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Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by hayst4ck on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @10:02AM (#43762321)
I've rarely had my hate spiked so highly so quickly by a comment.

Many of these loans are handed out predatorily to people classified as children, 6-8 years before their higher level thinking pre-frontal cortex fully develops, with no life experience, little work experience, a wide range in quality of parenting and childhood, with a society that has said "this is how you achieve the American dream of doing better than your parents."

The loans themselves shield the lender from consequences and put risk squarely on the the loan taker.

The seeming goal of these loans being the same for most of the structure of American society, to ensure desperate workers that have no freedom and no ability to say no to businesses.

When society offered these loans to people who in no way would have been able to get them on fundamentals, which was already a failure of society to invest in the future, there was an implicit promise that they would lead to a better life and they didn't.

You can't blame societies young for believing what their elders and even society at large tells them.

Universities failed their students, society failed students and universities, our own culture decayed in terms of earning vs receiving credentials, and the people you want to pay the cost of that are the people that the system victimized the most?

Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by hiatus on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @11:57AM (#43763636)
Hate? Maybe close the browser and go outside. Plenty of people were presented with the same information and options and made different choices and sacrifices.
Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by Ekaros on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @10:36AM (#43762727)
Maybe then ban giving them out for anyone under age of 25. Absolute total ban. Start solving the problem today. Anyone currently taking loans do not get any more of them until age of 25.

Seems like most reasonable first step to take.

Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @10:40AM (#43762782)
Requires Congress to act, which will not occur in its current configuration. If what is reasonable is impossible, it's only a thought experiment. Can consider trying again after midterms in 2026, depending on outcome.
Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by hayst4ck on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @10:50AM (#43762902)
A social movement where everyone decides not to pay any form of debt has a higher chance of success than getting congress to act, especially act in the interest of people rather than the interest of bankers, corporations, or oligarchs.

We don't make people take out loans for K-12. Education is an investment. It should be funded, just not in a way that is so rife with conflicts of interest. Everyone benefits from an educated society except priests and other kinds of authoritarians.

Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by piva00 on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @10:46AM (#43762858)
Unreasonable if there are no alternatives to achieve higher education. You start solving the problem by cutting potential opportunities without no replacement scheme for it, only creating bigger problems.

There's no easy solution to this, it's structural, it's systemic, the model the USA uses for higher-ed funding is structurally unsound and unsustainable. Replacement the model can only be done through a measured policy change but I don't see much of that coming from the US in the past 10-15 years, it's mostly flailing around with no clear vision for what it wants to be in the future, just an everlasting chase for GDP growth no matter how, at some point this narrow objective comes crashing down.

Re:Student loans in default to be referred to debt collectio... by Aloisius on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @03:12PM (#43765291)
> 6-8 years before their higher level thinking pre-frontal cortex fully develops

This is a myth. The prefrontal cortex doesn't appear to ever stop developing.

Early brain development studies involving MRIs simply only looked at people up to the age of 25 and the findings that they "develop until at least 25" turned into this myth that they stop developing and are "fully mature" at 25.

The age of majority was a conservative choice based on society's view of when the vast majority of people were capable of the level of self-sufficiency required to do things like enter into contracts. If most are incapable of self-sufficiency without a parental guardian, then the age of majority should be increased.

That said, we also ignored our own rationale and started allowing minors to apply for student loans. This is a travesty.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/comment/brain-myth-25-developme...