Student loan forgiveness and free college are bad ideas.

[abaddon]

Rich parents who likely forced them to become doctors, no less.

Yeah, there is more than a touch of that.

One of the reasons I like my GP practice is that they treat you as a person who happens to have an ailment, not an ailment from which money may be extracted.

People often complain about the 10 minute in and out consult that many give. Personally, it suits me. I'm an engineer, stick to the facts, ma'am. And all that. However I know from other attendees of the practice that if they get a sniff of anything else beyond the immediate ailment, they whack time into it aplenty. Indeed have experienced myself. At the time of my divorce, I rocked up with some random chest infection. There followed a protracted consult to determine whether I was experiencing any mental health consequences from said divorce. I wasn't, but I rather like that they spent the time to actually bother to check. For no extra charge.

I really like the time they saved my life. For the fifty consult fee. 5 days in ICU that I do not relish the memory of. They never even billed that until I went back post facto and insisted.

 

[plague311]

Anecdotal experience time!

I graduated from high school in 2000 with a 2.0 GPA, literally barely passed. I then worked for a decade or so in varying fields (mostly tech related, mostly customer service based..so...a call center). I went back to tech school in 2013 because I wanted a degree in something computer related because that's where I did my best. The local tech school only had Networking (of the Cisco variety), and so that's what I took. I did the AccuPlacer and had to take an extra Math and English, because I didn't take any of it in high school. I did a total of 5 semesters for my associates degree in Networking and Computer Technology that cost me a total of $25,000. I had 6 months from graduation before my payments started. I currently pay $250 a month and will be paid off sometime in the next 10 years. I am salaried in around the $60k range. I have absolutely no issues in paying my student loans because I made a responsible decision with the money I got and how I used it. I would NOT have made those same decisions at 18.

If they forgave my loans the only thing it would change is I'd pay an extra $150 on my mortgage while blowing the rest of it on comic books.

 

[Meadmaker]

Again, I believe that the legal protection of student debts are the key problem: it makes education into a money-making machine ... which it is not supposed to.
Education should be something you put money in and get educated people out, not put uneducated people in an get money out, with a bit of knowledge on the side.

The benefit to the Economy of education shouldn't come from Education providers making money.

This is absolutely correct.

One of the huge problems with the "free college" solution to the problem is that it would greatly incentivize terrible education. To get the government money, the school would have to meet some minimum standards, and convince 18 year olds to enroll. Actual education in things of value is a secondary concern, far down the ladder from enrolling as many students as possible.

 

[lionking]

This is absolutely correct.

One of the huge problems with the "free college" solution to the problem is that it would greatly incentivize terrible education. To get the government money, the school would have to meet some minimum standards, and convince 18 year olds to enroll. Actual education in things of value is a secondary concern, far down the ladder from enrolling as many students as possible.

I’d like some evidence of this. My bet is that there is a rigourous process involved.

 

[abaddon]

This is absolutely correct.

One of the huge problems with the "free college" solution to the problem is that it would greatly incentivize terrible education. To get the government money, the school would have to meet some minimum standards, and convince 18 year olds to enroll. Actual education in things of value is a secondary concern, far down the ladder from enrolling as many students as possible.

Ah. I at last realise your fallacy with regard to "free" education.

See if Joe the Village idiot enrolls on a doctorate in Nuclear Physics in a free system, he does not automagically get that doctorate because it is free. He flunks out. Also for free. No charge for flunking. One just flunks. Sayonara. Academia is cruel that way.

 

[Meadmaker]

I’d like some evidence of this. My bet is that there is a rigourous process involved.

The program doesn't exist yet, but I posted a link to Bernie Sanders' plan earlier. Maybe you can find some reference to standards in it. I don't remember anyplace where it used the word "rigorous". I do remember several instances of "all" and "every".

 

[Giordano]

But that isn’t what happened. The distribution of applicants today is not the same as the distribution 60 years ago.

To make certain we are on the same page, "selection" as relevant to our discussion IMO refers to UC choosing a subset of applicants for admission based on one or more criteria (I am ignoring random choice, which is not done). More applicants have applied each year, reflecting in part the growing California population. But UC has admitted progressively fewer applicants on a percent basis most years for many decades. So UC has increasingly been more selective in terms of who in the admission pool is actually admitted.

Now you may disagree with the criteria used for this selection but it is heavily based on high school GPA. SAT scores, the applicant's letter (the same traditional academic criteria used by most colleges and universities for many years). You appear to be using the term "selective" as demanding of proof of past and potential academic performance, and suggesting that these standards have slipped (and that the pool is academically weaker). As a parent and as a professor at UC I have not seen this. It is difficult for even high scoring high school students from my local highly-academically-inclined town to get into a UC, and probably hardest for UC Berkeley and UCLA. I have been surprised by the number of children of friends who have not gotten in despite their strong applications; criteria for admission are tight. Teaching the people who have gotten in I find that they almost all have extremely strong academic backgrounds. I have no indication that selection by academic abilities has slipped.

More broadly there are some additional secondary criteria for admission: e.g. being in the top 9% GPA of your local high school can earn you admission at a UC (not guaranteed and not into a specific one) even if you are not in the top 9% of high school students state wide. The goal is to allow promising students from below average high schools to still pursue a higher education. But only a small percent of the admits are through this "local GPA" process; most admits were judged by statewide comparisons. And in my experience these local GPA students are still excellent students. They had to be extra dedicated and extra good to succeed in bad environments that were not their faults.

 

[Meadmaker]

No charge for flunking.

Would that it were true. My son is in college right now, at least until the end of the semester.

The university web site is terrible. Information is really hard to find. I haven't found the "refund" button.

 

[Giordano]

The program doesn't exist yet, but I posted a link to Bernie Sanders' plan earlier. Maybe you can find some reference to standards in it. I don't remember anyplace where it used the word "rigorous". I do remember several instances of "all" and "every".

I will look this up but I presume the Sander's financing plan is limited to students who succeed well enough to be admitted and retained by their college/university. "Losers" fail out and automatically become ineligible.

Implied of course is that there will be some standards for eligible colleges and universities. Diploma mills or rackets will not receive free government sponsored tuition.

 

[Giordano]

Would that it were true. My son is in college right now, at least until the end of the semester.

The university web site is terrible. Information is really hard to find. I haven't found the "refund" button.

Speaking as a parent yes, one can help pay for many, many thousands of educational bills (including food and board as well as tuition) and end up with a child without a degree. The threat really sucks.

But I guess this is one of the encouragements we view as important for motivating effort by the students: the inclination of their parents to kill them if they lay back and screw up.

BTW: I fully understand that it need not be the student's fault. Navigating college can be very difficult even for very smart and talented people.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

As someone who had to make their way through school without familial resources, picked schools based on cost, and studied engineering... I don't get this attitude.

Do you rage about the people who received subsidies for their electric vehicle while you drive a decade old civic? Does the mortgage interest tax deduction of those who splurged on their residence keep you up at night? Are you already upset about tax credits already subsidizing higher education?

My neighbor likes to frame this as "What if we were talking about slavery?"

Do you think when the 13th Amendment was proposed, former slaves of the time were saying "Hey! That's not fair! Sure, freedom for everyone is a good idea, but I worked hard to buy my freedom and you're telling me that you are just going to give these slaves their freedom? What about ME?!" No, of course not.

There's a broken system. We can make it into something better. We don't fail to improve something just because you had to live with and adapt to the broken system. Yeah, my wife and I each had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on our degrees and spend years paying off our student loans. But just because I had to do that doesn't mean my kids should have to as well if there's a better way of doing things.

 

[Giordano]

This is absolutely correct.

One of the huge problems with the "free college" solution to the problem is that it would greatly incentivize terrible education. To get the government money, the school would have to meet some minimum standards, and convince 18 year olds to enroll. Actual education in things of value is a secondary concern, far down the ladder from enrolling as many students as possible.

Not my experience. Legit colleges, admins, faculty, and students are heavily motivated by prestige and reputation. Students in particular pick their top school based primarily on reputation (and sometimes, secondarily, geographic location). They do know even when applying that the reputation of the school will play a key role in the value of their decree. Conversely colleges want the best applicants. I don’t see why the money coming in being free or being paid tuition changes this. Again there are real life examples that prove this.

 

[pgwenthold]

I will look this up but I presume the Sander's financing plan is limited to students who succeed well enough to be admitted and retained by their college/university. "Losers" fail out and automatically become ineligible.

Implied of course is that there will be some standards for eligible colleges and universities. Diploma mills or rackets will not receive free government sponsored tuition.

I always assumed this is for public universities, so no, no Harvard or Princeton or USC or diploma mills.

But that does also include public junior colleges, so there are other options.

The idea is that cost is not to be a factor in determining whether someone goes to college. That does not mean that there won't be other factors that might matter, like interest or abilities, but the decision will not be based on cost.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Yes: there's not a god damn snowball's chance in hell we can figure out where that point actually is.

I would bet that the number would be closer than the Sanders plan.

 

[Craig4]

How about we rethink higher education all together? Why do we take four years to get undergrad degrees and the rest of the world takes three? Why do we tell lawyers they have to spend four years studying something unrelated to the law so they can apply to study law? The UK seems to put out fine legal minds without the BA/BS first.

Why don't we have diplomas of higher education (two year degrees highly specialized in a topic area)? The rest of the world does this faster and cheaper than we do and the only solution anyone can come up with is get someone else to pay.

 

[plague311]

Why don't we have diplomas of higher education (two year degrees highly specialized in a topic area)? The rest of the world does this faster and cheaper than we do and the only solution anyone can come up with is get someone else to pay.

Isn't that what tech school is? I have an associates in Cisco Networking\Computer Technology. That's about as specialized as you can make it and it took me 5 semesters to acquire. That's pretty much, by definition, what you're describing. Unless my sarcasm meter is off...

 

[Francesca R]

Free university tuition is income regressive compared to graduate funded university tuition. This will always be the case if tertiary qualifications result in higher lifetime income than their absence.

Fear of large indebtedness not externally underwritten at all is also income regressive because it means that potential students from poor backgrounds will be systematically less inclined to actually be students.

For the above reasons it seems relatively clear to me that charging positive fees to students but underwriting the future liability (for example by delaying required payments until income passes a threshold and/or eventually cancelling the debt if it “never” does) is the best approach. This is what has been done in the U.K. (well, England and Wales, Scotland continues to completely subsidise fees according to rationed eligibility) since the early noughties.

So I agree “free college” is a bad idea, but I don’t agree that debt forgiveness should never happen.

 

[Ziggurat]

So I agree “free college” is a bad idea, but I don’t agree that debt forgiveness should never happen.

The current system with student debt not being dischargeable in bankruptcy is messed up. There needs to be an incentive to pay off debt, and there needs to be an incentive to not assume debt that's too risky to begin with, but if things go wrong and you just can't pay off the debt, then it should be dischargeable.

What I'd like to see is for universities to have to assume a portion of that debt if the student goes bankrupt. In other words, the universities should assume some of the risk of the student debt they're earning money from. This provides an incentive to both not take on students who won't succeed and to help make sure the students they do take on do succeed.

 

[Ziggurat]

How about we rethink higher education all together? Why do we take four years to get undergrad degrees and the rest of the world takes three?

One reason is it's a form of rent-seeking for the humanities departments. STEM majors have to take a bunch of non-STEM classes to fulfill breadth requirements. That funnels their tuition money into departments that would have to shrink if they couldn't depend on all these non-major required classes.

That may also be one of the motives behind Harvard and other schools' anti-Asian racism. Asian students are more likely to become STEM majors than non-Asian students, so if admissions criteria were applied in a race-neutral manner, humanities departments would probably have to shrink.

 

[plague311]

What I'd like to see is for universities to have to assume a portion of that debt if the student goes bankrupt. In other words, the universities should assume some of the risk of the student debt they're earning money from. This provides an incentive to both not take on students who won't succeed and to help make sure the students they do take on do succeed.

I could easily see this targeting POC, the poor, or other already disenfranchised people. It sounds good on paper, and I partially agree (that the school should assume some debt), but I don't see a way to make it practical.