economic perspective of a millennial

[dcarrigg]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

there was some rational motivation for the original regulations and laws. i remember publicity about some clever law students who had racked up student debt as undergrads [and in law school, too? i don't recall] who promptly filed bankruptcy as soon as they graduated so as to clear the decks before they made any money or had any assets. the original intent of the regs was to prevent such abuses.

this was extended later by fire interests who were in the process of lobbying to make bankruptcy a more difficult and onerous proposition across the board.

I heard the same thing, but with med students. I'm sure that there were some people who cheated the system, but, of course, the fix turned out to be a slippery slope that punished everyone for a relatively small piece of lost revenue.

There were exactly 4,414 annual claims in the year preceding the regulatory change (July 1, 1975 - June 30, 1976). Bankruptcy for federal student loans cost $5.7M that year. To wrap your mind around that, that's 0.001% of the 1975 Federal Budget ($23.8M in today's dollars or 0.0006% of today's federal budget).

Here's the source document.

[aaron]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

Today's young people really do face a much harsher environment than we did as young people. The question is, how do we, as a nation, make the U.S. the land of dreams and opportunities for them, as it was in my youth.

Try getting that across to your cohorts. You'll find most feel that today's youth are lazy, etc. Often they will relate how great they were to work in college and have little debt. Basically, boomers have no clue; actually, it was the damn Occupy protesters that have messed up their home equity.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

Educable? Is that a word?

But beyond a little good-humoured snark, the cost of education is going up because, like healthcare, it largely can't be deflated by off-shoring. The things that we most need and value (education for our young, healthcare for our old or sick) are stuck on the high-ground with us while the revenue streams that might support them are heading out with the tide. It's not that healthcare / education costs are going up as much as they're being exposed as being fixed costs not subject to international labour-arbitrage.

I would agree......

BUT...I reckon the opportunities to find massive savings in education and health care to mitigate that problem DO exist.

The cost of brand name education(and even off brand education) in the US is ridiculous.

And I haven't heard about any/many higher education employers dumping large numbers of their white collar knowledge workers.

Outside of the name brand schools, is a $20k a year tuition twice as good as a school that costs $10k?

How much longer can the higher education system maintain it's status as an expensive haven for the unemployed if graduates unable to secure relevant jobs are starting to stack up like cattle cars in a derailing train?

Can the current/future Administration afford to lose all those hollow white collar knowledge worker jobs?

Aren't a good number of folks employed by bloated higher education the white collar version of home building "manufacturing" jobs?

How much longer until new graduates without jobs are squatting in dorms?

We are fortunate to have effectively prefunded our children's education........but the problem for our children will be in arguing a case effectively for us to cut the cheques.....at this stage I'd probably rather they spend time working for me, working for select others, taking relevant classes case by case, and then we would use their education funds to cautiously bootstrap finance their ventures or just invest on their behalf until they know how to do it successfully themselves.

I see limited low cost/high reward education opportunities at the moment.

[davidstvz]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

Educable? Is that a word?

But beyond a little good-humoured snark, the cost of education is going up because, like healthcare, it largely can't be deflated by off-shoring. The things that we most need and value (education for our young, healthcare for our old or sick) are stuck on the high-ground with us while the revenue streams that might support them are heading out with the tide. It's not that healthcare / education costs are going up as much as they're being exposed as being fixed costs not subject to international labour-arbitrage.

Yes agreed. Plus, I think the easy loans has increased total enrollment significantly almost every year requiring building of new infrastructure more often and quickly, and a larger set of administrators to deal with everything (or else, easy money led to administrative bloat because they direct the money to some extent). To put it another way, I don't think faculty and especially non faculty instructors and employees have gotten anything close to a 400% increase in pay since 1980 (whereas the tuition has gone up roughly that much). Maybe some research faculty have taken on lighter teaching loads and spent more time on research.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

So when and how does the education bubble collapse?

Will it be targeted by bailouts in the form of Manhattan/Apollo Project level of research funds going into universities for alt energy projects?

Will we see a return to 60's antiwar and/or civil rights university protests?

How is the education bubble going to play out?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

Moyers

Watch (at minute 13:15) a graduate burn his collection letter from Sallie Mae.

Are students actually borrowing money at 18 percent interest?

http://billmoyers.com/segment/heathe...al-generation/

[Thailandnotes]

Re: economic perspective of a millennial

http://harpers.org/archive/2011/10/0083639

re for-profit schools

long, but a good piece of journalism