Bankrupt-able student loans will not help the problem. The universities who are taking advantage of the easily available money from the government will still get paid. During bankruptcy, the loan write down hurts the lender. In this case it's us taxpayers.

The real answer is to cut what's funded by the government, make the rest of the financing come from the universities themselves, AND make it bankrupt-able. Then as demand declines and universities share the hit for each bankruptcy, universities will lower prices to something more reasonable to increase supply.

Why have special rules for student loans at all? If a degree is not very important anymore then it should be just free choice. Banks will step in to provide private loans on whatever terms they feel like. They'll be bankruptable. The banks can make their own judgements about the borrower's ability to repay it - eg. higher interest rates for useless degrees or low grades.

I thought the whole business of government helping with student loans is to enable poor people to get a degree when that was vital to getting rich. But that's not really needed anymore. You can often make more money with a trade certificate than a degree.

> Banks will step in to provide private loans on whatever terms they feel like. They'll be bankruptable. The banks can make their own judgements about the borrower's ability to repay it

Banking industry does not have a concept of a college loan. A loan is either secured (mortgage, auto, HELOC) or unsecured (personal, credit card). Without government participation all college loans are treated as unsecured, which means that everybody will get roughly the same offer as they do today on personal loans. High interest rate, payments must start immediately, bad credit requires a co-signer (time to talk to Mom and Dad).

Banking sector interest in unsecured private loans to people with bad credit (which describes most 18-year-olds) is so close to zero that LendingClub pretty much owns the sector.

I think the degree should be security for the loan. You can discharge your degree in bankruptcy, but you also lose the degree. Your resume legally has to show a blank spot that you cannot explain as anything other than wasting your time. (or possibly working part time if you had a job).

Want a new degree, your credits won't transfer so you start over as a freshman. (if you can get in - school is competitive and the bankruptcy is sitting there on your record)

A very significant portion of college entrants do not receive a degree.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40

"The 6-year graduation rate was 58 percent at public institutions, 65 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 27 percent at private for-profit institutions."

And they'll all offer coding bootcamps, for max ROI, and nothing else. Future doctors can be imported.

How is that worse than producing an overabundance of literature majors that have very little ROI?

It means the education system is design to pump out workers rather than thinkers. Taking this to the logical conclusion, why teach science, history or sport in high schools? Low ROI. Stuff that!

Why not make the coding bootcamp start at kindergarten. And why not let parents pay for such schools so they can choose the best ROI for their kid.

Well, why not?

If those "thinkers" were really contributing something valuable, that will show up in ROI. If you don't agree with that measure, how do you propose to eliminate completely useless classes and make space for better alternatives? Do you just assume that any classes that are part of the status quo must be valuable?

Value for society != Roi

There are so many examples of this I don't know where to begin. Ok I'll start: Fracking.

Externalities are a small, specific issue and we have ways of dealing with them. Again, how do you propose to measure this "value for society"?

Externialities. Like climate change? Yep we've got that under complete control.

Another good example of chasing the mighty fractionally reserved greenback:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14495950

So do you have a proposed improvement? I think taking schooling time away from history and sport and putting it towards coding would make us more, not less, likely to solve climate change.

The latter point is actually good, but it is not just about coding bootcamp. Many great athletes were also discovered very early, musicians etc.

Generally it is about playing to the strengths. Customized education.

>The real answer is to cut what's funded by the government

Guaranteed downvotes

No worries, I'll upvote it. ;)

I think he/she is right-ish about the supply-demand calculus on this; looking at history, overextended credit/margins often lead to nasty bubbles because of the distortion effects.

> I never figured out what most of the administration did besides irritate the better teachers.

As a teacher who has experienced that irritation, I hear you. But I also know that multitudes of administrators are a necessity in the modern world. There are a number of reasons for this; one of the biggest is regulatory burden.

Pick your favorite downtrodden group. Some politician makes a speech about how Group X has gotten the shaft for too long; he says he wants to pass a law that says no federal money is going to go to a university that hires people from Group X at a lower rate than other groups. Everyone says, "Yay, politician." And the law is passed.

Now, I am not (repeat: NOT) arguing against such policies. If thoughtfully enacted they can be beneficial. But they also come at a cost. And much of that cost is administrative.

Basically, this politician has just invented a new form to fill out. Before receiving federal $$$, we have to fill out this form that describes our good-faith efforts to hire qualified people from Group X.

Now, someone has to fill out that form. They have to keep the necessary records. They have to tell their coworkers what they need to do to be in compliance. They have to get periodic training, because government requirements change. That person needs office space and equipment. They need a parking space, and their trash needs to be emptied, and their restroom needs to be cleaned and stocked, and their paycheck needs to be deposited, and someone needs to supervise them. And none of this is free.

The modern world comes with a huge number of policies like this. "Let's prevent hard-working Americans' money from being misspent. I'm going to require that any scientist who receives a government grant has to account for his time, so we know where the money is going." Fine. And every university hires someone for a new administrative position.

"Every new construction project must conform to stricter safety requirements." Great idea. Another hire.

And again, none of this is free.

> Oh yea, and put a hiring freeze/salary cap on all administrative personnel for any school that accepts federal loans.

Ah, but the reason the administrative personnel are necessary in the first place is to ensure that the organization meets the qualifications to accept federal money. So the idea is, I'm afraid, completely impractical.

But they also come at a cost. And much of that cost is administrative.

T.I.N.S.T.A.F.R

There is no such thing as free regulation. Some people tend to forget that when they say "We should make a law that says..."

No, but the flip side is that if you don't want to enforce reasonable assurances on quality or efficacy, then you don't have the right to complain when people don't act in the manner you want them to. Most people would rather have the assurances.

Administration costs have risen quite a bit, and are even used as political gifts. Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, stacked Purdue's board with his contributors and supports and when he left the governor position they made him president of Purdue. The detachment from the administration of schools and the actual education portion is a big issue.

They also gold plate all of their new facilities. Not enough to have a normal hand dryer. Gotta have it covered in custom graphics.

> Gotta have it covered in custom graphics.

Unless they are going out of their way to spend a lot of money, the cost of those graphics is actually pretty cheap in comparison to the entire device. It's probably things like marble floors where the cost between one material choice can be 3x-10x the cost of another that would increase costs.