What is your opinion on student loan forgiveness?

[ciao_yall]

Hello Wahoo: 'Breitbart!!!'

Isn't he dead?

[mahagonny]

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.

[Sun_Worshiper]

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...

[mahagonny]

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

[Stockmann]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[jimbogumbo]

[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.

[ergative]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.)

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

[dismalist]

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

[EdnaMode]

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. 

[dismalist]

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/

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

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/

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.)

[marshwiggle]

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.

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.