
Warren’s Higher Education Plan: Cancel Student Debt and Eliminate Tuition - kensai
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-student-debt.html
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terryschiavo22
I fail to see how this solves the root cause of the problem such that we won't
see another student debt bubble arise again in 20 years.

Students loans must be dischargeable via bankruptcy. Until that happens,
student loans will continue to be an issue. I feel like Warren is just
attempting to score political points here because her poll numbers are
dwindling.

~~~
sokoloff
> Students loans must be dischargeable via bankruptcy.

How many fresh graduates would _not_ be bankrupt immediately upon graduation?

~~~
vonmoltke
Assuming a traditional college student, declaring bankruptcy at 22, with no
credit history to speak of, on the one significant debt you have ever been
granted, will destroy your credit for at least a decade.

Also, many loans are co-signed, so it isn't just the student affected by
bankruptcy.

~~~
lordnacho
> Also, many loans are co-signed

Which suggests an industry will simply pop up of lending to parents. Probably
wealthy ones.

Anything that doesn't address the ticket price is simply squeezing around air
in the balloon.

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lordnacho
I've often wondered why it is the school's brand that matters. That seems to
be all signaling, as in "look I got into Harvard". Of course when you get
there it's not like they teach you secret math that nobody else knows about.

What could be done relatively cheaply is to make an examination org. You
recruit a bunch of people to make a math test. You get a bunch of people to
certify that it's hard. You publish a syllabus.

Then you examine people who sign up for it, and give them a diploma if they
pass.

No need to live somewhere for 4 years. No need to study things you don't like.
Prodigies will pass the test at 16 and get on with their lives. People who've
had a life beforehand can do it in their own time after the kids are gone.

There will have to be some marketing done to convince people these tests
aren't easy and can't be gamed. But everyone will benefit once believable and
cheap certification is common.

~~~
sokoloff
College attendance is not about learning specific topics in order to pass an
exam, IMO. It's about learning to think critically, work in project teams,
evaluate superfluous and incomplete data, learning how to learn, learning time
and priority management, interpersonal relationships, etc.

I went to MIT. Most of what I value (personally and economically) that I
learned at MIT could not be readily "tested" in a straightforward
certification exam.

~~~
lordnacho
> College attendance is not about learning specific topics in order to pass an
> exam, IMO. It's about learning to think critically, work in project teams,
> evaluate superfluous and incomplete data, learning how to learn, learning
> time and priority management, interpersonal relationships, etc.

My take on that is that by having a bunch of different exam passes, that is
what you demonstrate. You're not going to pass a bunch of math and physics or
whatever classes without having at least some degree of personal organisation
and commitment. And you'll certainly learn overarching things like critical
thinking by learning a bunch of different topics.

I went to Oxford, where you ostensibly learn by sitting in tiny little classes
of 1 or 2 kids with a prof three times a week. You discuss the topic at hand
and they evaluate whether you understood anything. They'll probe whether you
understood things properly or just recited what you read. And you get to ask
the prof whatever you want.

But at the end of it all, everything simply depended on taking a bunch of sit-
for-three-hours exams.

~~~
sokoloff
_Graduating_ may have depended on sitting for those exams, but did all of your
_learning_ depend only (or even primarily) on those exams?

I'll bet you learned more from the years you spent outside the classroom
interacting with your fellow students in the residences, dining halls, student
activities, etc.

~~~
lordnacho
Depends on what you mean by learning. I don't think I learned anything about
thermodynamics, control theory, or algorithms anywhere other than while
reading and doing exercises. Even the tutorials are of limited use for that,
mainly providing a shortcut to the answer when needed.

The larger learning of "how do you you get stuff done in your life, what kind
of stuff do you want to do?" is one of those things you get once you look
back. It's actually hard to do while cramming for exams.

I really do think a lot of exam prep is a waste of time, but then we're
looking for a replacement for a 4-year degree costing $250K or something like
that. Surely if you just do the exams at a cost of $1K you can find
communities of like minded people for a lot less than what remains?

~~~
sokoloff
> [surely] you can find communities of like minded people for a lot less than
> what remains?

I'm not so sure. The amount of free time available to discuss the topics of
life with other like-minded people _who also have that same amount of free
time_ I have not been able to replicate (nor come close to) since graduating.

------
DoreenMichele
I paid my student loan off in July 2017. That September, I got back into
housing.

When I was mostly bedridden for 3.5 months, I had trouble getting doctors to
take me seriously. When I was reacting anaphylacticly to the polluted air in
the LA basin while pursuing my certificate in GIS, I explained to a doctor
that I had taken out a student loan and really needed to complete the program
that I was already halfway through. He loaded me up with the most drugs any
doctor has ever given me.

Twenty-two months of withdrawal followed. I failed to get the internship at a
National Lab that I had applied to. It took me forever to finally get a job.

A lot needs to go right for someone to complete their program and turn it into
an adequate income for converting those loans.

We need to admit something went systemically wrong and stop acting like a
whole bunch of individual young people just made bad decisions.

I don't think letting some current student loan holders off the hook and
moving to try to make sure this can't happen again is a bad idea. Though it's
certainly possible that this will turn out to be the first iteration, so to
speak, and can be improved upon.

~~~
sanxiyn
This sounds like we need insurance, not subsidy. Some higher education is
risky bet; we have good solution to that, insurance. But some higher education
is just bad bet.

------
Miner49er
This could be pitched as a stimulus program. Freeing up this much debt would
allow young people to spend a lot more.

~~~
sanxiyn
I think this actually _is_ pitched as a stimulus program.

------
tomohawk
How about instead holding schools to account for their shoddy product?
Universities routinely sell shoddy degree programs to unsophisticated
consumers (18 year olds). They have even enticed the government to guarantee
unsecured loans for the products. As a result, the purveyors of these shoddy
products have proliferated. Who would have thunk?

------
sanxiyn
Subsidizing tulip is not the right solution to tulip bubble.

~~~
lutorm
Education is not a tulip, though.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
_Higher_ education may well be a tulip. Or, it may be for many people.

Let me put it this way: Out of a year's worth of high school graduates, how
many should go to college? I'm pretty sure that the answer is considerably
less than 100% - not all high school graduates are _capable_ of doing college-
level work. If college is free, how do you keep those who aren't qualified
from going? Yeah, the admissions process - but it's run by the school, which
is going to get more money if it admits more students.

------
honkycat
I paid off my student loans around 6 years after college because I:

\- Chose a degree that would lead to a profitable career ( Computer Science )

\- Worked during the day and went to school at night, paying for my books and
other expenses as I went through school. ( I was a manual QA worker at a tech
company. )

\- Lived below my means. Always took public transit, never owned a car, always
had multiple roommates.

\- Avoided large purchases or expensive trips

\- threw a large part of my paycheck at the problem. I wanted to get ahead of
that compound interest.

I support student loan cancellation. Over a trillion in debt. SOMETHING needs
to happen. I understand why it needs to happen. But as someone who "did the
right thing", it stings to get left out in the cold on this one.

And either way: Even people still IN debt paid a LOT of money towards our
student loans. What happens to the money people have already paid off? There
will still be a 10-year wealth gap for people around my age. I will be outbid
for homes by people a decade younger than me.

I delayed retirement contributions, home purchases, and having a family to pay
off my student loans.

~~~
sanxiyn
> Lived below my means. Always took public transit, never owned a car.

I worked >10 years in the industry and am quite well-to-do, but I always take
public transit and never owned a car. I never thought that was living below my
means. Maybe it's different in US...

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dillonmckay
This doesn’t sound like a solution at all.

Some of these $50k loans have over an additional $100k in interest and
penalties. So, this would not help.

Make the debt dischargeable under bankruptcy, and the market will correct
itself.

Let the borrower’s credit take the hit, not the taxpayers.

~~~
wang_li
There's no penalties unless they're not paying in which case this is a
different problem than student loan debt in general.

Another issue with this is that the vast majority of students hold way less
than $50k in debt. This would help out people who either will be earning
substantial incomes, e.g. physicians, or who used student loans to subsidize
their lifestyle well beyond their school expenses (this might include living
in New York City/San Francisco for four years without having any income.)

Making student debt dischargeable via bankruptcy would eliminate student loans
all together.

~~~
dillonmckay
There are a significant number of instances where the loan payer has been
making payments, but not to the proper entity. The amount paid cannot be
recovered and does not apply to the loan.

And, eliminating loans all together would bring tuition prices back to earth.

------
vonmoltke
The reporting on this plan so far seems to be very light on the details of how
the federal government is going to eliminate something it doesn't control
(public university tuition).

~~~
sanxiyn
I am rather ignorant of US system, but do you mean the federal government
doesn't control tuition, or can't? Can't the federal government just pass law
to start to control it? I seem to recall it can regulate interstate commerce?

~~~
sokoloff
It's not clear to me that on-premises state university education is interstate
commerce. (Not that that would necessarily stop it from being tried, but we
have, at least in theory per the Tenth Amendment, state supremacy for areas
not granted the Feds by the Constitution nor reserved for the people.)

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's not clear to me that on-premises state university education is
> interstate commerce.

It's already heavily federally subsidized, and challenging changes to the
subsidy conditions on the grounds that the feds have no right to be involved
at all would be suicidal for state universities since it wouldn't just kill
the new conditions if it succeeded but the subsidies themselves.

~~~
sokoloff
So treat it like the federal highway funding being conditioned on the states
"behaving" with respect to speed limit, DUI laws, and other items.

I don't love but accept the feds exerting economic power based on economic
grants they decide to give or withhold. I do have a problem with them
asserting regulatory power reserved to the states/people by the 10th.

~~~
dragonwriter
> So treat it like the federal highway funding being conditioned on the states
> "behaving" with respect to speed limit, DUI laws, and other items.

That's already the case on a per-institution basis for federal funding, all
that a policy goal of eliminating tuition requires is changing the conditions.

------
apo
Paywalled, but the original post from the Warren campaign is here:

[https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-calling-for-something-
trul...](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-calling-for-something-truly-
transformational-universal-free-public-college-and-cancellation-
of-a246cd0f910f)

Warren lays out the main cause of the student debt problem here:

> The enormous student debt burden weighing down our economy isn’t the result
> of laziness or irresponsibility. It’s the result of a government that has
> consistently put the interests of the wealthy and well-connected over the
> interests of working families.

Although this may be true, it avoids another important part of the problem:

Federal student loan guarantees have flooded the higher education market with
easy money for decades. Families who have no business being in this market
(either on academic or economic grounds) have been lured in by artificially
low rates. This problem is not unlike the one created by the federal guarantee
on mortgages.

In both cases, the outcome was similar: skyrocketing prices, decreasing
affordability, massive debt burden, and systemic risk.

In the case of higher education, there's another factor - college has moved
from being an option for some kids to a mandatory thing every kid must do.
This, despite the proliferation of high-quality information sources on every
topic imaginable. Many universities publish their lectures in full.

Higher ed has become an expensive, seemingly mandatory credential as a result.
An unnecessary four-year detour that hobbles many young people for decades
afterwards.

Maybe it's time to think differently about the problem. Maybe it's time for
the federal government to step away, completely, and let the price of a
college credential collapse under its own weight.

------
lutorm
I went to university in Sweden, where there is no tuition for citizens (EU
citizens, actually.) I think this is one of the reasons the Scandinavian
countries have such high social mobility.

Now, that doesn't mean going to university is free, since you still have to be
able to pay room, board, textbooks, etc, but the student loans I have are
structured such that the payback is indexed to my income. Not being able to
pay your student loans because you don't make enough money is not a thing, so
there's much less risk in taking out these loans that there is in the US.

I would happily fund other people's education if that means a citizenry that
doesn't believe the Earth is flat, that vaccinates their children, and whose
world view in general is based on critically assessing sources of
information...

Now, the Swedish universities are also mostly state-run. In the US, I'm not
sure how the system would be sustainable if the private institutions of higher
education can just charge what they want and then have the state pay the
students for it. Seems like a recipe for runaway costs. I guess her proposal
is only for public universities though?

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whymsicalburito
Why doesn't she propose a plan to subsidize home buying or raise salaries?
This seems like another doomed trickle down economics plan. I somehow also
feel this penalizes those who have exercised healthy financial planning and
made the conscious decision not to get into crippling student loan debt.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why doesn't she propose a plan to subsidize home buying or raise salaries?

She has. The latter, at least, as that's one of the things behind her
corporate governance reform proposal.

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RickJWagner
Hmmmm. So there's a great gap between the Haves and the Have-nots.

I don't think forgiving college debt is going to help.

------
admiralspoo
Let's not let HN become a political shit hole like Reddit please

~~~
thebooktocome
It's a bit late for that.

~~~
dang
> _Please don 't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
hackeraccount
Free stuff for middle class people in America? Someone else is going to pay
for it?

I'm sure this will be very popular.

~~~
octonion
It's a benefit of being a member of a wealthy society, as are other non-free
things like public education, libraries and clean water. Societies strive to
benefit citizens more over time, not less. That's how societies work, and
early humans formed tribes because of the mutual benefits.

~~~
throwaway190102
Government != Society

~~~
octonion
All societies have governments, even if it's as simple as a tribal leader or
elder.

------
malvosenior
_" She would eliminate up to $50,000 in student loan debt for every person
with a household income of less than $100,000;"_

So she plans to reward the people who made the worst decisions. As someone who
made responsible decisions: nope. Just no. I will not support tax dollars
going to bail out people who paid upwards of 50k for worthless degrees.

~~~
VectorLock
I don't think its fair to judge the worth of someone's degree simply based on
how much they earn.

~~~
tomsthumb
In an economic context, why would it not be fair to judge the economic worth
of someone’s degree on the basis of that degree’s ability to influence their
earnings?

~~~
SantalBlush
Because there are a litany of counterexamples to the myth that earnings equate
to economic value. Teachers, police officers, and social workers immediately
come to mind.

~~~
sanxiyn
The obvious solution is to subsidize teacher pay etc, not to subsidize
education to be teacher! If teachers are well paid, you wouldn't need to
subsidize teacher education.

~~~
dragonwriter
Subsidizing teacher pay is subsidizing education.

------
jjuel
So instead of me directly paying just for my own education I would have to pay
for everyone else's education in the form of taxes? Freeing up what I am
currently paying for student loans would be nice, but if you take more money
from me to subsidize ALL public colleges am I really gaining anything? Sure
this is a good talking point for her and the progressive left, but
realistically it isn't a feasible plan.

~~~
lildoggo
>"She would pay for it with revenue generated by her proposed increase in
taxes for America’s most wealthy families and corporations, which the campaign
estimates to be $2.75 trillion over 10 years"

Unless your household is making over $50 Million year, or you are a
billionaire, your taxes wouldn't change for this particular plan.

~~~
jjuel
When have you seen taxes on the wealthy actually work or even pass the House
or Senate? Again good in theory, but not good in practice. All that is going
to do is get the ultra wealthy and corporations to use more loopholes than
they already do. Again it is a great talking point, but not something that is
realistic. But it'll get all of the people hampered by tuition and student
debt to say "yeah stick it to them". I personally still have loads of debt and
would be nice to get rid of. Would be nice to see my son be able to go to a
public university for free. However, the logistics of it will make it never
happen. In fact it would probably affect public universities, and the quality
would decline more than it is now.

