The burden of student loan debt....

Again you ignore what you don't want to hear. Student loans are NOT the product of schools. They do not guarantee them, fund them, service them, receive interest from them, nor do they have a say in who gets them and who doesn't. Schools accept students based on their academic credentials not their ability to pay. How students choose to pay their tuition, including students loans, is their choice. And in case you forgot, an education is still the best investment you can make. The people that have profited the most off of student loans have been the banks. They are the ones that have been selling the snake oil all these years. "Here kids. Here is some money. Pay us back later. The Government guarantees we won't lose money on this loan." Seems to me that the banks have had a pretty sweet gig. Didn't you say that you worked for a bank David? Your rant is beginning to sound like a little bit of psychological transference.

 

Looking up some statistics...tuition inflation has been about twice the overall inflation rate for the last couple of decades. And, of course, wages haven't kept up well with the overall inflation rate, let alone double that. Especially minimum wage pay which often, over the last couple of decades, has gone through years of erosion before it is raised back to an inflation compensated level.

So, in the good old days, maybe two jobs and an occasional third could do it completely on your own. Now, it might be three jobs and an occasional fourth. Even if you can find that much employment in a college town, eventually with that kind of ever increasing gap between tuition inflation and wages, you will run out of hours in a day.

 

While schools must face the same inflation problems the rest of the country faces, the steady decrease in public funding has far more to do with the rising tuition rates than how much the price of bread has risen. Public schools were subsidized entities and the subsidies have been pulled back at extreme rates and even under rescission funding which is taking back of money you were already allocated. The price between private schools and public schools is becoming negligible because private schools don't receive public tax dollars and public schools receive very little at this point. Public school tuition has been kept artificially low for decades because we wanted to educate as many people as possible and keeping tuition low was how it was done. Now days, it seems we don't care about educating people so with the help of our Republican Governors and Republican Congressional friends, the cost of education is subsidized less and less each decade. But some people on the Right want to whine that they think education should be free and of course it is the fault of those "high" paid professors. In reality, many of them have take severe pay cuts in the last few years. If you're a Right winger and you want to complain about the cost of education these days, you should find the nearest mirror and go off on the idiot staring back at you. I can guarantee you that it is his fault that tuition has risen so dramatically. Have fun!

 

Moen, have you ever considered the amount of tax revenue they have coming in compared to the past? With pro-longed 10% (more likely 20+%) unemployment year after year, where's the tax revenue supposed to come from? Oh by the way, costs have went up!

They have to cut something. What's essential and what's non-essential? Should they cut welfare and food stamps so people starve? Should they cut your legally guaranteed pension after you're retired? Or funding for higher education? There's only so many options.

These cuts take place and they're still running enormous deficits. I just don't think they're short changing the universities for the fun of it. It all leads back to the state of the economy IMO. And the left have their savior in office so there shouldn't be any complaints. I'm sure they just need a little more time.

 

This is a different issue completely. I agree revenue has been a bit lacking and again, thank you Republicans. They have "starved the beast" as they themselves stated and can't seem to stop giving the wealthiest people in the country more and more and more. There is a sector in this country doing just fine these days and thanks to huge Wall Street bailouts are doing better than ever. You can blame whichever side you want but the truth of the matter is that the money exists in this country it just has pooled at the top of the ladder. What seems like a logical choice to most of us, is lost on the Republicans in congress that want to hand even more money to the wealthiest among us. How much is enough? How many homes can these people actually buy and spend any time in? We don't have a cash problem in this country, we have a huge sucking sound coming from the top of the ladder and it keeps getting louder. You can continue to say that we are broke but the truth is there is plenty of money in this country it is just in the wrong hands.

 

This is where we will never agree. I read somewhere that if they confiscated 100% of Warren Buffet and Bill Gate's wealth, that 100% of their wealth combined would only be enough to finance the INTEREST on the national debt for 6 MONTHS. Now that's taking 100% from two of the richest available people in the country. So if they decided to confiscate 50% of their wealth, they could pay the interest on the national debt for 3 months, which would still be considered draconian measures.

This is where I think so many people are mis-guided. There's not that many rich people out there. Sure, some are skating taxes. Others are paying the bulk of the taxes because they can't escape them. Even if they employed draconian measures, how long could you milk them before they were dry? Could it last for 5 years? Eventually the rich would become poor and we'd need more rich but there wouldn't be any left to take from.

Ok, so lets take a new 15% rich tax from them that they can't escape and call it good. Wait, that's still just a drop in the bucket.

Yes, it's easy to be mesmerized by how much wealth some people have been able to accumulate. But if you start taking large chunks away from them (which are relatively small chunks compared to the big picture) it still doesn't solve the massive budget problems facing governments at every level.

 

Who do you consider the "wrong hands"?

 

Just let a lib ideologue run his mouth long enough & the truth comes out!
If the money doesn't belong to the ones who own it just who does deserve it? Who makes the decisions?

I smell a new thread!!

 

The school doesn't benefit? Really? They are able to sell their product, that's how the schools benefit. Same as any business benefits when their product is made "affordable" to people who don't know better.

I don't disagree. With student loans the banks are offering a financial tool same as their credit cards, car loans, equity loans, etc...and yes, I equate student loans with all of these instruments. Debt is bad. I offer the same criticism of dept staores who push credit cards, car dealers that push "easy credit terms". The game is the same. A business/college has a product to sell to a customer/student. If the price is more than they can write a check for, financing is made available by a bank. The bank is the drug maker, the business/school is the pusher & the customer/student is the addict. Only with student loans, the rates are comparatively low so the bank doesn't benefit as much making school the primary beneficiary. With the high regard in which you hold yourself & your profession, dr moen, couldn't one assume colleges shoudf operate at a bit higher standard than the used car lot down in the 'hood?

 

I am not disagreeing. I was only pointing it out since the idea that 'I did it so everyone else can' doesn't always add up since the economic situation (both in tuition cost and wages) has changed a lot over the last couple of decades since most of us probably went to college and worked those type of jobs college students typically can get.

Thinking that the situation today is the same as 20 or 30 years ago is not realistic.

 

Especially when these public-serving, benevolent schools are raising their prices at a level twice inflation. I doubt many other businesses could get away with it (and whine about not getting subsidies in the same breath). Institutes of higher learning are the most profitable enterprises in this country. Maybe it's time they start giving back a little. Oh, I forgot, the right is taking all their money away...isn't that dr moens argument?

 

Again, most profitable enterprises in this country? What do you base this idiotic statement on?

Southern Illinois-Carbondale Moves to Subject Tenured Professors to Layoffs
April 26, 2011, 3:08 pm
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale will be able to lay off tenured faculty members without declaring fiscal exigency under the terms of a one-year contract it imposed on its faculty union this month. The new contract for the current fiscal year allows the faculty union, the SIUC Faculty Association, to bargain with the university over proposed layoffs and calls for nontenured faculty members to be laid off first, but the document stands out from faculty contracts elsewhere in allowing the cash-strapped university to circumvent the usual requirement that a formal declaration of fiscal crisis precede any decision to lay off the tenured. It also calls for faculty members to take four unpaid furlough days in the current academic year. The faculty association plans to file a complaint accusing the university of unfair labor practices for unilaterally imposing the contract after the union’s negotiators rejected the agreement. University officials have said they had no choice but to move ahead and adopt a contract that had represented their “last, best, and final offer.”

 

I have to go with Moen on this. I've checked various sources listing top 50 profitable enterprises in the U.S. and no entries are related to schools. Though, schools aren't considered in them. Private schools do appear to be profitable. I'll keep researching, but my gut says to go with Moen on this point.

 

He has selective learning syndrome. I've posted several times that universities and other public schools are non-profits. It's just a little tough to be one of the "most profitable enterprises in the country" when you're a non-profit.

 

I wish I could find the link I posted about this time last year. Remember that one dr moen? We were having a similar debate & when I dropped that one on you, you went ballistic & put me on your "ignore" list for the first time. Remember? Good times....

 

I doubt I can find the kind of info needed to make my case, since schools are essentially part of the government (though there are exceptions ie: Private schools) and I'm having more difficulty because of that. So this particular point, about being profitable, is all yours lol

 

If you remember I'll go check it out. I'll try to find it from past threads too.

 

That is what I thought too. Makes sense actually.

 

http://www.siuf.org/Accounts/Annual/08annual_report.pdf
Go to page 17

This is the financial report from the school referenced by dr moen.
$79 million in endowments?
$133 million is assets vs $7 million in liabilities?

This is a school on the brink?
You also want to look on their "tuition & cost" page where student loans are given a lot of attention. Notice the disclaimer they post down at the bottom. Obviously the school wants to assist the students into going into debt but I guess they are required to post the truth at some point.

 

Ok, I'll check it out. But I gotta load Adobe Acrobat 1st, my computer doesn't have it. I tried bypassing, no luck ...I did get some code though.


Update: Still unable to access, might be my patchwork of a computer. Wanna rattle off a few points and discuss that way? I know a little about endowments, but not much. Need to hear from you & Moen (and others) about those points, then see.