A modest proposal: No student loans till 30

Charlie, you said it much better than I did. I agree that a hybrid system is probably what will happen. Take, for example, the typical 1st year Gross Anatomy class taken in a medical school. I would guess that half of the material covered could be done in a typical remote class. The other half — well, nothing would replace hands-on experience, but I wonder if the hands-on work as well as a remote class could be done by the students in a local morgue, rather than in a central location, with local oversight, even though the head professor is remote. I’m sure there are plenty of issues I haven’t thought of, but that’s kind of my point — how we do education will need to be completely rethought, as the current model with its huge inflation and maintenance of way too many redundant facilities is clearly not sustainable. Some of what is currently done in education is done because it was the best way a long time ago, not necessarily because it couldn’t be done better or more efficiently another way now.

It’s really interesting to hear about the greater interaction from online students who might not be willing to interact in a normal classroom situation.

None of these are, IMO, adequate reason to spend thousands of dollars, only to declare bankruptcy later and let taxpayers foot the bill.

I do not think that student loans are dischargable in bankruptcies.

It is possible to discharge student loan debt if it can be proved that repaying the debt “will impose an undue hardship on you and your dependents.” Brunner v. New York State Higher Educ. Servs. Corp.

It is sad to see how many graduates, including those with advanced degrees, have no job experience of any kind. It’s hard to get hired without a job history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-…

Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.

“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”

Let me get this straight- she didn’t do the math before signing on the dotted line? Do people really have to be told that if they go to a school that costs 50G a year that they will owe 200G when all’s said and done? Like, I did that calculation in less than 3 seconds, and I didn’t need to spend four years in college to figure it out.

Even discounted, the price is beyond the means of many. Yet too often, students and their parents listen without question.

“I readily admit it,” said E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State University, who has also served as president of Vanderbilt and Brown, among others. “I didn’t think a lot about costs. I do not think we have given significant thought to the impact of college costs on families.”

I think the pressure to send kids to college is so great (if your kids don’t go to college, it’s embarrassing, or you are a ‘failure’ as a parent) that they sign first and ask questions later. Bad, bad idea. People need to know that http://www.collegeplus.org/ there are options .

There are government loan agencies who are lending money that isn’t theirs.
There are schools who are glad to take money and SEEMINGLY don’t care if this young person is majoring in Incan Art History (or University Studies-my favorite) where a job future is dubious.
And there are students who have never worked, never had a personal budget, and never had to make monthly payments on anything.

I know there are exceptions, but the above is a recipe for disaster.

Although my experience was 40 yrs ago, I do think that working through college is prudent. I had multiple jobs over 4 yrs: chemical plant worker in the Summers, greenhouse work, shoe sales, and newspaper work.

Here are http://www.josephsangl.com/2012/05/16/5-things-every-student-should-kno…] 5 Things Every Student Should Know About Student Loans

Like Jim Peet, my experience is “ancient history.” I came from a secular home, and my parents paid for my undergrad studies in science. In grad school, I had a fellowship, so it was a pretty clear path to the advanced degree.

When the Lord drew me to Himself and called me to ministry, all those comforts changed. I worked 40 - 60 hours a week all through Bible school. I crammed 3 years into 6, and we had two children. Even though it was the recession of the early 1970’s, the Lord graciously provided work in the factories in our area.

Looking back upon those years, there were some invaluable lessons : 1) God provides. Even in recessionary times, there were jobs out there. They were usually hard work, involved getting dirty, and hours that kept me tied up from 3 to midnight. But, God provided both work and the strength to do it. 2) Working wtih others in the factories was a great learning experience in working with people. This was a whole segment of society I had not known before, and it was a great experience. 3) The long and hard hours made pastorng seem quite workable. For six years, I went from about 6 AM to midnight. There are some long days in ministry, but we do get to regulate our own schedules, to be sure we accomplish what must be done, along with time for family and reflection.

However, I must also recognize that the kinds of jobs the Lord provided are not as easily available now. With outsourcing, much of the manufacturing industry has fled our country. This makes it more of a challenge for this younger generation.

When I graduated from Bible College, we had paid off our mobile home, had no school debt, and a very small savings. This permitted us to serve in a smaller work, where we loved our people and had great time.

Those who graduate with high debt do carry a burden, and I would encourage younger people to pay off that debt as soon as possible.

Recently I have had the opportunity to talk with a professional “head hunter”. (No, not THAT kind! The kind that matches employers with job seekers.) He said that there has been an increase of job applicants with degrees from Bachelors to PHD’s who have never worked in their lives. A lot of them have huge amounts of debt while some have little or none thanks to scholarships or wealthy parents. Most employers expect some kind of work history. Barring that, they might offer a person who has none an entry level position.Surprisingly, a number of these recent graduates refuse to accept these offers.

IMO, a resume that has nothing under the “Work Experience” header is a liability.

Good discussions going here; appreciated a lot of what was said previously, esp. Charlie and Shaynus’s posts.

I recently went to technical school for computer networking classes. I took one set of classes via straightforward video recordings and another class via a more interactive, online classroom environment. The interactive and online classroom environment was far better that the canned videos, but I would definitely recommend a real classroom over the online model if it is at all feasible. That being said, the online system that my school used was just about perfect simply because it gave me and others the ability to ask questions privately and in real time, and that did eliminate the mental/social barrier of ‘do I interrupt the class to ask this question or not?’ AND because the teacher made it a point to emphasize that we could always call or email; I’m not sure that we’d get that level of availability for a real life instructor.

I completely agree with those who have said that students ought to work through college. My experience is not so ancient as some previous commentors, since this year marks my 10 year reunion, but I made specific choices to minimize the costs associated with college by living at home and attending a school nearby, taking advantage of as much financial aid (in the forms of scholarships and grants) as I could, and working as much as possible. I worked as a short-order cook, press operator, retail salesman and auto technician, and as a 22-year-old graduate, I already had a 13-year work history.
With the advent of distance education in the last 10 years, very few students must move far from home for an education (even a Christian one) anymore.
I wonder, if an 18-year-old student is incapable of recognizing the financial burden of their student loans, are they really ready for independence? Furthermore, if they don’t understand the consequences of taking out massive loans for themselves, can they possibly understand the consequences of a federal government routinely practicing deficit spending? Yet we allow them to vote.