A call to default on student loans

[G David Bock]

For most, going to college to get a degree is seen as a way to have a better than average paying job, i.e. it's a "capital investment" they plan/hope to make a return on, sufficient to pay-off that investment. The investment is the tuition, books, etc. which might be paid in cash and/or OPM, but the key consideration is it's purpose is for "personal gain".

As a taxpayer, citizen and general consumer I tend to get a bit bent shelling out my hard-earned and limited money to provide some-one else's pathway to a higher income and better lifestyle than what I have.

Plan talk here, you want a career and a $60,000(+)/year job and it requires a college degree, that's an investment YOU make and have no moral or ethic reason to expect others to put out for you to get such.

There are no guarantees in employment and economics. I've had a few ventures in self-employment and small-business that didn't work out as well as hoped/expected. Hard lessons to learn but I paid off the costs and debts uncured in those attempts which had a degree of risk for failure as part of the opportunity being attempted.

When it's your personal gain being pursued, it's your personal responsibilty regards the costs and risks involved.

[Paul Mann III]

Overpaid faculty/staff is a big cause of rising costs of college.

Are they worth it?
Do they really earn it?

(And people complain about Corp. (profit making) CEO incomes? )

I wouldn't know if they are worth it - most of our highest earners aren't professors, and the admins and staff are just pushing paper that didn't affect me.

Glad I got out before I got the tuition hike for the new wave of non-educators.

[Pruitt]

In Louisiana the colleges are losing staff every time Jindal sends in a budget which always have major cuts in education. I have not heard of any College Presidents cutting their staff or salary. The LSU system could use some pay cuts for sure.

Things are so bad at LSU that the Football Department is giving money to the academic side!

Pruitt

[jeffdoorgunnr]

Student loans explained:

You are a student going to a university. You pay $500 a semester to go.
The government starts a loan program and offers to give you $500 in low interest loans that don't have to be repaid until you graduate.
The university sees this loan program. They know you can pay $500 to go to school and that the government will give you $500 to go to school. So, they raise tuition to $1000 and offer to help you get the $500 loan. Now, they don't do that in one fell swoop, but over time they do do it.
You are left with little choice but to get the loan and still pay $500 out of pocket. The university makes more money and they really don't give a rat's patoot that you are going to have thousands in loans to pay off after graduation, that is if you graduate.

That isn't their problem. The university is in business and that's true regardless of whether they are a public or private institution. They have to pay employees, pay utilities, and produce "product."

So, the solution is obvious: Remove government from the equation and watch tuition rates plummet.

to be more accurate today.... you need to add a zero to the end of those amounts..........