Xan wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:15 pm
D1984 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:08 pm
SomeDude wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:01 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 1:31 pm
WSJ article about college enrollment. Interesting throughout. It's heartening to see that the idea that college is a necessity is fading away, at least among males. Still sad that so many people, especially girls, are wasting their time with it. I suspect that a major reason girls want to go to college is to find collegiate guys.
Higher interest rates and the government not backstopping student loans would help solve this quickly.
What would really help is making student loans non-Federally backed
and immediately dischargeable in bankruptcy....or at the very least copying SC/Pennsylvania/TX law as regards wage garnishment (hint: in those states the anti-garnishment laws are such that God himself pretty much couldn't garnish somebody's wages), codifying it into the USC and CFR as Federal law, and applying it to both Federal and private student loans. At that point, "student debt" would become essentially meaningless and toothless as (even assuming you couldn't discharge it in bankruptcy) all they could do is ruin your credit and even that would eventually drop off after seven years and one day when the debt was fully defaulted (i.e. usually after it became 180 days from making your last on-time payment).
There would be effectively no student lending, then. I'm not sure whether that's part of your plan or an unintended consequence?
One, it would effectively deal with the current student loan debt mess.
Two, student lenders would still make loans to students who took good degrees (i.e. STEM or at least business degrees or econ or finance or medicine or the like....not stuff like "ethnic studies", or underwater basket weaving, or recreation) and whose credit score actually indicated a chance of them paying it back. Consider that even though credit card debt is unsecured, fully dischargeable in bankruptcy, and (at least in those three states) unrecoverable by garnishment (and actually in almost every state if the person is below 13K or so a year in income unsecured debt is also ungarnishable; some states go up to 15K or 20K a year before you can start being garnished), credit card lenders still issue credit cards in said three states.
Three, if not everyone goes to college (because not anyone who can fog a mirror gets a student loan anymore) employers will have little choice but to be less picky about requiring degrees unless it really
is absolutely necessary for the job.
Four, I admit that what I proposed is a Rube-Goldberish kluge Charlie Foxtrot pasted together redneck-engineered duct-taped Mickey Mouse half-solution (as indeed our entire system of governance is at this point, sad to say) but my preferred choice (full public funding of 2-yr and 4-yr public college for academically qualified students just like K-12 is funded today) is politically out of reach at the moment. This is the next best thing.