• selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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    5 hours ago

    Could you explain to non-Americans what is the appeal of student loans if they can do this? Why shouldn’t people go to cheaper schools to get their degrees instead? I mean no disrespect, if you are rich go to Yale or whatever, by all means.

    • vext01@lemmy.sdf.org
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      43 minutes ago

      Same as in the UK I imagine. No university is affordable. Unless you are rich, you can’t go without a loan.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      There are no cheaper schools. There are expensive ones and more expensive ones. There is literally no option for the non-rich except to go into debt or learn to be a plumber.

      • boneyards@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        My bachelor was around 12k and if I did it faster it could have been cheaper. Wgu does it based on term not credit hour. The more courses you pass in a term the cheaper it is overall.

        • ickplant@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          There was literally no way for my master’s to cost less, so I am not sure what your point is. It’s a minimum 2-year program. It’s how it’s designed. Not all degrees are like that, but in my case I paid the least amount possible already.

            • ickplant@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              Literally picked the cheapest school I could find for my degree. Again, not sure what I could have done differently here.

    • Leeks@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Children are told that they MUST go to college to get a stable and high paying job. This is so prevalent that college degrees are just seen as “the next step after high school” and nobody questions it. These colleges have figured out they can charge almost anything because they are seen as the gate keepers to high paying and stable jobs. So banking on future earnings, bearly emancipated teenagers, with the absolute minimum of a financial education, make life decisions that will put them in debt for the next 20-30 years.

      The problem with the whole system is there doesn’t appear to be enough high paying and stable jobs.

      As far as going to a cheaper college, I think you identified the issue in your very own comment. Schools have different prestige levels. Yale, for example, is a high prestige school and not only are you paying for an education, you are also paying to connect to rich people. These connections can be worth a lot of money if they are used correctly. So going to a cheaper college also means less valuable connections.

      • qarbone@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Even beyond connections, just the sticker on a resumé that says “<prestige school name>” means you’re less likely to get shunted into the shitter with 95% of other applicants, if you don’t already have an “in” that cuts past the resumé stage.

        • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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          2 hours ago

          Is this an intuition, or is it a known fact? Why would people do this? Do universities teach people to discriminate this way? Where do employers get these ideas? Is it something that permeates the whole society, or is it focused to applicant selection? Sorry for the many questions, I appreciate your response.

          • qarbone@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            As a Millennial (and now an adult), I will preface that I’m out of touch with the youths, so I don’t know their perspective on colleges now. But it is common societal idea in the US. No company will openly put out notice that they are discriminating but the prestige US schools are more rigorous in their application screening and get more money, and so are expected to have more rigorous curricula/standards and better teaching. It has shifted so that non-Ivy League schools were becoming recognized in their fields for various subjects. But that just adds them to the “Prestige” category for those in the know.

            When people look at a resume, it’s sorted into “Prestige” and every other university. And prestige will take your further.

            • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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              43 minutes ago

              Hilariously, as America progresses further into the dark ages, these “prestige” schools are increasingly becoming known for being degree mills who will sell a degree to any idiot with fat enough pockets to ask for one. Take the Trumps’ history at Wharton for instance.

              • qarbone@lemmy.world
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                5 minutes ago

                It probably always was. It’s just that before rich people used to think being intelligent was a thing worth pursuing. The idea that you needed to be well-read and experienced to lead people.

      • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        So, basically, as a regular (not rich) young person, you are aiming for a higher chance to connect with rich people in order to get a job/business that will probably get you enough money to cash on the “investment” made by getting an otherwise potentially for-life debt? Huh, rings a bell here. Thank you.

      • 13igTyme@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        That’s one of only good things about Florida. The colleges on average are significantly cheaper than anywhere else, and Florida is still ranked number 1 on US News for college education when looking at every single college combined.

        So basically get a good affordable education and then move the fuck out of Florida.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 hours ago

      Oh, see - due to the lack of investment in education, the normalization of ever-increasing tuition rates, and the social/economic stratification of U.S. society there isn’t really a thing such as a ‘cheaper’ school.

      My local commuter college wanted $25k a year for their masters program over a decade ago - and that’s after obtaining a 4 year degree. (Which I obtained through a combination of community college and undergrad classes at the same university, but not without incurring about $20k worth of debt for the previous 4 years.)

      Add to that, the U.S. doesn’t have the economy or social supports. You either earn a living wage, find something workable through familial support, or go hungry. The U.S., mandates that companies pay less than half of what is needed to support one’s self.

      This isn’t like, poor planning, or governmental stupidity. This is actually on purpose by conservatives in the U.S. government. (Sorry, that site is kinda weird, but it has the quote I was looking for.)
      Nevermind that an educated populous is a matter of national defense/national security and having the brainpower to propel the country forward is one of the ways that the U.S. dominated on the world stage in the latter half of the last century. (In addition to timely and fortuitous control of a lot of resources, and a shitload of foreign meddling - lets be real here.) But whatevz, who needs that when the voters disagree with you? The people who set this in motion will be dead by the time the people that are going to be utterly fucked by that figure it out. (perhaps slowed in that realization by their faulty education. Hah.).

  • shaggyb@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    With no DOE employees to process defaults?

    Nobody should be paying a red cent.

    If your choice is draining your entire bank account to the point you can’t afford to live or suffering a credit score penalty, then the credit score should be sacrificed.

    “but they can…”

    Stop. Nothing they can do is worse than starving. Don’t pay them. Use your money for your own needs.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      Try getting an apartment or renewing a lease with a truly shit credit score.

      Oops, you don’t qualify anymore, anywhere, your options are now homelessness, much more expensive hopping between motels every 3 weeks, or live in your car, hope you’re still making those payments.

      Fairly difficult to cost-effectively cook and store food when you’re in any of those situations.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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          26 minutes ago

          Oh, excuse me for being crippled from a mugging and then having all my bank and id cards and phone stolen and then spending a year homeless and another year bouncing from motel to motel while trying to replace my id and unfuck my credit score with 3 bureaus without a permanent address and with a broken arm and wrist and leg, whilst also being unable to afford any medical treatment.

          Yep, total corporate shill over here, totally not barely alive, only thanks to barely being able to keep my details current with social security so I could at least get disability payments.

          Go fuck yourself buddy, I hope what happened to me happens to you.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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      5 hours ago

      Doesn’t that sort of depend on your loan, though? Like if you have one that’s serviced by a loan provider, doesn’t that provider deal with it if you default?
      Or is it that the provider requires the DOE to process the default?

      • AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities

        Basically, people can buy the rights to your loan payments. Maybe they get packaged together with many others’ debts.

        SLABSs are quite profitable, obviously. During COVID years there was a freeze on debt payments and holders of SLABS started to feel the squeeze. SLABSs are such a guaranteed return that people/banks/hedge funds can use them as collateral for loans and stuff. So during COVID, SLABSs became a liability. Or so it’s been speculated

        If people start defaulting on their debts, SLABSs could be centrally involved in a financial collapse, the first domino to start chain reaction of margin calls

  • WaterFoul@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I worked hard so I didn’t have to take loans. I never had much pity for people who did take them. They were obviously predatory and the math never checked out. Any amount of cursory research on it would have shown that. They took those loans, didn’t have a plan to pay them back and have begged politicians to spend my tax money on bailing them out.

    Middle class America doesn’t need to be bailing out someone who graduated from a four year degree. They’re not any more deserving of the money just because they’re gullible or ignorant at best.