That's the wrong question. Just nationalize higher education and subsidize or make it free, at least to the point the we're producing enough engineers, medical doctors, scientists, artists, and etcetera every year.
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Why make it illegal? Why not offer only federal loans?
How about:
20 year loan, 4.125% fixed rate 30 year loan, 4.375% fixed rate
No early repayment penalties and maybe interest returned incentives for full repayment return before term at certain benchmarks.
The average debt for a 4-year Bachelor's degree is $34,700. At the end of 20 years the total repayment amount would be $36,131.375, 30 years would be $36,218.125.
Looks good to me.
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I wouldn't say outlawing loans solves anything. Capping interest rates, sure - probably even at a pretty modest figure. Making repayment reasonably flexible is also a good idea. But the underlying problem is that the tuitions themselves are insane, leading to insanity when trying to pay it all off, no matter how it's financed. Subsidies or grants or loans (or specifically messing with any of them) seem like workarounds for the insane and largely arbitrary/"greedflated" price tag.
As a Norwegian, I paid maybe a couple hundred USD per year in pure fees - all my student loan practically went to rent (cheap at the time) and groceries (admittedly less cheap in Norway). Was it an Ivy League whatever-the-fuck education? No, it stank - but I got out into the world with a paper that said I could do work. And in geekier lines of work, even that might not have been strictly necessary, assuming you know the craft.
Chicken and egg. The tuitions have been able to reach the insane heights due to the ready availability of these loans.
It was a lot harder to get loans thirty years ago. Almost on par with the criteria for any other personal loan. A four year CompSci degree that could be had for under $25K, in total, opened the door to a $45K to $60K entry level position for a typical graduate.
Availability of loans broke wide open, under the guise of providing opportunity, and now the same degree costs 5-10x with yet the typical entry level salary remains more or less the same, give or take a few inflation points.
Not without destroying Citizen United legal premise first which I am also in favor of doing.
Right now spending money == free speech
Then giving loans is free speech, too. That is the the tackle.
I think it's a great idea. It'll be really good for society when most of your population are finally highly educated and have their own PhDs in internet research!
I also look forward to the day where you Americans beg Cuba for a humanitarian dispatch of doctors to treat your plague and leprosy epidemics.
University study for useful degrees that benefit society should be free and paid for by society. It used to be the case in my country until they decided to take a leaf out of America's book and screw everyone over.
So for example, something like an art degree should be paid (with no interest imo) however most STEM degrees should be free. Same with nursing and similar degrees too.
It's ok if these free degrees come with strings attached, such as having to work and apply your skills in the country for X years as a minimum.
What you describe is to some extent existing in multiple countries. Basically the degrees in industries that lack specialists get more free slots whereas the others get less. As a student you can still start studying for a fee, if you don't match the requirements (usually it is based on grades) but you can get to a free slot later on if your grades are good enough.
Education is generally beneficial for society.
I'm not sure how you can argue that an art degree should be paid for out of pocket when memes are rampant across the internet. Are memes somehow subtracting from society?? Really?
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Art can bring joy to life. Joy brings productivity. See the issue with what you’ve stated?
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Go for it.
Let's just make state owned universities and community/junior college funded by a tax on employers that require college degrees for their jobs with free tuition and free required learning materials. The issue isn't the loans or the cost, it's that corporations are lumping those costs on the employees and the corporations are reaping the benefits of an educated workforce without appropriately compensating their employees for their knowledge.
It would definitely force colleges to bring down prices to a reasonable level.