
Repossessing Degrees - degrews
https://www.jefftk.com/p/repossessing-degrees
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Ancalagon
Seems like this would be the final knife in the coffin for actual education in
the US. At long last, college would be nothing more than credential signaling.
Who cares what you actually learned, or that you finished all the coursework
for your degree, or how well you did in those classes. All that would matter
would be: did you pay off those loans?? And now you've actually created a
generation of indentured servants.

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rckoepke
What's the root problem that's trying to be solved? Allowing people to finally
discharge student loans in bankruptcy, or increasing private liquidity in
education lending?

This seems like it all reverts to a tax policy in the end, as these loans are
guaranteed by the federal government. We either tax everyone (free college,
allowing bankruptcy discharge) or individuals (no discharge, pay back loan).

The questions should be: what do want as a society, and "will allowing
students to discharge public loan debt cause a greater GDP increase than the
loss of tax revenue from them not paying back the loan"

As long as the fed gov is guaranteeing them, it's just "taxes" with extra
layers of obfuscation. We pretended they were loans and now people are trying
to solve a loan problem instead of a tax problem.

It will become a loan problem if/when the loans are private. And a policy
problem at that point if employers can no longer get educated workers.

I've always argued that the most business friendly thing a gov can do is
provide highly educated workers at a steep subsidy for businesses to use as
human resources. Always astounds me when "pro business" people want to slash
education.

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OrangeMango
Repossessing an asset has nothing to do with punishing the borrower and
everything to do with giving the lender something they can sell to make
themselves as whole as possible.

Being able to buy a degree at public auction is absurd.

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downerending
I had this happen, in a small way, after grad school. After I graduated, the
university revoked some small stipend I was getting (a few hundred dollars)
because I had somehow failed to qualify in the final semester. After that,
they refused transcripts until they were repaid, so they pretty much had me
over a barrel.

Got the last laugh, though, as they hammered me for donations to the alumni
association for the next two decades. Not one penny.

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siberianbear
I'm no expert on the topic, but it seems likely to me that there is a
significant number of people defaulting on student loans but did not finish
their degree program. I'd also speculate that the people who did complete
their degree program are less likely to be in default than those who dropped
out.

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pmiller2
At this point, I would gladly zero out my student loans in exchange for my
undergrad and grad schools disavowing me.

