The purpose of the undergraduate years has been diluted by research and the idea that college should position you to earn money.

they're not charities, don't expect them to act like it. they'll charge what they can/

I generally agree with you on the first part, but why do you need college to become an enlightened citizen?

the giant flaw in this debate that's been going on these past couple years is that the point of college is not training students to become employable functioning members of the labor force. the point of college is to graduate enlightened citizens, who are wholly necessary to the success of any democratic society. If all you get out of college are skills to do a job, you've missed the point.

Post secondary education is for whatever reason you're taking it. I took it because after high school it seemed like a good place to hide out from a real job, party, and get a piece of paper at the end of a few years. That paper told employers that I was trainable and can commit to something and achieve it. Now I take courses and school to get raises and to give me a good reason to stay sober a couple days a week.

If I want enlightenment I'll crack a bottle of Jack thanks. It has a helluva a lot better chance of providing enlightenment than a degree in Finance, and accounting and project management designations.

the cause of every problem american faces today is stupidity. Presently, colleges are doing very little to improve that situation, but the substitute is generally far worse.

I know lighting up and rocking out makes you feel spiritual and righteous, but the whole point is that you then turn around and repair the world. listeners of PJ's music should know that as well as anyone.

Is Student Debt Excessive?

A recent two-part series in the New York Times (“Degrees of Debt,” May 12, 14) focuses on the rise, and potential consequences, of student debt for college, which now exceeds $1 trillion. Of that amount almost 90 percent is federal, because the federal government makes student loans at low rates (there is a movement afoot in Congress to raise the rates). About two-thirds of college students graduate (or leave college before graduation) with debt, compared to 45 percent twenty years ago. Although the average debt of a graduating college student is only $20,000 or so, there is considerable variance.

In particular, the debt burden is lighter at private colleges, both because they often offer scholarships and because they attract many rich kids. The burden is heavy at public colleges (state colleges and community colleges) and heavier at for-profit colleges; they now enroll 11 percent of the nation’s college students but their students account for some 25 percent of total student loan debt.

Focusing on the public colleges and the for-profit colleges, we see an experiment in privatization. As cheap student loans become increasingly available (and the Obama Administration has increased their availability still further), these colleges are able to charge higher tuition. (This assumes, but realistically, lags in the creation of new colleges that could compete effectively with existing ones.) In the case of the public colleges, increased tuition income enables states (and local government, in the case of community colleges) to reduce their financial support of these colleges. This is a shift from subsidy to customer support, as in a private market, and is accelerating because of the poor state of state and local government finances, which has caused a cut in education subsidies and hence forced public colleges to rely more heavily on tuition income. In the case of for-profit colleges, which cater primarily to students who are unable to gain admission to public colleges and who tend to be impecunious, the availability of cheap federal loans enables the charging of tuition to students who could not otherwise afford college.

The low-interest federal loans thus provide an indirect subsidy to many colleges, in a form that preserves competition among colleges, as would not be true if the subsidy went directly to the schools. The loan subsidy is thus the approximate equivalent of a voucher system, in which schools are supported by subsidized tuition and school choice is preserved. The college subsidy is only partial, however; the loans have to be repaid—and federal loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, which does not prevent defaults (which in fact are common) but does reduce their incidence.

The principal economic argument for subsidizing college is that a college education equips the graduate (and to a lesser extent the student who leaves before graduation, for example with a two-year associate’s degree) with skills that increases the lifetime value of his output, which benefits society as a whole and not just the graduate. But the more that college education is subsidized, the less of this external benefit (benefit to others besides the graduate) is likely to be produced. Little more than 20 percent of students enrolled in for-profit colleges obtain a bachelor’s degree in six years (it’s supposed to take only four), and probably most of these never obtain the degree. There are many drop outs from public colleges as well. The problem ideally should be self-correcting: the lower the income boost from a college education a high-school graduate anticipates, the less debt he should be willing to take on to finance a college education, and if the net expected benefit to him is negative he may well decide not to enroll—he should decide in that case not to enroll, if one sets aside the consumption value of a college education, though that is considerable for some people. But because of uncertainty of career prospects, this is a difficult calculation to make.

The change in the financing of college from the 1950s, when I was growing up, is dramatic. In those days your family paid for your tuition and living expenses, or you received a scholarship from the college (and perhaps in partial exchange for it had to work part time for the college, for example by waiting on tables in the college dining room), or you worked your way through college, or college was free—or you didn’t go. But you didn’t borrow, and you didn’t graduate with any debt, and your career choices, and your marital plans, were not influenced by your having to pay off a substantial debt. This system of financing college education was feasible because a much smaller percentage of young people went to college in those days, in part because the financial returns to college were smaller than they are today. Student loans enable many students to go to college who couldn’t afford college without them yet would benefit from a college education, though student loans also enable colleges to jack up tuition, for which the students pay in the end unless they default on their student loans.

A complication for high school students trying to assess the value of a college education is the nation’s current economic situation. True, as in the 1930s, so now, the unemployment rate of college graduates is well below that of other workers. But it is more than 5 percent, which is twice what it was five years ago. And it is about twice that high—10 percent, at least—for young college graduates. If one adds in underemployment, that is, employment in a job for which a college education is not a qualification—for example, a college graduate employed as a waiter—the combined rate of unemployment and underemployment is almost 33 percent for all college graduates under the age of 25. (College graduates who are in graduate or professional school rather than have on average better job prospects than those seeking work with just a B.A. or B.S. under their belt.) Wages for young college graduates in the work force have also fallen.

The economy will improve (indeed is improving, though slowly and with a possibility of backsliding) and the unemployment and underemployment rates of young college graduates will fall. But no one knows when or how fast or how far. And when they do fall, still labor markets will probably be more intensely competitive than they have been, because of increased pressure of international competition in goods and, increasingly, services. This makes the value of a college education, and so the net benefit of student college debt, difficult to estimate. Still, the unemployment rate of young people is much higher than that of young college graduates, and that ratio continues to favor getting a college education even if that means going into debt.

An important question is whether the federal government should continue to guarantee student loans. Without guaranteeing them, it still could continue to subsidize them, that is, defray part of the interest rate, in order to “buy” the external benefits of a college education. The guaranty makes colleges more willing to enroll students who require loans by eliminating default risk for the colleges, but by the same token makes the colleges less careful in screening applicants. The college gets its tuition even if the student drops out and indeed never stood a chance of graduating. This creates poor incentives for college admission officers.

Another question is whether the focus of federal subsidy should shift from college to vocational schools. Employers are reluctant to provide vocational training for their employees, because once trained the employee may be hired away by another employer, who will avoid the cost of training. Federal subsidies for students at public or private schools that provide high school graduates with a range of vocational training, emphasizing technology, may provide greater value (and in fewer than four or even two years) to young people who lack an interest in or the aptitude for a “well-rounded” college education than subsidies for college tuition.

Is Student Debt Too Great?

Students from richer and some middle class families have their college education financed by their parents and other relatives. Students from poorer families may gain a lot from going to college, but they have trouble raising the tuition and financing their living expenses while in college. It is difficult to get outside financing for college education because education becomes part of the individuals with the education, and hence cannot be offered as collateral for commecial loans from banks. Government-sponsored student loans have enabled many students from less privileged backgrounds to finance a college education.

This inability to offer human capital investments- in particular, college education- as collateral for commercial loans on these investment even when the returns are excellent is the fundamental “externality” behind the case for government support of student loans. This externality could justify governmental provision of student loans, although whether the government should guarantee student loans is questionable.

Student loans have increased the supply of young persons who go to college. In a competitive higher education market-which describes the American situation where thousands of colleges compete for students- a greater number of college students induces increases in tuition. However, the increased supply of places for college students moderates the increases in tuition.

The fraction of American students who take out loans from the government or private lenders has increased since the early 1990s to about 65% from under 40% at that time. Outstanding student loans now amount to about $1 trillion. The proximate cause of the increase in student loans has been the sharp rise in tuition at both state and private colleges during this time period.

Although students and their parents complain a lot about the rise in college tuition, since the early 1980s monetary and other benefits from college have risen even faster than tuition and other college costs. As a result, the rate of return on college education in the United States – benefits net of all costs- grew greatly during the past 30 years. The increased net return to college, despite the increase in tuition, explains why a larger, not smaller, fraction of young persons are going to college than did prior to the sustained rise in tuition.

That monetary gains from college increased faster than tuition does not mean that higher tuition and greater student loans are not financial burdens. These loans are still a burden, but it is easier to repay them when college earnings are much higher. According to the NYTimes of May 12, in 2011 the average student loan debt was about $23,000, but 10% owed more than $50,000, and a small percent owed more than $100,000. Since typical graduates of 4-year colleges or from postgraduate studies earn on average over $30,000 per year more than typical high school graduates, these graduates could completely repay a $50,000 student loan in under 2 years from the greater earnings they get from their education. Students who contract debt that exceeds $100, 000 usually have gone to medical, law, or business school, or have received PHD degrees, and they earn far in excess of $30,000 per year more than high school graduates. Hence they too usually can finance their larger student debts without much hardship.

Of course, as Posner indicates, the prolonged recession has hurt the earnings prospects of young college graduates. Many of them need to be given, and are receiving, greater flexibility in repaying their student loans until economic conditions return to more normal levels. Others with student loans do not earn much because they went to bad schools, or they dropped out of school before acquiring much in the way of useable skills, or they went into occupations that do not pay well. Doing away with federal guarantees of student loans would discourage college from trying to foster excessive debt on students with these unpromising economic futures. Moreover, especially if federal guarantees were eliminated, student loans should become dischargeable through personal bankruptcy, the way most other loans are dischargeable.

One might also want to experiment with student loans that are like equities; that is, where the amount to be repaid depends on earnings. These equity-type student loans have their own problems, but they might be a useful complement to the present system where loans are given with fixed rather than effectively variable interest rates.

Young families with mortgages that exceed $100,000 under normal circumstances are not considered to be in dire economic straits, even though their homes can be taken if they fail to meet their mortgage payments, and they are only investing in more comfortable living arrangements. Young couples that contracted a similar level of debt when they were students have invested in raising their earning power, usually by a lot. So I find it difficult to comprehend why sizable mortgages are accepted while there are political and media outcries over comparable student loans that are based on usually highly productive investments in human capital.

There are silver linings in each of those posts, Spike.

it's hard for me to see them as i am mourning orlando woolridge, friend.

lol nba