Bitcoin Forum

Had to share it :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4n6nJ8FiF4

The government is considering erasing the student debt which means it would go into debt to pay them back then provide more public education which means it will go more into debts and raise the costs of college!

Yes, plain and simple

Sounds good to me, don't think anybody should have to pay for their own education.

The price of education in the United States is too high, leaving people unable to study without having a ridiculous debt, but having the state take care of all of the student's education bills can create even more problems. Imho, paying for educations makes the student give more value to his efforts, and it's a good incitative for him not to fail his classes or take more years of university than necessary.

Canada's system seems fine, where the student pays about 25% of his tuition fees.
The rest is paid by the state as an investment to get a population which has a better intellectual value.

Yeah I agree it can give students more incentive to study hard if you have to pay student fees,  but that's assuming they'll have the money or potential future earning to pay off the debt.

good for banks, good for govt.  invest in FAS

If the debt is not ridiculous like the one in the United States, that's not a problem since their education should provide them with better means to make money.

In Quebec, tuition fees are about 3000$ per year, which I believe is easy to pay-back as soon as you get a job, and it's a good incencitive to be serious about what you study.

Unfortunately this will never happen.  Don't say you think the Government is actually thinking about doing this

It would be absolutely amazing if it did!

Some people will bitch about it being unfair, how do you decide when the cut off is.


It is absolutely insane how much you have to pay.  I know from experience...I don't even have it that bad.

There are couples who have over 100,000 in student loan debt.  Basically it means they pay $800+ a month for 20 years if not longer. They need to be looked at and re-evaluated...Hopefully in like 2 years they will be good.

Sure go ahead it.... Wait, you mean with the tax money I sent them?
Hell no!

Why should the government do that? They did not help with my tuition, nor did they pay off my home loan. So I should not have to pay off someone's loan then compete for jobs against them. If a student can't pay off their loans then they should drop out.
Welcome to the real world. 

So when did you graduate college, how much loans did you acquire?  What % were you getting charged. 

My guess is you have no idea what is happening to college students at the moment or how unfair it is to be a younger person.  Just a guess but that is what it sounds like, My guess is you are around 45-50.

You are right about my age! But I as a teacher I am aware of the ballooning student debt and the unholy laws that preclude debt elimination. However, that does not lead me to the idea that the government should pay off the loans. Loans are contracts entered into freely. You obligate yourself when you sign.
It is unfair to young people that so many of our systems and policies have an utter disregard for the future. But that is the world we all have to live in now. If you are like me and dislike this reality then let's change the world. That's a much better option than asking for a bailout without changing the conditions that led to the problem.

I don't know about them paying it off...But they need to be looked at.  I know my brother and his wife have well over $130,000 dollars in student debt.  Some have even more than that.  Basically you need a full time job just to pay for your student loans. 

My biggest problem is the way the government pays for students from different countries to fly out here, provides them money to live, free housing, and free college.  Yet the rest of us are paying 8% loans for the next 20 years of our life...trying to get by. 

Interest rates need to be reduced and so does the overall cost of tuition.  Schools don't need to make as much money as they do.

What they should do is reduce the interest rate for the entire loans you receive to 0% for the duration  and 12 months after you get out of college(either graduate or not)  This will at least give people a chance to pay some on the principal as they can.  They also need to reduce the rate, would be nice to get about a 4% loan instead of the whopping 8 the government gives out.

This along with say, $10,000 dollar deduction for a 4 year degree(so roughly $2,500 a year)  would help out tons. 

But they also need to help the people that are currently in debt as well, as to that the only solution is to either change the interest rate by a lot, or have the government pay off a certain % of loans...

I would love to get this changed.

I think we are basically in agreement. Something has to be done or we may loose our global advantage in education. I would start by not taking a loan under those terms. Rates must have a market and if enough people refuse to pay more than 4% then that will become the rate. (assuming it is still profitable).

A lot of blame also lies with the schools. They are used to spending as much as they like and expecting that students will accept rate hikes and keep paying. That era is gone. Schools are going to have to get lean and competitive to survive.

Bottom line for me is that these changes are going to come from students who refuse contracts and not from government. It is not the governments role to protect you from your own bad decisions by giving you money taken from people who made better choices.

Please elaborate, that is exactly how it works.  The higher the tuition the higher the loan amount you have to have.  You don't think schools make money on Tuition?  Please explain, would love to hear

I agree with you, but the hard part is, getting the first group of people to do it.  It is extremely hard to get a job without a college degree.  Since historically the rates have gone up, the tuition has also gone up, people are even scared to wait so they can get locked in. 

What happens to the people that wait a few years and essentially go on Strike from school?  Well they lose a few years of education pretty much, that isn't very fair for them.

Unfortunately I think the only way to fix this is to have the government step in and take care of it, lower the cost of tuition, more grants/scholarships, lower the rates, pay some of the current loans off for students.  Make it easier to life, it will pick the economy up in such a good way.

 
They say that education is for the public good, but the schools fail to teach the most important things that would help the species. Things like financial responsibility, logic, the socratic method, and critical thinking are barely taught even in college for most degrees. Reciting course material doesn't make you smart, being able to see things as they are does.

You guys need to watch the video in the first message : erasing students debt means the government will go into debt so people who didn't go to college pay for those who did
The students have more debt through the government debt than students debt and the price of tuition is going up because of the state intervention; going to college to do a job that doesn't need a college degree is inefficient; the middle class has been shrinking as more and more people go to college!

Why I agree with Supply and Demand aspect of it and the who decides part slightly....

Do you honestly believe that?  Are you one of those people who think Professional athletes don't get paid enough for what they do?  I am all for supply and demand, but at certain points.  There is just being greedy and taking too much money.

Indeed. It will only get worse. Cost of university in the USA is already sky high, and with crap for-profit schools like Phoenix University churning out millions of useless degrees, the value continues down....

People are too selfish to try and do what's best for everyone.

I think it's a crime and injustice to all the people who worked hard to liquidate their debt. It's all those dumb-dumbs that studied theater in college.

Umm, really?  I studied Computer Science along with a lot of my friends that did.  I graduated and am now starting out.  I make decent money but I also pay $250 dollars a month in student loans for the next 20 years.

Every year colleges get worse and worse, and the rates go up, so even if you did get rid of your debt, great for you.  People still need a break and hopefully it will happen by the time it will matter for me and actually help me out.

That's quite the oversimplification. If you take a closer look at the job market, wages and opportunities have plummeted, benefits are being phased out en masse. When I graduated with BA and paralegal cert, I was competing with out-of-work lawyers for part-time legal support work. The preparation for middle class life that college was supposed to be is no more, and through perverse incentives, increasingly poor people are pushed towards education as subsidies drive the price up persistently.

Given money to college is a bit like giving money to everyone to start a new business

Well there is your problem. You studied crap. You are just like an accountant. Overhead. Don't contribute much to the whole. I promise you wouldn't have this problem if you were passionate about computer science and majored in it.

Also, your fields is localized and very narrow in terms of global scope. At least when you work in IT or computer science you play in a global marketplace.  Your opportunities are pretty grand.  I can move to Sweden or Italy or Germany and milk my skill set to make a living. What the hell can a lawyer or accountant do in another country they're unfamiliar with. Flip burgers.

A theater major is even more worthless. Yes I'm harsh, but that's reality.

LOL. I'm glad you are apparently quite satisfied with yourself and your computer science background. But are you joking that accountants aren't highly in demand worldwide by every mid-sized and up company? Who do you think runs the books in major multi-national companies? Shit, every IT person I've met in my career were just cogs in the machine. Clearly you view this from within the scope of your anecdotal experience, and don't care to address the issues at hand. That's fine. But the question of education in the scope of macro-economics, and with a productive economy in mind, are a little beyond the clearly biased views you present here.

Can they do that ? i know they can. Do they want to do that ? i don`t think so.
what if debt could be payed in bitcoins ?

I owe 6 digits of debt and I think this is an assinine idea.  Passing on debt to taxpayers collectively is stupid.  I have kids and I know that college will be difficult, but not every person should be going to college.  I think people assume you go do your 4 years and you can just walk out with a 6 figure job.

America needs to reorganize and have more technical schools for trade.  In India and China you path into medicine from high school more or less.  In Mexico you only have 6+3 years of schooling after 6th grade to become a physician.  In the US it's 12 grade school, 4 college, 4 medical school - there was so much redundancy in college I was bored out of my mind but the school would let me test out of all the AP classes I took in high school.

The solution is not to get rid of the debt (although it wouldn't hurt to drop the interest rate).  The solution is to recognize why it costs 1/4 million dollars to educate somebody with a BS.  Unless they're raising Plato or Socrates from the grave it shouldn't cost that much.

it's pretty obvious you know nothing about operating a mid-sized or large company. no such company could survive without competent accounting and legal departments. and IT is just another such department, and yes, you are most definitely expendable too. ;)

There is no such thing like free education, someone will need to pay for the debts, but will be all the tax paying people, even those without the benefits of education, an by coercion.

So the right questions are:

should everyone pay for the students debts, or only those who accepted go into debt to get study?

and

is it worth take such high loans to get educations?


I think 100k would make way more return if invested in bitcoins and with non-university courses no than with student loans

Every citizen benefits from living in a society which has a high level of educations. Countries who have a more educated population need to spend less to fight crime and on the health system, plus they produces more workers who are useful in the global economy and thus are able to pay more taxes which benefits everybody.

Free education is not a good solution, but it should really be more accessible in the United States.

Nah. You're skillset is worthless. Move on.



Nah. Clearly you're a bozo.



I couldn't agree more with everything said.



Correct. And America's secret weapon is the H1B.  Sucks up all the brilliant minds around the world in exchange for work in the biggest economy and citizenship. There is a reason 50%+ PhDs in the US are foreign born. Some universities have 100% PhDs foreign born. Most of the elites are in high-tech and high-sciences.  Lawyers, accountants, etc. are all worthless people. All overhead. All those 'jobs' can be simplified and reduced to nothing. Plus they do no good to the world as a whole. Engineers and scientists build things that benefit the masses. I have no respect for anyone less.

it should be easier to get an education.. the more educated people are, the less shit government can pull. problem is, government doesn't want educated people.

Not only that, but people don't want educated people.  The general public seems to hate smart people.

I think there is a huge problem....It needs to be looked at and changed.

For those of you who say crap like"Don't make people forgive their debt"  What are people supposed to do with they are way up in 6 digit loans?  It is unrealistic to pay them for 20 years...you are looking at around $1000 dollars a month for 20 years.  

I personally think they should lower the interest rate and lower the schools tuition.  Would be very helpful.

general public? i don't think so. i think the general public is okay with that. a lot of it is republicans who shame you for having an education. there are many examples, but one was from rick santorum in the 2012 primaries where he used airquotes to talk about people who go to "college." he even said something like "those educated people are not like us at all."

This might only stem from jalousy, from not having had the means to get a good education.

Making education more accessible, thus making the population generally smarter, would probably help in solving that problem.

It is easier to get an education.  We have computers now. We have internet. We have YouTube. We have so many new tools thanks to technology that requires us to change our way of action.

I learned how to design and code (front and back end) early in highschool thanks to video lectures I was able to gain access to and stream online.  Built huge websites pushing 20Gbps in traffic with millions of registered members and a very sophisticated, custom-built script.  This was outside of the useless shit I was learning in school.  I was passionate and still am about technology. Then I entered college with a sharp skillet and so much experience and I was surrounded by kids obsessed with video games and cat video games and they thought they were hardcore.  Epic failures.

just because you learned code online on your own doesn't mean everyone else is capable of doing that. most people are just simply not able to learn a useful skill by browsing the web. education also involves other skills where you need to be directly trained for a vocation.

Correct. Like I said it requires passion.  Most high school kids spend their time doing other things. That's just how life unfolded for me. But there is no denying that the average joe these days simply YouTube's how to do something. Regardless of what that is, they're still learning something through that medium.

Even if you learn an useful skill online, you still need a qualified individual to confirm that you indeed have a good mastery of that skill.
So even in that situation, going to an university would be useful.

Yes and no.  I feel my work and experience will speak for itself. And that experience lead to a network of respectable peers whose opinion carries significant weight. That adventure is my resume.  I dropped out my junior year of college because I could not stand it. I was bored to the extreme. And I went to a pretty high end school.  The kill switch went off in my database class.  A room packed with 40+ dudes and some guy got up and shouted 'nano vs vim' and ignited the room in a debate... I got up, walked out, went home, never went back. I could not stand being stuck in such a narrow world.  And I never needed college. I only went for my parents. I was very well off financially since junior year of high school.

Indeed, that can work out. But without any initial contact in the industry which uses the skill you learnt, finding work probably is quite harder than for someone who has a diploma in it. Especially now, considering all of the graduated individuals who are out of work because of the situation of the economy.

Erasing student debt is bad explained in a few minutes :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4n6nJ8FiF4

Bartenders, bouncers and waiters have college degrees and debts : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpwAOHJsxg

"what kind of career a college education buys you in America"

"Is there anybody here with a college degree? Give me an other Beer"

No because students will know how valuable education is and won't spend all the time getting shit faced like I did  ;D

How about a trade? Perhaps a program that forgives some of your debt in exchange for volunteering. You could chose Americorp, military service, peace corp, or other federal service organizations. You would not only get a break on your debt, but a resume line.     

problem is that no one wants to pay for increased funding in education. instead, they rather us spend billions on "defense," so we can exploiter other poorer countries that we treat like colonies.

our government is comfortable with sending our guys abroad to die, but they're not willing to foot the bill if someone comes back handicapped. and the thing is, all of this is done not for our safety, but just for hegemonial dominance. it actually creates more america haters and terrorists than anything.

That's our tax money paying for them to liquidate their debt. Poor idea.   Unacceptable.

People need to understand that the world is rapidly growing global. You will compete on a global playing field if you wish to be a hotshot. And that's very competitive. There are lots of hungry people out there. And their work ethic blows most of the people away in the US.

I had google try to steal some of my programmers I have in the Ukraine.  Apple's iPhone 4 page was designed and coded by a Ukrainian that now works for me.  The gems are peppered all around the globe, and if you dig for them only on your patch of land, you're toast.

This topic is getting no where, the bottom line it comes down to is soon more and more students will come from out of states, earn there free degrees here, while Americans cannot afford to go to college. 

We won't be able to compete with jobs, so they will hire overseas.  America will then be the land of people working for Mcdonalds.

They need to do something different or things will never change.

Can someone explain to me what's the merit of such expensive higher education in the US of A, while I can understand the necessity of private schools but having everyone pays ridiculous sums for higher education is almost criminal, education should be a fundamental right in every country. Having students starting their lives with huge debts is no good.

Erasing student debts is not a solution imo, it's unfair to the people who struggled for years to pay their debts and for the ones that will strugle after the measure is done and over with, the solution is to have at least a free system for the people who cannot afford to pay for their education and lets those who have famillies wealthy enough pay for the children

Really persuasive answers. Perhaps next time, a cohesive argument. You clearly know nothing about how businesses operate.


Ahhh, I see now why you're so bitter towards people who managed to graduate from university. You're a dropout who couldn't finish (bored, sure ;), that's what my towny friends say, too). So you're a college dropout IT guy. How do you measure up against all the college graduate IT guys I know, who -- like me -- are cogs in the machine of top-down organizations? You're pretty clearly biased by the fact that you're a dropout, calling other peoples' skill sets worthless. My guess is you have very little real world experience working in business. You apparently have no clue what kind of demands competitive organizations have. Meanwhile, my in-house counsel friends are shitting all over your salary. Get over yourself.

As another poster said, you are expendable.

No.  You don't get it and never will. You are what I refer to as a normie. A bozo.

The bottom line is we don't need more students going to college majoring in worthless things like you did and then beg for debt forgiveness. Then force all citizens to fork out extra cash to bail them out. Unbelievable.

1) Go ahead and state my position, since you seems so clear on it. I said nothing of the sort.
2) My principle issue is government policy. I don't advocate taxing citizens to bail out student debt. Eliminate incentives for increasing costs and lowering quality of education, encourage social consciousness of the moral bankruptcy of the type of corporate welfare that causes the proliferation of useless Phoenix University clones, and then we can talk about what level of education and specialization is optimal in an industrialized economy.

I'm not sure if you're incredibly dense, or just lazy. If you were capable of comprehending anything I wrote, I never said anything about begging for debt forgiveness. Personally, I'm not dumb enough to bog myself down with debt. I did very well in school, I'm a damn good manager and I am employable across several fields. But this isn't about me. People like you need to break everything down into ad hominems, insults and anecdotes rather than provide a cogent opinion on broad social and macroeconomic issues. So fine, rather than address anything said, create bullshit straw men and call people names. But it doesn't make your opinion look particularly valid.

I'm done here. Best of luck.

I don't like to go through the back 'n forth talk. I'm a man of action. And my action is to leap to the [absolutely valid and correct] conclusion and save the world some time.  You lawyers love to do the talking and debate.  Clowns like this get nothing done.  I don't respect them.  End of story.  

What justifies my conclusion? Raw intuition. It never failed me and always sunk logic.

How did this argument get from about student loans, too insulting each other's jobs:(

Seriously. 

Student loans need to be fixed.  They are so wrong right now that it isn't funny.  People have to work 3 jobs to make dues and pay their bills.

The government has to get out of the way and stop inflating the tuitions costs

When the government starts to get interested in a market, the prices go up : "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it"

No, I don't think the government should do that, because I think debts should always be paid by those who contracted them. Otherwise people will be encouraged to contract even more debts, because they don't feel the consequences of their actions.

Also with the government stepping in, debt does not sudddenly disappear - it still has to be repaid. Debts of the government must be paid by all citizen. It's not fair to force all citizen to pay for the debts of a certain group who took loans to achieve a competitive advantage against others.

ya.ya.yo!

Not erase it completely, but at least give a serious break.

My friends are still without jobs and some do, but its still not the same since 2008.

I agree with you and disagree.  When I started college loans were not half as bad as they are now.  I kinda went during the Lets raise them by 20% every year period(Exaggerating).  Anyway, I took a few years off a college, went back and had to take out more loans.  Now I pay a ton of money in interest, the school prices are insane. 

It just isn't college that is the problem.  It is the simple fact that inflation has not kept up with the current price of everything, else we would all be making minimum of $11/hr in the US.  It would raise the salary of everyone though as well....The problem is students can get so far in debt they can never pay it back, and will have to pay it back for the rest of their life...  That isn't the greatest...to basically teach our kids of the next generation, well you gotta go to school to compete....but you also won't be able to afford it....so basically we are saying go work at Mcdonalds to them.

Solution:  Drop interest rates on all people with student loans by 4% at least for 2 years.  Or they can choose 0% for 1 year.  and then it will resume its normal rate after said time.

Lower the cost of tuition by around $2,500 per year, maybe more.  Lower the interest rate of college loans in general, this is to help the future of America...help them out a little bit...

What the government should do is get tuition back under control, for publicly funded universities anyhow. Probably private schools will follow the example of public schools when students who are already pretty smart about how much college costs start shopping for the best education they can find for the money. And if students get their loans from the government, they should NOT have to pay interest on top of income tax when they land a job.

If you want to become a certified IT professional, you could probably get the appropriate certifications just from watching Youtube videos. If you want to become a programmer, you could probably create a few good Android apps just so you'll have a portfolio and then go freelance. There have been times when I thought a college education was overrated. Think about it.

With internet and the possibility to watch classes from the best professors of every discipline you shouldn't need so much time and spend so much money to get an often useless diploma; when you see what is taught in economics degrees you are thinking that you end up being worse in economics than if you didn't pursue the studies in the first place