My Proposal for Student Loan Reform

12/6/2017 | Brian Griffin

[firebrand]

Stop telling parents how much they have to borrow. That just assumes borrowing, and they do it because they think they have to or it is expected.

Just give the costs and the amount of the grant, if any, and work-study amount. Let the parents decide whether to borrow, work harder or get a second job, or send the kid to a cheaper school.

[HippyLoggerBiker]

My proposal:

1) Borrow whatever you want
2) Put up collateral that equals or exceeds the value of the loan
3) Pay back the loan or lose the collateral (and your ability to make another loan)
4) Have a nice day

[gogeo]

If you’re going to make any college debt dischargeable in BK, you will end the student loan program. Period.

[LostInBayport]

When my daughter was going to college, it seemed that the various professors for many of her classes had written a book of his/her own, and required for his/her book to be purchased in addition to the basic textbook. It seemed like quite the scam to me.

That happened to me quite a few times when I was in college. I was working but even then the cost of books ran into the hundreds of dollars per semester and those were used copies. I would always buy used textbooks at the bookstore, unless it happened to be the year that the "professor" decided a new edition of his tome was needed. In that event you had no choice but to buy a new copy at an exorbitant price. A scam indeed.

[Brian Griffin]

“If you’re going to make any college debt dischargeable in BK, you will end the student loan program. Period.”

I’m just proposing to trim it back to a reasonable size while providing potential students with less than provident parents a chance.

[gogeo]

Then you don’t understand the student loan program, or lending in general.

[tumblindice]

‘And the prof’s textbook usually isn’t that great.”
Had a real property I prof do that.
The `book’ wasn’t even bound. It was just hole-punched legal-sized pages of copies of cases and her notes held together with steel rings, but priced like real case books.
We groused about it until they made her stop doing it.

[dhs12345]

Lol. Did she think that people wouldn’t complain?

[RFEngineer]

Too complicated. The answer is simpler and already understood. If people can’t pay their debts they go to bankruptcy court. They either liquidate the debt or restructure it.

Just change the law back to the way it was to allow student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy court and the problem will solve itself.

Tuitions will plummet as what people can pay meets what universities can charge.

Loans will not be made unless the borrower can demonstrate they will be able to pay it back.

[King Moonracer]

Colleges have a lot more non-faculty parasites than they had in the 70s. I was looking for a link but I remember hearing that it was about one to one ratio of non-faculty to faculty 40 years ago, now it’s 2.7 to 1.

[Eisenhower Republican]

“co-signed in full by the college”

In theory, this is a great idea and holds colleges responsible for turning out employable grads. In the current campus political environment, it would give school admins free rein to keep out “undesirables” (a.k.a. anyone to the political right of Mao Zedong).