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A comment on Ghost students are creating an 'agonizing' problem for Calif. colleges. Parent comment

Re:Ghost students are creating an 'agonizing' problem for Ca... by setr on Wednesday May 07, 2025 @10:54PM (#43922649)
The lost money comes from the taxpayer. But that loan money was going to be used to pay the school; and presumably if the student doesn’t have that loan money, they ain’t gonna be paying (or attending, because they can no longer afford to do so). So schools should care. And the students should care — they don’t get to join the school. And the government should care — their funds just went into a void. And the taxpayers should care — their money just went into a void, and some number of their kids just got denied college access.

What involved party shouldn’t care?

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Re:Ghost students are creating an 'agonizing' problem for Ca... by permo-w on Wednesday May 07, 2025 @11:20PM (#43922777)
>The lost money comes from the taxpayer

not necessarily

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Re:Ghost students are creating an 'agonizing' problem for Ca... by s1artibartfast on Wednesday May 07, 2025 @11:20PM (#43922769)
I think they're making a cynical comment about incentives and government waste.

There's some truth to this if the people in charge of the process are not the ones paying.

I've seen gratuitous waste in government due to indifference. It can happen in the private sector too.

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Re:Ghost students are creating an 'agonizing' problem for Ca... by thaumasiotes on Thursday May 08, 2025 @12:21AM (#43923037)
> But that loan money was going to be used to pay the school; and presumably if the student doesn’t have that loan money, they ain’t gonna be paying (or attending, because they can no longer afford to do so). So schools should care.

I don't think this is a correct model of the situation. As far as I know, it isn't the case that there's a fixed budget for student loan disbursals and all of it will go to some school or other unless it gets stolen. Rather, if more people ask for student loans, more money gets disbursed, and if fewer people ask for loans, less money gets disbursed. So the amount of money the school gets wouldn't be affected.

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