[insert cliché “you’re just jealous of their success” non-defense of Wall Street sociopathy here]
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True that is a concern, I think that the proliferation of online education materials that are free/low cost will help. What we really need is open platform for creating courses (by people who know the materiel) where the user has a significant time and effort level to invest bur can come out with marketable skills (where applicable, obviously you cant learn 100% of welding online). Something more than just lectures, reading and tests; more interactive and smart so that the individuals weaknesses can be strengthened.
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Well, but my argument is that non-“marketable” skills do actually matter, and that it shouldn’t be a privilege of wealth to be able to do more than just inform yourself on the humanities. Those of us who are lucky enough to have free time to read books outside of our given field of labor are already a privilege bunch, to be sure, one that should be considered more a human right than just a privilege.
But do we really want to move away from having people from different socio-economic backgrounds producing scholarship (which it has been since the 60s)? It’s that scholarship that informs lay readership (doing things like producing textbooks, writing op-eds and long form thought pieces, discussing current events on TV, and so on). That’s really my big concern. I can tell you that I come at my work from a very different perspective than people who came from more wealthy backgrounds. If we decide that “non-marketable” skills that including thinking don’t matter in everyone’s basic education, we’re basically saying the only people who get to “think” and produce knowledge for a living are the rich.
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I’d really like to see all student loans zeroed out, and the U.S. copy Germany and provide free tuition for all.
Of course that’s too idealistic to ever happen. Terrible things will happen! The banking industry will collapse! Taxes will skyrocket! People will get educated!
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I still feel guilty for dropping out of my doctoral program.
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Why in the world would you do that?
The problem is, if you go back to grad school, for example, or cannot find a job after graduation and thus apply for a hardship hiatus for 6 months or a year, the INTEREST still accrues, so by the time you’re able to start paying again, you have more to pay off.
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I’m confused if this is “eat the rich” or “eat the poor”
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And that’s the fault of students/youth how?
I’ll take that on a bumper sticker to go, please.
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Good luck selling artisinal wood shavings when there’s no one who can afford them at a price that will keep you middle class. You need a rock solid consumer base for these to be efficient professions and we’re seeing the decimation of people who will call on those vocational skills at a good margin. Then there’s the low barrier to entry. Welding is a fine skill, but I can learn to weld relatively quickly and cheaply. Enough people get the memo that welding is the way to go and either the skill gets devalued OR protectionism kicks in and we’re back to closed guilds.
The problems we face are systemic. You can try to make good decisions on an individual basis, and we all try, but no one here actively controls the way the economy will look like ten years from now.
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Sorry, forgot to add /s
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And for other, not young, students who took on loans to further their career (that would be me - needed to complete my BSN) sometimes we don’t have the means to pay up front for very expensive classes. It’s not always a matter of being clueless or misinformed, sometimes its the only workable option.
I hate that I took on the debt, but my options were extremely limited if didn’t. I take that as an indictment of how the current college financial system is untenable.
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I give up. How?
Untenable and driven by the worst case of mass-apathy I’ve ever seen. To anyone who thinks that college students with massively unpayable loan debt don’t need a bailout or even get the ability to discharge through bankruptcy, I say this: If you are on fire, I will not so much as piss on you to put it out. Because that’s very much the situation you’re happy to put me in, and I see no reason to treat you differently. I can shrug and walk away too. Everyone else in that situation would have me trying to smother the flames with my body if I can find nothing else to put them out, but you, you scum of the earth? If I know who you are, you get nothing from me. And that goes for everything that I can possibly give you or help you with. You better keep that shit a secret from me.
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So, I’m a lawyer (but not your lawyer, obviously) and the reporting on this didn’t sound right at all. I tried to look up the case on PACER, but I couldn’t find any cases in Texas with that guy as a defendant (that doesn’t mean much though, probably just filed somewhere else and/or I don’t know how to use PACER). Anywho, I don’t practice much in Federal Court (except immigration court), but here is a quick run down of a hypothetical situation in California that could lead to results similar to those complained about here.
- Plaintiff gets judgment against Defendant (either through winning at trial, default, or settlement agreement)
- Defendant doesn’t pay judgment
- Plaintiff asks for “judgment debtor’s exam” (where you can call the Defendant in to explain where his assets are).
- Defendant doesn’t appear at debtor’s exam one or more times.
- Plaintiff can request that a civil bench warrant be issued and served by county the sheriff.
So, yea, best guess, this whole thing is way more about a judgment, not the source of the judgment (in this instance, a student loan).
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Yeah, I was just playing along. The only time I ever hear about people with multiple PhD’s is on TV shows. “Oh, they are so smart” is what the writers want us to think but “Oh, they like living on 18K a year and taking qualifying exams” is what I actually think.
(Right now, I’m teaching in two different departments. In one department, I’ve got a PhD and am teaching an intro level course. In the other, I’m teaching a somewhat higher level course and I’ve got an undergraduate concentration.)
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Sounds like you need more PhDs! They’re so devalued these days, who knows how many it takes to equal one from back in the day.
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The debt wasn’t why he got hauled in, ignoring repeated court orders and refusing to show up was. His crime here was only tangentially related to debt.
It’s badly misguided economic policy to trap so much working household income in debt service and at the same time disincentivize education and professional credentialing — and esp. when inequality is already such a severe problem.
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