Should Wall Street pay off student debt

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(06-28-2019, 02:32 PM)Dill Wrote: When I was in HS back in the 60s, it was pretty clear to me that people with college degrees lived better and seemed to know more than people without college degrees. My fellow students could see this as well.  Teachers encouraged (didn't "push") students to do well in class and increase the life opportunities, including the chance to go to college. I always assumed it was because they wanted us to do well. And there were students who were NOT encouraged to go to college. (Mostly native American.) People who went into the sciences (including medical school) did so because they liked science, not because they thought it was a good way to earn a living. Same for people who went into the arts.

My parents wanted their children to go to college, but I needed no pushing. My home state, Montana, had limited higher ed opportunities but I took advantage of them as best I could. No shot at an "expensive" school.  My three sisters started college. One dropped out. One became an LPN, the other a registered nurse. The one who dropped out is kind of a bum. We figured it out once--the registered nurse, with two more years of college, earned about 300,000 more dollars than the LPN over 25 years, including a couple years off.

And I needed loans, eventually about $5,000.00 worth, repaid in about 4 years.  

So fast forward 5 decades or so.  HS kids are still going to college, but even when attending public schools, the loans they accumulate now are like the down payment on a new house--30-100,000 dollars. And they cannot be erased by bankruptcy.  My daughter spent $60,000.00 getting an MA in vocal performance. (Now she makes more money than her parents as global project manager at the head offices of an international corporation in Manhattan.)

I cannot understand this drastic change in costs, and its effect on opportunity, by blaming students and teachers.  Nor can I begin to imagine a policy which would correct this imbalance.

Not anymore. There are kids who can barely read and they're still being told from middle school that college is what you need to do. 

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$5,000 in 1960 when you adjust for inflation is about $42,700 today.

https://www.communitycollegereview.com/avg-tuition-stats/national-data

Montana Public Community College In-State average tuition:  $3,974/yr x 4 = $15,896

Even if you add on more for books and the like, you could do 2 years of community college and 2 years of private college (it doesn't have Montana, but Ohio is $13,841/yr) and come out right around your $42k mark of your cost adjusted for inflation.


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That's great for your registered nurse sister... the thing is, she had the common sense to go to college for something that actually paid well and had demand. 

Meanwhile:  https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2013/05/do-big-cities-help-college-graduates-find-better-jobs.html

Only 62.1% of college graduates even have a job requiring their level of education and only 27.3% have a job matching their college major.

She's actually the minority. The vast majority of people get a college degree in something and then don't even get a job related to it. 






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EDIT:

Sorry, I forgot to address the bit about not sure how to go about fixing it at the very end. Obviously I am not an expert and I don't know it would work for certain, but I have to imagine that if we stopped using mandatory education as a funneling system to colleges pockets, and instead were more realistic with children's abilities and goals, we could start giving better alternatives like more apprenticeship programs, more internships, and more trade schools as an alternative to college.

If there isn't a huge glut of unnecessary college degree holders out there, then businesses wouldn't have the option of making entry level middle-skill jobs require them. Meanwhile then less people would be in college debt.

My best guess, at least.