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Comment by djohnston | Hacker News Reader

Good? Encouraging people to go into six-figure debt for a degree with no earning potential is gross and predatory.

And making it un-dischargeable in bankruptcy so people are either in perpetual debt bondage or the taxpayer picks up the tab for the inflated costs takes it from gross to downright criminal.

I'd be a lot more OK with student loan jubilees if universities had to pay the remaining principal on any forgiven loans. They'd immediately get their costs under control and be a lot more careful about degree programs which don't have any earning potential.

I don’t disagree with your general point, but for clarity, student loans are non-dischargeable because they have been federally guaranteed since 1965. Meaning that if the borrower defaulted, taxpayers would be on the hook. And the reason for the federal guarantees was that students are bad credit risks. So without the guarantees, banks wouldn’t lend to students, especially disadvantaged ones.

The reason for the federal guarantees was because voters wanted lower taxes, or otherwise did not want to redistribute wealth to students.

It’s a common way to scam today’s young and future taxpayers. See also underfunded pensions and other post employment benefits for government employees and taxpayer guaranteed 30 year fixed rate mortgages with no prepayment penalty.

Instead of helping someone, society lends them money and lets future taxpayers deal with the mess. That is how you win elections in aging societies.

It almost sounds like student loans should be harder to get. Giving a student a loan seems like a bad bet. All the parties that know how to do a proper risk analysis aren't willing to take that on. So this hot potato gets passed around. Eventually it ends up back on the prospective student, who is least equipped to make a rational financial decision.

Kind of makes the whole thing sound like a scam from that perspective.

It's undischargeable to prevent students, especially doctors and lawyers, from declaring bankruptcy the second they graduate

Yeah, I think the argument for the humanities can only exist if college wasn't outrageously expensive.

The world made college into a checkpoint to get a good salaried position, it's not the same as the old geezers experienced it, where college was thought of as a bonus education, but not solely needed to get a decent paying job.

Those of us who came of age in the dotcom era already had the vocational skills to pull big salaries, so college was a bonus education. I (and others in this thread) have a philosophy degree because of it.

Which part do you object to more? The policy choice to have the entire cost borne by the student (in the US, specifically)?

Or "society" encouraging people to study the humanities?

100% on the non-dischargeable debt. I appreciate the humanities and their importance, but encouraging kids to take out loans to study them, with no risk to the lender, is obscene.

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