Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryaniscool | Hacker News Reader

fix student loans

I put myself through school on a student loan. I was very grateful for it. I was charged a reasonable tax deductible interest rate. So I'm curious about what is actually broken?

View on HN

Massive inflation in tuition in the last 20-30 years.

bingo. plus a wide spread effort and propaganda from higher education proponents that misleads kids into pursuing "no job" degrees. philosophy? communications? women's studies? please. if you're going to spend big bucks, especially fellow tax payer dollars, spend it on something real and non-obvious at least, something you can't just self-educate on at home, in your free time.

Boom! I can't agree with you more on the proponents of "no job" degrees. I've lost count of the number of students pursuing degrees in philo, comm, psych, sociology, and to some extent even undergraduate business degrees who give little or no thought to how these degrees will help them in the job market. Slightly less common are the people who know what they might want to do with their degree, but haven't investigated whether or not their plan is realistic.

Many public institutions have had their government funding drastically cut in the last few years. Simultaneously, there is plenty of support for student loans.

The lack of bankruptcy protection comes to mind.

A college education is one of the few properties that can’t be repossessed in the event of bankruptcy.

Neither can $15k in credit-card debt racked up eating at fancy restaurants, yet that is dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Fair enough, but the value of a fancy meal is quickly lost. Comparatively, the value of a college education lasts forever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com