly showing his age, but he was always a gaffe machine. Still, he's lucid and has even had some very good moments on the stage (post Jan 6 press conference was excellent, for example).

I think this is an unalloyed good, and I'm glad of it. It's better than what I expected. I don't think it's anywhere near enough, but it's still a good thing.

Politically, I think this would have done him--and Democrats--much more good earlier in his term. It's clearly an attempt to swing some midterm votes, but I'm not convinced it'll pay off. I think it would have been better to do this early on (maybe even dangling the possibility of more), and build reputational resiliency instead.

What are student loans and the law undergirding them like in Canada?

QuoteQuote from: mahagonny on Today at 01:03:30 PM
There is some question wither it is legal though.

It will certainly be challenged in the courts.

Which will likely be another opportunity to encourage people to hate the Supreme Court for doing their job. That's the new brand of patriotism from the more radical democrats. Seems to me the Supreme Court should not appreciate being put in the position where they need to reign in the POTUS. I wouldn't if I were them.

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 27, 2022, 08:52:06 PM
What are student loans and the law undergirding them like in Canada?

First, the low end of tuition in Canada is around $3k, and the highest is about $8k. In Québec, the first step of post-secondary education is free (CEGEP is basically like community college with trade schools). (Remember also that there's not the same variation in quality of undergrad education here; they're all pretty much equivalent, and even the brand names are public).

Both the federal and provincial governments offer student loans among their aid packages, and the terms vary, although IIRC they do charge interest (which seems wrong to me), although you don't hear about people owing substantially more than they took out, like you do in the US. But the debt can be discharged through bankruptcy.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 27, 2022, 11:20:56 PM

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 27, 2022, 08:52:06 PM
What are student loans and the law undergirding them like in Canada?

First, the low end of tuition in Canada is around $3k, and the highest is about $8k. In Québec, the first step of post-secondary education is free (CEGEP is basically like community college with trade schools). (Remember also that there's not the same variation in quality of undergrad education here; they're all pretty much equivalent, and even the brand names are public).

Both the federal and provincial governments offer student loans among their aid packages, and the terms vary, although IIRC they do charge interest (which seems wrong to me), although you don't hear about people owing substantially more than they took out, like you do in the US. But the debt can be discharged through bankruptcy.

Maybe things have changed since the Stone Age when I was a student, but back then the government paid the interest until you were done full-time studies, so it only started to be charged to the student after that. (So if you could pay it off right after graduation, like a credit card bill before the deadline, you'd pay no interest.)

I think that's right, but it may not apply to all the loans. I'm not sure.

Doesn't debt forgiveness basically reward those with the right birth years at the expense of the rest? I don't see it doing anything to cut down on costs and so future students are basically being thrown to the wolves (should've chosen their date of birth wisely). It also punishes the financially prudent - those who borrowed as little as possible, paid it off as fast as possible and chose financially viable careers.

Quote from: Stockmann on August 28, 2022, 07:25:41 AM
Doesn't debt forgiveness basically reward those with the right birth years at the expense of the rest? I don't see it doing anything to cut down on costs and so future students are basically being thrown to the wolves (should've chosen their date of birth wisely). It also punishes the financially prudent - those who borrowed as little as possible, paid it off as fast as possible and chose financially viable careers.

"Thrown to the wolves," and "punishes" seems like histrionic language. Any government handout (or debt forgiveness) helps some rather than others and there's some arbitrariness involved. I too think it makes more sense to help current and future students than past students who should have known that they were signing up for. I guess the main reason Biden went with debt forgiveness is that he could (though it may be reversed by the legal process, way down the line).

Given current US politics and the anti-democratic forces running the GOP, it is not as if there is any reasonable viable alternative to the Dems. I hope the blatant vote-buying is successful and the Dems triumph this November.

Quote from: downer on August 28, 2022, 07:41:30 AM

Quote from: Stockmann on August 28, 2022, 07:25:41 AM
Doesn't debt forgiveness basically reward those with the right birth years at the expense of the rest? I don't see it doing anything to cut down on costs and so future students are basically being thrown to the wolves (should've chosen their date of birth wisely). It also punishes the financially prudent - those who borrowed as little as possible, paid it off as fast as possible and chose financially viable careers.

"Thrown to the wolves," and "punishes" seems like histrionic language. Any government handout (or debt forgiveness) helps some rather than others and there's some arbitrariness involved. I too think it makes more sense to help current and future students than past students who should have known that they were signing up for. I guess the main reason Biden went with debt forgiveness is that he could (though it may be reversed by the legal process, way down the line).

Given current US politics and the anti-democratic forces running the GOP, it is not as if there is any reasonable viable alternative to the Dems. I hope the blatant vote-buying is successful and the Dems triumph this November.

The viable alternative, had it begun years ago when it was needed, would have been to get serious about pressuring colleges and unis to keep their tuition and fees at a reasonable level.

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 10:28:29 PM

QuoteQuote from: mahagonny on Today at 01:03:30 PM
There is some question wither it is legal though.

It will certainly be challenged in the courts.

Which will likely be another opportunity to encourage people to hate the Supreme Court for doing their job. That's the new brand of patriotism from the more radical democrats. Seems to me the Supreme Court should not appreciate being put in the position where they need to reign in the POTUS. I wouldn't if I were them.

Certainly the SC has been put in this position where it is left to make policy decisions because Congress is too dysfunctional to do so or too disinterested in doing so. 

On the other hand, the SC is far to the right of the median voter, so it is no wonder people in general don't agree with their rulings. And let's not act like conservatives don't throw a fit when the courts rule in a way that they don't like.

QuoteOn the other hand, the SC is far to the right of the median voter, so it is no wonder people in general don't agree with their rulings.

As long as we continue voter suppression by aborting future voters it may stay that way.

Quote from: downer on August 28, 2022, 07:41:30 AM
I hope the blatant vote-buying is successful and the Dems triumph this November.

Do you really want to have it confirmed that voters are short-sighted and easily misled? Whatever party does it, it's bad for democracy. The best society would be one where voters don't fall for it, whoever is behind it.

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 28, 2022, 11:13:57 AM

Quote from: downer on August 28, 2022, 07:41:30 AM
I hope the blatant vote-buying is successful and the Dems triumph this November.

Do you really want to have it confirmed that voters are short-sighted and easily misled? Whatever party does it, it's bad for democracy. The best society would be one where voters don't fall for it, whoever is behind it.

I disagree, Marsh. I'm with H.L. Mencken's famous belief that "democracy is the conviction that people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." :-)

I personally think it's a great idea.

A high school diploma is not worth what it was 50 years ago. Why? Because science and technology have advanced so far that a student with high school diploma back in the day was employable as, say, a car mechanic. But now? Look at the mechanical difference between cars from 1970 and 2020 and tell me a kid with biceps and a wrench can still fix the same car.

So why discourage people from pursuing advanced education which makes them better citizens... as well as taxpayers?

With that logic, why not stop education at the 8th grade and make people take out loans for a high school diploma?

Quote from: dismalist on August 27, 2022, 01:49:01 PM
And don't forget the fine print:

The Income Driven Repayment [IDR] system gets amended such that
--"discretionary" income is redefined from 150 percent of the federal poverty line to 225 percent of the federal poverty line;
--For undergraduate debt, reduced the IDR rate from 10 percent of income beyond the threshold above in to 5 percent of income beyond the threshold above.
--Interest not capitalized, i.e not owed. [Sure, you work for a wage now, you'll get paid next year, without interest.]

And carryover:

--remaining balance forgiven after 20 years.

Christ, man, borrow to the eyeballs! Pay a small income contingent fee for education, and the rest is free.

This is already debt forgiveness, but of much more future debt, on account it pays to borrow no matter what tuition is, and therefore, tuition will go up one hell of a lot.

This is madness.

That's a repayment of only 5% above $31K/year. If I were attending college, I'd be living it up.

So the $500 billion giveaway will make inflation somewhat worse, will increase tuition (and that component of inflation) and future loan debt, and will erase the deficit reduction in the Inflation Reduction Act (making it a bit more likely that the Fed will lose a game of chicken with a spendthrift government). Fantastic!

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 10:28:29 PM
Which will likely be another opportunity to encourage people to hate the Supreme Court for doing their job. That's the new brand of patriotism from the more radical democrats. Seems to me the Supreme Court should not appreciate being put in the position where they need to reign in the POTUS. I wouldn't if I were them.

Congress should be the first branch to object to this sort of power grab by the president, but prefers to behave like cheer-leading parliamentary backbenchers and generally evade responsibility. Only divided government produces a temporary (politically expedient) check. Constantly expecting the courts (which aren't designed to reflect the views of the median voter) to intervene just makes them seem and actually become more like the political branches.

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 28, 2022, 12:01:12 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 10:28:29 PM
Which will likely be another opportunity to encourage people to hate the Supreme Court for doing their job. That's the new brand of patriotism from the more radical democrats. Seems to me the Supreme Court should not appreciate being put in the position where they need to reign in the POTUS. I wouldn't if I were them.

Congress should be the first branch to object to this sort of power grab by the president, but prefers to behave like cheer-leading parliamentary backbenchers and generally evade responsibility. Only divided government produces a temporary (politically expedient) check. Constantly expecting the courts (which aren't designed to reflect the views of the median voter) to intervene just makes them seem and actually become more like the political branches.

Actually...how far off is the Supreme Court from the center, even if that were the right question (which it's not)? Most American favor some restriction on abortion, which makes them different from Biden and most democrats. Some repubs have been slow to clarify where they on abortion in the last several months, leaving them open to being called extremists. Doesn't mean they are.

ETA: Biden unlike Trump was trained in law (though not a great student) so he should know whether what he did was legal or not. But most of what I have from him over the years strongly suggests to me he wouldn't care.

Quote from: ciao_yall on August 28, 2022, 11:59:58 AM
I personally think it's a great idea.

A high school diploma is not worth what it was 50 years ago. Why? Because science and technology have advanced so far that a student with high school diploma back in the day was employable as, say, a car mechanic. But now? Look at the mechanical difference between cars from 1970 and 2020 and tell me a kid with biceps and a wrench can still fix the same car.

Becoming a mechanic doesn't require a university degree. How much loan forgiveness is on account of vocational programs?

Quote
So why discourage people from pursuing advanced education which makes them better citizens... as well as taxpayers?

With that logic, why not stop education at the 8th grade and make people take out loans for a high school diploma?

On the other hand, why shouldn't guitar lessons, swimming lessons, art classes, and anything else people can take be free since those all in some way make people "better citizens"?

I have a different reducto ad absurdum:

If high school is worthless [and on average it is a worthless joke], why force kids to attend? Why should anybody have to pay anything at all?

Quote from: mahagonny on August 28, 2022, 12:32:11 PM
Actually...how far off is the Supreme Court from the center, even if that were the right question (which it's not)? Most American favor some restriction on abortion, which makes them different from Biden and most democrats. Some repubs have been slow to clarify where they on abortion in the last several months, leaving them open to being called extremists. Doesn't mean they are.

I don't know how far off the Supreme Court is from the center, but by its very nature I suspect that it deviates significantly depending on the issue. Take criminal due process, which are most of the rights listed in the BoR. Accused criminals aren't popular, so I suspect that even this "conservative" Court is to the left of (or more civil libertarian than) the median voter. On abortion, the Court is more "conservative" than the median voter not because it wants to impose the strictest pro-life position but because it wants to leave the decision to the states and the elected branches like most other western democracies.

Quote from: ciao_yall on August 28, 2022, 11:59:58 AM
I personally think it's a great idea.

A high school diploma is not worth what it was 50 years ago. Why? Because science and technology have advanced so far that a student with high school diploma back in the day was employable as, say, a car mechanic. But now? Look at the mechanical difference between cars from 1970 and 2020 and tell me a kid with biceps and a wrench can still fix the same car.

So why discourage people from pursuing advanced education which makes them better citizens... as well as taxpayers?

With that logic, why not stop education at the 8th grade and make people take out loans for a high school diploma?

A high school diploma isn't worth as much today as 50 years ago in large part because standards have declined (inflation of all varieties is bad). Most people are not capable of doing college level work, and most of those who are capable earn a wage premium (which gives them a strong personal incentive to get the education unlike other "public goods"). So why tax everyone to give big subsidies to a capable and relatively comfortable minority?

Quote from: mahagonny on August 28, 2022, 12:32:11 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 28, 2022, 12:01:12 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 10:28:29 PM
Which will likely be another opportunity to encourage people to hate the Supreme Court for doing their job. That's the new brand of patriotism from the more radical democrats. Seems to me the Supreme Court should not appreciate being put in the position where they need to reign in the POTUS. I wouldn't if I were them.

Congress should be the first branch to object to this sort of power grab by the president, but prefers to behave like cheer-leading parliamentary backbenchers and generally evade responsibility. Only divided government produces a temporary (politically expedient) check. Constantly expecting the courts (which aren't designed to reflect the views of the median voter) to intervene just makes them seem and actually become more like the political branches.

Actually...how far off is the Supreme Court from the center, even if that were the right question (which it's not)? Most American favor some restriction on abortion, which makes them different from Biden and most democrats. Some repubs have been slow to clarify where they on abortion in the last several months, leaving them open to being called extremists. Doesn't mean they are.

ETA: Biden unlike Trump was trained in law (though not a great student) so he should know whether what he did was legal or not. But most of what I have from him over the years strongly suggests to me he wouldn't care.

On the bolded, as is usually the case with these things, there is a large amount of research on the subject that you can look to if you actually want to know the answer (e.g. here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120284119).

And, as for your ETA, there is no "legal or not" when it comes to these sorts of things. Biden Admin designed the policy in a way that would give it the greatest chance of making it through the courts. Judges will decide if it passes their thresholds.

Quote
And, as for your ETA, there is no "legal or not" when it comes to these sorts of things. Biden Admin designed the policy in a way that would give it the greatest chance of making it through the courts. Judges will decide if it passes their thresholds.

Right, so he has chosen a route that gives the clear appearance of a confrontational effort, rather than one built from deliberation and consensus. This from the guy who pledged to unite the nation. Fortunately for me and I suppose you too, we weren't foolish enough to believe him.

And so, he figures he really can't lose politically, because either it will fly, or it will bring a new wave of the left's new love, Supreme-Court hatred, which is political capital for him and his crowd.

Which is why, sorry, I know you disagree, but I consider Biden to be about 98% political hack and about 2% statesman or any kind of leader, something we desperately need.

Quote from: mahagonny on August 28, 2022, 04:09:42 PM

Quote
And, as for your ETA, there is no "legal or not" when it comes to these sorts of things. Biden Admin designed the policy in a way that would give it the greatest chance of making it through the courts. Judges will decide if it passes their thresholds.

Right, so he has chosen a route that gives the clear appearance of a confrontational effort, rather than one built from deliberation and consensus. This from the guy who pledged to unite the nation. Fortunately for me and I suppose you too, we weren't foolish enough to believe him.

He chose the route that the thought would pass through the courts. It may work, or perhaps not. The administration did not choose the route that Republicans would have wanted, which is no route at all, but on the other hand there have been several other bipartisan efforts (infrastructure, CHIPs act, reform to electoral count act seems likely in the coming months) on areas where compromise is possible. I guess your take is that the Democratic president should not do anything that Republicans oppose, because that would be confrontational - I assume you then think that Republican leaders should also not do anything along party lines.

And the Biden Administration has argued that policies are bipartisan when a large number of conservative citizens in the country, as opposed to lawmakers, are in favor of them. If you buy that argument, then early polling suggests that there is bipartisan support for this.

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 03:14:10 PM
On the bolded, as is usually the case with these things, there is a large amount of research on the subject that you can look to if you actually want to know the answer (e.g. here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120284119).

A typical empirical study in the discipline whose only virtue is to pad their list of publications. E.g., a public opinion survey claims that a majority of people want discrimination against a group to be illegal. Researchers code based on whether the Court interpreting the law as it is written follow what majority public opinion wants and then draw ideological conclusions about the Court based on the alleged gap. If you want the law to reflect public opinion, elect judges or just get rid of them altogether.

Random remarks:

1) WRT Canada, I knew tuition was lower there, but I did not know how much lower.  With figures as low as cited here, it would seem likely that most Canadian kids could reasonably work their way through school without loans, even if they did not have access to any parental financial support for tuition costs, whereas that is nigh onto impossible here nowadays?  (BTW, do the average Canadian parents still mostly financially support kids' college costs, something which used to be pretty normative here, but has largely become passe amongst many American groups, not just working class evangelicals from flyover country who hate collidg?)

2) WRT whether Biden's loan forgiveness plan will buy the Dems votes, taken as a whole, this fall, who thinks this is really the case?

3) Many Americans today who are practicing lucrative skilled trades got most of their prep education in state-financed free voke high schools, followed by paid apprenticeship or internship programs.

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 28, 2022, 07:45:46 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 03:14:10 PM
On the bolded, as is usually the case with these things, there is a large amount of research on the subject that you can look to if you actually want to know the answer (e.g. here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120284119).

A typical empirical study in the discipline whose only virtue is to pad their list of publications. E.g., a public opinion survey claims that a majority of people want discrimination against a group to be illegal. Researchers code based on whether the Court interpreting the law as it is written follow what majority public opinion wants and then draw ideological conclusions about the Court based on the alleged gap. If you want the law to reflect public opinion, elect judges or just get rid of them altogether.

I'm not saying this is the end all be all study, but rather encouraging Mahogany and anyone else who are asking "is the court really to the right of the median voter?" to look at empirical research instead of pontificating based on nothing. This is one study for example, but I'm sure there are many others. That said, the way you describe the approach used here makes it sound like a pretty legit way to assess the distance between the court and the public.

And I never said that courts should reflect public opinion. I simply made the point to Mahogany that the public is probably not happy with the SC because the court is ruling in a manner that is at odds with public opinion.

QuoteWRT Canada, I knew tuition was lower there, but I did not know how much lower.  With figures as low as cited here, it would seem likely that most Canadian kids could reasonably work their way through school without loans, even if they did not have access to any parental financial support for tuition costs, whereas that is nigh onto impossible here nowadays?  (BTW, do the average Canadian parents still mostly financially support kids' college costs, something which used to be pretty normative here, but has largely become passe amongst many American groups, not just working class evangelicals from flyover country who hate collidg?)

It seems like most students at my institution work during the school year to help pay for their costs (Back in the day, we could just work summers and mostly cover tuition & books, but times have changed). Of course working so much means that most don't take what we would consider a full course load, which adds time to degree and opportunity costs. I think a lot of my students also have student loans, but not the huge loans we hear about from the States. Many parents help finance their kids education, or the kids go to a local post-secondary and live at home.

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 08:20:40 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 28, 2022, 07:45:46 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 03:14:10 PM
On the bolded, as is usually the case with these things, there is a large amount of research on the subject that you can look to if you actually want to know the answer (e.g. here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120284119).

A typical empirical study in the discipline whose only virtue is to pad their list of publications. E.g., a public opinion survey claims that a majority of people want discrimination against a group to be illegal. Researchers code based on whether the Court interpreting the law as it is written follow what majority public opinion wants and then draw ideological conclusions about the Court based on the alleged gap. If you want the law to reflect public opinion, elect judges or just get rid of them altogether.

I'm not saying this is the end all be all study, but rather encouraging Mahogany and anyone else who are asking "is the court really to the right of the median voter?" to look at empirical research instead of pontificating based on nothing. This is one study for example, but I'm sure there are many others. That said, the way you describe the approach used here makes it sound like a pretty legit way to assess the distance between the court and the public.

And I never said that courts should reflect public opinion. I simply made the point to Mahogany that the public is probably not happy with the SC because the court is ruling in a manner that is at odds with public opinion.

That's what the study shows, I guess, but dead fetuses do not get to give their opinion or be part of the study. Even with the recent increase in suicides, it's clear that most Americans choose to remain living once the choice is theirs to make. If one is serious about committing suicide it's very easy to do. When all the votes are counted, the Supreme Court would have a lot of fans.
And if you can be unhappy with their ruling without tormenting individual judges and their families at their home or in a restaurant, or making excuses for people who do that, as the WH press secretary does, then you can claim you're merely unhappy with the ruling, as opposed to something closer to an anarchist.

QuoteAnd the Biden Administration has argued that policies are bipartisan when a large number of conservative citizens in the country, as opposed to lawmakers, are in favor of them. If you buy that argument, then early polling suggests that there is bipartisan support for this.

Do you have source for this? Not that I dispute it. I'm just curious. I could see many Americans favoring debt relief for college but then again, many of them believe they've been fleeced, and many conservatives believe that higher ed has become inhospitable to students who have their views.

QuoteI'm not saying this is the end all be all study, but rather encouraging Mahogany and anyone else who are asking "is the court really to the right of the median voter?" to look at empirical research instead of pontificating based on nothing.

If that's what being encouraged feels like, I'm glad you're not the person who taught me to ride a bicycle. (bolded)

Quote from: Morden on August 28, 2022, 09:05:56 PM

QuoteWRT Canada, I knew tuition was lower there, but I did not know how much lower.  With figures as low as cited here, it would seem likely that most Canadian kids could reasonably work their way through school without loans, even if they did not have access to any parental financial support for tuition costs, whereas that is nigh onto impossible here nowadays?  (BTW, do the average Canadian parents still mostly financially support kids' college costs, something which used to be pretty normative here, but has largely become passe amongst many American groups, not just working class evangelicals from flyover country who hate collidg?)

It seems like most students at my institution work during the school year to help pay for their costs (Back in the day, we could just work summers and mostly cover tuition & books, but times have changed). Of course working so much means that most don't take what we would consider a full course load, which adds time to degree and opportunity costs. I think a lot of my students also have student loans, but not the huge loans we hear about from the States. Many parents help finance their kids education, or the kids go to a local post-secondary and live at home.

Just to add:

As Para said, there isn't a great difference between institutions in quality, so people who go far away from home tend to do so because of specific program offerings, rather than because of a specific institution's "reputation". (There can be differences in reputation of specific programs, so some place may have a well-regarded Basketweaving program, but many or most of their other programs will be pretty ordinary.)

Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2022, 02:43:45 AM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 08:20:40 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on August 28, 2022, 07:45:46 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 28, 2022, 03:14:10 PM
On the bolded, as is usually the case with these things, there is a large amount of research on the subject that you can look to if you actually want to know the answer (e.g. here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120284119).

A typical empirical study in the discipline whose only virtue is to pad their list of publications. E.g., a public opinion survey claims that a majority of people want discrimination against a group to be illegal. Researchers code based on whether the Court interpreting the law as it is written follow what majority public opinion wants and then draw ideological conclusions about the Court based on the alleged gap. If you want the law to reflect public opinion, elect judges or just get rid of them altogether.

I'm not saying this is the end all be all study, but rather encouraging Mahogany and anyone else who are asking "is the court really to the right of the median voter?" to look at empirical research instead of pontificating based on nothing. This is one study for example, but I'm sure there are many others. That said, the way you describe the approach used here makes it sound like a pretty legit way to assess the distance between the court and the public.

And I never said that courts should reflect public opinion. I simply made the point to Mahogany that the public is probably not happy with the SC because the court is ruling in a manner that is at odds with public opinion.

That's what the study shows, I guess, but dead fetuses do not get to give their opinion or be part of the study. Even with the recent increase in suicides, it's clear that most Americans choose to remain living once the choice is theirs to make. If one is serious about committing suicide it's very easy to do. When all the votes are counted, the Supreme Court would have a lot of fans.
And if you can be unhappy with their ruling without tormenting individual judges and their families at their home or in a restaurant, or making excuses for people who do that, as the WH press secretary does, then you can claim you're merely unhappy with the ruling, as opposed to something closer to an anarchist.

QuoteAnd the Biden Administration has argued that policies are bipartisan when a large number of conservative citizens in the country, as opposed to lawmakers, are in favor of them. If you buy that argument, then early polling suggests that there is bipartisan support for this.

Do you have source for this? Not that I dispute it. I'm just curious. I could see many Americans favoring debt relief for college but then again, many of them believe they've been fleeced, and many conservatives believe that higher ed has become inhospitable to students who have their views.

QuoteI'm not saying this is the end all be all study, but rather encouraging Mahogany and anyone else who are asking "is the court really to the right of the median voter?" to look at empirical research instead of pontificating based on nothing.

If that's what being encouraged feels like, I'm glad you're not the person who taught me to ride a bicycle. (bolded)

Sure, here is one poll: https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2022/8/dfp_sbpc_8_22_tabs.pdf, they did not poll people who are dead by suicide.

And on the bolded, you asked a question and I answered it by providing you with a study that gives you exactly the info you supposedly wanted. Sorry to have hurt your feelings by giving you the information you requested.

Quote from: Puget on August 27, 2022, 12:47:49 PM

It's debt relief not a cash payment, so it obviously can't exceed the amount of federal debt (and it only applies to federal loans, not private), but other than that it is a flat amount, not tied to the overall amount. So yes, it will wipe out debt entirely for many who attended CCs or in state publics.

There is also a list of for profit institutions that have been deemed predatory for which all federal student loan debt is forgiven. This includes some big names in the scam education market, as well as obscure many trade schools. This will be a huge help to people who were tricked into going into debt for "degrees" that aren't worth the paper they were printed on.

The fact that many of the students who are receiving debt relief were essentially scammed into going into debt in the first place can't be emphasized enough.  Also, a lot of this debt was never realistically going to be paid off.  The people who incurred it didn't benefit as advertised in terms of improved earning potential.  Forgiving such debt is just a matter of writing down bad debt, and is reasonable on compassionate grounds.

If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:40:56 AM

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Who would offer it, and who should buy it? Should every student buy it just in case their institution goes belly up?

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 29, 2022, 08:43:30 AM

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:40:56 AM

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Who would offer it, and who should buy it? Should every student buy it just in case their institution goes belly up?

Insurance companies would offer it, and they'd watch the edcuational institutions hawk-like, guaranteed! Various institutions would have different premia attached to them, another piece of information for students. Purchase could be voluntary, too.

Insurance is heavily regulated at the State level. States would have to let it happen.

Upthread marsh wiggle stated that being a mechanic does not require a degree. Actually noT quite accurate as far as the current expectations to be a diesel mechanic (an AS for most), and they are in short supply. Of course, that shortage will be alleviated when we have all the autonomous electric long haul semis. Wait, won't that mean a different need? Also for people who have likely need at least an AS?

Huh. Who knew?

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:54:04 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 29, 2022, 08:43:30 AM

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:40:56 AM

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Who would offer it, and who should buy it? Should every student buy it just in case their institution goes belly up?

Insurance companies would offer it, and they'd watch the edcuational institutions hawk-like, guaranteed! Various institutions would have different premia attached to them, another piece of information for students. Purchase could be voluntary, too.

Insurance is heavily regulated at the State level. States would have to let it happen.

In that case the state should provide the insurance, or regulate the institutions so that doesn't happen. Otherwise it's just a money-grab where the state government basically licenses the insurance companies to take money from students. It's a regulatory creation of an unnecessary industry, rather than the government just cutting to the chase.

Quote from: jimbogumbo on August 29, 2022, 09:05:17 AM
Upthread marsh wiggle stated that being a mechanic does not require a degree. Actually noT quite accurate as far as the current expectations to be a diesel mechanic (an AS for most), and they are in short supply. Of course, that shortage will be alleviated when we have all the autonomous electric long haul semis. Wait, won't that mean a different need? Also for people who have likely need at least an AS?

Huh. Who knew?

By "degree", are you talking about an "Associate's degree"? I think that's a US-specific thing; most places vocational programs have diplomas, and degrees are only for 4 year programs. In places with diplomas, that's what a mechanic needs.

QuoteIn that case the state should provide the insurance, or regulate the institutions so that doesn't happen. Otherwise it's just a money-grab where the state government basically licenses the insurance companies to take money from students. It's a regulatory creation of an unnecessary industry, rather than the government just cutting to the chase.

That is so unamerican!

Insurance regulation typically sees to it that there is no money grab, just enough profit to keep the insurance companies in business. Or do you think there is regulatory capture? What an evil thought. :-)

Regulate so that doesn't happen? No, mistakes get made. That's why we want insurance.

If the government is financially responsible for its regulatory mess ups, the cost is shared by all taxpayers, including those who didn't go to college. An  insurance scheme places the financial risk on perhaps all students or perhaps individual students.

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 10:32:33 AM

QuoteIn that case the state should provide the insurance, or regulate the institutions so that doesn't happen. Otherwise it's just a money-grab where the state government basically licenses the insurance companies to take money from students. It's a regulatory creation of an unnecessary industry, rather than the government just cutting to the chase.

That is so unamerican!

Absolutely! :)

Quote

Insurance regulation typically sees to it that there is no money grab, just enough profit to keep the insurance companies in business. Or do you think there is regulatory capture? What an evil thought. :-)

But presumably it's ultimately some branch of the government (e.g. the courts) deciding what is a scam. Why do people essentially have to pay a private company to cover for the government not doing its job?

Quote
Regulate so that doesn't happen? No, mistakes get made. That's why we want insurance.

Again, why should individuals have to pay a private company to cover government screw-ups?

Quote
If the government is financially responsible for its regulatory mess ups, the cost is shared by all taxpayers, including those who didn't go to college. An  insurance scheme places the financial risk on perhaps all students or perhaps individual students.

But that means that the lowest income students are going to bear the greatest burden since they'll find the insurance most onerous. (And the richest students won't need to buy it since Mommy and Daddy will cover them anyway.)

The government should be responsible for preventing the poorest from getting preyed on by scammy institutions or scammy insurers. (For insurers, the best way to make money is to weasel out of covering as often as possible. Or, more correctly, to weasel out as much as possible when the payouts are going to be big.)

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:40:56 AM

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Maybe someone could point me to an article describing this scam. Pres Biden didn't mention it as part of a justification for the loan forgiveness as far as I know. What proportion of the total does scam compensation represent? Who was at fault? Local governemtn, federal loan givers, and colleges that have now gone bust?

It seems that higher ed is, for all the accreditation agencies and government oversight, reminiscent of the wild west. There is great variation in what a degree means from place to place. A lot of places, despite being nominally not-for-profit, are still run on the basis of maximizing income.

For a long time I've been thinking whether we should be proud to be college professors. We have personal control over our actions, but we operate in a system that inspires plenty of mixed feelings.

QuoteBut presumably it's ultimately some branch of the government (e.g. the courts) deciding what is a scam. Why do people essentially have to pay a private company to cover for the government not doing its job?

That's the wrong framing. We have auto accidents. They could be ascribed to the government, I suppose. Then we'd have regulation making sure no one drives, or if not no one, the public would pay, not the class of drivers. It's more efficient for a competitive market to provide this.

QuoteBut that means that the lowest income students are going to bear the greatest burden since they'll find the insurance most onerous. (And the richest students won't need to buy it since Mommy and Daddy will cover them anyway.)

I think you and I worry more about the distributional consequences of higher ed finance than many people on the board. Again, I think wrong framing. Always ask: Compared to what?

--If the evil profits had been confronted with the need to have students insure, and the insurance companies monitored these places, I doubt many would have opened. Then, the graduates of the remaining would have earned more money, justifying the insurance premium.

--Nice if this also applied to non-profits, too. There is some not so innocent stuff on our Colleges in Dire Financial Straits thread.


More generally, what is amazing about discussion of higher ed finance is that while there is certainly a college wage premium, for whatever reason, which justifies private financing, more and more public support is requested. We are just another interest group. This time, the interest group won, big time.

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 12:42:16 PM

QuoteBut presumably it's ultimately some branch of the government (e.g. the courts) deciding what is a scam. Why do people essentially have to pay a private company to cover for the government not doing its job?

That's the wrong framing. We have auto accidents. They could be ascribed to the government, I suppose. Then we'd have regulation making sure no one drives, or if not no one, the public would pay, not the class of drivers. It's more efficient for a competitive market to provide this.

But the government does decide who can drive; driving without a license is a crime. I don't have to buy insurance so that if I get on a bus, or in a taxi, and the driver happens to not be licensed I'll be compensated if we're in an accident.  If the driver is scamming, it's the government's problem. Period.

Quote

QuoteBut that means that the lowest income students are going to bear the greatest burden since they'll find the insurance most onerous. (And the richest students won't need to buy it since Mommy and Daddy will cover them anyway.)

I think you and I worry more about the distributional consequences of higher ed finance than many people on the board. Again, I think wrong framing. Always ask: Compared to what?

--If the evil profits had been confronted with the need to have students insure, and the insurance companies monitored these places, I doubt many would have opened. Then, the graduates of the remaining would have earned more money, justifying the insurance premium.

Can anyone just open "Bob's University" and start granting degrees? If there's any point where the government regulates who can grant degrees, then that should be the point at which insurance becomes unnecessary. By the government granting a license to give degrees, the government it has assumed the responsibility to ensure that the institution is legitimate, and any problem with that will be the government's, (and will presumably involve fines and/or jail time for the criminals in charge of the institution).

(As an aside, how does a person protect themself from the possibility of paying a fraudulent insurer? Should they buy "anti-insurance-fraud" insurance? And how do they ensure the vendor of that insurance isn't a fraud? Ad nauseum. At some point, individuals must be able to count on the government  to certify organizations or businesses, where there are criminal penalties for any organization or business faking the certification.)

By granting me a driver's license the government certifies what? Not that I won't kill anybody. Thus, I must be insured.

By granting a license to a school, the government certifies what? Not that it will succeed. Thus, it behooves students to insure.

Mistakes happen, actually, especially when government does something, but never mind.

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 29, 2022, 10:09:45 AM

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:54:04 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 29, 2022, 08:43:30 AM

Quote from: dismalist on August 29, 2022, 08:40:56 AM

Quote from: downer on August 29, 2022, 08:11:08 AM
If there was a scam, shouldn't there be a class action law suit?

Civil cases seek compensation. This cannot be achieved if the bad guy has no resources, has gone bankrupt.

A criminal case can punish the wrongdoer but that does the victim no good.

I would say this is indeed a case for the government to compensate because the government [State government, I suppose] messed up its oversight.

For the future, one could envision offering and purchasing insurance against these sorts of malfeasance.

Who would offer it, and who should buy it? Should every student buy it just in case their institution goes belly up?

Insurance companies would offer it, and they'd watch the edcuational institutions hawk-like, guaranteed! Various institutions would have different premia attached to them, another piece of information for students. Purchase could be voluntary, too.

Insurance is heavily regulated at the State level. States would have to let it happen.

In that case the state should provide the insurance, or regulate the institutions so that doesn't happen. Otherwise it's just a money-grab where the state government basically licenses the insurance companies to take money from students. It's a regulatory creation of an unnecessary industry, rather than the government just cutting to the chase.

Quote from: jimbogumbo on August 29, 2022, 09:05:17 AM
Upthread marsh wiggle stated that being a mechanic does not require a degree. Actually noT quite accurate as far as the current expectations to be a diesel mechanic (an AS for most), and they are in short supply. Of course, that shortage will be alleviated when we have all the autonomous electric long haul semis. Wait, won't that mean a different need? Also for people who have likely need at least an AS?

Huh. Who knew?

By "degree", are you talking about an "Associate's degree"? I think that's a US-specific thing; most places vocational programs have diplomas, and degrees are only for 4 year programs. In places with diplomas, that's what a mechanic needs.

I do indeed mean an Associates. In the US, that is a two year degree attained post high school; the vast majority of these are from community colleges, vocational ccs and regional public bachelors/masters degree institutions.

Quote from: marshwiggle on August 29, 2022, 10:09:45 AM

By "degree", are you talking about an "Associate's degree"? I think that's a US-specific thing; most places vocational programs have diplomas, and degrees are only for 4 year programs. In places with diplomas, that's what a mechanic needs.

We have them in Canada, although they're more common on the west coast than elsewhere (doubtless because "colleges" proliferate here, whereas elsewhere it's almost all universities). I think they only cover traditional (i.e. non-vocational) areas, however; vocational stuff is diplomas.

Take a look at the graph about half way in. Old news (in the sense we already know it), but still descriptive. Puget pointed out at some of these schools you can get total relief, but that is still not very many of them. Several really bad offenders (scamming veterans, for example) are now owned by large public research universities.

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/whos-fault-student-loan-defaults

There's an interesting piece in the NYT, apparently aimed at people like myself, who are not particularly convinced that loan forgiveness is a great idea in itself. Much of it is quite strong about the good the program of forgiveness will do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/opinion/student-loan-debt-relief-biden.html
But I'm struck by this passage:

QuoteStudents who couldn't get into oversubscribed classes at community colleges turned to expensive for-profit colleges, where they earned credentials that had little value in the labor market. Many exited into a historically bad labor market during the Great Recession.

There's no mention of numbers here. How many students went to these expensive for-profit colleges? And what about caveat emptor? My recollection is that there was plenty of warning that those for-profit colleges were terrible.

Just this week: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/08/31/education-department-approves-15b-debt-relief

https://jacobin.com/2021/12/michael-hudson-interview-debt-forgiveness-cancellation-ancient-rome-christianity

Quote from: Anselm on August 31, 2022, 03:26:20 PM
https://jacobin.com/2021/12/michael-hudson-interview-debt-forgiveness-cancellation-ancient-rome-christianity

That's why we have bankruptcy -- except for student loans!

What morons came up with this?

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 06:55:48 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 03:36:03 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 01:58:42 PM

Quiet in the sense that he is not tweeting or publicizing himself constantly like a carnival barker.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe was clear-headed enough to get out on the Senate floor and hold court. He was quite the orator at one time.

Certainly showing his age, but he was always a gaffe machine. Still, he's lucid and has even had some very good moments on the stage (post Jan 6 press conference was excellent, for example).

I feel like apologizing. Apparently my sarcasm did not come through in the text. I did not mean it as a compliment.

My observation of Joe Biden over many years tells me this: he gets called 'a gaffe machine' which strikes me as a forgiving term. I would think of a gaffe machine as someone who phrases sane, measured thoughts poorly and unflatteringly to himself. He may be that, but he's something much more and much more concerning. In the days when he didn't have difficulty  putting his words into a complete sentence or keeping his mind on the topic, he could be quite forceful, but he was prone to bombast. And worst of all, he has shown a habit of making up stories that grossly amplify his achievements and over dramatize his life (even his family's on occasion) and repeating them on multiple occasions in pretty much the same version. These are not gaffes.  They are lies coming from a nutty egotist.
I also find the legacy press' lack of interest in this pretty astonishing. (Of course I'm old enough to remember George Romney being driven out of public life for a gaffe that apparently scared people to death, one which pretty closely matches the assessment of the Vietnam War that we eventually adopted.)
It's time for a new term: "Bidenism." The belief that any tactic that might help keep republicans out of office is justified. And with it, the realization that even when Biden is gone, it will continue.

TLDR: I hate Joe Biden for solid reasons. You don't have to agree, or you can dislike hearing it, but hey...too darn bad.

Hello Wahoo: 'Breitbart!!!'

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2022, 05:09:46 AM

Hello Wahoo: 'Breitbart!!!'

Isn't he dead?

Quote from: ciao_yall on September 03, 2022, 07:20:09 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2022, 05:09:46 AM

Hello Wahoo: 'Breitbart!!!'

Isn't he dead?

Yeah. Our friend Prof. Wahoo thinks I get all my ideas from Breitbart news, which I've never actually read. Running gag.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2022, 05:09:46 AM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 06:55:48 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on August 27, 2022, 03:36:03 PM

Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on August 27, 2022, 01:58:42 PM

Quiet in the sense that he is not tweeting or publicizing himself constantly like a carnival barker.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe was clear-headed enough to get out on the Senate floor and hold court. He was quite the orator at one time.

Certainly showing his age, but he was always a gaffe machine. Still, he's lucid and has even had some very good moments on the stage (post Jan 6 press conference was excellent, for example).

I feel like apologizing. Apparently my sarcasm did not come through in the text. I did not mean it as a compliment.

My observation of Joe Biden over many years tells me this: he gets called 'a gaffe machine' which strikes me as a forgiving term. I would think of a gaffe machine as someone who phrases sane, measured thoughts poorly and unflatteringly to himself. He may be that, but he's something much more and much more concerning. In the days when he didn't have difficulty  putting his words into a complete sentence or keeping his mind on the topic, he could be quite forceful, but he was prone to bombast. And worst of all, he has shown a habit of making up stories that grossly amplify his achievements and over dramatize his life (even his family's on occasion) and repeating them on multiple occasions in pretty much the same version. These are not gaffes.  They are lies coming from a nutty egotist.
I also find the legacy press' lack of interest in this pretty astonishing. (Of course I'm old enough to remember George Romney being driven out of public life for a gaffe that apparently scared people to death, one which pretty closely matches the assessment of the Vietnam War that we eventually adopted.)
It's time for a new term: "Bidenism." The belief that any tactic that might help keep republicans out of office is justified. And with it, the realization that even when Biden is gone, it will continue.

TLDR: I hate Joe Biden for solid reasons. You don't have to agree, or you can dislike hearing it, but hey...too darn bad.

Hello Wahoo: 'Breitbart!!!'

The bolded sounds a lot like another recent President...

The higher education community is not now, nor has ever been, a Trump enabler.

Quote from: downer on August 28, 2022, 07:41:30 AM

Quote from: Stockmann on August 28, 2022, 07:25:41 AM
Doesn't debt forgiveness basically reward those with the right birth years at the expense of the rest? I don't see it doing anything to cut down on costs and so future students are basically being thrown to the wolves (should've chosen their date of birth wisely). It also punishes the financially prudent - those who borrowed as little as possible, paid it off as fast as possible and chose financially viable careers.

"Thrown to the wolves," and "punishes" seems like histrionic language. Any government handout (or debt forgiveness) helps some rather than others and there's some arbitrariness involved. I too think it makes more sense to help current and future students than past students who should have known that they were signing up for. I guess the main reason Biden went with debt forgiveness is that he could (though it may be reversed by the legal process, way down the line).

Past students had much cheaper college - the Boomers basically paid peanuts, thanks to the taxpayer, compared to current students. College costs haven't stopped rising, so future students are going to pay for the most expensive HE in history (no hyperbole there) with no clarity as to when or if there will be any debt forgiveness - but with the certainty (death and taxes...) that they'll be paying for any money borrowed by the feds to pay for this round of debt forgiveness.

Quote from: Stockmann on September 03, 2022, 11:39:56 AM

Past students had much cheaper college - the Boomers basically paid peanuts, thanks to the taxpayer, compared to current students. College costs haven't stopped rising, so future students are going to pay for the most expensive HE in history.

Just for a bit of perspective: Boomers had higher entrance requirements, much less in the way of remedial instruction, student services, etc. (Not to mention the lack of climbing walls, etc.) The times were indeed different, but a lot of the increased cost is due to adding a lot more infrastructure to do a lot more for students. Part of the cheaper education for Boomers was that it would be considered much more bare bones by today's standards.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 11:48:39 AM
[Boomers had higher entrance requirements...

I'm pretty sure that in the US that isn't true, in the sense that there were plenty of non-selective to open admissions options available.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 11:48:39 AM

Quote from: Stockmann on September 03, 2022, 11:39:56 AM

Past students had much cheaper college - the Boomers basically paid peanuts, thanks to the taxpayer, compared to current students. College costs haven't stopped rising, so future students are going to pay for the most expensive HE in history.

Just for a bit of perspective: Boomers had higher entrance requirements, much less in the way of remedial instruction, student services, etc. (Not to mention the lack of climbing walls, etc.) The times were indeed different, but a lot of the increased cost is due to adding a lot more infrastructure to do a lot more for students. Part of the cheaper education for Boomers was that it would be considered much more bare bones by today's standards.

If every option for housing is a $700k McMansion, then you've got a massive housing crisis. It doesn't matter how nice a McMansion is if you can't afford it. Similarly, those bare bones, cheap or free, well-regarded degrees are no longer available, so it doesn't matter how much nicer the modern universities, with their infrastructure and cafes and climbing walls are, if students can't afford them.

Quote from: ergative on September 05, 2022, 07:13:27 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 11:48:39 AM

Quote from: Stockmann on September 03, 2022, 11:39:56 AM

Past students had much cheaper college - the Boomers basically paid peanuts, thanks to the taxpayer, compared to current students. College costs haven't stopped rising, so future students are going to pay for the most expensive HE in history.

Just for a bit of perspective: Boomers had higher entrance requirements, much less in the way of remedial instruction, student services, etc. (Not to mention the lack of climbing walls, etc.) The times were indeed different, but a lot of the increased cost is due to adding a lot more infrastructure to do a lot more for students. Part of the cheaper education for Boomers was that it would be considered much more bare bones by today's standards.

If every option for housing is a $700k McMansion, then you've got a massive housing crisis. It doesn't matter how nice a McMansion is if you can't afford it. Similarly, those bare bones, cheap or free, well-regarded degrees are no longer available, so it doesn't matter how much nicer the modern universities, with their infrastructure and cafes and climbing walls are, if students can't afford them.

I just get tired of the implication that Boomers somehow had the world handed to them on a silver platter. Every generation has its challenges, and it's not necessary to pretend this is the worst of all times in order to appreciate the seriousness of the present challenges. (When I bought my first car, the inflation rate was 10%, and my car loan was at 20.25%. Those are beyond anything young people can imagine.)

Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 05, 2022, 08:36:16 AM

Quote from: ergative on September 05, 2022, 07:13:27 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 11:48:39 AM

Quote from: Stockmann on September 03, 2022, 11:39:56 AM

Past students had much cheaper college - the Boomers basically paid peanuts, thanks to the taxpayer, compared to current students. College costs haven't stopped rising, so future students are going to pay for the most expensive HE in history.

Just for a bit of perspective: Boomers had higher entrance requirements, much less in the way of remedial instruction, student services, etc. (Not to mention the lack of climbing walls, etc.) The times were indeed different, but a lot of the increased cost is due to adding a lot more infrastructure to do a lot more for students. Part of the cheaper education for Boomers was that it would be considered much more bare bones by today's standards.

If every option for housing is a $700k McMansion, then you've got a massive housing crisis. It doesn't matter how nice a McMansion is if you can't afford it. Similarly, those bare bones, cheap or free, well-regarded degrees are no longer available, so it doesn't matter how much nicer the modern universities, with their infrastructure and cafes and climbing walls are, if students can't afford them.

I just get tired of the implication that Boomers somehow had the world handed to them on a silver platter. Every generation has its challenges, and it's not necessary to pretend this is the worst of all times in order to appreciate the seriousness of the present challenges. (When I bought my first car, the inflation rate was 10%, and my car loan was at 20.25%. Those are beyond anything young people can imagine.)

Though it is hard to be quantitative, it is probably fair to say that the 1960's cohorts of college goers were the first to face relatively uniform and more stringent admissions standards than prior cohorts and later cohorts. The "name" colleges used to be gentleman's clubs for rich families. If you had a high school diploma, especially from the associated high school, you were in. What was common for ordinary colleges was to admit anyone who had gone to a "certified" high school. But, early on, "certification" was not rigorous. [ca. 1900].  The College Board was initially founded to keep the elite schools elite, a cartel, in other  words. No surprise there. This leads to the rise of testing.

And the onset of mass use of the SAT begins in 1958, as an experiment, at the University of California, which was also worried about grade inflation in high schools.

How the SAT  changed more recently, you all know, and it is being thrown out.

My inference is that it is easier than ever to get into college. Must be -- there are a greater share of high school students starting college than  ever before.

https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/sat-act-history-printable.html (https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/sat-act-history-printable.html)

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 08:55:59 AM
Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

The median household income in 1993 was around $31K, and in 2021 it was around $79K when I searched "median household income [year] census." So if we're going to throw around the price of cars, we also need to keep changes in income and inflation in mind. 

Quote from: EdnaMode on September 05, 2022, 09:22:56 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 08:55:59 AM
Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

The median household income in 1993 was around $31K, and in 2021 it was around $79K when I searched "median household income [year] census." So if we're going to throw around the price of cars, we also need to keep changes in income and inflation in mind.

And that's one hell of of car! You can buy a tank for $48K. Here's my much preferred shopping list: https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/  (https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/)

Quote from: EdnaMode on September 05, 2022, 09:22:56 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 08:55:59 AM
Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

The median household income in 1993 was around $31K, and in 2021 it was around $79K when I searched "median household income [year] census." So if we're going to throw around the price of cars, we also need to keep changes in income and inflation in mind.

That's still a higher share of income, although we're now mixing averages and medians.

FTR, I threw the price of cars around because it was specifically referred to. Since marshwiggle is in Canada, the stupendous increase in housing prices every year for the last twenty-plus years (the highest in the OECD) would be very relevant, too. Did people in thirty or forty years ago find themselves in the situation of being unable to qualify for mortgages whose monthly payments were substantially lower than their monthly rent, even with six figures down, no outstanding debts, and an income above the local average? 'Cuz I had that conversation with a bank's lending agent just a couple of years ago, and it's not one that my parents ever remember having.

Quote from: dismalist on September 05, 2022, 09:26:14 AM

And that's one hell of of car! You can buy a tank for $48K. Here's my much preferred shopping list: https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/  (https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/)

Sure. But that's averages for you. Rising income inequality and the dramatically increasing number of millionaires and billionaires does the same thing to the average income, too. I don't know that anyone keeps track of median new or used car prices. (I guess they probably do, but I don't know where they are or how reliable the numbers are.)

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 08:55:59 AM
Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

I got my car during grad school, FWIW. My point was that it illustrated an econimc situation that is unlike anything millenials or gen-z's have ever experienced.

Quote from: dismalist on September 05, 2022, 09:16:18 AM

My inference is that it is easier than ever to get into college. Must be -- there are a greater share of high school students starting college than  ever before.

Bingo - that's the most obvious evidence there is.

One example from my uni.

Several years ago incoming STEM students had to take calculus. It was a challenge, and so there was a significant attrition rate. The math department created a remedial math course, and instituted a test for first year students so that students who didn't do well would be placed in the remedial course. Within a couple of years, they changed it so students got the "remedial" course by default, and those who scored high enough on the test could get into the regular calculus course right away. That entire transition over less than a decade, as I recall, indicates the decline in expectations for incoming students.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 09:38:54 AM

FTR, I threw the price of cars around because it was specifically referred to. Since marshwiggle is in Canada, the stupendous increase in housing prices every year for the last twenty-plus years (the highest in the OECD) would be very relevant, too. Did people in thirty or forty years ago find themselves in the situation of being unable to qualify for mortgages whose monthly payments were substantially lower than their monthly rent, even with six figures down, no outstanding debts, and an income above the local average? 'Cuz I had that conversation with a bank's lending agent just a couple of years ago, and it's not one that my parents ever remember having.

FWIW, my first home buying situation: we had help from both of our mothers; we both had professional incomes and our first house was a duplex that we bought with another couple also with two incomes. So, not as different from today as people might like to suggest.

Quote from: dismalist on September 05, 2022, 09:26:14 AM
[
And that's one hell of of car! You can buy a tank for $48K. Here's my much preferred shopping list: https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/  (https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/)

You need a new list. That selection is down to around three vehicles now I think.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 09:38:54 AM

Quote from: EdnaMode on September 05, 2022, 09:22:56 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 05, 2022, 08:55:59 AM
Young people don't buy new cars any more. The average price of a new car in the '90s was $15-16k. Today, it's around $48k.

The median household income in 1993 was around $31K, and in 2021 it was around $79K when I searched "median household income [year] census." So if we're going to throw around the price of cars, we also need to keep changes in income and inflation in mind.

That's still a higher share of income, although we're now mixing averages and medians.

FTR, I threw the price of cars around because it was specifically referred to. Since marshwiggle is in Canada, the stupendous increase in housing prices every year for the last twenty-plus years (the highest in the OECD) would be very relevant, too. Did people in thirty or forty years ago find themselves in the situation of being unable to qualify for mortgages whose monthly payments were substantially lower than their monthly rent, even with six figures down, no outstanding debts, and an income above the local average? 'Cuz I had that conversation with a bank's lending agent just a couple of years ago, and it's not one that my parents ever remember having.

Quote from: dismalist on September 05, 2022, 09:26:14 AM

And that's one hell of of car! You can buy a tank for $48K. Here's my much preferred shopping list: https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/  (https://www.motortrend.com/features/cars-trucks-suvs-less-than-25000/)

Sure. But that's averages for you. Rising income inequality and the dramatically increasing number of millionaires and billionaires does the same thing to the average income, too. I don't know that anyone keeps track of median new or used car prices. (I guess they probably do, but I don't know where they are or how reliable the numbers are.)

To get a quick and dirty feel for welfare, use real median household income, which is way up, covid aside. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N) This takes out more distributional changes than the mean.

Note that household size has fallen, so that real income per person is even higher.

How any individual price behaved is only relevant for addicts of that good, here car addicts.

Nevertheless, a fixed basket of car prices is calculated, and the price increase is only about 20% until covid.

People are better off, not just millionaires.

QuoteIn the wake of President Biden's student-debt relief plan, critics are targeting the value of higher education — at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

QuoteAlthough some might assign some blame to colleges and universities — which in many instances have fostered or even modeled this new illiberalism — those same institutions can play a significant role in bringing our country back from the brink of this abyss. This is particularly the case for law schools and for other institutions that embrace a liberal arts approach to education.

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/3647082-higher-ed-has-faults-but-dont-ignore-its-utility/

Latest estimate of cost: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/09/26/cbo-student-loan-forgiveness-biden/

Lawsuit filed:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/09/27/lawsuit-may-block-bidens-power-play-cancelling-student-loan-debt/8122883001/

"The plaintiff in the case is Frank Garrison, a public interest attorney (who is now employed by PLF). Garrison lives in Indiana, one of at least six states that tax this kind of debt cancellation as income. He's already part of the congressionally approved Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and would have had his debt forgiven after 10 years of payments – without any additional tax burden. He's already six years into payments, and those payments are capped based on his income.

Since he's a Pell Grant recipient, Garrison is eligible for $20,000 in loan forgiveness. Taking that amount off his principal, however, changes nothing for him except for giving him an immediate tax bill of more than $1,000, Kruckenberg said.

So the "forgiveness" will actually cost Garrison money and the action will be automatic – as soon as October – because of his participation in the public service program."

Shouldn't he be suing Indiana instead?

How could it possibly be that having to pay an extra grand in taxes here will counteract the value of his saving 20 grand in student loans?

An interactive map by state with college debt on graduation (click on the state to see institutions within that state). https://ticas.org/interactive-map/

Federal judge in Texas says no. But it helped get the democrats midterm votes I suppose. Crafty fellow, old Joe. Knowing as I do his penchant for lying, I half expected it wouldn't fly, and as a person trained in law, even finishing near the bottom of his class, he didn't expect it to. Is this the final chapter? I'd hate to have to say 'sorry, students...you've been conned.'
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-judge-in-texas-strikes-down-biden-loan-forgiveness-plan/ar-AA13Z5jv

Not forgiveness per se, but data about costs, aid and loans:https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/politics/college-costs-student-loans-federal-aid/index.html

Though I disagreed with the blanket nature of the program, I thought it a great shame that it has been litigated to a standstill.  Now even the most deserving aren't getting any help.