/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.917493]

Why is student loan debt so vilified? The average amount of student debt is something like $29,000, whereas the average new bachelor's degree holder salary is around $45,000. That amount of debt can be easily paid off by that salary in a few years; much quicker than the 15 or 30 year mortgages that seem so exalted in this country.

It's easy to say "students are tens of thousands of dollars in debt! it's out of control!" but when you look at the numbers it doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

[Anonymous No.917502]

>>917493
The problem isnt the debt itself, its the unstable jobs market preventing students from having a means to pay off that debt coupled with the fact that too many youth are getting psychology and art studies degrees instead of something that isn't a complete and utter wast of time that will starve their future children and create stress in the household where they will eventually get divorced by their highschool sweetheart and accumulate thousands of dollarsbin back child support before developing depression and a agressive smoking habit that destroys their lungs costing more hospital bills that add to more debt with the end result of the previous student loan leading him down the path towards sucking on the end of a shotgun hallelujah.

[Anonymous No.917516]

>>917502
But I love my high school sweetheart. Should I drop out? Making good grades is probably what I'm worst at. I don't mind working, I just don't know what to do...

[Anonymous No.917540]

>>917502
Preach!

[Anonymous No.917555]

>>917502
Psychology degrees get you money, I don't know where you're getting your info.

[Anonymous No.917556]

>>917493
It's not the people of average debt complaining. It's art school kids who pay three times that amount and can't get work.

[Anonymous No.917560]

>>917556
This. I'm gonna have 34k, and while that's a pretty big lump sum, I'll literally just have to pay like 200 a month for 10 years and it'll be gone.

[Anonymous No.917562]

>>917555
IF you can get hired. It's yet another over-saturated field that's hard to overcome the competition due to sheer numbers of people that go to school for it.

[Anonymous No.917565]

>>917560
You should probably check your math on that and calculate interest while you're at it

[Anonymous No.917569]

>>917565
It's what the government repayment estimator says, which factors in all of the interest and such. $254 a month if I do standard, which I most certainly will do income-based repayment.

[Anonymous No.917580]

Going to school completely free on scholarships and government grants. Got my associates in computer science and information technology. Working on getting degrees in database technology and programming at the moment. The government has been paying me a thousand dollars a month for the past three years to get an education that they are paying for. The system works if you know how to use it.

[Anonymous No.917620]

>>917569
Then it's wrong.

254 * 12 * 10 = 30,480

It's missing 3,520 and doesn't account for 10 years of interest, which will be ~15k extra. Your payments will be about $380 per month.

[Anonymous No.917629]

>>917620
It didn't include perkins loans, apparently.
Oh well. And yes, it does account for interest. That's literally the point of the calculator.

https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action

Take a look yourself.

[Anonymous No.917631]

>>917493
>whereas the average new bachelor's degree holder salary is around $45,000
Ahaha. New grads are often stuck without a job or working a shitty low wage job.

[Anonymous No.917637]

>>917620
Don't student loan repayment plans usually adjust the monthly amount to be paid after X number years?

[Anonymous No.917652]

>>917493
kek at plebs who didn't get their schooling paid for. No debt master race here.

[Anonymous No.917653]

>>917637
there's one payment plan that does that

I do not know anybody that has actually signed up for that plan

[Anonymous No.917657]

>>917516
It's simple really.
Ignore the media jew.
Get a job that provides enough money to feed your kids.
Then have heaps.

Easy.

[Anonymous No.917680]

The cost of higher education is a huge problem, but it's not THE problem with the debt, but the fact that there are not enough jobs for college grads

As others above have said, the issue is getting a post grad job that pays enough to justify the debt.

Some people will say that you shouldn't expect a job just by going to college, but the point of college is that they teach you to be a good little goy, not how to start and manage your own business. Not being able to get a job after you graduate means that they are not keeping their end of the deal. If you were going to start your own business, you could easily learn it as you go and with the internet and just used that tuition money as start up capital.

If you wanna see how bad it actually is, then hop over to /sci/ and you'll see that we're now in the early stages of STEM getting fucked in the ass the same way that liberal arts majors currently are.

Engineering majors in Canada are fighting tooth and nail for engineering jobs that don't pay that much more than minimum wage. Applications for medical school are at all time high.

Fields such as pharmacy and law have already taken it in the ass. You literally can't come out of school without ~200k+ in debt and then you're taking whatever you can get.

The hilarious thing is that college tuition and even post graduate programs such as medicine, law, pharm, etc, are increasing more than inflation.

I used to give serious replies to all these college major threads on /sci/ and /biz/, but it just feels like a broken record at this point. I would tell someone not to go to school unless they are dead serious about excelling at it. If you wanna party and fuck around with average grades, then higher education is not for you.

[Anonymous No.918007]

>>917680

Seems to me that accounting is a solid choice, and probably finance too. Just so happens they're "boring and tedious" and normalfags would rather work with tangible things than abstract financial representations.

The real problem is outsourcing and immigration. Send half our jobs to India and import shitskins to take the other remaining half.

Plus the general declining economy. It will never be what it was in the 50s-80s. All that bloat has popped and dissipated. We're in a crunch where companies need to be more and more efficient, consumer pockets are tighter and tighter. So they fire anyone they can get away without. The jobs are not growing at the same rate as the population, and never will again, and we'll never have that kind of employment ever again. The unemployment and underemployment gap is going to continue to widen until we are back in serfdom again, which honestly is the only stable economic structure. Keeping in mind we've used other nations like china and mexico as our serfs in recent decades.

It was never sustainable for this many people to expect good jobs. Right now we're just waking up to reality.

[Anonymous No.918012]

>>917653
There are a few taht do that. Graduated just gradually increases the amount you pay. I'll be doing the income-based repayment plan unless I have some really nice job after graduation.

[Anonymous No.918038]

>tfw the student unions of Finland are organizing demonstrations because the financial aid for students is being cut like 3%
At the moment the students get free education (tuitions are basically illegal), ~500 euros as student pay monthly from the government + 4000 euros of student loan (at 0,5% interest backed by the government) yearly.

Sometimes I wonder if we're getting spoiled

[Anonymous No.918042]

>>917493
the price of books and other dubious things

[Anonymous No.918050]

young people are expected to replace the meaningful life events of ~18-30 with debt repayment. there is a whole checklist of 'responsible behaviors' (including becoming indebted to the government, the real estate industry, the auto industry) before you are 'allowed to' seek out stable love relationships, a family, your "life purpose," etc.

how is it that a 25 year old man with a wife and two kids is irresponsible (look at the entirety of human history and the 'undeveloped' world?) but it's encouraged to get a $30k note on a toyota once you get steady work?

[Anonymous No.918077]

>>918050
Yeah but you should know better than that if youre on /biz/. Fuck what society says you should be, society can only train you to be a slave.

[Anonymous No.918111]

>>918038
Finnish will whine about anything... While standing outside in -20 degree weather in their underwear like they're on a tropical beach.

[Anonymous No.918140]

I read some statistics that half of UK grads go into (low paid) jobs that don't require a degree... these people are fucked really.

[Anonymous No.918172]

>>917493
Sure, works great if you're at or above average. If you're one of the many on min wage, not so much.

[Anonymous No.918182]

Let me explain this in simple terms. Firstly, imagine not "student loan" but paying up front for the education received. I'm from the UK and for my 4 years of studying I accrued £25,985.12 of debt.

Even at face value, without considering living costs and money/experience lost by not working 4 years, let's address what that amount of money has "purchased". A piece of paper which recognises that you are educated in X field. In a couple of years, I could have covered the material in my course in my own time, free of charge.

Now let's look at the alternative. My home cost £100k, but you could easily find home at £50k, which is the cost of putting myself and a partner through higher education. A house is something tangible, built on land that has value, built with materials that have worth by labourers whose services cost money. If I live in that house, it has concrete value as it allows me to survive, raise a family and have a place to sleep each night. If I rent out that house, it provides passive income via rent.

I've often made the argument, despite being the only one in my family to go to university in 50+ years, that simply knowing what I wanted and pursuing it after leaving high school would have been more valuable. Even if I'd spent 2 years (college) working minimum wage as I learn my skills for a career, I would still be in my career 4 years younger and £25,000 richer in the long term. As an investment (on paper), education and the debt it creates is a poor decision. The only reason it has any merit is the economy being shit, employers being picky and requiring degree level education for easy entry into most job roles.

[Anonymous No.918183]

>>918140
thats because labour fucked the university system by trying to make everyone go to uni. guess what, when demand increases and supply (university places) doesnt, the prices go up. people who should have gone into a trade and made a good career out of it instead got pushed into uni, where they werent cut out for a serious degree so they do media studies or psychology or whatever, so they spend 4 years spending upwards of $60000 for a worthless piece of paper

socialists, not even once

[Anonymous No.918187]

>>918182
where the fuck do you find a home costing 100k?

[Anonymous No.918192]

>>918187
Places that aren't London. North West specifically. Less desirable properties in the nearest 5 miles are £50k.

[Anonymous No.918197]

>>918192
crazy, a 2 bedroom in cambridge is 300k at least

[Anonymous No.918591]

Guys I majored in International Affairs I should make bank right?

[Anonymous No.918613]

>>918591
On a semi-related note, I'm currently in my "gap year" at 18, saving up for either college or some kinda trade school.
Was thinking of majoring in International Business with a minor in Japanese, is that a feasible life choice or are Business degrees all as fucked as I've heard they are?

[Anonymous No.918616]

>>918613
>are Business degrees all as fucked as I've heard they are?
What have you heard?

[Anonymous No.918621]

>>918140
It was the same here in the US a couple of years ago. Still might be. Everyone is trying to save themselves by jumping ship to "safe" majors (pic related).

>>918183
Exact same shit happened / is happening here in the US.

[Anonymous No.918623]

>>918616
just that they're too vague and pointless, like Lib Arts
haven't actually checked up on it, probably wouldnt take more than a google search

[Anonymous No.918627]

>>918623
'business' runs the gamut from management to relatively advanced mathematics

[Anonymous No.918635]

>>918621
is that a graph of enrollment in CS and engineering? Because that will annihilate engineering wages.

[Anonymous No.918640]

>>918623
Sounds like something /sci/ would say.

[Anonymous No.918649]

>>917493
Because people decide to attend programs that are out of their means in the first place. Or they undergo schooling for 8-10 years while racking up outrageous loans.

When they can't find a job that justifies all this. They start to blame the governments and banks for their "predatory" loans

[Anonymous No.918656]

>>918621
This is neglecting the fact that most people who are engineers freshman year are not by the time they graduate.

[Anonymous No.919598]

>>917493
>The average amount of student debt is something like $29,000,
How is that possible? That's less than a single year's tuition at a decently cheap public uni in state. Does this "average amount of debt" count people who took one year and realized they couldn't pay that shit back and immediately quit, and those who've paid everything but a dollar off through decades of slaving away? Because otherwise I cant see how.

[Anonymous No.919868]

>>917493
>The average amount of student debt is something like $29,000

That's assuming you don't get out of state, use it for books, don't get master/change your major, don't get sucked into Private/For Profit, don't drop out,etc.

There is millions of ways you can fuck up during college.

>It's easy to say "students are tens of thousands of dollars in debt! it's out of control!" but when you look at the numbers it doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

Student Loan debt is reaching to a trillion. It's getting to the point where Student Loan have surpassed Housing/Car/Credit Card in total debt.

How do you expect yourself to make a family, buy a car, and have decent standard of living for a degree that isn't worth much? 29k/ 45k is a big hole in your purchasing power.

That's a objectively shitty ROI if a internship has more valuable then a fucking 29k+ degree that can't be discharged like your Credit Card/House/Cars.

[Anonymous No.919870]

>>919598
You must be from America, kek.

[Anonymous No.919889]

simple fact is that socialism does not, cannot and will never work.

life itself is a zero sum game. For someone to lead a good life, another has to suffer.

[Anonymous No.919941]

>>919868
>Student loans have ballooned tenfold since 1999 to more than $1 trillion, the authors note in a July report. Other consumer debt—mortgages, car loans, credit cards—dipped during the 2008 financial crisis, but student debt doubled from $547 billion in 2007, nearly all of it on Education Department books. The Philly Fed is the first to examine how mortgaging an education influences entrepreneurship.

>Here’s the connection: Entrepreneurs borrow money to get rolling. But the average student-loan customer owes $28,000 and so some enterprising adults are loaded up with debt, even decades after graduation. Nascent business (with no employees) report capital of about $44,000, according to a recent survey; half comes from loans and lines of credit.

Also if they doesn't show that the Tuition prices are whack, nothing will.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-student-loan-siphon-1440803595

[Anonymous No.919967]

>>919889
>life itself is a zero sum game. For someone to lead a good life, another has to suffer.
wut? Someone increasing their quality of life doesn't automatically negate someone else's. There's probably a correlation between relative wealth and individual happiness to some degree but you're really over exaggerating. Not everyone is a masochist.

[Anonymous No.920039]

>>919598
>That's less than a single year's tuition at a decently cheap public uni in state
Maybe in your state, cuck. Here in the midwest it's like 10k a year for tuition (of course another 10 for room and board though).

But the simple fact is that the vast majority of students get at least some grants or scholarships to help them with the cost. And many more have their parents pay a good chunk of it or pay a good chunk of it themselves.

[Anonymous No.920047]

>>919941
Well what does anyone expect? The price of tuition started skyrocketing the second the Department of Education was founded. That FAFSA that the government is convinced helps people actually just provides the university with much more perfect information about how much everyone is willing/able to pay. It's literally a service to universities to price discriminate, and it's proven extremely successful. If it were all demand, as so many argue, we'd expect to see price go back down once new colleges enter the market. Well colleges have been popping up like crazy for the past two decades and growing tremendously and tuition costs have been steadily inclining anyway.

[Anonymous No.920048]

>>919889
>life is a zero sum game
You know, mercantilism was disproved by Ricardo a long fucking time ago, m8.

But aside from trade, you're completely ignoring any and all externalities. The benefits of higher education don't just go purely to the individual receiving the education.

[Anonymous No.920252]

The problem is people are losing their value in general. Degrees don't have economic value by themselves and education doesn't solve the problem of high paying jobs.

Socialism is literally the only acceptable future.

[Anonymous No.920254]

>>920047

One problem is that universities create standards which are makework projects for themselves. There needs to be the options of testing and online courses which cost next to nothing.

The government(muh evil regulation) needs to force public universities to accept these claases for credit.

[Anonymous No.920258]

>>918623
They have spacialized Business Degrees you know like Agribusiness then its as not vauge.

[Anonymous No.920316]

I'm 33 now. I'm 11 years out of college and I have about 19k of loans because I was really smart with aid (my family was upper middle class so I didn't get as much as many did, we just didn't qualify but also didn't have excess to pay for my schooling, which was the most expensive out of the three kids.

While living at home I busted my ass to pay off my student loans always more than the minimum even if it was only $100 over. Then aggressively as I earned more. During that time I paid off my car loan as well and any credit card debt, plus invested 100k+ into combined 401k and Roth IRA accounts, as well as 20k for a wedding, (fiance saved 20k too) and got the engagement ring fully paid off etc.

I'm currently unemployed but busting my ass. Had I not had stable employment for several years this wouldn't be possible.

[Anonymous No.920341]

>>919598
>That's less than a single year's tuition at a decently cheap public uni in state.

lol wut

My university is rated number one for my major and my in state tuition was ~$9k a year bare bones.

I went to community college for 2.5 years, so I didn't even have two full years at the university, so my total bill was less than $18k for my entire degree.

Paying more than $10 a year for a degree is just full retard and not going to community college first is doubling down on going full retard

[Anonymous No.920350]

>>920254
Meh, a lot of the online stuff is inferior quality, so i can see the actual issues. I agree that government policy is the answer, though. Even if it was government policy that got us in the mess.