
In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve - walterbell
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/nyregion/in-new-jersey-student-loan-program-even-death-may-not-bring-a-reprieve.html?_r=0
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pkaye
"Ms. DeOliveira-Longinetti, who co-signed on the loans, was shocked and
confused." Be careful when co-signing any loan.

~~~
rayiner
The article calls this abusive loan-sharking at the behest of the state's evil
Goldman Sachs overlords. But the woman co-signed her son's loan. What did she
think that meant?

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endianswap
Yeah it's pretty straightforward to pair a loan like this with life insurance
(which is not only cheap for someone of college age but also generally
requires no medical exam).

~~~
josephlord
Then it would also be pretty cheap for the lender to insure against borrower's
death or to bear the low (amortised) cost.

There is no reason a guarantor couldn't be responsible only for wilful failure
to pay but not for after death.

I'm not saying these things apply in the agreement under discussion or under
the relevant laws but just that different structures are possible.

~~~
ars
> Then it would also be pretty cheap for the lender to insure against
> borrower's death

It would. It would be so cheap for them that they might as well just cut out
the middleman and self insure.

AKA just forgive the debt and that's all. Which apparently everyone else does,
except NJ.

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toodlebunions
Student loans are an impending financial disaster. Over a trillion in loans
outstanding not, most of which have provided no benefit and serve little more
than as the modern equivalent to a high school diploma. The debt burden
follows students through life and impedes home ownership, children, and other
middle class consumptive activities, and as a result the demand driven economy
muddles along.

What is the solution? Forgive all loans after paying 10% of salary for 10
years? I don't know, but something needs to change.

~~~
rayiner
> What is the solution? Forgive all loans after paying 10% of salary for 10
> years? I don't know, but something needs to change.

No that would just inflate the education bubble even more. You need to figure
out how to reduce the demand for all this useless higher education.

~~~
toodlebunions
So, trade schools? Reintroducing shop class and welding into high schools? An
optional 2 year program similar to national guard, but for domestic efforts?

I'm in favor of affordable higher education for those who want it, either way.

~~~
douche
Any and all of those options sounds like a good idea

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gaur
Anyone who sues an indigent cancer patient in order to recover some
vanishingly small fraction of the state's budget is a predator, and should be
treated as such.

~~~
douche
AS a cancer survivor, I would agree. Particularly for childhood patients, who
cannot legally be responsible for ridiculous costs.

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ilostmykeys
Can we all agree that greed is evil?

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iamleppert
School is for suckers anymore. Who in their right mind would put themselves
through what amounts to institutional training for a life of future labor,
middle class if you're lucky, working for a corporation as an at-will
employee?

You've paid thousands and given up four years of your youth, and for what? To
go to work (if you're lucky for many) for a big corporation making a select
few wealthier? Meanwhile your salary is barely enough to make only but
marginal dents in the debt you now owe.

You struggle to find meaning in your life, as you battle politics, desperately
try to stay relevant in an environment of anxiety and fear; your peers are
just as worried as you.

There needs to be an awakening where we stop telling our kids the "one way" to
happiness and the dream is through an expensive undergraduate education. Sure,
if you want to go to school to learn something, go...but something tells me,
that to the architects of this system, education is the least of the
priorities.

~~~
trhway
man, K-12 is no more. K-16 is the bare minimum to function in the current
civilization. Obviously this new reality should be reflected in school
organization, i.e. whole K-16 should be covered by the public.

~~~
jerf
In which case the "bare minimum" signaling will just move up to the next
level, and then graduate degrees will be required. At which point post-
graduate will be required. You can't signal that you're above average if
everybody comes up to the same "above average" at the same time.

This isn't even hypothetical, there are already industries where this is how
it works. A 4-year-degree in teaching or social work just gets you in the
door; you are very much expected to keep going and get masters degrees if you
want any sort of raise. (It is not clear to me how this makes anyone a better
teacher or social worker. It is credentialism in a pure form.) Combined with
the general drop in signaling quality of a 4-year-degree as the curricula get
easier, this is the inevitable outcome.

We don't need to pour even more money into funding people's walking on the
treadmill, we need to attack the reason why the treadmill is necessary in the
first place.

~~~
trhway
>In which case the "bare minimum" signaling will just move up to the next
level, and then graduate degrees will be required. At which point post-
graduate will be required.

definitely. In the future where all "simple" jobs are automated the basic
necessary skill level would be an ability to do research, ie. the post-
graduate level. Without it, one would be able only to enjoy the life provided
by the automated systems and wouldn't be able to contribute to the society. It
has already happened several times for previous levels of education - from
reading/writing as a sign of being "educated" hundreds years ago to
manufacturing jobs (K-12 level) which were middle-class jobs just a few
decades ago.

>A 4-year-degree in teaching or social work just gets you in the door; you are
very much expected to keep going and get masters degrees if you want any sort
of raise.

these are government jobs, not subject to market forces, it is more like armed
forces in that regard.

~~~
virmundi
Nope, social work is not just government jobs. My wife is a social worker at a
hospice (not government). She had to have her masters to get the job. The next
thing she has to get is a clinical license. Fun fact, that's a paying
internship. She pays a mentor for 2 years to watch her do her job. After the
monitoring, my wife is eligible to take a test. If she passes that test, she
gets the license. That licenses enables her to increase her odds of getting a
social work job in a hospital or government job like the VA, which is not just
hospitals.

When all of this is said and done, she had her undergrad (fortunately paid for
by her mother's employer, the school), which cost about 100k. Then we paid for
her 30k masters. Now we'll pay 2-4k depending on the license mentor. So 132k
for a job that pays...wait for it... at best 60k a year! Compare this to my BS
in CS which opened at 42k and now is somewhere around 120k. Yay idiotic higher
ed inflation.

As an interesting side note, most of this stupidity is caused by the social
workers themselves. Like Rodney Dangerfield, they felt like they got no
respect from the doctors, legislators and nurses. So they actually pushed for
laws around mandated education! They pushed for licenses. They pushed for
licenses that could only be obtained with job experience! You couldn't get
experience to get the license to get the job that would get you the
experience! We actually fled Indiana because of it. Florida is more
reasonable.

