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June 24, 2014

Comments

Mark Folkestad

First?

Mark Folkestad

Darn, I haven't caught the opening of a new thread in a long time. Now if I can only find the time to keep up with a few of the threads. Of course student debt is mushrooming. Far too many people are going to college these days, the schools are being lavish with their spending and hardly any courses have merit.

Porchlight

OT already - wanted to repost the Scott Walker article that Jane posted on the last thread. Impressive. I didn't realize he's only 4 months older than I am - yikes.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/he-shall-not-be-moved-20140618

henry

Typical borrowers are no worse off now

As if they were in a good place a generation ago, which is not established. Further, a generation ago they could bet jobs to pay the debt. No so today. Then multiply the wonderfulness by 3.5!

matt

So Obama's latest squirrel is paid maternity leave. Anyone notice that this crap is bouncing out of the White House weekly now? Last week was transgender rights and woobies. This week it's maternity leave global warming.

Porchlight

Right, paid maternity leave. Gee, what could a company do to get around that? I just can't think of anything.

NK(withnewsoftware)

Henry/TomM-- I'll throw one more thing into the mix, on the margins but relevant IMO. Pre-1986, a fair number of 'student loans' were discretionary, in that the student didn't 'need' the loan, mom/dad would pay cash, but tax planning said, take the loan, and have mom/dad pay the % and write-off of income taxes. Therefore, 100% of the 35% of currently student loan indebted really needed the loan. Those grads whose parents could pay, didn't take loans (or took out lower principle amounts) as there was no icome tax advantage to parents taking a discretionary student loan. Bottomline-- The Higher Ed/Gov't complex has created a serf class of overly indebted, under income performing victims who now need a bailout. How convenient.

James D.

The Higher Ed/Gov't complex has created a serf class of overly indebted, under income performing victims who now need a bailout. How convenient.

AND an overlord class of administrators (both at colleges and in the government) who are ultimately supported by all those loans. Don't forget them!

NK(withnewsoftware)

One more set of numbers. 36% of these Millenials have student loan debt, and 100% of them are on the hook for the $18T (and growing Obummer Debt) plus Soc sec and Medicare for us old guys. HAH... never gonna happen. defaults await, default is a lock... these numbers are at the heart of OPM famine/running out.

NK(withnewsoftware)

JamesD-- yes, creating the serf class is very convenient for them. The overlords created this deliberately, or at least with reckless disregard for financial responsibility. PLUS the Serfs will pay their government/University pensions... NOT! The Serfs are tapped out, no OPM for those pensions.

DebinNC

Student loan "forgiveness" is available to those employed by "a federal, state or local government agency, entity, or organization or a not-for-profit organization that has been designated as tax-exempt by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)," according to the U.S. Office of Education's federal student aid website.

Thank goodness the IRS is trustworthy and nonpolitical.

DrJ

Hey, hit got another link from Instapundit to his President Goldman Sachs graphic!

Jack is Back! (But in Typhus Hell)

Okay, I'll play the Nostrodomus here and predict universities as we know them don't exist in the next millenial.

rse

JIB-universities as we knew them no longer exist for this Millenial. That's simply not widely recognized yet.

Unmeetable Expectations+debt+Few actual skills or knowledge worth more than minimum wage for too many degreed grads

Rick B

In my small world, comparing the outcome of a universe composed of certificated morons wearing debt serf collars with the universe of those foolish enough to go into debt in pursuit of a certificate has no meaning. While it's true that certificates of morony are acquired by a higher percentage of those beginning the pursuit than in the past, with current college enrollment at 21 million there were only 1.791 million certifications issued last year.

Lots and lots (technical term regarding statistical precision) of serf collars do not have proper moron tags attached and those lacking proper tags are in much worse financial shape than those who have had their morony certified.

TM does a great job with the rest of the drivel but the pea and thimble maneuver with the initial comparison needed a mention.

Alan Luring

Young adults as a class are spending roughly 2.5 times more on debt service (adjusted for income)

This is unnecessarily unclear, TM. More than {who, what, when}?

mad jack

Excellent point as usual, Rick.

Rick B

Alan Turing,

I understood the predicate to be

In 2010, 36 percent of households with people between the ages of 20 and 40 had education debt, up from 14 percent in 1989.
. Perhaps TM will respond and clarify.
AliceH

I thought it was crystal clear ~ 2.5 times more people within the category "young adults" have student debt.

Tom Maguire

OK, I tweaked that passage but the notion was that, whatever the debt service burden borne by young adults twenty years ago, it is roughly 2.5 times larger today. Leonhardt's view that even if it is 2.5 times larger it is not a problem because 2.5 times as many people are making payments is dubious.

Buford Gooch

Colleges and universities have become little more than a credentialing system. Since intelligence tests were outlawed, companies needed something to sort out the brighter, more assertive people from those less so. That system never worked well. Now, with the possible exception of STEM, it hardly works at all. If someone (the College board?)were to come out with a more useful credentialing system, our higher education system would likely collapse under it's own weight.

Alan Luring

Thanks for the clarification!

surbuban gal

College costs and funding mystify those of us in the system too. Here in my state there are to be NO raises for faculty and staff but tuition is going up anywhere from 4 to 8%, We don't know where it goes or why either. On the other hand, free CC (no tuition) starts soon, so the fate of 4 year schools is up in the air

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Wilson/Plame