Althouse: "End Student Debt."

April 25, 2012

"End Student Debt."

Makeshift signage, viewed from my law school office window, just now, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison:

75 comments:

Sorun said...: ...but not student loans.; 4/25/12, 2:32 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: Tuition wants to be free!; 4/25/12, 2:33 PM
penelope said...: Nice office view!; 4/25/12, 2:33 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: Me Me Me

requires fewer letters; 4/25/12, 2:35 PM
edutcher said...: Then a lot of these kids will either have to find another job or the school is going to have to cut tuition.

PS Agree with penelope.; 4/25/12, 2:36 PM
John said...: Rather than address the cost of college, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Rather than address the cost of health care, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Rather than address the cost of government, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Obama continues to miss.; 4/25/12, 2:37 PM
Larry J said...: "End student debt"

Easy, don't borrow the money.; 4/25/12, 2:37 PM
tim maguire said...: Yes, by all means, end student debt.

As anyone who has used a credit card to pay their bar tab can tell you, separate the act of paying from the act of buying and you will spend more money.

So long as students can borrow large sums of money for college, college will be ruinously overpriced.; 4/25/12, 2:38 PM
sean said...: Well, as was noted on taxprof a day or so ago, it would be a good idea to reduce law student debt by restoring the law professor teaching load to what it was 40 years ago, thereby cutting the cost of law school considerably. This would have the added short-term benefit of reducing the number of law review articles published. (The overwhelming majority of published articles are useless to practicing lawyers.) And it would have the long-term benefit of attracting to law school teaching people who are interested in teaching law, not people who really want to be professors in the humanities or social science graduate programs.; 4/25/12, 2:41 PM
MadisonMan said...: I notice that sign isn't on the Engineering Campus.; 4/25/12, 2:43 PM
Hagar said...: Serve a hitch in the military; get G.I. Bill?; 4/25/12, 2:46 PM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: Easy. Make student loans fully dischargeable after ten years, and the institution granting the degree required to cover 10 percent of the default for every year the former student has NOT been working in a field appropriate to the degree granted.

Might smarten up a few administrators and BoDs.; 4/25/12, 2:48 PM
Rabel said...: Wow, the UW students like totally pwned those Tetris geeks at MIT.; 4/25/12, 2:50 PM
campy said...: Me Me Me

requires fewer letters

GIMME

Even fewer.; 4/25/12, 2:53 PM
Rose said...: It is like watching a horror movie - watching Obama float the meme for the 99Spring event his goons are about to stage May 1.

To see a President acting in concert with the extreme activist wing is to see something so reckless and irresponsible as to be beyond words.

And there he is. Just like Stephanopolous launching the "contraceptive" meme... and we know, if we are paying attention, that this is planned, and that it is Think Tank tested, and that the battle plan is well drawn, and about to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting populace.

It's not about the loans at all. It's about using the loan and populist unrest, to upend the system. He knows it.

The end result of #Occupy is going to ruin everything for all the people. Free Speech? It will be clamped down upon, and we all lose, because the plan is to use those few dupes on the streets to gin up a crisis.

It will mean no more student loans. Pay as you go. Pay upfront.

November cannot come soon enough.; 4/25/12, 2:57 PM
Dan in Philly said...: Ummmm, speaking as one with student debt, I can assure you not a single penny of it was forced upon me. No one put a gun to my head and made me borrow a dime.

Next up - get rid of medical debt. Then house debt. Then - why not total state gifts of life, education, food, and housing? We can call it "Schamsolism" so no one will think we're using a word that some on the far, far right might get too excited about.; 4/25/12, 2:57 PM
Fen said...: "End Responsibility!"; 4/25/12, 2:58 PM
Original Mike said...: I didn't want to take out that loan.

The devil MADE me take out that loan!; 4/25/12, 2:59 PM
RKearns said...: Nice view. Of course, except for the graffiti. My view: Pikes Peak.; 4/25/12, 3:01 PM
Original Mike said...: "I notice that sign isn't on the Engineering Campus."

What is the logic of lending to people so they can study the humanities? Loans are something that need to be paid back. This requires a job.; 4/25/12, 3:02 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Everyone gets a free pony.; 4/25/12, 3:03 PM
LordSomber said...: It's aimed at the sky. Maybe it's a prayer?; 4/25/12, 3:05 PM
bagoh20 said...: This issue really pisses me off. The idea that young people privileged enough to go to college due to having a good primary education and being lucky to be born intelligent enough and to the right parents will now be subsidized even more by working people without those good fortunes, and who will never get the benefits of that college education.

It's probably the most regressive tax possible, since it taxes the least upwardly mobile to benefit the most.

It's immoral.; 4/25/12, 3:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Students who are overburdened with debt will not buy the houses of retiring boomers anytime soon. Won't help your housing market any if the kids don't have money for a mortgage.

Too many students overburdened with debt = natural consequences for your domestic economy.

In Canada student debt may be discharged 7 years post graduation. I think Canadian interest rates are lower because the US Congress raised the rates on US students in '06.; 4/25/12, 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...: or, you know, get a degree that improves your chances of reducing said student debt.; 4/25/12, 3:21 PM
Alan said...: How about

"PAY WHAT YOU OWE!"; 4/25/12, 3:25 PM
bagoh20 said...: It took me about 10 years to pay off my very small student debt of only a few thousand dollars, because I was poor for a long time. It's usually your first real adult responsibility and if you let it slide, that's who you are. It's a bad start. It's the kind of thing an employer should know about you before hiring.; 4/25/12, 3:35 PM
bagoh20 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/25/12, 3:37 PM
bagoh20 said...: Logically it should be a lot harder to get a loan for a humanities degree than say petroleum engineering, or even a trip to Vegas.; 4/25/12, 3:39 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Yesterday, a columnist for the Phila Daily News blamed the college debt bomb on employers who had the nerve to require job aplicants have a college degree for jobs which really don't necessitate a college education.; 4/25/12, 3:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Could be interesting to compare generational burdens. Isn't tuition quite high at University nowadays?

What was your student debt interest rate?

Tuition per semester?; 4/25/12, 3:43 PM
KCFleming said...: Oh, c'mon.

Just pay up, taxpayers, and get your ass back to work. You know it's gonna end up that way, so quit bitchin' and pay up.

You got some serious bills coming due and you're not sending Uncle Sam enough dough!

Michelle needs another vacay, and Granny's hip surgery ain't gonna pay for itself. Plus, now junior wants to do Gender Studies in drag, so GET YER ASS MOVIN'!!

Get crackin', crackers! Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel and ROW goddamnit!; 4/25/12, 3:47 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Canuck:
Student debt has exploded because the price of college has grown at 3-4 times the rate of inflation and most all HS grads are pushed to go to college.

It is not the taxpayer's job to fix this problem. Colleges have to cut their prices and people have to use good judgment in choosing to go to college and what subject they should study.; 4/25/12, 3:53 PM
Palladian said...: I'm just excited to see this "American Spring" thing that the unions and the Occupiers and the Obama administration have cooked up. Coming on the heels of the rousing, world-changing success of the Occupy movement, I'm thinking it'll be something like going to a concert where Gino Vanelli opens for R.E.O. Speedwagon.; 4/25/12, 3:54 PM
Rabel said...: Canuck,

Looks like Canadian National Student Loans are prime plus 5% fixed or Prime plus 2.5% variable.

Canada prime (not to be confused with Elisha Cuthbert) is around 3.25%.

So it looks like Canadian rates are higher even if the current US rate reduction is removed.; 4/25/12, 3:56 PM
chickelit said...: Could be interesting to compare generational burdens. Isn't tuition quite high at University nowadays?

What was your student debt interest rate?

Tuition per semester?

UW-Madison in-state tutition was something like $419 per semester IIRC in 1979. I have the exact number recorded somewhere. I was was able to work part-time enough to meet that. Of course it helped a lot that I lived in my parent's basement or on friends' couches.

Yes, I do think today's students bear a greater share than my generation did. But we also seemed to subsist on less.; 4/25/12, 3:56 PM
Robert said...: Get
A
Job; 4/25/12, 4:01 PM
Anonymous said...: AJ Lynch,

I was told the US congress raised rates to 6.8% in '06. Sounds like this was mis-information. What is the normal rate?; 4/25/12, 4:18 PM
DADvocate said...: Rather than address the cost of college, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Rather than address the cost of health care, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Rather than address the cost of government, Obama wants to address how it is funded.
Obama continues to miss.

Amen, especially college. Most major colleges and universities are government owned. Why has tuition at those institutions risen far beyond the rate of inflation?; 4/25/12, 4:21 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: In the 1970-71 school year, Villanova University's tuition for the entire year was $1,800. Today it is over $40,000.

In the 1972-73 school year, Temple University tuition's for the entire year was $450. Today it is more than $11,000 for in-state students.

And my summer jobs pay per hour ranged from $1.75 to $2.10 per hour during those years. And like CL, I did not go away to college.; 4/25/12, 4:24 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: Easiest way to end student debt is to stop student borrowing.; 4/25/12, 4:26 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Canuck- I don't give a frig what the student loan rate is when it is less than 10%. We, the taxpayers are subsidizing all those loans since Obama took all student loans away from the private sector.

Plus it is my understanding the interest does not start to accrue until you graduate and 6.8% is a pretty damn good loan rate IMO.

Have you gotten an unsecured loan lately? If so, what interest were you charged?; 4/25/12, 4:28 PM
garage mahal said...: 'm just excited to see this "American Spring" thing that the unions and the Occupiers and the Obama administration have cooked up

This sounds more like something the Breibart Orphans dreamed up than a real thing.; 4/25/12, 4:30 PM
ricpic said...: ...where Gino Vanelli opens for R.E.O. Speedwagon.

Your esoteric references cut no mustard with me, Palladian. Just thought you should know.; 4/25/12, 4:33 PM
ricpic said...: What kind of a marxist are you, garbage? Your gang brought it, own it.; 4/25/12, 4:35 PM
Anonymous said...: The government student loan business was a wealth transfer from the taxpayers to the universities, with the students acting in the role of guarantor.

Tuition went up step for step with student debt.; 4/25/12, 4:41 PM
garage mahal said...: Own exactly what, dicpic?; 4/25/12, 4:45 PM
Sigivald said...: Good idea.

Start by not going to UW Madison (or anywhere), unless you can pay for it without loans.

That will mystically and magically make costs drop - and you won't have any debt.

Sure, you won't be buying a credential trivially, but any trivially obtained credential is - as we've seen - worthless anyway.

(I basically refuse to care about anyone's complaints about their student loan debt if they didn't start at a community college, or if they didn't choose a remunerative major.

If you were getting an engineering degree, and took all the classes you could at the cheapest place available, and now you can't get a job? You have my sympathy, utterly sincerely.

Take five years with 100% loan funding to get a creative writing degree? Get off my damn lawn..); 4/25/12, 4:57 PM
ricpic said...: Own Occupado, garbage, own Occupado.; 4/25/12, 5:02 PM
ignatzk said...: What is the ratio of administrators to faculty at UW-Madison?; 4/25/12, 5:06 PM
Original Mike said...: "What is the ratio of administrators to faculty at UW-Madison?"

Too damn high!; 4/25/12, 5:10 PM
David said...: Obama is now pounding away at retaining the well below market rates on Stafford loans. The rates are supposed to go up this summer under legislation that he signed, and which was passed by a Democrat controlled Congress. Does anyone in the news media point this out? Does Jimmy Fallon point this out in his campaign rally disguised as a Obama TV show appearance?

And perish the thought that anyone might raise the question of why the cost of college continues to go up far faster than inflation. The effect of subsidies? Lack of competition? Collusion?

Do not expect Obama to inquire into the practices of one of his most important constituencies. Do not expect the MSM to provide any coverage beyond the misleading political surface, orchestrated (brilliantly, I must admit) by the Politician in Chief.; 4/25/12, 5:18 PM
KCFleming said...: Well, I hear that some students are becoming prostitutes to pay their loans.

If so, they should avoid government employees, as they have a tendency to stiff you or throw you outta the car.; 4/25/12, 5:19 PM
Anonymous said...: "Have you gotten an unsecured loan lately? If so, what interest were you charged?"

um no. I don't have any unsecured or secured loans. Pay off credit cards each month. Of course, credit cards are dischargeable in Canada and the U.S.

"I don't give a frig what the student loan rate is when it is less than 10%. We, the taxpayers are subsidizing all those loans since Obama took all student loans away from the private sector."

ok. Didn't intend to offend. Have a good day.; 4/25/12, 5:21 PM
Peter said...: "Rather than address the cost of college, Obama wants to address how it is funded.

Well, yes- Obama's paradigm is, make things "affordable" through subsidies while ignoring the effect of those subsidies on prices.

An interesting look at the effect of financial aid on college pricing can be found here;

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/Introducing_Bennett_Hypothesis_2.pdf

And an interesting experiment in dramatically improving teaching productivity in higher ed. can be found here;

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/ff_aiclass/all/1; 4/25/12, 5:22 PM
chickelit said...: Original Mike said...

Too damn high!

I suppose that at Madison (like elsewhere) the faculty used to administrate more and all the new administrators were supposed to facilitate faculty doing more important things like grant writing and publishing. But with grant money drying up, why shouldn't faculty go back to more administrating?; 4/25/12, 5:28 PM
KCFleming said...: Student loan's too damn high!; 4/25/12, 5:34 PM
Alex said...: garage doesn't want to "own up" to anything. He's like a wind-up snark doll.; 4/25/12, 5:45 PM
RonF said...: It's the entitlement generation. Nothing was their fault before they went to college, so why should their debt be their fault now?

Here's my solution:

1) Rescind the law that prevents student debt from being dischargable via bankruptcy.
2) Stop federally insuring student debt.

Now the banks have to think about who they loan money to, and what use it gets put towards. Maybe the banks start asking "What's your major? Art History? Sorry, no loan for you. Mechanical Engineering? Here's $15K, do you need more?" Maybe the banks start requiring you to send them your grade transcript every semester as a condition for renewing the loan.; 4/25/12, 5:49 PM
Seeing Red said...: --Canuck:
Student debt has exploded because the price of college has grown at 3-4 times the rate of inflation and most all HS grads are pushed to go to college.-=--

Student debt exploded because the US taxpayer picks up the risk. There's a study out there once Uncle Sam really got in the game, not the GI Bill, costs started going up.

Put the risk back where it belongs, the banks and the kids.; 4/25/12, 5:51 PM
RonF said...: Maybe people start asking "Hey - why is the cost of a college education so high? Is it because there are now as many administrators as there are teachers at colleges? Is it the pay? Is it the benefits?" and start sending their kids to community college for a couple of years first.

How is it that Obama has never called out his alma mater, with billions of dollars in endowment, and asked why tuition is so high? Why does he never call them to account for their costs?; 4/25/12, 5:51 PM
Seeing Red said...: Cut the diversity and Global Warming claptrap and Title IX. how about consolidating some of the colleges? Womyn's studies can go to a few colleges scattered around the country.; 4/25/12, 5:53 PM
rhhardin said...: It's the Lord's prayer.; 4/25/12, 6:01 PM
Amartel said...: Greedy and stupid. I worked constantly, through college and law school, and paid both off in full out of my pocket within 5 years. It was worth it, it was part of the deal, no regrets.
It does not occur to these people that they should pay for services they have used, for debt that they have accumulated, much less that the cost of education is driven by easy lending practices, sham academics (majors that don't pay), and administrative bloat. They look around and see that other people get the stuff they like for free, so why not me too? Idiots!
What they have learned is to think of themselves as victims and project that image: "end student debt" (like their student debt is something that dropped out of the sky on them) not "pay mah bills" (which is what they really want).
What they have learned is to steal ("repurpose") other peoples' money.
This bubble cannot burst soon enough.; 4/25/12, 6:06 PM
Amartel said...: Imagine the guy who has to clean up the "End Student Debt" sign. I'm assuming from the picture that this a TP special so raking that out of the grass should be a hell of a good time for the grounds crew. Probably some person who didn't go to college but whose taxes will be used to pay for the student debt accumulated by the privileged people who don't want to pay their own student debt.; 4/25/12, 6:14 PM
somefeller said...: I see a lot of people here bashing humanities majors, but as the excellent libertarian writer Virginia Postrel has pointed out, humanities majors are only about 12 percent of the total pool of college graduates and majors like art history are statistically insignificant portion of the graduate pool. Most college graduates are in job preparatory or "practical" majors, and as such they also constitute the bulk of the unemployed among college graduates. As Postrel states: The students who come out of school without jobs aren’t, for the most part, starry-eyed liberal arts majors but rather people who thought a degree in business, graphic design or nursing was a practical, job-oriented credential. Even the latest target of Internet mockery, a young woman the New York Times recently described as studying for a master’s in communication with hopes of doing public relations for a nonprofit, is in what she perceives as a job-training program.

But hey, keep on bashing the humanities and claiming that those who study such topics are the reason for unemployment among recent college grads. Don't let facts get in the way of resentments. And on that last note, from my personal experience, the average art history major is an attractive female from an affluent background who isn't taking out a lot of loans to pay for her education and is likely to remain in the affluent class she was born into. Maybe that's the reason for some of the resentment?; 4/25/12, 6:42 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: My first year at the U of Iowa, tuition was $185. It took a huge leap to $310 the next year, but stayed at that rate for the next 6 years.

Since then, tuition has increased at a pretty steady 7.5% annually. But now we have a swarms and multitudes of diversity officers and other such high-producers, and an office of sustainability, and many more things that would have made my education so much more valuable. To somebody.; 4/25/12, 6:47 PM
chickelit said...: rhhardin said...
It's the Lord's prayer.

Yes, but you have to go back aways (King James Version?) or to the German, unless you're Presbyterian.; 4/25/12, 7:44 PM
Methadras said...: Urkle is a fucking moron. Even Biden admits that when the feds subsidize tuition's, universities see it as free money and up-charge their regular tuition for everyone. Hence higher costs. Herp Derp.; 4/25/12, 9:45 PM
Phil 314 said...: stop going to college.; 4/25/12, 10:05 PM
John Cunningham said...: Looks as though the moochers and freeloaders of UW are out in force. after all, the taxpayers of WI and the USA really need to pony up and subsidize important scholarly efforts like the UW Center for Deaf Lesbian Midget Eskimo Studies, no?; 4/25/12, 10:59 PM
Cindy Martin said...: I'm sure the guy that worked his way through college will appreciate this, and the one's who worked hard in high school and received a scholarship. Oh, the many moral hazards.; 4/26/12, 12:23 AM
RonF said...: somefeller, I have no problem with people who get an education in the humanities. It takes all kinds to make a world and that kind of thing definitely has value.

What I have a problem with is someone borrowing $100K to get that education and then expect the loan to be forgiven - which means they expect ME to pay it back - when they can't pay it off.

The New York Times published an article on the horrific problem of student debt. Their example (they always have to have a sob story) was a young lady who was $100K in debt, was making $25K/year and saw herself paying on the loan forever.

It wasn't until about 10 paragraphs into the story that we found out that the government program cut her off at $40K and she went out and got private loans for the next $60K. It wasn't until 32 paragraphs into the story that we found out her degree was in "Religion and women's studies".

In between there was a lot of commentary on how she'd always been told that a college degree was the ticket to a middle-class life. How she apparently never ran the math to figure out what her loan payments were going to be like and what kind of salary she could expect to make with that kind of degree. How her mother (no mention of a father) blithely co-signed the loans and now regrets it.

You can't drift through life signing whatever is put in front of you with no thought of the future and then expect everyone to bail you out. Make intelligent choices and then live with them. This wasn't an accident. This was ignorance.; 4/26/12, 8:16 AM
DeTroyes said...: "End student debt."

Fine. Get a job, work hard, pay it off. No more student debt.; 4/26/12, 8:11 PM
gadfly said...: Tuition for WV state-operated colleges in 1957 was about $45 per semester for in-state students - and that included the student activity fee which got you into all the football and basketball games. Room, board, tuition and books cost me less than $1,600 for the entire school year.

That is about $13,000 in 2012. Scary, huh?; 4/26/12, 9:17 PM