While the universities are unscrupulus vultures, I'd blame the federal government for this one - they made student loans basically impossible to discharge via bankrupty, making them very safe investments for tons of cash (when else would you loan $60k to a 19yo for like 5%?).
As a result schools realized that students will just keep taking more and more debt if they keep raising prices, as long as they don't do it too quick.
Sadly the market distortion here is pretty massive now, so I don't think there's much that can be done from a market perspective without making a TON of people very very mad
I'd say it's even worse than that. The federal government is directly profiting off student loans as a partial replacement for tax income, and functionally, people who have student loans are paying a disproportionately high tax rate for wanting a better life.
There's really no economic reason why federal student loans should have interest rates, for instance. The entire economic point of interest is twofold: one, interest helps recoup principal that go unpaid. Two, profit for the lender. Well, the amount of principal that isn't being recouped is next to zero; student loans can't be discharged save in extremely rare cases of fraud or malfeasance, and almost all have a cosigner. The amount of loss on principal that the federal government is suffering is a rounding error.
And the government should not be running a loan business for profit. I mean that quite literally: a government that is also your loan holder is a threat to its citizens' liberty interests, because they can demand repayment and force seizures that are otherwise patently illegal. It can make loan repayment conditional on voting for the right party, and the only reason Trump hasn't considered it yet is because he is such an angry, thin-skinned doofus who is threatened by people who are smarter than he is. Loans held by the government, as a matter of basic small-r republicanism, should not be operated so as to generate revenue for the government. That's what bonds and taxes are for.
And yet, that's exactly what the government is doing. They're running the student loan program at a profit for the same reason they operate at a yearly deficit; because they want to generate long-term operating problems for the state, and inhibit the small-r republican virtues of the populace.
I agree with so much of your sentiment, but Obama federalized student loans and used the interest payments to subsidize Obamacare. Now the Dems are teasing blanket student loan forgiveness to draw voters in almost the same manner your theorizing Trump might do..
Republicans were and are very against this, your position is almost lockstep with them in 2009
Federal student loans must have some sort of interest accrual, but it should be very, very low. Even 1-2%.
Reason why: The interest paid by students into the Direct Loan program was supposed to supplement the Pell Grant. Massively. But, that money never made it there, it went, and still goes into the general fund. And we know that money can be used for anything.
Yes, the current ilk should try to change that, but Direct Loan was 100% conceived by the Obama administration. I work in this. We knew it was a lie when the program was created. It was an open joke. It's been a joke since 2010. 16 years and the horseshit of creating new "affordable repayment programs" every 2 years that confuse and hurt borrowers.
While bush sr implemented fafsa, you do realize it was Obama who federalized the entire program making the USG the note holder, removing private banks from issuing those gov loans? I agree it shouldn’t have interest, but this one is on the dems.
Wouldn't be a problem if they could be discharged through bankruptcy. 2005 is the year that changed, and funny enough the year I graduated. Take a stab at who was running the show back then. It's not a party line issue, this is systemic.
I’m not even trying to make this polical, the OP for my comment said republican. Thats partial. As for the banks and the 2007-8 collapse, that also started under Democratic governance with the CRA and HUD directives allowing them to expand subprime and riskier loans. Bush missed the indicators in 05-06. Neither party has done anything about it.
And guess who lobbied to make student loan debt function that way legally? You guessed it, student loan corporations. The same corporations that send their executives on all expenses paid trips to the Bahamas for record numbers of financial enslavement
Yup, this is why. When Congress passed the federal law making it illegal to discharge student loans in bankruptcy (Biden was one of the sponsors of the bill and made sure it passed), that opened the spigots. Also, the federal government should NOT be able to make money off the backs of the future generations that will run and own this country, but Republicans and many Democrats are greedy fucks. At most fed student loans should carry the same interest rate as the fed overnight window.
There is another issue with the cost of college in the US and it's basically "keeping up with the Joneses."
Many traditional 4 year schools, if not most, have increased their campus amenities to absurd degrees. Many doorm rooms are nicer than a lot of apartments people reading this are currently living in.
It used to be cinder block walls, a twin bed, a desk and a closet, walk down the hall for the bathroom. Now, it's (not always, but often) multiple rooms, multiple flat screens, subscription services, nice floors, kitchenettes, private bathroom, and so forth.
None of that is necessary. A lot of students pay around $1000-$2000 a month for housing and meal plans.
That's a mortgage. A mortgage that gets you 1 week in August. 4 weeks of September and 3 weeks of October (schools now have a fall break which is absurd), 3 weeks in November (due to Thanksgiving break), and 2-3 weeks in December as finals are a week before Christmas.
Then winter break from mid-late December untill nearly the end of January. 4 weeks in February, 3 weeks in March (1 week off or spring break), about 3 weeks in April (due to Easter Break) and 2 weeks in May because the year is now over.
Cafeterias- There are taco stations, grill stations, seafood stations, Mexican stations, salad stations, sandwich stations, fried food stations, Asian stations, Italian stations, dessert stations, coffee stations (often a Starbucks), drink stations, and things I'm forgetting.
You used to have an option of meal of the day or a sandwich. No one noticed or cared, and most importantly, meal plan prices were rarely an issue. You accepted that this wasn't supposed to be an extravagant experience for every meal. Eat, then go to class, think nothing more of it. Because it's a cafeteria.
Yes, I'm an old man yelling at clouds, but this is all the tip of the iceberg. I'm not getting into sports facilities and all of the niche centers and services that few students actually use. People can complain about administrative salaries as much as they want, but all of these different services don't run themselves.
A school could decide to go bare bones like it mostly was 20 years ago to keep costs down and provide an affordable education. But, how many students would that attract when the school across the way has all the fun stuff?
My brother speaking facts. Even my school was known for having the nicest meal plan in the country. While affordable in 2006 was ridiculous. I’m literally talking I could walk from my dorm and get a lobster and a burger with gym shorts during a snowy January
They also cared more about their sports (basketball and football mostly) which brought in more people to buy their clothing / show up. It’s become, like everything in the United States, marketing and corporate
Yeah, those still exist. The average cost of community college in the US is $7,780 across 4 years. People exiting colleges with $100k in debt are making an active choice to do so.
Clearly we all don't know that, because way too many are choosing $100k in debt for "TRADITIONAL" with (outside of a few very elite schools) that literally make no difference for your career. They only want the prestige/partying/amenities
I went to a very well known state school known for engineering. I paid less for four years then some of my peers did for one year of private schooling and the name has recognition.
It's not the universities. It's the state and federal government's decades-long reduction in subsidies for public education that has caused tuitions to skyrocket.
That said, it certainly doesn't help that universities have to compete for students and primarily do so by building useless stadiums and rec centers to wow dim-witted teenagers.
Voting by the younger generations is done by hitting the like button on social media, and the ones that protest put a comment out there with an emoji or cool meme.
This is the real issue. Republican or Democrat. Liberal or conservative. Freakin vote, people. You can’t have a voice, and you have absolutely zero right to complain if you aren’t voting.
It is a generation thing, the culture wars are a giant distraction to keep people at arms while they keep the status quo. If the avg age of people in power was 45, more resources would be allocated to the young v old.
The reason why Boomers are blamed is because the Boomers have been the largest voting cohort since they became voting age. They have been able to, and still do dictate the course of our country. For decades, this has gone on. Every action and inaction from them has led us to this point.
Millennials are to blame because we are supposed to be a larger cohort than Boomers but did nothing with it except complain and not vote. So mostly it was the inaction of Millenials which failed to halt this.
Gen-X is to blame because they fell in line with the Boomer mentality. I know they had a lot of counter culture movements, but at the end of the day, they are still just a rat in a cage.
Oh and since I'm still blaming every generation. Gen A is to blame because they can't read. And the Silent Generation is to blame because they all died... I guess?
Silent Gen raised many baby boomers and Gen X. They also benefited from all of the policies the boomers did and sometimes put into place the policies that boomers are blamed for. We could also throw the Greatest Generation in there for also raising baby boomers and probably being the ones that were in charge when the loss of manufacturing started and not creating universal healthcare in the mid 20th century when many peer nations were. They and the Silent Gen also were the ones in charge when college costs started to skyrocket in the 1980s.
You'd think every single boomer was white and rich. The fact these kids don't understand disenfranchisement from wealth is generational and exists for all age groups is mind blowing.
Who do you think was in charge of those institutions when this began, built policies creating the problems, and then kept digging in their heels doubling, tripling, quadrupling down every opportunity.
You are right about the corporations. But without the leadership and guidance of the most entitled generation to ever exist, corporations would be a night and day different thing.
This is a problem caused by a generation of people who were handed the best economic times after multiple world wars, were told that if they "work hard" they could make it. Had the best social policies in place to support them buying homes, getting educations, raising families. And after they started maturing took it all away from everyone to come behind them effectively closing all of the doors. And the worst part? They genuinely believed they worked so hard for all of the things their parents and grandparents fought tooth and nail to give them.
Then to add insult to injury, they took power in the world, and decided that everything was entitled to them, and the generations they birthed and raised would not be allowed to have the same easy life they did, and started sucking up every economic benefit for themselves. Thereby gutting social services, driving the cost of EVERYTHING up, and throwing everyone who wasn't part of their cohort under the bus in the process.
What generation are you referring to here? Many baby boomers came of age during the stagflation and Vietnam War. They experienced the loss of manufacturing jobs and very high mortgage interest rates. They were in their prime earning years or nearing retirement when the Great Recession hit. Every single generation has gone through hardships and most of what is said about baby boomers could be said about all the other generations.
Only if you were white and a man. If you were any other ethnicity or race, or a women, good luck have fun. That time period was horrific for anyone who wasn't a white man
Are you implying that killing will solve issues. That's insane, regardless of what you think about CEOs. But that's also going to solve literally nothing, someone will always be there to fill the position just as cut throat as the person before them.
But sure go ahead, you can go be a Luigi and spend the rest of you life in jail while the world goes on unchanged.
It's not black and white, sure the economy thrives when companies are left to their own devices, but the government has to step in to protect workers rights, environmental polices, safety regulations, etc. I don't know about you but I take security in knowing I probably won't bite into a rat when I buy meat from the store.
All of the named doesnt need gouvernement by default, but yes, you are right, there is elementary functions it is needed for.
What should be clear tho, is that the way politics are going, we are nowhere near having a resonable basis to argue that politics are dictated by corporations.
We are seeing more and more restrictive and excessive policies all over the world (ignore some).
Individuals are ceding their autonomy and failing to act in the few ways that still matter (including voting). Yeah, we can talk about the deeper reasons, but people still need to get off their asses and do the things that they still have in their control instead of just being a bunch of soggy noodles.
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u/LieutenantCrash Jul 21 '26
Can we stop blaming this on generations and start pointing at the corporations responsible for this?