The case for canceling all student debt

Your opinion is irrelevant. Their skills formation is.

 

EXACTLY. And 'incapable' would be anyone taking a course which won't earn them enough to pay back the loan. Kind of a no-brainer, really.

 

Basic error! Given social benefits from education, we know that the private investment decision will guarantee underinvestment.

 

POST OF THE WEEK

 

OMG ... 'society' as in well fed and ultra safe people sitting around thinking about art, feelings, social justice, and philosophy.

There are still kids starving to death. We are nowhere near being able to afford the vanity of 'education', in the above sense of the word.

 

This isn't an educated comment.

 

I have quite a few friends who are BAs. I love them all, and they're all clever people in one way or another. But not one of them earns more than $80k (and that's considered a basic salary in this country), and most continue to struggle to raise their families well into middle age. It's not pretty.

 

No, it's come from a lifetime of travel and consideration of the bigger picture. First worlding any given situation is grotesque, under expanded parameters. A science education provided the means for the above. Boom tish.

 

They should be able to. As long as they're first qualified in regards to their likely ability to repay. Just like any other loan.

 

I don't give a toss about your friends to be honest. I'm referring to skills formation. These degrees deliver. I typically use economists in consultancy (given the need for temporary specialised technical skills), but employ Humanities graduates (given the need for permanent critical appraisal skills). Do Economics graduates outperform other degrees? Of course. But we have to factor in selection bias. A humanities student, for example, is more likely to choose a job associated with social benefits (and lower wage)

 

You can have a lifetime of travel and still not derive an educated comment.

 

They do know better. Only a complete idiot doesn't realise that a Gender Studies degree is not going to be as lucrative as a Dentistry degree. These kids are CHOOSING (enabled by complete idiot parents, presumably) a soft option. They don't want to do the work needed for STEM.

 

Funny how $1.4 trillion over 10 years in tax relief for the tax payer is "armageddon", but $1.4 trillion in college socialism is a great idea.

 

Those 'social benefits' roles can as easily be filled by the smart person without a degree. Plenty of those around.

 

Wait I'll give here if a student can get into a school like Juilliard and the student is that gifted and will likely have a career then it might be a good investment but this should be a short list of the finest schools in the country in the arts where you need to be one of the finest in our country at the time. And I see nothing wrong with a minor in elective areas if the main degree has value if your an education major minoring in art, music or such might even be a benefit depending on the level of education they intend to teach.

 

The marketisation of education has corrupted investment. That marketisation doesn't reflect 'society gain'. It reflects wage structures which are already alien to productivity criteria.

 

A silly effort! Those social benefits refers to gains to society independent of the private investment decision. Teach yourself the basics before opinion spout

 

whoops ... you left out the 'lifetime of consideration of the bigger picture', and reduced it to 'holidays'. almost as though you yourself weren't too learned up

 

Other than the "cram" schools, you forgot they don't get "vacations" and also go to school on weekends.

 

I bet it wasn't in "gender studies" or "deconstructing Beyonce in the modern world".

 

I didn't see any evidence of a 'lifetime of consideration of the bigger picture'

 

Probably easier if you teach yourself how to look beyond your ledger. We're venturing outside the office, here.

 

I still get considerable despair/enjoyment out of that Beyonce course. Can you imagine anything more profoundly insulting to a starving person?

 

I achieve a double: reference to how they benefit me personally and reference to the general human capital literature.

Perhaps you'd like to tell me what intellectual material your argument is based on? Try to integrate theory and empirical analysis, like a humanities student can.

 

No? Well, trust me when I tell you that I'm looking at humanity as a whole - and from the base level. Not from the perspective of a well fed westerner disserting from his armchair.