Of course people want government funded education loans because it ends up being cheaper for those looking for a loan.
I... I can pretty much stop it right here, actually. That's not it.
People, and the government, want government funded education loans because A.) education (Yes, even the soft stuff) is really, really damn important,
especially in a ostensibly democratic society, and B.) education has been proven time and time and time again to be a basically unquestionably good investment -- for the individuals involved, for the society as a whole, for the government as well. There is a
lot more going on there than a piece of toilet paper with fancy writing on it.
This isn't a "we feel like cheap bastards" thing, it's a "this is a really, really good idea" thing, especially for particular subsets of the population. Government funded student loans in particular tend to have a number of caveats and specific bits and pieces that determine who gets what and how much -- and a fair amount is slanted toward lower earners, folks who most likely will still be paying off the student loans decades later. They may not even pay it off in their lifetime. This is because, yanno', we've noticed education is pretty much one of the strongest indicators of people ending up able to get out of said lower earning brackets -- if not in the first generation, then in the second or the third. The point isn't to make money in the short term, it's to get money to people who are going to be able to use that to benefit themselves and, ultimately, society. The loan aspect is only really hiding an effectively near-socialist system.
Try to find a well functioning society nowadays where basic education isn't mandatory and higher education not easily accessed. I can almost certainly guarantee you you're going to have trouble doing that. The government student loans are one of those things where the US can at least have something ostensibly capitalist but make absolutely no mistake -- if they weren't there we'd probably either have or be really close to having full ride state-funded education (or have already collapsed.). To be perfectly honest, we (as in the collective first world) don't really have a choice in that anymore, not if we want even a remotely stable and pleasant society.
That is, unfortunately, if we naturally assume that the ideal scenario of it plays out: that everybody who takes a loan out from the government ends up finding a job and paying back the money within a reasonable time-frame. I am talking about years, not decades.
Neither the loan system nor the people getting into it assume that; most people going in for student loans nowadays fully expect to be paying them back decades later. The system itself largely expects that, from what I understand.
The end result of this is creating a group of people who are too educated for what they are working in, ontop of being saddled with a bad amount of debt. And these people cannot ever default on that debt because the government will not allow it, so you are always paying for it.
The latter bit of that, from "ontop" [sic] on, I'm down with. [ranton]The first bit... let me be frank. There is no such thing as too educated. There is no social good in ignorance. There is no virtue in "educated enough." There is virtue in "educated" and very little in "not." It can be fiscally non-optimal, yes, and it can definitely be a little silly to spend money on information and training you're not going to use and shortly forget, but there actually is an absolute social good in the spread and integration of good information -- and most accredited college courses fall somewhere in that category. There's definitely room for a greater proliferation of good public-access information (and we're seeing it, by hook and crook!), but calling education in excess of the absolute necessity somehow
wasted is... short sighted, is about the best way I can put it.
There's some good beyond money going on here, but [/rantoff] even if you're just going by money, even with the problems we're having, people without college educations are in a hell of a lot worse situation than those that do have them, and their children and children's children are a lot more likely to be in little better situations.
This guy explains it better than me:
http://www.senseoncents.com/2011/04/are-student-loans-an-impending-bubble-is-higher-education-a-scam/
Hey, I've actually seen that before, though the fellow you're linking actually didn't write like, almost any of that.
The original article. I vaguely remember n+1 doing some interesting stuff.
And yeah, there's some serious issues with the american school systems right now, that that article highlights. Notice one of the major points it hit on? A lot of what's caused this problem is the introduction of for-profit universities and a shift in college leadership (from educators to CEOs). Seems like the solution there might be making higher education fully government run and a free-ride for citizens
Obviously not if they fail out, but if they can make the cut and pass the classes...
It's well agreed tuition is getting out of control, though. That's frankly one of the biggest problems the education sector has right now and just about any damn body actually involved in the education process (Both teachers and students, basically) will tell you that.
Actually on topic: Anyone know if any of the candidates have a position on that? I know there's a lot of people that very much realize that there's a very strong lean toward "degree or shit wages," and that the education sector (especially the for-profit stuff!) is starting to crook folks harder than we can really accept, but is there much voice raising about it in the Republican (
or Democrat, really) party?
Anyway, as to this
Of course not, but do you think those who are teaching those classes are going to enlighten you or possible students to what kind of job prospects they may or may not have in that field (or any other sociology field)?
I'm actually between bachelors and masters in a "soft" degree. Almost every teacher I've met, both in my particular field and in related ones, have been absolutely straightforward about the difficulties getting a job in the field. There's also been a definite upswing on the local levels emphasizing information like that. So yeah, I'm pretty certain they're going to enlighten the students as to the job prospects they (probably
don't) have in that field.
And... it's 1 AM. Which is probably why this is as long as it is. Aqui, if I see any need to keep going on this subject past whatever responses this ramble garners, I'll start another thread.
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