How about taxing private universities since they've been run like for-profit businesses for the last 20-30 years?

How about being a first world nation about it and making education a right?

I mean, that would be insinuating we're CAPABLE of humanity, but whatever.

*and using that tax revenue to fund public universities.

Also (since I hit submit before I was done) to make sense, a tax would need to be structured to encourage universities to put more money into faculty and academics, rather than administration and marketing. Perhaps make faculty salaries partially deductible, proportionate to the amount of teaching they did vs. things like research that are often more about bringing grant money and brand recognition to the university than they are about actually serving the academic needs of the student body. Something o discourage the current situation where teaching - actually doing your job - is often a poor career move, and many universities make most of their money on freshman tuition, while the long term enrollment of students is really only important to the degree that it affects their brand's image.

Cognitivedissonance is correct but I'd be surprised to see that happen in my lifetime.

Also, I've got mixed feelings on that. On the one hand I don't think higher education should only be available to those who can afford the current massively inflated costs, but on the other hand I think the idea that everyone needs a college degree isn't the best, I think that improving public high schools to the point where people could graduate with a solid education would be more productive than what we have right now, where college are the new high school and high school is the new middle school.


Anecdotally, I went to a top 100 university and leaving aside my major to focus on the core required science and humanities courses that are representative of the university as a whole, there was not a single one that was as academically rigorous as what I got in 9th grade at a fairly inexpensive (and openly non-preparatory) private liberal arts school* that cost half for 4 years what my tuition would have been for one year at university if I hadn't had a full tuition waiver, and I was taking all honors track stuff, too.






*this is why evilhomer and I are overeducated shitheads, by the way. I don't know what school he went to but I can see the telltale signs.

"How about taxing private universities since they've been run like for-profit businesses for the last 20-30 years?"

Going forward, okay I guess; but existing loans are another matter. The taxes on those private universities could go towards buying out private student loans.

Most importantly, we need to get over the idea that higher education is primarily about career training, because historically it hasn't been and in the future it can't be since we're already well into the transition to a largely work-free society, although I don't expect us to make the change gracefully We're going to lose at least one generation to the late 19th and 20th century myth that employment is what makes a person valuable to society in a 21st century where the majority of employment available - when it's available at all - doesn't contribute anything to society at large and is often detrimental to the quality of life of individuals and communities.

There are already way more people than there is work that needs to be done and it's only going to get worse as automation becomes more and more universal and decentralized. This century is going to see a massive, technologically driven change in the relationship between work and society, on a global scale and I don't think it's going to be very pretty in the short run, at least not in the latently Protestant, hypercapitalist USA.

And to be clear, I'm not trying to imply that I have the slightest idea how any of these problems could be realistically solved, I'm just throwing shit out here.

I don't think there actually IS any easy solution, I think it's more a matter of damage control preparedness at this point.

Bort, using taxes on universities to buy out existing loans was something I meant to include in my rambling, but I got off track and forgot it. I definitely think it's a possibility, althoughhonestly a part of me would rather see people just stop paying on a large scale, to the point where it forces reform. Because buying out past debts and subsidizing future debts through things like scholarships and grants doesn't really do anything to disrupt the current symbiosis between universities and lenders, who would be getting rewarded for their borderline criminal business practices regardless of whether it was their debtors or the government that paid them off. Much like how Obamacare hasn't actually done anything to break up the symbiosis between the medical (especially pharmeceutical) industry and the insurance industry - insurance coverage lets companies systematically overcharge for their products and services without completely losing their (already largely captive simply because people need health care) market, while the artificially high cost of care makes it almost impossible for most people to receive all but the most basic emergency care without buying insurance.

Same thing with the tuition business - student loans allow universities to inflate tuition well above anything reasonable (but because in the job market an undergraduate degree is equivalent to a high school diploma a couple generations ago, the universities have an essentially captive market) an the inflated cost of tuition means that very few people can get a degree without student loans.

Personally, as someone who DIDN'T have to pay tuition, the difference in how I've been able to choose to live after college versus how everyone else I know had to live in order to be able to pay of their debts - which most people I know are still paying off in their 30s - is massive.

tl;dr version: I agree that buying out past student loans is probably the most realistic positive change we could make for people right now but I don't think that on its own it would do much of anything to make the situation better in the future.

THe government already offers buyout options on qualifying student loans.

For example: all of my student loans for my PsyD were Staffords. When Katrina happened and the school kicked me out of the program for taking a year off to handle family and property and insurance issues, I got to keep all the loans.

THe government let me consolidate, but the lenders (Sallie Mae and Wells Fargo) made sure they rolled every penny they thought I could conceivably owe them into the buyout amount.

Hence, a series of loans that originally cost K ballooned, through default and years of unemployment and the consolidation process to K, and about K if they decide to ever compound the interest.

Through merciful lord Obama and Pelosi's consoliation program, the banks got bailed out (naturally) but I still have to pay all that money back to the government.

Because I don't make enough to even cover the interest, I took a low-paying local government job in the hopes that in ten years I can apply for all of my loan amount to be forgiven after making 120 monthly payments.

TL;DR EDUCATION SHOULD BE A RIGHT. What happened here was not a failure on my part. What happened here is the american education system lost a decent psychologist because of educational system fuckery and then condemned him to be forever in debt for the audactiy of trying to make something of himself in this life.

Luckily, I now have my employer paying for my MBA but their lack of enthusiasm for promoting me is a whole, other bag of bullshit.

NOte that the government buyout option didn't happen until 2009. I got booted in 2006 and the loans went into default then. SO I got to spend roughly four years twisting in the god damn wind with a fucked up credit rating, unable to find permanent full time employment.

That's mercy in America for you. It still took until 2011 for anything to fall off my credit record as defaults and 2014 for anything to be listed as positives so I could take out a loan for anything again or even get a credit card

That's mercy in America for you.

Thanks Obama!

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo and Sallie Mae got paid ALL THE MONEY they were ever going to be owed by me BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

And I now just owe the federal government instead.

I also have two options for payoff:

1. Work for a qualifying government or non-profit for ten years (doesn't have to be the same one all ten years) and your loans are entirely forgiven. Meanwhile, they will take 15% of your pre-tax/pre-savings income. Good luck saving for retirement or a house or a car or affording to live on a government or non profit salary like that because I can't. They get paid first.

2. Work for anything else and pay 15% of your pre tax, pre-savings income to them for 25 years and then, at the end of 25 years get your loan forgiven entirely. BUT YOU WILL GET TAXED ON THE FORGIVEN AMOUNT LIKE IT WAS INCOME AND THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THEY WILL NOT CAPITALIZE 25 YEARS OF INTEREST IN THE LAST FEW SECONDS BEFORE FORGIVENESS.

So, you're going to be ass raped either way.

THat's how a government buyout works.

That's mercy in America.

Thanks, Obama!

Note that this is the crux of lesser-evilism in this country.

It STILL would have been worse under a Republican. BUT THIS IS STILL PAINFULLY FUCKING BAD.

That's an ass raping of unparalleled magnitude, Art. And a cautionary tale for any solution that directs public funds to make good on bad private investments.

If Art could discharge his student debt in bankruptcy, as Donald Trump can discharge his bad investment debt, perhaps things would be better? Or at least less awful.

The CNN documentary Ivory Tower talked about how the government runs the student loan debt buyout as a multi-billion dollar for profit industry.

I'm sure they can be convinced to stop doing this the same way we shamed them into profiting from war.

Not profiting, I mean.

If we had a Constitution worth the fuck that Jefferson gave his slaves on the desk it was signed on, education would be a right and this would be a civil rights issue.

True, conservatives who constantly cry about China getting ahead and America falling behind are the exact same people who don't want their tax dollars going towards higher education, because back in the 70s when they went to college they paid for their tuition with just a job at the campus dining hall and help from their folks.

Fuck you, Rick Berman! First Star Trek and now this?

What is it with Ricks?

To Richard's credit, he is inadvertently responsible for The Silver Jews.

You weren't supposed to.

You were supposed to become a ditch-digger, like the prole you were born to be.

Disgusting.

Play it frugal and you'll pay off that debt. My momma didn't play it frugal and lived beyond her means (McMansion, Vacations, etc) and is still paying off that medical school bill almost in her sixties. But I bet if she lived a simple life at the beginning, it would have all been paid off a lot sooner...

Yeah, that's our plan. My wife is also a professional, so we should have it paid off sooner than most. Still, absolutely terrifying when we look at it.