A Student Loan Nightmare: The Teacher in the Wrong Payment Plan
All of this insanity could be solved if student loans were treated like any other loan. If student loans could be dismissed in bankruptcy then it would align the interests of lenders and students. As is in the current system, since loans cannot be dismissed, it turns into practically guaranteed profit for the lenders. In the worst case they can garnish wages so the equation changes from repayment to lifetime earnings of at least $x --- loans as &#x27;lifetime rent&#x27; packages.<p>This has completely bastardized education in purpose, cost, and quality. The US now literally pays more per capita [1] for higher education than Germany. Germany has subsidized &#x27;free&#x27; education for everybody, including foreigners.<p>Like all things, I&#x27;m certain the current system started out with good intentions -- probably with some good feeling and wholesome name like &#x27;equal access to education act.&#x27; But instead of positively changing things, it seems to mostly have just distorted what was already there. For instance giving a loan, which now regularly surpass 6 figures as tuition raises in response to the availability of &#x27;free&#x27; money, for somebody to go study a field that&#x27;s going to have no meaningful impact on their future earnings is simply exploitative. It&#x27;s take advantage of naivete and the inability to dismiss that loan. Nobody in a million years would do that if loans could be dismissed.<p>This would leave the less productive degrees to be primarily the domain of the &#x27;bourgeois&#x27; and I don&#x27;t really see that as a problem. Their family and connections can subsidize the value of such education if they see fit -- people from less privileged backgrounds do not have that luxury. And those from less privileged backgrounds are arguably even more susceptible to the belief that if they just get a degree, any degree, they&#x27;ll be able to get, nay - be entitled to, a great job. Less privileged tends to imply that one&#x27;s parent(s)s did not manage to obtain &#x27;great jobs&#x27; themselves, and so may be less aware of the conditions to find such a job. In any case, the intersection of this myth and reality is something that never ends well.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nces.ed.gov&#x2F;programs&#x2F;coe&#x2F;indicator_cmd.asp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nces.ed.gov&#x2F;programs&#x2F;coe&#x2F;indicator_cmd.asp</a>