My high school offered a shop class to give easy A’s to people who already knew how to do those things. If you wanted to actually learn anything you could go fuck yourself. The teacher didn’t have time to teach you anything. Hell, we’ll give you an engine missing parts that you can’t possibly fix because you can’t get more parts. Meanwhile the jocks just need to change a spark plug.
Apparently it’s not just the millennials having an issue:
Also, the media needs to stop using the word “shocking” for everything.
I know one of these senior who’s social security is docked because of student loans. He got a graduate art degree, and then never got a job or sold any art, and of course never paid a dime back on his student loans. He was married to my ex-girlfriend and she had to make sure that she never had a refund from the IRS, cause the IRS would seize it.
After they divorce he finally got some min wage job. I believe he even managed to get cash only jobs to avoid them
impounding wages.
How should society handle deadbeats like this?
Tangent: it was possible for her to file and protect her refund (or portion of, if filing jointly) from garnishment. It’s called injured (or “innocent”) spouse relief.
How should society deal with people who voluntarily live in self-imposed poverty? Sounds like it’s dealt with.
I don’t know how having a 74 year old with 126k in student loan debt they can’t pay while garnishing social security they can barely live off of until they die which still won’t pay it off helps. I mean… short of having a time machine to tell them to go back and make better choices, are we really saying suck a lemon, too bad for you.
I’m all for not making it easy to get out of a financial obligation but a life sentence of poverty is a pretty harsh sentence.
I agree. But some people seem to think that guy is on easy street.
Well sure there is that guy but there is also Rosemary Anderson, a 57 year old divorcee with health problems, an underwater home mortgage and who works. I mean there will always be someone who abuses the system but do we really tell people screw you because we’re afraid of some freeloaders.
This is what IBR is all about. Had they offered it to Anderson, after years and years of paying it would have been written off. For the rest of us, if we’re lucky and successful, we pay it off because our income will increase. It’s not like I would ever say no to a raise because I don’t want to pay my student loans.
Is the deadbeat abusing the system or mostly just abusing himself? I guess what I am saying is that notion that society should go out of it’s way to additionally punish someone who already lives on the bottom rung seems like a misdirection of outrage and effort. What does Strolen suggest? Confiscate his refrigerator?
To the extent there is some response, it would likely be a tightening of loan requirements, rather than a taking of fridges.
The policy question on that is whether that’s a good thing. Yes, you’re able to better prevent guys like the deadbeat from making dumb decisions/take advantage of the system, but you also make it harder for people to lift themselves from poverty via education.
It’s not an easy question. My view is that there has to be some degree of tightening, based on economic prospects of repayment.
How exactly would you do that? I’m 17/18, perhaps not only the first to go to the college but maybe even the first to complete high school. I have no job ,and I have no credit. I did well enough to get into college, and I am starting my first steps to try and bring my family out of poverty, lift us up. My parents are poor and uneducated… any loan requirement you push on me is probably just a fuck you you’re not good enough to try college… which keeps the poor and uneducated in their place I guess.
We cannot make a chance at a good life for future generations dependent on how well the generation did behind them.
You do it by focusing on the economics of return.
We can pretend that there is equal opportunity in the US, but there isn’t (nor should there be, in my opinion). Government is often in the business of saving people from themeselves. One way that should manifest is in the ability to have taxpayers subsidize high risk decisions.
An 18 year old coming out of poverty should absolutely be given the chance to take loans to go to college. But that doesn’t mean that the process should be free of scrutiny with respect to what college you will go to or what major you select.
If you’re wealthy—sure, feel free to major in whatever you want, on your own dime.
So the rich whites and the middle class whites, colleges and degrees of choice. Immigrants, minorities, anyone with parents who are just terrible decision makers and irresponsible, we shove them into lines that we determine is best for them. You don’t see a problem with that?
I’m not pretending there is equal opportunity out there, but I sure as hell am not going to be quiet while we make decisions to ensure it remains as unequal as possible.
simple solution to all of this- allow these loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. Making the banks have some risk in the loans would change how they gave out loans and folks who are truly screwed have a way out.
If you’re coming from an economically disadvantaged background and you decide to go to a private college for French Lit., I think that you shouldn’t receive a blank check.
If a rich white dude makes that decision, that’s the type of freedom that his parents’ money buys him.
I think the top students should have a chance to go wherever they want to go. There is risk for them but damn it we have had some brilliance come out of the lower and middle class at top schools, and to deny our country that because we’re too scared of risk is to deny one of the most fundamental characteristics our country has to offer. I am not forcing a genius into public school simply because their parents would rather drink beer and play on quads rather than contribute money to their education.
But hey if the Obama’s couldn’t handle their debt, fuck em… right? No Harvard.
Most states have a flagship public school that is very good to great.
The top students can win scholarships to Ivy League schools.
My understanding is the Obama’s had about 120k in debt between them in 2004, when he took his office. What do you think would have happened had someone decided a black woman and a black man had no chance of paying that back; they don’t come from wealthy families. Do you think we would have our first black family in the white house? After 2016, I don’t know how anyone could think that. It’s not just about the education you receive but the opportunities you get while at these prestigious schools.
There’s a huge difference between not giving out loans and “forcing” anyone into public school (what a horrible fate, right?!). For better or worse, we are not a country where college education is covered.
How much of that was undergraduate versus law school debt? Harvard Law School (where they both went for law school) tends to have a damn good return on investment.
Again, taking some economic calculations into the loan process is the only practical way to avoid significant default. Now, you can say make a policy decision that we don’t give a damn about default, but then you might as well do it up front and socialize the cost of college educations.