In four words, I present the solution to the student loan crisis in the USA.

[Shogon]

>Abolish government guaranteed loans.<

Those are the four words. That's the solution.


The entire education bubble and employers demanding you have a degree problem really starts and ends with the fact that the federal government is guaranteeing a shitload of student loans. That's it. That's all there is to it. 100%. It really is that simple. I know, it couldn't possibly be that simple, right? Oh, but it is. That's where the problem starts. That's where the problem ends.


Now, to expand on that, here are the problems we're facing explained in slightly more, albeit still brief, detail.

Tuition costs rise and rise on an almost annual basis to the point that even going to a run down community college will set your ass back way more than you can probably afford as a young person looking to come up.

But the question is, why? Because the demand for higher education is high. Why is the demand high? That's just because people want to go to college and better their lives, right? Wrong. The government guaranteeing student loans across the board and handing the loans out to basically everyone massively drives up the demand to extremely unnatural levels, which enables schools to massively inflate textbook costs and tuition costs and for them to unnaturally expand their campuses to massive sizes with massive faculties in wasteful administration positions.

But Shogon! That's not true! Everyone is going to college because basically every employer requires a four year degree or beyond to do anything nowadays! And that's somewhat accurate, that's part of it... but then the question becomes... why are all of these employers able to get away with making their demands so that entry level positions require four year degrees that are irrelevant to the task at hand?

Employers are able to get away with those requirements... because, say it with me... there are SO MANY PEOPLE graduating every single year with degrees... directly as a result of the government allowing them to saddle themselves up with massive amounts of debt 'for free' in the here and now to get that piece of paper via guaranteed government backed loans.

If we were to remove guaranteed loans by the government, employers would have to be less stringent on their entry level positions and overall employment requirements. And if less employers are requiring four year degrees as a result of the market being less filled with degree holders, what else does that do? It drives tuition costs even further down as less people are going to school as the demand for education to get good jobs drops, which in turn makes attending college a much more realistic goal in which you would be able to graduate without a mortgage worth of debt.

On top of all of this, kids are fed lie after lie about how everyone must go to college from extremely early ages. But the problem with this is, there will never be enough jobs to justify all of those degrees. Ever. If 100% of people went to college, nobody would be cleaning floors and toilets at Taco Bell. Objective reality dictates that the number of jobs on the market place will never satisfy a completely saturated job seeking market full of degree holders. It can not be. There are not enough jobs in the world nor will there ever be that require that much education.


So... that brings me back to the first point of the entire thread...

If you abolish government guaranteed student loans, tuition costs plummet, employers drop their high demands for degree holders, and tuition costs plummet even further. Once again, the market takes care of itself.

So what do we do?

We have two choices. We either, as a nation, decide that college is mandatory education for literally everyone, it's no longer optional whatsoever, just like K-12 isn't optional... and we roll tuition costs for everyone into our collective taxes like we have for K-12, and LEGALLY REQUIRE EVERYONE to go to college... or we abolish government guaranteed student loans.

Until we do one of these two things, the crisis will never fix itself, and it will only get worse. It may be the catalyst that truly pushes us into a depression.

[bladefd]

So what do we do?

We have two choices. We either, as a nation, decide that college is mandatory education for literally everyone, it's no longer optional whatsoever, just like K-12 isn't optional... and we roll tuition costs for everyone into our collective taxes like we have for K-12, and LEGALLY REQUIRE EVERYONE to go to college... or we abolish government guaranteed student loans.

Until we do one of these two things, the crisis will never fix itself, and it will only get worse. It may be the catalyst that truly pushes us into a depression.

Every solution is 2 extremes for you, huh? Make college mandatory & free for all or abolish all government loans/grants/funds altogether. Why don't you go back to the thinking board, think up of a middle ground solution and get back to us?

[MrFonzworth]

Imagine being OP. Who the **** cares.

[Patrick Chewing]

Or better yet: College is NOT for everyone.

[tpols]

The state school I went to has doubled in size.

Sky scraping luxury dorms with store fronts on the ground floor even movie theaters. State of the art architecture & facilities where it used to be parking lots.

They are absolutely swimming in cash.

[Shogon]

Every solution is 2 extremes for you, huh? Make college mandatory & free for all or abolish all government loans/grants/funds altogether. Why don't you go back to the thinking board, think up of a middle ground solution and get back to us?

You let me the market take care of it.

Why exactly do you think we are in the mess we are in?

Let me guess you want a solution that requires MORE laws that aren’t going to change anything? We are dealing with an artificially propped up market because of government interference.

There are some instances where government is good but there are very very few and this certainly isn’t one of them.

[Shogon]

The state school I went to has doubled in size.

Sky scraping luxury dorms with store fronts on the ground floor even movie theaters. State of the art architecture & facilities where it used to be parking lots.

They are absolutely swimming in cash.

Lol.

[red1]

I got gayed by student loans $50k nearly paid that shit off.


I'm almost at the point where I don't have any sympathy for anyone - it feels good.

[Shogon]

I got gayed by student loans $50k nearly paid that shit off.


I'm almost at the point where I don't have any sympathy for anyone - it feels good.

You ‘got gayed’ by your parents, your high school educators, the government, the banks, the college and yourself.

Banks wouldn’t loan money out the way they do so little Timmy can go study liberal arts or “business” for 4 years with no aim in the world if the government didn’t back the loans. The way the system is set up they assume little to no risk so they don’t care how deep you go. The deeper the better, really.

Everything stems from the guaranteed loans.

All of it.

[Patrick Chewing]

I got gayed by student loans $50k nearly paid that shit off.


I'm almost at the point where I don't have any sympathy for anyone - it feels good.

[sammichoffate]

[QUOTE=Shogon]You

[NBAGOAT]

what if you actually want to study in a stem field. Say you want to go into tech as a software engineer(extremely common now). Boot camp is a possible alternative but a weak one.

[Hawker]

Isn't two thirds of student debt held by women?

[sammichoffate]

Isn't two thirds of student debt held by women?

Doesn't surprise me if that's true, the numbers show that they're more educated than men are now.

[Hawker]

Doesn't surprise me if that's true, the numbers show that they're more educated than men are now.

If you suck at math, you