When one person makes a bad decision it’s reasonable to blame the subsequent problems on them.
When millions of people make a bad decision then you should look at the systemic issues leading to those decisions.
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I’m all for government subsidy for exactly the reasons you state. For college and trade schools. But out of curiosity, does the UK impose any limits on who can go to college or get fees waived? Are other expenses included? Do the schools spend millions on sports complexes, paid for by students? I’m kinda curious about the differences.
The US system is bonkers. Fees for classes are only a small part of expenses. Getting our system under control is going to take more than just writing checks for tuition. That’s likely to make it worse here.
So are many of the people you’re condemning.
You do realize that student loans have been increasingly privatized while other forms of funding (grants and scholarships) have been drying up? There is less loan forgiveness and higher rates for these privatized loans. And fees/tuition have skyrockted over the past decade. And more people have been forced to go back later in life, because of losing a job through no fault of their own. The BA is the new high school diploma, and trust me when I tell you that these kids are not taking basketweaving or even the humanities. The vast majority of them, here at a public university, are doing exactly what they are being told to do - going into growth fields - computer science, nursing, education, etc. These are practical minded, working class kids, for the most part.
The reality is that things have changed from even a decade or so ago regarding cost and financing of school. As I’ve been in school for the last decade, I’ve seen the changes first hand.
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I haven’t lived in the UK for 10 years, so not sure.
But…
Fees have gone up from 1000GBP per year in 1998 to 9000GBP now (okay, it doesn’t have to be 9000, that’s the maxmimum, but I think almost all universities choose that amount). IIRC, the fees are now paid on graduation, rather than up-front (not sure what the deal is if you drop out)
University sports in the UK isn’t a path into professional sport (okay, maybe cricket) it just means you get Weds afternoon off, so I don’t think too much is spent on stadia. But I’d be suprised if the universities don’t still love to spend money on shiny new buildings.
I think that UK fees work similarly to the US - garnishing once you earn over a threshold, written off if you haven’t reached that threshold after a number of years. Not sure about clearing debt through bankrupcy. I think there is a means-tested maintenance loans system for living expenses.
I was lucky. I didn’t have fees - my local education authority paid the university for tuition (this was the way it always worked, everyone was entitled to get their undergraduate degree funded this way), I got a small grant and lived frugally off the bank of mum and dad.
I think that as the student portion of the fees has gone up, the state funding has gone down to match, so the universities aren’t better funded, just the burden has shifted.
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Agreed. I tend to think it’s a combination of dumb systems. I include the people as part of the total system. Not just what context they are making decisions, but what made unprepared to make good decisions. Ying and yang. They can be victims and responsible. You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t borrow more money than you can pay back.
But absolving people of responsibility in their own lives, especially when talking about people who were bright enough to get into college, seems wrong. It seems like teaching people to not be prepared to make good decisions.
Thank you for respectfully disagreeing with me. This is not a problem that will get solved overnight. People are going to have to wrestle with ideas. Thank you for wrestling.
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Obviously your experience is the only experience possible and anyone claiming a different experience is lazy and lying. Why have we never thought to consult you before!
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Agreed, the cost is getting out of control. For reasons related to borrowing. (which I think you said as well). And those can and should be fixed. We happen to disagree on the solution or degree of empathy for those in the mess. But life would be boring if everyone agreed.
So I disagree that students are damned if they do or don’t.
Pick one. Then choose a college that costs less. Same for any degree. There are two year colleges, trade schools, etc. A few hours of research, and a few minutes of math, isn’t too much to ask when planning a career.
If someone wants to borrow a 100 grand to get a masters in Spanish as a no-native speaker, then try to compete with 15 million native speakers, that’s their prerogative. But to complain afterwards? Bleh!
My last semester tuition was twice as expensive as my first semester tuition. Did that happen to you? Mind, that was in the 90’s. From what I hear, it can quadruple between first and last semester these days.
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Thank you, I expected that. 15% is painful, but bearable for most people. I’ll bet there’s some kind of exemption for the poorest of the poor - there usually is, but the rest of us don’t hear about it.
About 60% increase over 5 years. There were also new fees. So I worked more hours. But ate fewer hotdogs. Figured out when they discounted meat just before tossing. Cost less per meal than hotdogs. Taste better too.
The reasons borrowing has gone up so much is that in line with access to cheap and easy student loan credit, schools jack up their tuition. It is almost exactly how housing prices increased with the flood of garbage loans being written to prospective home buyers. Unlike mortgages, there is little ability to shop around for student loans. In many cases the schools are directly in bed with the lenders and dictate the loan choices outside of paltry government loan options.
“Pick one. Then choose a college that costs less. Same for any degree.”
Except at this point the “college that costs less” is practically non existent. Even shit schools jack up their tuition far beyond the possibility of the job prospects of their graduating classes. The alternatives is usually part time (which is not always available) and tends to delay prospects after graduation for employers who want younger staff more likely to be willing to work to death. The only schools which have not seen such dramatic increases in tuition are ivy league schools, due to the large number of rich people buying their way in.
You are hideously out of touch with both the college education environment and employment situation that most people are facing these days.
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The crap level grad school I went to saw a 100% increase in fees they year after I graduated. There are not enough hot dogs to avoid to cover that. Its not like the job prospects got better for grads. Its only because student loan application became more streamlined.
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While I can get your point of view (e.g. people should be responsible for themselves), I think the reality is more complicated and insidious than you portray. The reason there is so many people in that situation is that they have been set up to fail by our society so that someone else can profit. It is not an accident. It has been purposely done to them. And since it has in large part been don through the auspices of Government and the basis of our Government is our people, it’s been done to them by us. We are collectively responsible for letting this happen to our society and we are responsible for fixing it.
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18 year old college students who were told they had to go to college if they wanted to get anywhere in life weren’t necessarily taught to think this rationally about their future and a lot of them didn’t even know what major they wanted, much less what future career they wanted, and many who did ended up switching majors or getting a second degree or switching careers to something unrelated to their education (if they even started in a related field).
You seem to be arguing that everyone should have been well-informed and completely rational in their life-decision-making skills at an early age when many of them were still focused on which school had the best social experience or dorms.
It really just seems like arrogant schadenfreude to say that these people made bad decisions. Sometimes bad options are the only options you’re aware of. Why wouldn’t you want others to have it easier than you had it? Isn’t that more beneficial to society if much less effort and money were tied up in paying off old debts that were necessary to get a decent start in life?
What it really seems to boil down to is that you’re saying they should have been born in a different era when tuition was more affordable, loan conditions were more reasonable, or they should have been born to wealthy, connected parents.
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I agree on the reasons for costs going up. But until students start to shop around for the best value of a university and degree, there is zero incentive to reduce costs. Rather, there’s an incentive to increase them.
If saying people need to make careful decisions is wrong, maybe I’m out of touch, but not in the way you mean. Stats still show that college is a good bet. But it needs to be a wise bet. Not a “Hey, they have great dorms and a winning football team!” bet.
Here’s some fun reading. Not all roses and sunshine. Or necessarily support my views. But it’s interesting.
You seem to be arguing that everyone should have been well-informed and > completely rational in their life-decision-making skills at an early age when many of them were still focused on which school had the best social experience or dorms.
Its a bullshit argument in general, done to make it look like being ripped off was a character flaw as opposed to an ongoing business model. Just like the arguments concerning predatory lending in general which claim its all the fault of the borrower. Never mind the disparity of information and bargaining power between parties. Couple that with outright misrepresentation done on the part of the lenders and schools. Throw in the dearth of suitable alternatives. There is no way prospective students or their families could really make informed decisions on the process. So to demonize them as “just chosing badly” misses the point entirely.
What it really seems to boil down to is that you’re saying they should have been born in a different era when tuition was more affordable, loan conditions were more reasonable, or they should have been born to wealthy, connected parents.
Yes, you nailed it!
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You have no clue what you are talking about. There is no shopping around for the best value of a university and degree. Short of the Ivy League, they ALL jacked up their tuition in order to receive that sweet easy student loan money.
If saying people need to make careful decisions is wrong
Claiming that careful, well informed decisions are even possible in this situation is bullshit. There is too much deliberate misinformation/misrepresentation and outright collusion on the side of the lenders and schools here to claim informed decisions were even possible.
You want to avoid placing any blame on those making a business model on underwriting loans which were nigh impossible for many to pay off. Those who benefit from defrauding the middle class and undermine the chief method of social advancement in our society.
All you have demonstrated is how completely out of touch you are from the facts here.
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Spot on! That is society’s failing. A big one.
I’m not asking people to be completely rational. Human being aren’t. But I’d be impressed with half assedly rational when planning for the rest of your life. You’re right, too often choices of college are driven by the potential social experience. Hey, people are going to make decisions that they believe are going to make them happy. More power to them and good luck. Hope it works.
Just don’t complain when the decisions don’t pan out. Don’t expect someone else to bail you out. It’s harsh, it sucks, but get real. Lot’s of people have shitty circumstances. Having debt due to going to college is not the worst thing.
You seem to be operating under a just world fallacy here. Even if gamblers know they’re taking a chance when they put their money down on the table and can be saddled with the possible outcomes of that decision, they have reason to complain when it turns out that the house is cheating.
The system is broken, so even someone who is fortunate or skilled enough to pay off their loan debt in a short period of time and in a way that doesn’t delay important life decisions (like getting married, having kids, or buying a house), they’ve still been cheated by a broken system. That’s not something to be happy about. It’s like almost getting killed and bragging about it when it’d be better to not have been in danger at all.
Just because others also have shitty circumstances doesn’t mean that injustice and greed shouldn’t be fought where they are found. Are you suggesting that until we end war, hunger, and poverty around the world, we should just take it up the ass on every other issue? There’s no reason not to address this issue now by calling out the wrongdoers and the system, and hopefully electing people who will hold those wrongdoers accountable and fix the system.
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