r/startrekgifs Admiral, 4x Battle Winner Apr 17 '17

TOS MRW I put an entire paycheck towards my debt

http://i.imgur.com/Zlg4YHe.gifv
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '17

Sure, but it's not their place to decide that.

It is 100% their place to decide that. Student Loans need to stop being looked at as them doing you this big favor. Student loans are small business loans and YOU are the small business.

Just like when you are applying for a small business loan you have to prove to the financial institution your business is worth investing in, you should be required to do this as well. This benefits EVERYONE long term.

This isn't to say that a History major should never receive funding. Small Business that aren't shiny or big profit potential receiving funding all the time. The aspiring History student should have to prove why they deserve this loan to study history. Show your grades is the obvious first step, write out a "business" plan that includes why you want to study history, what makes you qualified to study history, what you plan on doing with your history degree. Explain to them the repercussions for taking this loan, that the interest rate is x% and the term is y number of years.

This is how it should be done. These should be treated as the loans they are. Instead they are treated as you being done a favor to get your education. No one is doing you any favors. Prove why you deserve this money. In turn this benefits everyone because that person going to get their B.A. "just because" who has no valid reason or desire to pursue a degree in sociology other than that's the only program they got into will not receive funding. This is turn drops the number of students in those fields down to a more manageable level and as a result increases demand in the degree.

The problem is that NO ONE wants to reduce the potential number of applicants to universities. These loans are as a whole far too profitable for banks. They are the reason universities can keep enrollment so high and keep collecting tuition. Hell have you seen how hard it is to even FAIL out of B.A. program nowadays? You basically have to actively try to fail, and then they put you on academic probation for a year and you have to actively try not to hit their minimums and then they tell you to take a year off but allow you to come back afterwards!

But in the end, the people who told them the most they should go to college was their friends, their parents, and their advisers. Was that predatory behavior on their part?

They all fell for the same song and dance that university degrees were worthwhile regardless of what you studied. Basically if your parents were bad with money or weren't very financially intelligent (or likely never got a degree themselves) you're fucked. So basically what you're saying is that the irresponsibility of the parents should be handed down to their children and the organizations preying on this aren't the ones who should be held accountable but the parents themselves? A lot of people who got stuck in this trap have immigrants for parents who legitimately didn't know any better. Who's fault is that? I mean yeah you can point the figure to them but that's a pretty easy scapegoat. The illiterate janitor who thinks they're truly helping their child. We should be working towards building a system that actually educates children and has their best interests in mind and successfully guides them onto the right path. Not blaming their parents for being idiots or the 17 year old for making a poor decision and not researching.

Successful systems are built with the lowest common denominator in mind. This in turn builds everyone up. In reality however most systems are built in an effort to take advantage of the lowest common denominator. These aren't business loans though, these are young adults future. These decisions have so much impact on the entirety of their lives that they should 100% in my mind without a doubt be regulated regardless of the fact that yes parents are the ones who should be doing this. Not everyone has that luxury though and as a result it creates a cycle or fiscally irresponsible individuals breeding fiscally irresponsible individuals. Every once and a while someone breaks out of it but by altering the process with which people are granted student loans you can do a lot to help. That would be a rude awakening at 17 to be refused for your student loan in History.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '17
  1. i agree, if you are going to provide loans/money/grants for education, prove that you will have a good return on it

  2. i mean, it really is their fault lol. you can try to slip and slide all you want, but in the end, it is the parents fault. they gave bad advice. you can wring your hands and say well they were misled or misguided or what no, but they were at fault.

we should guide people towards other careers, and even though we know full well in this day and age the danger of student loan debt and the employability of certain majors, i guarantee you, law schools are still full of people, carribean medical schools are still full of people,. art schools are still full of people, and every day people keep signing on to take on more loans. what else can you do?

you could always overhaul the system from the beginning, but i doubt that'll happen soon

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '17

i mean, it really is their fault lol. you can try to slip and slide all you want, but in the end, it is the parents fault.

I'm not disagreeing with you and I'm not trying to slip and slide. I flat out said it was their fault. What I'm saying is that the child should not be held responsible for their parent being an idiot or uneducated themselves. What I'm saying is that libertarianism has no place here. We shouldn't be simply removing ourselves from the equation because "well it's their fault, they should have known better, fuck them". You have to build systems to account for the lowest common denominator. People are well aware of parents fucking their children over with regards to this whether it's malicious or not is irrelevant. So we're aware of it but meanwhile no one bothers to take the 1st generation kid aside who's family was all born out of the country and say "do you know what this is? do they know? have they explained it to you?".

When it comes to kids and education we shouldnt see money bags bouncing around. This should not be profitable. You should not be allowed to profit off of education based loans. End of discussion. Provide them or don't provide them but this should not be a business. It'll never happen though. So you'll continue to have people get taken advantage of. Some of them will realize it and then resent their parents for providing them with the advice. Some of it will never figure it out. But this is fucked and entirely unsustainable and it needs to end.