>no sane institution would give out student loans

Then maybe the whole concept of student loans is ridiculous to begin with.

Nobody is forcing you to take a loan out. I studied and worked at the same time. Paid for my 4-year NJ college with cash.

The average cost of college for a four year, in-state public state university is ~$25,000 per year [1]. I'm happy that you either came from a rich family or went to college before the student debt crisis started, but not everyone has $100,000 in cash under their couch cushions.

[1] https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c...

Was my comment not clear? I worked and studied at the same time.

I came from a very poor family, and my parents paid zero for my education. I paid around $12K/semester, depending on the number of credits, so around $24K/year.

I'll bet $5 he went to state school which are often heavily subsidized.

> If you could get out of student loans by simply declaring bankruptcy, no sane institution would give out student loans.

And yet, credit cards (unsecured lines of credit with no recourse in bankruptcy) are issued continuously to this cohort.

Credit cards are issued at 10%-30% interest rates. This is the norm for unsecured debt; to get a decent rate a debt must usually be backed by something. Mortgages have the lowest rates seen with consumer debt because even in foreclosure, the house can (in normal economic conditions) be sold to repay the debt in full.

Student loans can't be made at reasonable interest rates without either a strong guarantee of repayment or a taxpayer subsidy for the risk. The current system has a bit of both.

Yes, but at the credit level of a student getting $50,000 in loans, a credit card company would give a $1,000 limited cards

If you don't give students tens of thousands of dollars in credit, schools can't charge tens of thousands of dollars per year. Prices rise to capture available revenue.

At what APR though? 30-40% for someone with no credit history? And how much? Maybe $1K on a prepaid card at first.

They hedge the risk by charging a lot more. Do you want student loans at 30-40% APR?

Between 15-28%, although legislation is currently being sponsored to cap credit card interest rates at 15%.

I want student loans eliminated and universities to be government funded through taxpayer dollars, as was the case previously with public universities. Public university tuition has gone up because government funding for them have gone down. As usual, stealing from the future.

EDIT: I'm okay with raising taxes to pay for education instead of the broken student loan system, forcing universities to limit what they charge, and democratic socialism as a whole. Societal utilities (healthcare, education) are not a free market. Never have been, never will be.

Sure, but then it means you have to forcefully decide how much universities can charge for their services. And you will have to raise taxes to fund free education.

I'm not a fan of socialism. I think people and organizations should be free to decide how much their services cost.

And btw, that 15% cap will result in one thing: poor people not being able to get credit.

It's almost impossible https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.creditkarma.com/advice/i/st...

You could teach old people to stop trying to charge 100K for some ridiculous degree as a prerequisite to enter certain job markets, but they already seem aware of the problems they're causing.

You cant teach anyone to make less profit.

I suppose they don't believe in their own ability to educate students enough to generate ideas that pay for themselves via research grants; otherwise it would be more profitable to charge less.

I'm pounding the strongly disagree button.

Do you eat your fill before you serve your children dinner?

Do you eat your fill before your guests get a share?

If you had money to blow, do you buy every single house in a locality just to keep them empty?

Do you charge your neighbors $150 an hour for technical support they need, and implement payment plans they can barely get out from under to make it happen?

No, you don't. Because at some level you have two neurons to rub together that say "I don't need this, it isn't terribly polite, and even if I did, I wouldn't be the best equipped to manage actually keeping things running smoothly."

Making "less profit" is a subset of the same group of life lessons as those I posted above.

Except now, we have an entire strata of people who forsake the basics of human coexistence called "capitalists", who seek to leverage every opportunity to build rent-seeking empires at the expense of everyone else because... Why? Because if they don't somebody else will?

You are a citizen of the world first, and the economy second. If there is something that needs to get done, work at figuring out how to get it done with what you've got, and no one will begrudge you making a bit extra off it if it makes their lives easier.

Reasonable profit is a given; predatory profit generating practices, however, are not, and should never be acceptable.

Reasonable profit making is absolutely learn/teachable. You just have to have a modicum of humanity left to be willing to recognize and honor it.