Re:College-educated workers are taking over the American fac...
by AngryData on Tuesday December 10, 2019 @01:32AM
(#21750205)
To me the solution is simple, make college debt dischargable through bankruptcy. The only people who are actually going to declare bankruptcy are people who aren't and can't pay for their loans in the first place. It isn't just a simple reset button like people pretend, declaring bankruptcy has a serious repercussions, but at the end of it all they will end up in a better position and will contribute far more to the economy than they will stuck in a poverty trap.
College costs an insane amount of money in the States. I'm not sure more money is the answer. The government should be pushing ways to make it cheaper. Ceasing to guarantee public student loans and making private debt more easily dischargeable in bankruptcy would be a great start.
Turn off the money firehose and colleges will return to their core competencies - teaching and research - instead of building football stadiums, basketball arenas, and doing other stuff that's irrelevant to a good education. They may also differentiate by having tuition prices better reflect costs and future job prospects. So for example art, writing, polisci, history degrees may cost way less than engineering, science or medical degrees. Making community-college-to-state-college transfers easier would be another thing to try.
Basically there are many things one could do to expand access to college, and leave students better off, without spending more tax money.