Student Loan Forgiveness

[Mustonen]

Are the admin salaries actually outrageous? I’ve heard this bitch about my local universities, and for an admin or exec role in an organization that size, it’s not like they couldn’t make a lot more in a different industry.

I’m frustrated by sports too. It’s so baked into our culture…. Local HS invests hundreds of thousands on the football field but can’t seem to muster a robotics team. And when they do they justify it by prioritizing it with students. My son got the full court press recently to get into HS sports. They even reached out to me to encourage him to do it. He didn’t want to… and it’s not like he’s some big athletic guy. Poor kid has my genes. The 6’4” 200lb sophomore doesn’t have a chance…. It’d be neat if they spent the same energy on getting kids to participate in chemistry club.

Point being, it’s a circle. The industry drives interest by encouraging participation at every level. Pro athletes and college football coaches aren’t overpaid according to the revenue they generate, because sportsball is drilled into our heads from middle school onward, at least, and we love to throw money and attention on it. Somebody has to decide that a middle school and high school and college basketball and football program just isn’t the top priority for spend and attention, but good luck with millions of dollars focused on telling everybody that’s what educational institutions do.

[SumJongGuy]

The football coaches are the highest paid college employees.

[schuss]

Are the admin salaries actually outrageous? I’ve heard this bitch about my local universities, and for an admin or exec role in an organization that size, it’s not like they couldn’t make a lot more in a different industry.

I’m frustrated by sports too. It’s so baked into our culture…. Local HS invests hundreds of thousands on the football field but can’t seem to muster a robotics team. And when they do they justify it by prioritizing it with students. My son got the full court press recently to get into HS sports. They even reached out to me to encourage him to do it. He didn’t want to… and it’s not like he’s some big athletic guy. Poor kid has my genes. The 6’4” 200lb sophomore doesn’t have a chance…. It’d be neat if they spent the same energy on getting kids to participate in chemistry club.

Point being, it’s a circle. The industry drives interest by encouraging participation at every level. Pro athletes and college football coaches aren’t overpaid according to the revenue they generate, because sportsball is drilled into our heads from middle school onward, at least, and we love to throw money and attention on it. Somebody has to decide that a middle school and high school and college basketball and football program just isn’t the top priority for spend and attention, but good luck with millions of dollars focused on telling everybody that’s what educational institutions do.

I live right next to a university and know many people in various positions at multiple schools. Executive admin in most schools is a bloatfest of consulting imbroglios and misplaced priorities.

As for sports - I'm not for defunding, it's just there's zero reason for a public institution to pay multimillion dollar coaching salaries, not to mention all the capital improvements to sports facilities.

[summit]

Offer a larger pool of money than is needed, and the prices will rise to meet it.

What about just making things cheaper by cutting the perverse incentives for colleges to charge obscene amounts? That is tax free.

Between community colleges, public schools, and grants, most people can get their education pretty cheap if they choose to and are diligent. And most will make what they paid back many-fold.

So when I look at the cost of higher ed and ask "where is the problem?", the problem is not that people cannot afford school, it is the nearly unbelievable price inflation due to universal and ever expanding availability of excessive amounts of money to pay for school. Schools are not competing on price like they should because they simply don't have to compete the way the system is built.



Raising taxes and throwing more money at the problem is not going to make it better!

Increased costs are due to both administration bloat and support services bloat while students demand lifestyle and services that were unknown 20-30 years ago. Meanwhile colleges cut instructing wages by using adjuncts and eliminate tenure tracks. (although there has been a trend toward more FT less PT, but still non-tenure)



Instead of cutting tuition, they hire lots more admin and "support" staff.


(in millions of dollars)

Schools spend as much on admin and support as they do on teachers. But it is the admin and support that are have rising expenditures:



And the staff bloat reflects all the services students demand or colleges decide they should be offering. Example:

Old way: Diversity Inclusion and Equity is a 1-2 staffers that report up through a chain to the dean of student life.
New way: Dean of Diversity Inclusion and Equity with a sizable staff to include staff to run each of the various facilities for various identity groups.

Old way: Dorm "shared rooms" means 2-3 beds in a single room on a floor with a large public bathroom and one shared kitchen for 20 or so rooms. Students get to build their own bunk platform if desired, and pay for their own TV or AC unit if they want one.
New way: 3-4 private rooms attached to a shared kitchen/livingroom with 1-2 bathrooms in unit, central air, and large LCD tv provided with cable.

Guess where the costs go?

Attachment 413703
Many are almost double over 22 years and have only expanded more since 2012.

[AdironRider]

I think there is a big difference between the SEC and some NESCAC football program, notably in the revenue generated for the school. There is no way in hell the Alabamas of the world don't benefit the school monetarily outside of the program.

Mark me on the anti loan forgiveness train. I'd be down with maintaining the zero interest rates as a compromise, but only if you make below 75k or so.

[schuss]

Yes, but for every Alabama, there's 10-20 other programs that AREN'T profitable, so it drags everyone down. If the NFL/NBA etc. wants a feeder program that badly, they can pay for it themselves.
The "hey, let's make people do service to get paid back" is a great idea! That we implemented! That was promptly fucked up, where 99% of applications are denied.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/65385...-whistleblower

The core problem is that you have half the political spectrum wholly invested in dumbing down America, so no actual meaningful solutions are possible, just exec actions.

[Bunion 2020]

The notion of “college for all”—typically part of a broader education model in which nearly all students move as if on a conveyor belt from elementary to high school to college and a degree and then, finally, to a career—continues to hold considerable sway in policy circles. Elected leaders annually spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars supporting this model, despite evidence that it’s disconnected from today’s world of education, training, and work.

You can see how detached the college-for-all model is from the reality of education and work in various ways. For example, since the early 1990s, data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—dubbed “the nation’s report card”—indicate that only around 40 percent of high school graduates are college-ready.

Moreover, enrollment in college is rising faster than completion, with little change since the 1950s in the percentage of enrollees attaining a bachelor’s degree by age 25. In fact, only about half of the students who enroll in college compete a degree within six years. For community colleges, that figure drops to a quarter.

Besides, finding a job that pays well doesn’t necessarily require a bachelor’s degree; according to one estimate, there are 65 million existing “good jobs” (defined as jobs that pay at least $35,000 for workers under 45 or $45,000 for workers 45 and older) in the United States that don’t require one. For individuals without a degree, there are “opportunity rich” employment options that can lift individuals into the middle class and provide them with worthwhile careers.

Thanks to degree inflation, four-year degrees are increasingly required for jobs that didn’t formerly require them even though those jobs’ skill requirements often haven’t changed. One analysis shows about 40 percent of recent college graduates are employed in good jobs that don’t require their college degree.

https://www.thebulwark.com/college-f...alism-instead/

If the NFL/NBA etc. wants a feeder program that badly, they can pay for it themselves.

Yes!!!!

[oldnew_guy]

Simple solution, recover the billions in PPP loan fraud and punish them by making the student loan payments for people on the low end of the spectrum income wise.

Loan forgiveness needs to come with a big restructure of how we fund higher Ed. Just waving a magic wand and allowing it to continue as-is seems like the worst option.


Higher Ed just seems like another thing Americans seem hell bent on fucking up.

Careful what you wish for by not changing the system or getting certain groups out of debt and maintaining a system that isn’t about education, but is about job training and ROI: you might find yourself short on general practice physicians as they chase money in specialty or a lack of teachers as they take their masters degrees elsewhere or a number of other disciplines as people take their time and money in another direction.

I’m also sort of amused that people advocating for what appear to be “free market” solutions to higher Ed think we should continue subsidizing CC and trade school training programs for private industry to train welders and mechanics. Why isn’t industry taking care of that?

[dunfree]

2 million 4 year degrees annually, 1 million 2 year degrees annually, 4 years have a generally better ROI but people are doing it wrong because some plumber is pulling down 6-figures a year. It’s just culture war bullshit wrapped up in stupid and denial. Even in states with good trade school & vocational school funding programs are closing from lack of student interest.

[dunfree]

Yes, but for every Alabama, there's 10-20 other programs that AREN'T profitable, so it drags everyone down. If the NFL/NBA etc. wants a feeder program that badly, they can pay for it themselves.
The "hey, let's make people do service to get paid back" is a great idea! That we implemented! That was promptly fucked up, where 99% of applications are denied.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/65385...-whistleblower

The core problem is that you have half the political spectrum wholly invested in dumbing down America, so no actual meaningful solutions are possible, just exec actions.

a majority of university of Alabama students come from outside Alabama. Does hundreds of millions in free advertising make a difference? Until you set colleges up to account for costs and product like a business evaluating one like a short term profit making corp is stupid

[MakersTeleMark]

The simplest way to deal with this issue is to remove the BK protection for govt. backed student loans. There is an entire debt relief system written into our judicial system.

[summit]

Rather than simply 1-time forgiving debt, the problem is better solved at its roots.

If all those these were part of a debt forgiveness package, it would be a lot more palatable to do a partial debt forgivness and permanent 0% interest.

1. Improving primary/secondary education
2. Offering more merit grants and scholarships, not loans, especially to disadvantaged, and restoring pared funding to public unis (with strings)
3. Mandatory fiscal education in high school
4. Cracking down on predatory colleges
5. Drastically reducing the size of nondischargable loans (end BK protection) with a 5 year scale down to let college shrink their costs accordingly, and
6. Reduce nonfiscal regulatory burdens on colleges while incentivizing teaching positions and disincentivizing admin, campus life, and sports by having strings attached to any funding tied to the government or nondischargable debt components of student tuition.

And end the concept of "The College Experience" as a necessary right of passage that should be funded on the public dime either directly, by grands, or by loans. Playing sportsball, partying, and getting high is fine, but not on the public dime. Academics first! Or put another way, many people complaining about debt could have been working a job to pay for school instead of drinking and partying their way through their business degree that they don't even use.

[Conundrum]

A football coach is our state’s highest paid public employee by a good margin. 8 of 10 of highest paid state employees are either in college athletics or college admin.

[Mazderati]

Structure of the Finnish education system. Free up to a certain point that extends into public university. Culturally acceptable cross-pollination between vocation and traditional academic.

[frorider]

We’ve covered the stats in other threads, so I just quickly summarized it as administrative bloat and amenities, but Summit’s post has the data. It’s not so much the high salaries, it’s the vast departmental bloat. One research paper found that back in the day the US News and World Report Rankings stimulated a lot of this bullshit Nuclear Arms Race of spending.

As with the US healthcare system, a shitshow of inefficiency in terms of quantity and quality per dollar spent. In a nominally capitalist system these inefficiencies accumulate when the $$ spigots flow freely enough. We all know people who were encouraged to take on hudge loans, almost like it was free money that would be ‘easy to pay back when you have a good job’.

I know enough about the alternative systems in other countries my family lives in to know the US system needs reform. I do not see how loan forgiveness forces any change on the actual system. But I support some rational form of forgiveness…sliding scale or whatever. Most people I know are looking for a reasonable plan to pay off at least a significant chunk. A pride and ethics thing.

[oldnew_guy]

Rather than simply 1-time forgiving debt, the problem is better solved at its roots.

If all those these were part of a debt forgiveness package, it would be a lot more palatable to do a partial debt forgivness and permanent 0% interest.

1. Improving primary/secondary education
2. Offering more merit grants and scholarships, not loans, especially to disadvantaged, and restoring pared funding to public unis (with strings)
3. Mandatory fiscal education in high school
4. Cracking down on predatory colleges
5. Drastically reducing the size of nondischargable loans (end BK protection) with a 5 year scale down to let college shrink their costs accordingly, and
6. Reduce nonfiscal regulatory burdens on colleges while incentivizing teaching positions and disincentivizing admin, campus life, and sports by having strings attached to any funding tied to the government or nondischargable debt components of student tuition.

And end the concept of "The College Experience" as a necessary right of passage that should be funded on the public dime either directly, by grands, or by loans. Playing sportsball, partying, and getting high is fine, but not on the public dime. Academics first! Or put another way, many people complaining about debt could have been working a job to pay for school instead of drinking and partying their way through their business degree that they don't even use.

Some good good ideas here, although the idea
that paying for school (entirely as used to be possible) by working seems to fly in the face of your graph showing college costs inflating far above CPI and wages.


I know that when I thought about working part time (which I did some and worked summers) versus spending that time on doing better academically (the point of going back to school) it made way more sense to do well at school than sling coffee for $8/hr.

[Mustonen]

Rather than simply 1-time forgiving debt, the problem is better solved at its roots.

And end the concept of "The College Experience" as a necessary right of passage that should be funded on the public dime either directly, by grands, or by loans. Playing sportsball, partying, and getting high is fine, but not on the public dime. Academics first! Or put another way, many people complaining about debt could have been working a job to pay for school instead of drinking and partying their way through their business degree that they don't even use.

Agreed 100%. It would be helpful if that was more viable and I think it might need to be restructured a bit. Getting through a 4yr degree in 4 years while working full time is challenging at best, and finding a job that will support that schedule and pay for tuition is not a given either. And as mentioned upthread - a full course load is not a great way to learn new skills, exactly.

[MakersTeleMark]

Getting through a 4yr degree in 4 years while working full time is challenging at best, and finding a job that will support that schedule and pay for tuition is not a given either. And as mentioned upthread - a full course load is not a great way to learn new skills, exactly.

Absolute BS.

[dunfree]

We’ve covered the stats in other threads, so I just quickly summarized it as administrative bloat and amenities, but Summit’s post has the data. It’s not so much the high salaries, it’s the vast departmental bloat. One research paper found that back in the day the US News and World Report Rankings stimulated a lot of this bullshit Nuclear Arms Race of spending.

As with the US healthcare system, a shitshow of inefficiency in terms of quantity and quality per dollar spent. In a nominally capitalist system these inefficiencies accumulate when the $$ spigots flow freely enough. We all know people who were encouraged to take on hudge loans, almost like it was free money that would be ‘easy to pay back when you have a good job’.

I know enough about the alternative systems in other countries my family lives in to know the US system needs reform. I do not see how loan forgiveness forces any change on the actual system. But I support some rational form of forgiveness…sliding scale or whatever. Most people I know are looking for a reasonable plan to pay off at least a significant chunk. A pride and ethics thing.

As universities increasingly pkace the burden of teaching onto adjuncts and ta’s who’s going to keep the lights on?

[Mustonen]

Absolute BS.

Well, I did both, though I ended up with some student loans because kids are effing expensive and I had two at the time and a stay-at-home spouse.

But it’s not an option available to all. Is it? Is it an option available to all?

[dunfree]

Absolute BS.

Ah yes, the it’s trivial to work 40 hrs a week and do 40 hrs of school a week answer.

[schuss]

Absolute BS.

In what way? Many degrees are challenging even on their own in modern programs (engineering at a good school), not to mention time challenges of group work, coops and internships. Many employers aren't inclined to respect a students schedule, nor universities consistently offering classes during non work hours, so it's unlikely a student will be able to have a full time job.

[MakersTeleMark]

I think you guys are a bunch of slackers. Have you met a motivated student from outside the U.S. in the last 3 decades? Maybe your boss?

[ghosthop]

Absolute BS.

No, it's pretty simple.

Average cost for in-state tuition across the country is ~10k. If you're working 50 weeks a year, and only two shifts a week because you're trying to pull good grades, that's $12.50 an hour. No problem.

But factor in cost of living. Rent is almost never below $500 for a shitty room these days. Food/bills/etc. How much did you spend on weed and beer when you were 20?

Even if some kid is making $15 an hour and three shifts a week, that's only $18k/year. That's just not going to cut it paying cost of living and tuition out of pocket.

If you want to earn the grades and build the cv necessary to get into a good grad school(research, extra-curricular, etc.), good luck working a full time job on top of that. Most Americans don't have that kind of work ethic.

[summit]

A full course load is 30 credits per year for 4 years. That's 15 hours of class per week + homework for only 8-9 months a year with hefty breaks. There are fucktons of free time, otherwise frat parties, clubs and student athletes wouldn't exist. It's all about "The College Experience!"

Students can't find time to work? Don't feed me that bullshit unless you are a STEM or healthcare student where you have clinicals and labs sucking up time in excess that are multiples of the credit hour load. And I still knew plenty of nursing students who held down low skilled hospital jobs part time during their vastly-more-time-intensive-than-a-business-major curriculum. I did. That looks good to employers too.

Don't tell me knocking 18K/yr off your loans is meaningless. Can't find a job to fit the school schedule? Pull 18 credits per semester and go to school in the summer and finish school in 3 years.

Instead 59% percent of students take 5-6 years to finish a 4 year degree. Some did so because they weren't prepared for college, but mostly it is because because college is a fun lifestyle, so who cares if you change your major 5 times, take a relaxed credit load, and hang out in a great party place to hide from the real world! You can live that lifestyle of credit: student loans no questions asked!!!

(I keep using a business degree for examples only because it is the NUMBER ONE college degree in the US, isn't known for high academic demands, and very few people actually have jobs that specifically require it.)