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[FearfulJesuit]

...specifically, the student loan crisis, the increasing cost of university and what, more and more, looks like some sort of ultimatum on the horizon. I bring this up for discussion because starting today, government-subsidized student loan interest rates are set to double from 3.4% to 6.8%, because-surprise, surprise- Congress can't be assed to do something about it. (A spot of nuance: the previous 3.4% rates were actually low, not normal; the rates are simply returning to their usual levels). In the short term, this is undeniably bad for students. In the long term, it may be good, because college costs have been rising in large part due to cheap federal money for university students.

In more dire terms, however, we could be looking at the next housing bubble. Currently, American students and ex-students owe nearly $1 trillion in loan debt, a number that has quadrupled in the last decade (source). [For comparison, subprime mortgages were worth $600 billion at their peak in the pre-2008 boom years.] That, in turn, affects their ability to make other big purchases like houses or cars, which are major drivers of the American economy. To cap that off, student loans are basically the only major sort of debt in the United States you can't declare bankruptcy on- you're stuck with them, permanently.

In short, it's a clusterfuck, and has potential to be the next housing bubble. The problem here isn't really that college graduates have crappy jobs out of college- this has been true of twenty-somethings for decades; otherwise they wouldn't be twenty-somethings. It's that they're chained to a huge amount of debt in the process that hurts their ability to get a house, marry, have kids, or otherwise move out of twenty-something limbo. (And I have only so much sympathy for someone who takes out $50k of debt to get a degree in sociology or gender studies, these days. It was forgivable a decade ago when everybody was shouting at us to get on the college bandwagon, but post-2008, it's pretty clear you're going to be stuck empowering coffee beans for a good chunk of your days.) That being said, it's a technical problem, not a moral one, and one that we would be wise to fix now.

Then, too, there's the very dangerous insistence on "college for everyone". College is for some of us, but hardly all, and American society's refusal to respect skilled blue-collar work, like the trades, doesn't just dehumanize good, salt-of-the-earth workers- it makes for bad policy. A common refrain I've heard in discussions on the subject is of someone who went to college, graduated with debt, and can't buy a house, while their class clown friends who derped around academically in high school learned a trade and make good money doing skilled manual labor. And then there's for-profit colleges. And a whole host of third-tier schools that have sprung up in the last thirty years or so to take in the flood of people who shouldn't necessarily be college students but became college students because That's What You Do. And the list goes on...

I'm taking out my first student loans in a few days. I got me some good scholarship money and I'm actively searching for more, so it's not that much, but it does make me mildly apprehensive...

[Loud Whispers]

Perhaps this rising cost could deter people from seeking academics and instead take up trades?

[kaijyuu]

I balk at the idea of "too much education." Why can't colleges teach trades?

I mean, you can't just suddenly say "I'm a plumber!" and have a job. You need knowledge and experience for that, too. Universities can and should provide.

[FearfulJesuit]

I balk at the idea of "too much education." Why can't colleges teach trades?

I mean, you can't just suddenly say "I'm a plumber!" and have a job. You need knowledge and experience for that, too. Universities can and should provide.

Not at current costs, they shouldn't- and after all, we do have trade schools, which are much cheaper.

Beyond that, the academic in me grumbles at the idea that plumbing or masonry could be lumped in with classics or literature, but that's just snootiness.

[LordBucket]

I balk at the idea of "too much education." Why can't colleges teach trades?

Because colleges are in the business of making money. Tradeschools take weeks or months, not years.

Who would pay an extra $50,000/yr for three and a half more years of essay writing, anthropology, art history, etc. if they realized they could simply take one 2 month summer course for a professional certification then move on?

[Hár]

Beyond that, the academic in me grumbles at the idea that plumbing or masonry could be lumped in with classics or literature, but that's just snootiness.

I bet you flush a toilet more often than you read a book. Maybe the plumber should be insulted that his vital trade might be lumped in with leisure-time recreational activities like reading.

I balk at the idea of "too much education." Why can't colleges teach trades?

I mean, you can't just suddenly say "I'm a plumber!" and have a job. You need knowledge and experience for that, too. Universities can and should provide.

Let's dispense with the notion that universities still educate people. The thread on Cisgender/Transgender in this forum shows that universities long ago forgot how to teach useful philosophy and critical thinking and became a politicized cesspit of inanity and grievance-peddling.

Beside, with universities on the point of bursting, your solution is to take a system that works, the trade schools, and salvage the unwieldy inflated sham of university by forcing trades into the same moribund system. Doesn't work like that. Trades are doing just fine. Uni is screwed.

[kaijyuu]

My concern here is that people need to be educated on history, critical thinking, anthropology, writing, etc in order to be decent citizens, community members, and people. Every American, for example, should know about the CIA's overthrow of Iran's democratic leadership in favor of a dictator. They should know about copyright bullying. Relevant in that they teach about issues affecting us today. In addition, they should know that other cultures exist. They should know how our political system works. They should know how to express ideas in words.

You can argue universities don't teach these things very well. I won't contend against that (not because I agree, but because my contrary evidence is all anecdotal). Unless tradeschools also teach them though, I'll take crappy education in these regards over NO education.

Alternative solutions would be teaching important issues earlier in everyone's academic career (high school or whatever), but those are crammed full of "required information" already.

[GlyphGryph]

I've never heard of a University that teaches those things at all, at least not to the general student population, and furthermore university classes doesn't even seem to approach the best way to teach things like that to people.

This is the attitude problem that honestly makes so many people miserable in our current educational environment - you can't force people to learn things they don't want to learn about, and it's frankly disgustingly immoral to FORCE them not only to learn those things but to pay out the ass for the privilege to individuals with no goal beyond acquiring as much profit and prestige as possible, just so they can get a halfway-decent not-good but not-completely-crappy job and toil the rest of their life away in obscurity, where they immediately forget anything of value that you taught them, assuming you taught them anything of value to begin with.

[kaijyuu]

I'm trying to parse that run-on sentence GG, but it's difficult.

A) Would you use the same argument against "forcing" people to learn even more basic things, like literacy?
B) I think all life goals are equally valid (including ones such as gaining money or prestige), provided people who pursue them don't harm others along their way. I have no idea if that applies to what you said, but you mentioned money and prestige and those who seek to acquire them, so...
C) If you think university is a bad way to teach important things, then I'm open to alternatives.

[GlyphGryph]

A) Would you use the same argument against "forcing" people to learn even more basic things, like literacy?

If we were requiring them to indebt themselves for a large portion of their adult life to do so? Yes. Hell yes I would be opposed to that.

B) I think all life goals are equally valid (including ones such as gaining money or prestige), provided people who pursue them don't harm others along their way. I have no idea if that applies to what you said, but you mentioned money and prestige and those who seek to acquire them, so...

Except you don't - you're willing to do incredibly harm to people, to limit their options and choices, in order to force them to experience things you believe they should, not because they are likely to benefit from such, but because you think they should. But specifically, here, I was referring to the fact that those who run universities don't have the same priorities you do, and they honestly don't care except insofar as their reputation depends on at least giving some of those items lip service.

C) If you think university is a bad way to teach important things, then I'm open to alternatives.

Convince people they are worth learning. Provide opportunities to attend classes on those things, without the enormous overhead of university or the obligation to pass or fail, or the requirement that taking a class of any worth is limited to those willing to dedicate a half decade of their life to it. Give people opportunities instead of obligations, and the ones who you'll actually do good for will come to you - and you'll stop hurting those who won't obtain an benefit with your assistance that they be what you want them to be instead of what they want themselves to be, or else you'll chop off their opportunities at the knees.

[LordBucket]

We might be getting sidetracked. I think the thread was intended to be about the debt problem, not the validity/value/purpose of college.

According to this article, three years after graduating, over half of graduates don't have a full time job. A lot of those student loans are going to default, and some of those people may end up stuck with college debt for their entire lifetime.

[kaijyuu]

A) Would you use the same argument against "forcing" people to learn even more basic things, like literacy?

If we were requiring them to indebt themselves for a large portion of their adult life to do so? Yes. Hell yes I would be opposed to that.

Ah, so your main contention has to do with the cost? Okay, that clears up a lot of things.

Don't several countries make university free? (or at least waive all your debt after 10 years or something) That'd be ideal.

B) I think all life goals are equally valid (including ones such as gaining money or prestige), provided people who pursue them don't harm others along their way. I have no idea if that applies to what you said, but you mentioned money and prestige and those who seek to acquire them, so...

Except you don't - you're willing to do incredibly harm to people, to limit their options and choices, in order to force them to experience things you believe they should, not because they are likely to benefit from such, but because you think they should. But specifically, here, I was referring to the fact that those who run universities don't have the same priorities you do, and they honestly don't care except insofar as their reputation depends on at least giving some of those items lip service.

Education does a lot more than benefit people personally. It benefits me if my fellow citizens are voting based on educated ideas, rather than voting in ignorance. That's probably the biggest example, but there are smaller ones, like this discussion being much much easier if everyone knows how to express their ideas in writing.

You need education to function in society. Period.

I'm gonna dismiss everything you said about people who run universities. Not because I disagree with you, but quite the opposite; it's almost certain you're preaching to the choir. There are problems with universities and being for-profit is one of them. You won't convince me of anything here because I've already been convinced.

C) If you think university is a bad way to teach important things, then I'm open to alternatives.

Convince people they are worth learning.

?
Could you rephrase that?

[GlyphGryph]

I think it's pretty central to the problem - there's a lot of people being pushed into college for who college offers no actual benefits. But, since the labour market has so many college grads, it becomes tempting for employers to just throw out everyone who isn't.

Suddenly, colleges are required, so they can charge incredibly high prices, but they aren't required to offer anything of real value in return to the vast majority of their students. As long as they go through the motions, everyone is happy, or as happy as they can be in the situation in question, except of course that the student is now heavily in debt, and whatever job takes them is one they can not afford to lose no matter how much they save up - Debt that, unlike every other kind of debt, they will be unable to escape from, ever.

If that's not a recipe for a debt problem, I don't know what is. And since that isn't going to change, I have trouble believing anything is going to be done about it until the bubble industry built around extracting ever more money from these poor folks comes crashing off the cliff and slams into the ground.

Could you rephrase that?

Convince people the things you think are important are worth learning, and then provide them with the opportunity

[kaijyuu]

Could you rephrase that?

Convince people the things you think are important are worth learning, and then provide them with the opportunity

Right. Unfortunately I don't think many of the people I need to convince are here, so I won't go on a long diatribe in this thread

[Hár]

Education does a lot more than benefit people personally. It benefits me if my fellow citizens are voting based on educated ideas, rather than voting in ignorance. That's probably the biggest example, but there are smaller ones, like this discussion being much much easier if everyone knows how to express their ideas in writing.

You need education to function in society. Period.

So much for the rubbish about universities teaching critical thinking! You've blurted out something demonstrably false. For most of American history, until as late as the 1990s, it was common that highschool grads could get decent jobs. Civilization was no worse for the fact.