Could you explain to non-Americans what is the appeal of student loans if they can do this? Why shouldn’t people go to cheaper schools to get their degrees instead? I mean no disrespect, if you are rich go to Yale or whatever, by all means.
There are no such thing as cheaper schools. They got rid of that because they were angry college students protested the Vietnam War. So now getting an education means doing business with the worst loan shark you’ve ever heard of, legally protected from bankruptcy. The thing you have to understand about America is that everything is a scam. Like healthcare or housing or a child care and a bunch of other things I’m not even thinking about
Schools are expensive because the amount of public funding to universities has been slowly shrinking over the past 60 years. College in the US back in th 1960s was very cheap.
Student loan amounts due did not change, but income based repayment options did which means people’s minimum payments went up
Students in the US were told college is the only career path for the past 40-50 years. This obviously isn’t true and is why we have trades shortages. In many cases, that’s also all the advice people received. There was no coaching for what kind of degree to pursue or what field to angle for, so a number of people got expensive degrees that didn’t have good career prospects. To be completely honest, I lucked into choosing engineering because of my interests and the interests of my friends
There are no cheaper schools. There are expensive ones and more expensive ones. There is literally no option for the non-rich except to go into debt or learn to be a plumber.
Lots of trade schools are charging 10-20k/year and expecting 2 years of you…trades are great but we’re using student loans for them too depending on where you are*
*large cities tend to have better cheaper options like community college and there at least was some small federal schools that didn’t require loans. But not all areas have equal coverage here and you often get price gouged if you aren’t from that very specific city/town the community college is in. Tl;dr hopefully you live in an area with good resources which is not even remotely guaranteed.
cheaper to get education in europe. It’s not like us schools are any better than eu ones that take like 2.5k a year and offer loans from the government that are reasonable.
Community College is awesome, literally the only problem is that they don’t offer bachelor’s degrees. You can learn certain skills for work from one which is nice and you can complete an associates degree which can sometimes be useful for work but you really need the Bachelors to get anywhere and my heart take is that Community College is shut off for a limited range of Bachelors degrees, not as many as state U but maybe a half dozen or so.
Yes, but only because of shortage of people in that field, and good luck working in it as a disabled person! Most likely you’ll work under someone else, and that’s not like helping your father do gardening work, so there will be hard quotas and deadlines.
I didn’t go. Would have been the first year paying the 3x rates. Everyone was telling us how it won’t cost much. I couldn’t help but think what if the terms change and in 25 years that threshold won’t be worth very much.
The appeal is that you get to go to college.
“Why not go to a cheaper school?”
“Why don’t you just get a job?”
“Just buy a starter home.”
"Why don’t they eat cake instead?’
Social work. And it’s laughable considering that social workers and mental health professionals generally don’t make a lot of money. I have no regrets getting it, just wish it was cheaper.
I love what I do, and it’s definitely needed. I am sure more people would go into the field if education was cheaper. I am lucky to afford full loan payments because I have a partner with a decent income. Honestly don’t know what I’d do without him.
The minimum wage should be multiplied for every additional level of Education you need. Like say if you need an Associates it’s 1.5 for a bachelor’s degree it’s 2.5 for a graduate degree it’s 3 times the base value which would apply to high school or less work only.
It would force employers to remove education requirements from jobs if they’re not worth paying for. The requirement wouldn’t be to hire the work or it would be to require the degree. You would enforce it by requiring employers to sign a document upon hiring that says upon penalty of perjury that they did not request a transcript or ask the employee about their education, and there would be sting operations to enforce it along with steep fines and jail sentences for corporate employees who lie on the form. Also perhaps universities from providing transcripts or degree verifications if they cannot verify the job is doing the paperwork right
yes, if the job wants a master’s degree a minimum wage of $50 seems fair. if they don’t need that they can lower the requirements and save money. price in the cost to society of demanding degrees and only those who truly need them will ask for them
40kUSD is nothing compared to some STEM degrees - especially at the masters level. PhDs can often be funded and not cost the student though (only in lost time…and mental health…)
My bachelor was around 12k and if I did it faster it could have been cheaper. Wgu does it based on term not credit hour. The more courses you pass in a term the cheaper it is overall.
There was literally no way for my master’s to cost less, so I am not sure what your point is. It’s a minimum 2-year program. It’s how it’s designed. Not all degrees are like that, but in my case I paid the least amount possible already.
Children are told that they MUST go to college to get a stable and high paying job. This is so prevalent that college degrees are just seen as “the next step after high school” and nobody questions it. These colleges have figured out they can charge almost anything because they are seen as the gate keepers to high paying and stable jobs. So banking on future earnings, bearly emancipated teenagers, with the absolute minimum of a financial education, make life decisions that will put them in debt for the next 20-30 years.
The problem with the whole system is there doesn’t appear to be enough high paying and stable jobs.
As far as going to a cheaper college, I think you identified the issue in your very own comment. Schools have different prestige levels. Yale, for example, is a high prestige school and not only are you paying for an education, you are also paying to connect to rich people. These connections can be worth a lot of money if they are used correctly. So going to a cheaper college also means less valuable connections.
The problem is that employers are allowed to demand a college degree without having to shoulder any of the costs associated, so they are the real consumers of the degrees and the students are just the middle men who bear the cost. They get entitled especially during the sessions too demand degrees for jobs that don’t require them really and then that shifts education priorities for the whole country. If we regulated educational and certification requirements for jobs we can make this problem go away
Even beyond connections, just the sticker on a resumé that says “<prestige school name>” means you’re less likely to get shunted into the shitter with 95% of other applicants, if you don’t already have an “in” that cuts past the resumé stage.
Is this an intuition, or is it a known fact? Why would people do this? Do universities teach people to discriminate this way? Where do employers get these ideas? Is it something that permeates the whole society, or is it focused to applicant selection? Sorry for the many questions, I appreciate your response.
As a Millennial (and now an adult), I will preface that I’m out of touch with the youths, so I don’t know their perspective on colleges now. But it is common societal idea in the US. No company will openly put out notice that they are discriminating but the prestige US schools are more rigorous in their application screening and get more money, and so are expected to have more rigorous curricula/standards and better teaching. It has shifted so that non-Ivy League schools were becoming recognized in their fields for various subjects. But that just adds them to the “Prestige” category for those in the know.
When people look at a resume, it’s sorted into “Prestige” and every other university. And prestige will take your further.
Hilariously, as America progresses further into the dark ages, these “prestige” schools are increasingly becoming known for being degree mills who will sell a degree to any idiot with fat enough pockets to ask for one. Take the Trumps’ history at Wharton for instance.
It probably always was. It’s just that before rich people used to think being intelligent was a thing worth pursuing. The idea that you needed to be well-read and experienced to lead people.
UBI is a much better policy that “subsidizing loans just for college”. It helps all young people more than old, letting them choose a future that is best for them, while stiill making college an affordable choice. It makes college pricing more competitive, instead of trapping people too young and foolish into a path they can’t know enough to be a trap.
UBI is mainly the signficiant power redistribution to people and workers. Minimum wage laws can be removed, and instead of a system where it is illegal to offer you a certain wage, while somehow unpaid internships are permitted, you gain the dignity of refusing work while waiting for better.
It is only gross power imbalance that makes you fear your employer would pay you less if they could legally, and a psychological trap that clings to the bandaid on your slavery that is minimum wage laws.
That’s one of only good things about Florida. The colleges on average are significantly cheaper than anywhere else, and Florida is still ranked number 1 on US News for college education when looking at every single college combined.
So basically get a good affordable education and then move the fuck out of Florida.
So, basically, as a regular (not rich) young person, you are aiming for a higher chance to connect with rich people in order to get a job/business that will probably get you enough money to cash on the “investment” made by getting an otherwise potentially for-life debt? Huh, rings a bell here. Thank you.
Oh, see - due to the lack of investment in education, the normalization of ever-increasing tuition rates, and the social/economic stratification of U.S. society there isn’t really a thing such as a ‘cheaper’ school.
My local commuter college wanted $25k a year for their masters program over a decade ago - and that’s after obtaining a 4 year degree. (Which I obtained through a combination of community college and undergrad classes at the same university, but not without incurring about $20k worth of debt for the previous 4 years.)
Add to that, the U.S. doesn’t have the economy or social supports. You either earn a living wage, find something workable through familial support, or go hungry. The U.S., mandates that companies pay less than half of what is needed to support one’s self.
This isn’t like, poor planning, or governmental stupidity. This is actually on purpose by conservatives in the U.S. government. (Sorry, that site is kinda weird, but it has the quote I was looking for.)
Nevermind that an educated populous is a matter of national defense/national security and having the brainpower to propel the country forward is one of the ways that the U.S. dominated on the world stage in the latter half of the last century. (In addition to timely and fortuitous control of a lot of resources, and a shitload of foreign meddling - lets be real here.) But whatevz, who needs that when the voters disagree with you? The people who set this in motion will be dead by the time the people that are going to be utterly fucked by that figure it out. (perhaps slowed in that realization by their faulty education. Hah.).
Yesterday, I lost a reply to you because my instance was failing. It’s heartbreaking how the Cold War keeps affecting you in America. It’s like your government can’t even realize they won. I find it an atrocity that you only can study if you are rich or if you sell your soul to them.
Could you explain to non-Americans what is the appeal of student loans if they can do this? Why shouldn’t people go to cheaper schools to get their degrees instead? I mean no disrespect, if you are rich go to Yale or whatever, by all means.
There are no such thing as cheaper schools. They got rid of that because they were angry college students protested the Vietnam War. So now getting an education means doing business with the worst loan shark you’ve ever heard of, legally protected from bankruptcy. The thing you have to understand about America is that everything is a scam. Like healthcare or housing or a child care and a bunch of other things I’m not even thinking about
Three things going on:
There are no cheaper schools. There are expensive ones and more expensive ones. There is literally no option for the non-rich except to go into debt or learn to be a plumber.
Lots of trade schools are charging 10-20k/year and expecting 2 years of you…trades are great but we’re using student loans for them too depending on where you are*
*large cities tend to have better cheaper options like community college and there at least was some small federal schools that didn’t require loans. But not all areas have equal coverage here and you often get price gouged if you aren’t from that very specific city/town the community college is in. Tl;dr hopefully you live in an area with good resources which is not even remotely guaranteed.
cheaper to get education in europe. It’s not like us schools are any better than eu ones that take like 2.5k a year and offer loans from the government that are reasonable.
Community College is awesome, literally the only problem is that they don’t offer bachelor’s degrees. You can learn certain skills for work from one which is nice and you can complete an associates degree which can sometimes be useful for work but you really need the Bachelors to get anywhere and my heart take is that Community College is shut off for a limited range of Bachelors degrees, not as many as state U but maybe a half dozen or so.
learning a trade should be more encouraged, you can make a shit ton of money (relatively) without the debt
Yes, but only because of shortage of people in that field, and good luck working in it as a disabled person! Most likely you’ll work under someone else, and that’s not like helping your father do gardening work, so there will be hard quotas and deadlines.
True, but that isn’t an option for everyone and we still need scientists and doctors and such.
oh i know but college shouldn’t be the default. i work in elementary and they have college posters up in the halls.
College stuff up in elementary schools is pretty crazy.
True, but that might take you 10 years to get to a point where you’re no longer the new person and have skills to back it up.
that goes for any skilled labor. doesn’t make what i said any less true.
also, there are paid apprenticeships with unions if you look.
Same as in the UK I imagine. No university is affordable. Unless you are rich, you can’t go without a loan.
I didn’t go. Would have been the first year paying the 3x rates. Everyone was telling us how it won’t cost much. I couldn’t help but think what if the terms change and in 25 years that threshold won’t be worth very much.
The appeal is that you get to go to college. “Why not go to a cheaper school?” “Why don’t you just get a job?” “Just buy a starter home.” "Why don’t they eat cake instead?’
I went to a really cheap school. My master’s was 40k.
40k? In USD or in Warhammer? Cause that’s a shite ton of money for college.
What did you study btw?
Also, I am great full to live in a shit hole country right now given that bill
Social work. And it’s laughable considering that social workers and mental health professionals generally don’t make a lot of money. I have no regrets getting it, just wish it was cheaper.
Underappreciated work, but thank you so much for doing it and for involving yourself in further education, more so knowing the costs.
I love what I do, and it’s definitely needed. I am sure more people would go into the field if education was cheaper. I am lucky to afford full loan payments because I have a partner with a decent income. Honestly don’t know what I’d do without him.
For 40k you could’ve lived like a king AND pay for the masters degree in an eu university.
The minimum wage should be multiplied for every additional level of Education you need. Like say if you need an Associates it’s 1.5 for a bachelor’s degree it’s 2.5 for a graduate degree it’s 3 times the base value which would apply to high school or less work only.
Wouldn’t that make a lot of them unemployable?
It would force employers to remove education requirements from jobs if they’re not worth paying for. The requirement wouldn’t be to hire the work or it would be to require the degree. You would enforce it by requiring employers to sign a document upon hiring that says upon penalty of perjury that they did not request a transcript or ask the employee about their education, and there would be sting operations to enforce it along with steep fines and jail sentences for corporate employees who lie on the form. Also perhaps universities from providing transcripts or degree verifications if they cannot verify the job is doing the paperwork right
Ahh so you are thinking minimum wage by job education requirements rather than what someone actually has? Makes a bit more sense
yes, if the job wants a master’s degree a minimum wage of $50 seems fair. if they don’t need that they can lower the requirements and save money. price in the cost to society of demanding degrees and only those who truly need them will ask for them
Not really, you need about triple the minimum wage to be comfortable in a lowish cost of living area.
40kUSD is nothing compared to some STEM degrees - especially at the masters level. PhDs can often be funded and not cost the student though (only in lost time…and mental health…)
My bachelor was around 12k and if I did it faster it could have been cheaper. Wgu does it based on term not credit hour. The more courses you pass in a term the cheaper it is overall.
There was literally no way for my master’s to cost less, so I am not sure what your point is. It’s a minimum 2-year program. It’s how it’s designed. Not all degrees are like that, but in my case I paid the least amount possible already.
Letting you know there are cheaper schools depending on your degree
Literally picked the cheapest school I could find for my degree. Again, not sure what I could have done differently here.
Don’t let people turn systemic problems into individual failings.
Children are told that they MUST go to college to get a stable and high paying job. This is so prevalent that college degrees are just seen as “the next step after high school” and nobody questions it. These colleges have figured out they can charge almost anything because they are seen as the gate keepers to high paying and stable jobs. So banking on future earnings, bearly emancipated teenagers, with the absolute minimum of a financial education, make life decisions that will put them in debt for the next 20-30 years.
The problem with the whole system is there doesn’t appear to be enough high paying and stable jobs.
As far as going to a cheaper college, I think you identified the issue in your very own comment. Schools have different prestige levels. Yale, for example, is a high prestige school and not only are you paying for an education, you are also paying to connect to rich people. These connections can be worth a lot of money if they are used correctly. So going to a cheaper college also means less valuable connections.
The problem is that employers are allowed to demand a college degree without having to shoulder any of the costs associated, so they are the real consumers of the degrees and the students are just the middle men who bear the cost. They get entitled especially during the sessions too demand degrees for jobs that don’t require them really and then that shifts education priorities for the whole country. If we regulated educational and certification requirements for jobs we can make this problem go away
Even beyond connections, just the sticker on a resumé that says “<prestige school name>” means you’re less likely to get shunted into the shitter with 95% of other applicants, if you don’t already have an “in” that cuts past the resumé stage.
Is this an intuition, or is it a known fact? Why would people do this? Do universities teach people to discriminate this way? Where do employers get these ideas? Is it something that permeates the whole society, or is it focused to applicant selection? Sorry for the many questions, I appreciate your response.
As a Millennial (and now an adult), I will preface that I’m out of touch with the youths, so I don’t know their perspective on colleges now. But it is common societal idea in the US. No company will openly put out notice that they are discriminating but the prestige US schools are more rigorous in their application screening and get more money, and so are expected to have more rigorous curricula/standards and better teaching. It has shifted so that non-Ivy League schools were becoming recognized in their fields for various subjects. But that just adds them to the “Prestige” category for those in the know.
When people look at a resume, it’s sorted into “Prestige” and every other university. And prestige will take your further.
Hilariously, as America progresses further into the dark ages, these “prestige” schools are increasingly becoming known for being degree mills who will sell a degree to any idiot with fat enough pockets to ask for one. Take the Trumps’ history at Wharton for instance.
Indeed it’s become an Open Secret that the only hard part about Ivy lease is getting in and that they give gentleman’s c’s to everyone .
It probably always was. It’s just that before rich people used to think being intelligent was a thing worth pursuing. The idea that you needed to be well-read and experienced to lead people.
UBI is a much better policy that “subsidizing loans just for college”. It helps all young people more than old, letting them choose a future that is best for them, while stiill making college an affordable choice. It makes college pricing more competitive, instead of trapping people too young and foolish into a path they can’t know enough to be a trap.
The future of UBI is what happened to the minimum wage.
UBI is mainly the signficiant power redistribution to people and workers. Minimum wage laws can be removed, and instead of a system where it is illegal to offer you a certain wage, while somehow unpaid internships are permitted, you gain the dignity of refusing work while waiting for better.
It is only gross power imbalance that makes you fear your employer would pay you less if they could legally, and a psychological trap that clings to the bandaid on your slavery that is minimum wage laws.
That’s one of only good things about Florida. The colleges on average are significantly cheaper than anywhere else, and Florida is still ranked number 1 on US News for college education when looking at every single college combined.
So basically get a good affordable education and then move the fuck out of Florida.
Although the governor is doing everything in his power to make sure that is not the case.
So, basically, as a regular (not rich) young person, you are aiming for a higher chance to connect with rich people in order to get a job/business that will probably get you enough money to cash on the “investment” made by getting an otherwise potentially for-life debt? Huh, rings a bell here. Thank you.
there are no cheap schools in the US.
See my response to another comment about wgu
Oh, see - due to the lack of investment in education, the normalization of ever-increasing tuition rates, and the social/economic stratification of U.S. society there isn’t really a thing such as a ‘cheaper’ school.
My local commuter college wanted $25k a year for their masters program over a decade ago - and that’s after obtaining a 4 year degree. (Which I obtained through a combination of community college and undergrad classes at the same university, but not without incurring about $20k worth of debt for the previous 4 years.)
Add to that, the U.S. doesn’t have the economy or social supports. You either earn a living wage, find something workable through familial support, or go hungry. The U.S., mandates that companies pay less than half of what is needed to support one’s self.
This isn’t like, poor planning, or governmental stupidity. This is actually on purpose by conservatives in the U.S. government. (Sorry, that site is kinda weird, but it has the quote I was looking for.)
Nevermind that an educated populous is a matter of national defense/national security and having the brainpower to propel the country forward is one of the ways that the U.S. dominated on the world stage in the latter half of the last century. (In addition to timely and fortuitous control of a lot of resources, and a shitload of foreign meddling - lets be real here.) But whatevz, who needs that when the voters disagree with you? The people who set this in motion will be dead by the time the people that are going to be utterly fucked by that figure it out. (perhaps slowed in that realization by their faulty education. Hah.).
Yesterday, I lost a reply to you because my instance was failing. It’s heartbreaking how the Cold War keeps affecting you in America. It’s like your government can’t even realize they won. I find it an atrocity that you only can study if you are rich or if you sell your soul to them.
I have too many thoughts to really articulate well, but, basically, yeah.
From “In god we trust” to citizens united, the nuance required to kill a popular ideology without becoming anathema has been lacking.