Comment by Practicality | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Practicality | Hacker News Reader

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Regarding your link:

But the middle ground often is the best solution in politics (not necessarily exactly in the middle, but definitely not on the extremes).

Some examples: The best government is between Authoritarianism and Anarchy, rather than one or the other.

Likewise the best government has an economy that is somewhere between completely free-market and absolutely government controlled and regulated. Both extremes have issues.

The best legal government is somewhere between ultra-capitalist and ultra-communist: We don't want only two classes, super-rich and super-poor, but we don't need to make everyone exactly the same either.

Likewise, private investment is definitely a good thing, and we want incentives, but we also don't want CEOs or boards being completely blameless when things go wrong, and we want good pay and good rights for the employees. Most people are ok with CEOs getting paid more that most employees, but most would prefer they not be paid anywhere near as much as they are.

On and on it goes. Generally, the best position is a moderate one. The extremes are where the failure comes from. (There are always exceptions, so that is why I say generally).

Yes, but sometimes the middle ground is pretty bad too. Consider college tuition.

If you take a completely leftist approach then college tuition would be covered by the government. Many people would have college degrees, which would devalue them somewhat, but at least students wouldn't go into a decade of debt for it. It's an okay solution.

If you take a completely rightist approach then the government would have nothing to do with paying for college. Either your family can afford to send you (or have good enough credit to get a private loan), or you just don't get to go. Fewer people would go to college, which would make degrees very valuable. In other words, it's hard to get a degree, but worth it. The people who can't get them shouldn't be forced out of the work force, because most people wouldn't have degrees. This is also an acceptable approach.

The combination of the two is what we have now. We want everyone to go to college, so we make it easy to get huge unsecured loans that are almost impossible to get rid of. The loans are easy to get, so everyone does. Now degrees are expensive, but not worth much, because every other applicant also has one.

There are other examples (like housing and health insurance) where the same thing plays out. Sometimes you just have to pick a side, or you get the worst of both worlds.

I am not so sure that what we have right now for tuition is as bad as it seems.

Because people are paying for it, we are getting much higher quality than we would if it was completely government funded. Also, it's still being paid by people who want it rather than it just being a tax.

Because it's expected a lot of people are getting an education that wouldn't be educated otherwise. This is improving our overall productivity.

The rising cost of an education right now is an issue, and we can do a combination of letting it self-correct (many businesses and students are realizing they really don't need a BS to do a good job) as well as adding public schools so more people can get the AS to get a good education.

I don't see any reason to expect that this solution is less optimal than any of the other ones you have mentioned, and it seems much cheaper than revamping the entire system.

To me the root cause of rising health insurance costs is the rising cost of all the lawsuits that doctors and hospitals deal with. When we were just paying for the doctor's education it was a little expensive, but nothing like what we are paying now. You're really just padding the budget to deal with legal fees. A more moderate court system (that awards smaller payouts) would knock this out easily.

I am not familiar with the housing issue, I would have to learn more about it to make a comment.

But I really do think the issues you bring up are best solved with a moderate solution.

It's bad. College loan payments are a stone around the neck of far, far too many people in an entire generation, and it leaves far too many of them crippled financially for a decade after they graduate. When you're already paying 40-60% of your income on housing, tacking on another 20% to service student loans for a degree that doesn't earn you any more money than if you didn't fall for the scam doesn't leave much left over for anything but survival. Far too many people are in that boat, because student loans are too easy to get, and they've had it pounded into them relentlessly that the only way to get ahead and live a good life is to go to college. The people telling them this, by the way, are usually Boomers that went to school when public universities were fully funded, and costs hadn't spiraled out of control by an order of magnitude or worse.

Assuming you stuck to federal loans, the minimum payment on the standard repayment plan is $50/month, with a 6 month grace period after graduating before you have to start making payments, and the monthly payments can go lower on an income-based plan if your finances are such that that would be necessary. Even if you couldn't get any job but fast food after graduating, this should be manageable.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/

I really don't get all the hyperbole around this. As long as you didn't make arrangements with private loan sharks, you should be fine after college.

What if instead we as a society choose to do better than picking sides, and properly investigate what will benefit us in the grand scheme of things.

> We want everyone to go to college?

Do you think college is the only solution to a more educated and fiscally responsible society? Is there no other solutions to the situation than College? What about education prior to College, is there room for improvement there so we can specialize College and reduce costs in some fashion? Could we streamline education for those who know what they want to be and provide the proper framework for those who do not?

Sometimes it's not about sides, but about asking the proper questions, and questioning the system that exists.

I agree that generally the best position is a moderate one, but I think we achieve that by having two extremes scream at eachother until they're hoarse and fall exhausted into the middle of the aisle.

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