It’s 2 million now with another 4 million projected. And jobs are harder to find.
Student-Loan Borrowers Are at Risk of Docked Pay This Summer
The Wall Street Journal reports Nearly Two Million Student-Loan Borrowers Are at Risk of Docked Pay This Summer
Roughly six million federal student-loan borrowers are 90 days or more past due after a pandemic-era reprieve ended, according to TransUnion. The credit-reporting company estimates that about a third of them, or nearly two million borrowers, could move into default in July and start having their pay docked by the government. That’s up from the 1.2 million that TransUnion had estimated in early May.
An additional one million borrowers are on track to default by August, followed by another two million in September. Borrowers fall into default when they are 270 days past due.
Wage garnishment is also set to restart this summer. Until past due payments are paid in full or the default status is resolved, borrowers could see up to 15% of their wages automatically deducted from their paychecks.
Borrowers who have been newly reported as delinquent since then on their student loans have seen an average 60-point drop in their credit scores, according to TransUnion. Nine percent of borrowers who fell into delinquency were current on their payments by April, according to TransUnion.
The Education Department has been urging borrowers to resume payments and emphasizing the consequences. Roughly 43 million borrowers owe more than $1.6 trillion in student-loan debt.
More than nine million of them are expected to see their credit scores drop this year, according to data from the New York Fed released in March.
This is no small deal. Millions of zoomers and millennials are spending every penny right now and struggling.
Now come wage garnishment up to 15 percent.
And those graduating now are struggling with a much tougher job market.
Gen Z College Grads Hit the Job Market at the Worst Possible Time
Business Insider reports Gen Z College Grads Hit the Job Market at the Worst Possible Time
Zoomers are staring down a tough hiring market: Economic uncertainty has contributed to employees’ wariness to quit and companies’ hesitancy to hire. Artificial intelligence is disrupting the entry-level rung of the career ladder in industries like tech. Recent graduates have told Business Insider that they’re frustrated by hundreds of rejected applications and being ghosted by prospective employers. Some are settling for whatever work they can find.
It’s long been typical for 20-somethings to have a higher unemployment rate than the general population, and the overall US unemployment rate is still relatively low. One relatively new development, however, is that young people with college degrees are being hit hard by the economic slowdown — especially if they’re hoping to land a role in traditionally white-collar fields. Many Gen Zers are losing faith in the ROI of higher education and are turning toward blue-collar opportunities.
The unemployment rate for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 has soared compared to unemployment for all workers ages 16 to 65 in recent years. This is a new trend: young people with degrees have historically almost always been more likely to be employed than the rest of the labor force.
The unemployment rate gap between the total workforce and recent grads was historically wide this spring, meaning that the job market for 20-somethings with degrees is among the worst the cohort has seen in at least four decades. Those who studied anthropology, physics, or computer engineering had the highest unemployment rates in 2023, per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s analysis of Census Bureau data.
The pool of jobs available for Gen Z — and the workforce as a whole — to apply for has shrunk. Job openings have cooled from 12 million in March 2022 to 7 million this past April. In what’s been dubbed the Big Stay, current employees are holding on to their seats as well, with the monthly quit rate falling from 3% in March 2022 to 2% this past April.
Small and midsize businesses aren’t hiring as many recent grads
Gusto, a payroll and benefits platform for small- and medium-sized businesses, found the rate of primarily white-collar hires aged 20 to 24 at small and midsize employers has fallen from pre-pandemic levels, declining from 9.4% in May 2019 to 2.7% this past March.
Even if new graduates have a job, they may be working in a role that doesn’t typically require a college degree. While this figure fluctuates over time, the share of 20-somethings who have jobs they’re overeducated for is rising in 2025. It coincides with the generation’s pivot toward skilled-trades roles such as electricians or plumbers.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell says the labor market is healthy.
I disagree.
Related Posts
June 18, 2025: Fed Projects Higher Unemployment and Higher Inflation Citing Tariffs
The Fed’s outlook has soured vs its March forecast. “We expect a meaningful rise in inflation in the coming months,” said Powell.
June 20, 2025: Are You Doing the Side Job Hustle to Make Extra Money?
I created three new charts to show what the BLS says and others dispute.
June 20, 2025: Did the Fed Just Predict a Recession for Later this Year?
The Fed does not “predict”, but its GDP projections say “yes”.
Pay your debts. It sucks that you made a mistake, but don’t make poor people pay for your stupidity. Pay your debts.
You mean these 6 million actually have jobs? How did they get jobs after choosing such useless majors?
OMG, it’s a financial holocaust!
But what else is new..
On the bright side, think how many garnished debt defaulters are in or can move to NYC where rent will be stabilized, billions spent in affordable housing and state run grocery stores will sell for a pittance. And if the grocery stores run out of food, just eat the rich!
“Gone are the days when the ox fall down
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around …”
— Brown Eyed Woman
Well, I guess those days are back!
Deflationary …
Not saying the settlement of debt owed is a bad thing but just asking about knock-on consequences of the impact. Considering fractional reserve banking, when paid off there would be roughly $15 trillion pulled from the economic system. Seems like that would be deflationary, especially coupled with the economic burden borne by the folks with the debt.
Garnish their parent wages as well.
Another massive failure of the American education system. And yet, when it comes to votes, the public systematically rejects support for public education.
Privatized education, just like privatized healthcare, has led to a massive imbalance between the value of the service received and its cost.
This is good Mister MIsh, there is no more Birdbrain Biden freeloading and open borders.
Make the freeloaders pay.
– The WSJ reports: “Nearly 2 Million Student-Loan Borrowers are at risk of docked pay this summer”
– TransUnion reports: “Roughly 6 Million federal student-loan borrowers are 90 days or more past due as well”
– TransUnion estimates that nearly 2 Million borrowers, could move into default in July, and an additional 1 Million borrowers to default by August, followed by another 2 Million more in September.
Note: (Borrowers fall into default when they are 270 days past due.)
>> That is one hell of a lot of young people, that our system allowed to be crushed by loan approvals. These do not go away, and as such are rightfully garnished (Think “Deadbeat Dad” scenarios). Those Millions of young 20 year olds, were destined to be our Countries next Travelers, Parents, Home Buyers, Consumers Etc. That’s a rather large sucking sound coming from the next decade of youngsters, now aging into adulthood broke, and many still living at home, and on there Parents Insurance.
>>> A lot of Illegals have left and are leaving, so here are many jobs available. These may be filled, but by young Americans, looking for “Tax Free” Earnings (Hey Maybe Trump was onto something with “No Tax On Tips”)The “Service Industry” is a huge Money Maker for nearly everyone, now days it appears. Can you say “Under the Table” and I know, it’s an old term, I last saw and utilized in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
P.S. Gen Z saw this coming…
Actions have consequences!
yes, an end ot Birdbrain Biden’s welfare state and open border
They most certainly do, but we shouldn’t be paying for these teenage mistakes being made by young adults. Grant it that most Parents allowed it, by paying their way to Fun and Fast Times, but this isn’t Ridgemont High…
These children have massive debt, and yet they still have yet to start acting like the the Adults that they are!
We’ve come a long way — a century ago we had world wars to drain off the surplus young population. Now we just force them into bankruptcy. So much more humane.
BTW, there is a simple ‘overnight’ solution to student loans. Make the university/college co-guarantor for loans. There is nothing like ‘skin in the game’ to change behavior.
In case it is not clear…
What is missing in higher education is a ‘down side.’ You fix the problem not by allowing bankruptcy, but by accountability and responsibility where it is most needed–IN THE COLLEGES. Aka a downside
Students apply, get accepted, and pay tuition etc. Most take courses without knowing how what they learning relates to their ‘field’, why they need to know it, and what they can do with it later on. Most are NOT thinking about the future job market.
The professors are largely divorced from reality–they don’t know what the student needs to know because they’ve never worked in the field, or talked to employers, or past graduates… The result: faculty teach what they want, how they want, and biased by their personal values and beliefs.
Students have next to no contact with future employers until they graduate.
Now, compare this with cooperative education programs where students work part time in their fields of study! The faculty are more aware of what the students need to know to get jobs. Students work nationally, and GLOBALLY. Oh, and tuition is partially paid from what they earn in the workplace–we are NOT talking unpaid interns here.
Now, guess which group has unpaid student loans?
THIS is the #1 solution to the higher ed cost problem.
This only works for private colleges (Harvard and the like).
State universities (Florida State) are paid for by the taxpayer. So no one there will have ‘skin’ in the game since the tax payer picks up the tab.
Incidentally, the real solution is cutting back on administrative costs. Those have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Colleges now have way more administrators than professors. That wasn’t the case when most of us went to college (70s/80s and even 90s).
Bingo.
So, students at public universities do NOT pay tuition since the state pays everything? Please name a few of those free education schools.
As for more administrators than faculty. You might want to back up your claim with some REAL data.
Seeing as you brought up Florida State…
Main Campus TUITION COST ONLY *does not include fees, dorm, etc)
Undergraduate per credit hour $215.55 (in state) $721.10 (out-of-state)
Graduate per credit hour $479.32 (in state) $1,110.72 (out of state)
It takes a lot of them, to figure out where to “Administer “ All The $$ they are making…
Great idea. I’m shocked at this. College education has been a losing proposition for ages. I went to university in Britain and so lack a comparison, but I used to interview US graduate students for a future leadership program for my company. I was shocked at how utterly dim these supposedly elite students were.
College in the US has been a losing proposition for poor quality students for a long, long time now, but getting a government loan you didn’t;t need to pay back was a one way bet. To be honest college should be restricted to the top 5 or 10% of students….and let the surplus poor quality universities close up shops…..they are little more than trade schools anyway.
Competitive scholarships (aka merit based) would be a good first step to making the necessary changes to education needed to compete in the 21st century; however, liberal institutions would continue their social experiment–all people are equal, no matter what.
Perhaps the saddest, and most dangerous trend, is NOT supporting gifted kids at any level (preschool on). Those students really are the future. The premier schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc) used to be genius factories, not social laboratories.
Our Colleges would be gone overnight! I guess that’s a quick way to school choice, and affordable as well… I’ll take Community College “B” Please…
I have to smile…..anthro and physics majors have never been able to find work in those fields, with just a bachelor’s degree. My anthro sister went into social work (kinda like anthropology), and I became a test engineer (boring, but paid well).
Computer engineering is a surprise – job market must indeed be bad.
You think the FACT that 98% of college faculty are now hard-line Democrats might have something to do with it?
Those are a lot of Amazon and Starbucks customers. Expect a drop in sales.
“Even if new graduates have a job, they may be working in a role that doesn’t typically require a college degree. While this figure fluctuates over time, the share of 20-somethings who have jobs they’re overeducated for is rising in 2025. It coincides with the generation’s pivot toward skilled-trades roles such as electricians or plumbers.”
And it also coincides with mass deportations.
But, I will admit that this could be a very big deal as we move into the later part of the year. Again, there’s a massive rebalancing of expectations across the board from workers to companies that needs to take place.
I didn’t have any expectations concerning that title, but the more I was astonished. The author did a great job. I spent a few minutes reading and checking the facts. Everything is very clear and understandable. I like posts that fill in your knowledge gaps. This one is of the sort.
Yikes. And in light of the inflation they are facing (realty rents) who might they vote for, a Zohran Mamdani, or a luxury real estate magnate, if those are the symbolic figureheads defining the columns on the menu?
Tale of two people. One borrows money to get an education. The other one starts a company, incorporates it and borrows money. The first one graduates and gets a job but struggles because of his debt load and then is let go. The second sees the company he started go bankrupt and its debts are written off by the bank. Since it was the company that borrowed and not himself he has no debt. He then starts over getting another loan since. The second one however can’t write off his debts and the bank cannot write it off. He struggles for the rest of his life under the debt load.
The essential difference is that the first cannot cannot have his debts written off but the second can. So why can’t the student incorporate and use his company to borrow the money? By law a student is expressly forbidden to incorporate and use it to borrow school loans. To me that seems rather perverse. Maybe we should allow them to incorporate.
Billy Jeff
I don’t get the reference. Elucidate me.
That’s the whole point of reading the loan contract you are signing.
A few posts above I mentioned when I was a senior in high school I took a law class that went over contracts and other important aspects of the law that kids would need to know as they became of legal age to sign contracts. That kind of course should still be required today along with money management.
Anyway the obvious flaw in your argument is that even if the kids incorporated no one would loan them money. The reason is they have no asset to offer in return if the loan goes bad. That’s why loans aren’t dis chargeable since the degree you earn (or don’t earn if you fail to graduate) only has value to the person and not the loaner of the money.
True. I have to ponder that a bit.
Yeah, except they didn’t really “get an education” you clown. That’s kind of the point. A degree in gender studies or environmental justice is LESS than useless.
What if it’s a degree in computer science and AI takes your great-paying safe STEM job Mr. Prettyfield?
Got’em!
You’re not a clown.
The first thing an undergraduate must learn is education is CONTINUING. Staying current is minimal. Staying ahead of the rest is what sets you apart.
And also know when to change careers.
Speaking of which:
THis is only part of the problem. Education from pre-school to undergraduate level is largely Pavlovian conditioning–learn this chapter and take the test. By then, the damage is done and the student is incapable of critical thinking.
Food for thought that’s for sure.
It is odd that credit card debt can be discharged in bankruptcy but not college loans. I’ve traditionally been okay with not allowing it to be discharged, but the value of higher education is set to drop precipitously in the next 10 years with the onset of AI & robotics.
Students with college debt are just going to be one of the MANY cohorts of people who are going to have their expectations of wealth & security whack-a-moled.
It is highly unlikely a new company (incorporated or otherwise) can borrow money; it has no assets, no history and no income. Therefore, the loan is taken out by the owner and remains his responsibility. In the event of default, the lender goes after the borrower and his assets are forfeited. No bank lends without security. Bankruptcy is not for the feint-hearted. Been there.
It is an example. A better variation would be he starts a company and it works the first two years and the bank loans him money to expand then his market drops and his company goes bankrupt.
Student loans should be dischargeable in personal bankruptcy. Then lenders would care about the student’s capacity to learn and to earn. No more $125,000 student loans to study social work.
Student loans are taxpayer subsidized and are not subject to a bank’s judgment about whether the loan is likely to be paid back. (Major in gender studies or movie watching if you want to.) If you participate in a govt giveaway at the expense of other people (taxpayers) who get no benefit, expect to be treated badly when you abuse it.
Maybe the student should not have been accepted to an educational institution. Maybe the courses were poorly given and unrelated to the knowledge needed for the field. Maybe the student was pushed through with a D average. Maybe there were 10,000 graduates per year for a field with 1,000 openings per year. Maybe more time was spent in frat-house parties than actual studying. Maybe…
FYI, the problem started in pre-school.
What type of society preys upon its own children by securitizing and selling off their future earnings, and making these debt obligations unique in that they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy?
This is the 21st century version of slavery. History will look back on this and judge us very harshly.
Be honest! Would you loan $70K to a C-average student who wants to study 15th-Century French Poetry, a field with 5 openings per year and 100 applicants, with an average starting salary of $25K?
I would not need to in a rational society because higher education would be recognized as a societal good, encouraged and free. Education makes for an informed, rational, productive populace making better choices in all aspects of life.
There is no free education. Someone is paying for it.
OK, so assume college is free to all. What about living costs, such as a room or apartment, food, medical insurance, transportation, etc.
WHO pays for all of this?
The problem with making anything free, is it tends to end up having no/low value. To get to where you have significant social value (without economic value) is a huge step for the US, founded in self-determination and capitalism.
BTW, we still have slavery. It’s called taxation..
The college industrial complex is a giant scam.
correct
College industrial complex.
Pharma industrial complex.
Healthcare industrial complex.
Real estate industrial complex.
Financial industrial complex.
Food industrial complex.
Military industrial complex.
See the pattern? If you want to win, you need to join the winning team(s) otherwise you’re screwed. Endless whining won’t get anyone anywhere.
But at some point, there will be a big reset which is why….
Got exit strategy?
These marriages of govt and corporate entities is what characterizes a fascist society. And the complexity of the corrupt dynamic isn’t naturally self-correcting. It hurts people, but not as badly or obviously as communism.
There is no place to exit to, unless you already have a dome ready on Mars. All humans are corrupt and all human society is corrupt in multiple ways.
An AI Overlord may be able to fix this but a large segment of human population may have to be culled.
Note: the ‘giant scam’ is almost entirely run by Democrats.
Our whole society is a scam. Fear of toppling the scam is why no one ever tries to get to the root of the problems and fix something.
At least Trump is trying to bring some changes, regardless of how ineptly he is going about it.
My favorite garnish is 3 cocktail onions in my vodka Gibson.
As for the students, they have had this agreement in writing for one or two decades or so. Apparently they learned little in school and have paid too much attention to politics.
Very dry Gibson.
I prefer three vodka Gibsons and one cocktail onion.
They learned little in school because they were taught very little. For example, a college of architecture where every project is a social justice project; where every faculty member is 10-15 years out of date; where every new faculty hire has no interest in teaching useful skills….
When comfort and good stuff are expected problems multiply. Today’s young grew up in comfort and security and expect it for themselves. Their parents probably hit the economy just right, mid 80’s expansion driven by new technologies and trade equated to good jobs and an easy life. The last 25 years have changed that assumption for many. Reality will be a hard pill for many, the period from 1984 to 2000 were not typical as an 80-year-old I can testify to that point.
All true.
The time from the early 1960’s to mid 1970’s was similarly atypical.
The oil price shocks in the 1970’s were atypical.
The elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump were certainly atypical.
Personally, I think life is atypical more than half the time.
“Personally, I think life is atypical more than half the time.”
hmmm, if life is atypical more than have the time doesn’t that make it normal and the old normal atypical?
86/47
Agree with your points, Mish. How did this all happen in past ~ 40 to 45 years?
Positive feedback loops with no negative feedback loops.
It is the end result of the Vietnam era. Colleges became radicalized democrat strongholds as students evaded the draft. They have since retired, but radical democrats now represent about 98% of the faculty.
To the down-voters: this is historical FACT.
deleting duplicate comment – sorry!
The student lending scam was a game between banks and Inst of higher learning to raise tuition to absurd levels. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. They would not have had such success without these arrangements, doesn’t it feel even dirtier now?
Economists need to learn a debit from a credit. Banks don’t lend deposits. Richard Werner has this part right
https://www.educatedinlaw.org/2017/03/banks-dont-take-deposits-banks-dont-lend-money/D
All monetary savings originate within the system, not outside it. DDs are just shifted into TDs. I.e., loans/investments equal deposits.
Honestly, that’s a lot of preamble text to arrive at this two sentence conclusion!
Further, I’m unsure why whether the labor market is healthy or not should matter when loan payments are due. You take a loan and you are responsible for repayment according to the terms, regardless of the possible state of the economy or your personal job prospects when payment is due.
Do you want to propose anything to help or assist those student loan borrowers who are in over their heads and are apparently unable to make payments on the loans they took?
Should they get some kind of special consideration or treatment?
Perhaps more loan write-offs at the taxpayers expense, which Biden pushed? Or more postponement to some time in the future when they have spare coin?
The problem with loan write offs is they don’t solve the systematic problem.
Pretty much nobody born after 2000 has any kind of future. I’m sure they’ll just sit back and watch the wealthy enjoy their tax breaks and hoover up all the homes.
We’re a docile people, after all. Not armed or ornery in any way.
It’ll be fine.
They are indeed a “mostly peaceful” bunch.
I don’t understand why a few people keep talking about the rich “buying up” all the homes or assets, that’ makes no sense if you know how the real world works.
For residential homes, buying up all the real estate makes no sense. Every home needs ongoing maintenance from landscaping, roofing, plumbing, etc. There are also property taxes, insurance, HOA fees, and other things like disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc).
There is no “free lunch” of just buy and hold property and reap endless profits. New homes get built and old ones decay.
I do get tired of so many people repeating the same tired nonsense about the rich “buying up” everything.
Off all the residential property in the USA only a tiny slither is owned by corporations or wealthy individuals.
The rich make calculated decisions to optimize returns and become richer. It makes no financial sense to buy up every property out there and that should be obvious to anyone thinking clearly.
When they buy a building they also pay taxes, insurance maintenance and so forth and homes are just another piece of property to rent out like any other. Since they are large they can get better terms on all those areas than individuals pricing them out. Once renting dominates a market like they do in big city centers then it’s gravy all the way forward until rent controls come in of course. The principle is the same.
Commercial real estate is on the verge of total collapse due to debt and insufficient rent so I’d say that’s a poor example.
Warren Buffett, the greatest investor in history, doesn’t buy every stock, he picks them very carefully, “good business and a fair price” not “I’m going to own everything.”
Elon Musk could buy up real estate instead he bought twitter. Plenty of examples out there.
They may be talking about the competition a home buyer may experience, from investors offering cash. To this buyer, the investors just look like rich folks vacuuming up the supply.
Well then the problem is too many people chasing the same homes in the same area. There are plenty of houses in Detroit for $1, why aren’t the wealthy and poor snapping them up?
The poor can’t afford to upkeep a house, the middle class does not want to live in that area, and the wealthy can’t turn a profit after rehabbing them.
Have you heard of AirBnb?
Yes, I rarely use the service, I prefer hotels. If AirBNB is the sole reason for the housing crisis then buy shares in AirBNB and get rich because they’ll own everything?
For every imagined problem in your mind there is a way to profit and become rich yourself but only if your conspiracy theory holds true.
There are 1.75 million short term rentals in this country. Explain how that doesn’t affect the housing market.
I still have my tuition bill from my last semester at college over 35 years ago: $430 for full time enrollment. That covered everything except books (not counting living expenses).
Adjusting this for inflation would be about $1300 per semester.
The older generation had it much easier. I couldn’t imagine trying to put myself through college today with no help from my parents and not living at home. That’s how I did it back in the 80s.
It doesn’t help the young that the elderly are demanding more and more social security and medicare which (despite what everyone thinks – no you didn’t pay for it) is paid for by those young people working right now.
Wrong. You might want to look into the “disabilities” bullshit and how many are scamming that and draining the fund
Give us statistics because I monitor the social security snapshot every month and disabilities enrollments have been dropping for years.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
My mom probably ran up 5 million in bills keeping her alive and miserable for that last 5 years. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but damn… that’s more than she and dad earned in their entire lives.
What changed? Oh right – the government got involved giving out loans to anyone with a pulse. Not my fault.
My tuition for an engineering degree at the University of Illinois was $250 a semester when I started.
If you want lower tuition you have to stop student loans.
Yes that is the best way but you either have to make college very cheap or find a way for students with no money to go to school.
There is a famous and funny scene in ‘Good Will Hunting’ where Matt Damon mocks the guys spending ‘100K on an education they could have gotten for free at the public library’.
Online learning has made available most course loads for next to no cost. Some things of course require lab work (like your degree) but most do not. Especially the degrees that are getting kids deep in debt but don’t yield jobs.
Our current method of teaching looks to be going the way of the library. Primary and secondary schools have been just passing everyone and not teaching them much since covid, and those guys are showing up at university now.
By necissity they are dumbing down college, so if you actually want to be educated, you’re kind of on your own.
Your last statement sums it up perfectly.
Take personal responsibility for yourself and your future. Do not expect someone else to do so for you.
Furthermore, I’d advise them to assume everyone is out to fuck you, because at least a third of them are.
Yes and I am glad that I can now access so much knowledge so easily easily. It used to be that a diploma proved that you were smart and knew how to work so even an English degree could get you a start but now so many go to the university that most have average intelligence and average work ability and not more.
Even “average” intelligence and work ability are above average these days. A degree proves you’re not a complete idiot and can at least minimally follow through on something.
It used to.
Correct , with technology you can offer education with very little cost in many fields . Also it is unreal of the people I know who feel their kids deserve the education and school they want not the one they need or can afford . They will pay 100 k more and could get the same education at the school up the road or going a couple years to the community college at a fraction then transfer in to the school . I also know a bunch that have finished school and live with the parents because they don’t really want to work and they can get on the parents health insurance then on to medicaid after 27 . They simply don’t want to get out on their own and get a cut in their living standard .
…or find a way for students to apprentice with no money.
Fixed it for you, Doug.
Good idea but apprentice to whom and do they get a salary?
Apprentices don’t need a salary… they can create all the nutrients they need through photosynthesis. You just have to give them coffee.
I wonder if any advanced nation has ever figured out how to get its people through college without financially destroying their livelihoods. But wait, maybe all of Europe doesn’t count, so nobody has ever figured it out? LMBO
Pay it in student loans or pay it in taxes. It’s not obvious which is more cost-effective. I suspect that Europe spends less on fancy housing, student centers and athletic facilities.
I picked on Denmark;
In Denmark for the tax year 2025, several tax rates apply to individuals and corporations. Here’s a breakdown:
Personal Income Tax:
Corporate Income Tax:
Other Taxes:
That’s how they pay for ‘Free’ stuff. Be careful what you wish for.
College used to be very cheap, and it can become cheap again – the greater part of college costs nowadays is “too many administrators”. If you check at ratios, you’d be outraged. The actual teaching staff is miniscule. If you’re wondering why State universities in Europe are free, it’s because the admin staff is minimal. Just like it used to be here in the US.
Colleges used the fact of college loans to just increase tuition to the maximum that they could get through the students’ loans.
It’s also opulent facilities. My college has the same enrollment as forty years ago and twice the number of buildings. The tiny dorm rooms we shared on the 5th floor are no more. Today’s students want more and better.
Some today are like 4-star all included resorts. The drinks aren’t free but I am sure they will be included soon.
You mean you would have needed to prevent them in the first place.
The loans? Yes. For a new student it feels like starting life by taking 10 steps backwards (which will be 20 steps back by graduation time).
Not to mention the lowering of standards in some colleges – I often thought of including the line “Not a graduate of a US college” in my resume’s first page, as a positive point.
Imagine a hard working graduate who enters the workforce with people around him assuming that he’s lazy and entitled, while also been saddled with a huge loan.
It’s a nasty Bank game played against the kids.
I know I am going to get flack from this but we have to be clear about the ethical element before tackling the economic one.
I believe that debts contracted should be paid back. Nevertheless I believe that bankruptcy laws also have merit. Now let’s look at university and college costs to teach undergraduates. In average STEM students cost almost twice as much as Liberal Arts students to train yet they both pay the same tuition. My undergrad and grad was in microbiology/virology. While there we used massive amounts of very expensive labs with state-of-art machinery especially at the grad level. Even the building itself was a windowless blockhouse because it was built to withstand a nuclear blast like that building in New York. Now compare that cost per student with that of an English major. He needs only books, a few badly-paid professors, a draft building and maybe some money for field trips. My tuition was the same as his but my education cost was maybe a multiple of his. Perhaps my example is extreme but if you run the numbers STEM students cost twice as much as Liberal Arts students. There is variation in the fields of course with, for some reason, Economic majors being the cheapest to train but the truth is that Liberal Arts students have been subventioning STEM students and not by a little bit.
If we were to charge STEM the true cost their tuition would be double that of Liberal Arts. There is also a difference between public universities and private ones. In the private schools the ratio is even worse with Liberal Arts students even more tuitionally disadvantaged. Now who is being screwed and who is doing the screwing and should those who were screwed the most get some relief for being screwed? I believe so.
I’d argue all americans are owed a post secondary education by the government. We pay enough in taxes for it… but that money ends up buying bombs and yachts, somehow.
No one is owed a post secondary education. Being ‘owed’ something is how this country gets itself into trouble in all kinds of ways (owed X amount of wages, owed X amount of health care, owed X cost on housing, owed X lifestyle and on and on). This country was built on ‘earning’ things, not being owed things.
If you want a post secondary education you earn it (cost and learning effort).
I owe taxes. The government is owed taxes.
I am owed something in return, or it’s just robbery.
You ever use any public facility? The roads perhaps? Public parks or a library? Did you attend school? Ever needed a cop or a fireman or have you flown on a plane and needed air traffic control? What do you think funds those things and countless other things?
So I got some of what the government owed me. Great. Where’s the rest? I’m into these guys for a few million now, and I have cost them maybe 10% of that.
well, we “owe” taxes so why not? it’s only a perversion of democracy that allows us to not have these things and instead spend as much as we do on the military.
we pay lots of taxes but get basically nothing for it compared with other developed countries.
As you noted, you get different things (military vs say subsidized health care) for your taxes.
The whole point of voting is to allow the people to decide what’s important to them. If the vote doesn’t go your way you still have the option to leave this country for another one (I left my homeland of Canada for the US for such reasons).
You’ve seen what’s happened to democracy this past 10 years. It’s a one party system that puts on a Punch and Judy show. Our 250 year old governmental design has been thoroughly gamed. Anybody coming up against established interests will be crushed by truckloads of cash. No help coming from that direction.
You are correct in the sense that we will not get what we’re owed.
Yes, you see how the parties are one as deficit spending always passes. But last sentence not true according to scripture saying all will be tested in this life, but every soul will receive exactly what it has earned, and the rewards of the afterlife are far greater than this world.
The Sky Wizard isn’t interested in our nonsense.
There is an easy way to prove what you are talking about. What are you waiting for, wasting time here in reality.
86/47
We’re defending our shores from pirates! Ease up on the military they’re the only thing that keeps our beaches safe.
86/47
It’s because people keep voting against their interests. Witness Donald Trump’s wizardry
There are murmurs it was rigged. There was a county in New York where Kamala didn’t get a single vote. If there were like 100 people in the county, I could see it, but….
Nobody wants to talk about it because of what a tantrum the trumpers put on when their guy got beat by sleepy Joe.
Who and how people vote doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters in any election is who counts the votes.
So are you advocating for charging STEM students more? Charging more results in less product, according to basic economics anyway. So we want less STEM majors and more liberal arts majors, assuming that at least some of those students will change their choice based on cost?
Yet those STEM majors are the ones driving most of the innovation that powers the economy … I’ve never heard of a new discovery in say English that makes millions … Never mind that getting a degree in a STEM field is seen as HARD – the actual effort required depends on your aptitude but still . . . . – so now you put two strikes against the choice to study engineering, chemistry or physics … with an even larger pile of debt when you earn your degree (and if you happen to not be able to ‘hack it’ it’s even worse so you better be darn sure you’re able to walk away with that sheepskin). AND even if you graduate … well currently employers don’t seem to be actually lining up … never mind that getting an advanced degree incurs even more debt in this country … and only puts off the repayment of that even larger pile in a situation with even fewer job prospects . . . . . . yeah I think this might well be a recipe for the takeover of all higher level/paid research jobs in the US in the long(er) term by foreigners who don’t have to deal with (the prospect of) that pile of debt …. AND …. of course cutting all kinds of funding for science by the FEDS does wonders to make student choose these fields too . . . it may no directly impact the higher paying jobs in industry BUT it does ‘send a message’ and makes the job prospects that much harder as academic research is no longer an option … and guess what industry ONLY invests in research with some obvious payoff … something like bell labs investing in BASIC speculative research driving forward knowledge doesn’t exist anymore.
That is what the universities said to justify the difference. This is not new and has been discussed for a while now just not in mainstream media. Since STEM drives innovation and all that then it should subventioned and it is to some extent but there is no logic nor morality in making Liberal Arts students subvention them, don’t you agree?
A solution that is going around is that universities should spin-off their Liberal Arts part leaving them to go their weird ways and the STEM and STEM research part left cuts drastically the administrative load and goes for some subventions.
An undergraduate degree in microbiology/virology is pretty worthless, in and of itself. Usually med school or a PhD is the only way to advance one’s station in life down that path. Did you go in one of those directions?
I didn’t stop at undergraduate but went further. I continued in the field a while then changed careers because the upside was limited since I am not Nobel Prize material. I really did start running into too many peers that were much better at it than me so I read the writing on the wall and changed jobs.
You can get a job as a lab tech with a bio bachelors, decent pay plus benefits at base level, work hard and if lucky move up, mgmt pays well. Also can get teaching cert and teach secondary science at public school. Challenging but rewarding.
I worked as a lab monkey at an academic research institution. Crap pay as you are being paid from someone else’s grant. Probably the best thing to do is get experience there, and transition to a biotech or pharmaceutical company, but unless you are a phenom, you won’t go far, as the filed is flooded with PhD’s hoping not to become a perpetual post-doc slave.
After working in academia for a few years, I transitioned to a biotech company where I worked for a few years. Pay was a bit better, but not great, and wound up going back to school full-time to get an MBA.
With just an undergrad degree and some industry research experience, one path forward used to be to edge your way into becoming a clinical research associate, usually if you are a decent looking woman, or an entry-level marketing job like in tech support.
you’re missing something about liberal arts at the grad level at least which is that scholarships and financial aid and grants are much higher and ubiquitous. this is because everyone knows they can’t pay back loans because the jobs don’t pay much.
I know. One of my daughters got a full tuition waiver and a stipend from USC for her PhD. I didn’t know that till they offered it. I was very relieved.
nice!
Did you include the Lab Fees for the STEM students?
I did global calculations and not school by school so they were included.
Grade inflation started with the Viet Nam war. It hasn’t receded.
I was a little busy at the time and missed it. 1967-1971 all green.
And moldy?
In my time, I had never heard of grading on a curve.
Of course many here miss the point…if the graduates are living at home due to the cost of their student loans, they are not renting or otherwise churning our economy. And if Trump’s economy isn’t providing them with jobs…
There was a time when a summer job would cover a large hunk of tuition and boarding costs, and a 2nd summer job would give a student spending money. Contrary to what the current administration pushes, education is still the best investment. If we don’t get control of education costs or provide some supplement, we will fall even further behind the rest of the developed countries. State universities and colleges should have free tuition.
You can’t get control of higher ed costs by subsidizing them. That’s how we got here in the first place.
Look at Europe, they give free education and their societies have only imploded in the eyes of Christian white nationalist incels.
“can’t” in the US. apparently they can in many european countries. there are tradeoffs, like the government will only subsidize those who how aptitude and actual interest in specific fields of study.
it’s astounding how many Americans think something can’t be done when many other countries do them.
Fair point about how Europeans ration their subsidies. I assumed that Jennifer wanted it done the way America usually does things: throw a shit ton of money around with no discernment because discerning would be discriminatory.
right, there are several left-wing policies that conflict with one another, like high social safety net and open borders, or free college but everyone should be able to go and we need to lower testing standards so everyone graduates.
If they are spending 100% of their paychecks, regardless of what it’s on (loan repayment, Starbucks, Phone service, paying rent to mom&dad etc) they are churning the economy in some manner and that’s good.
If they get paid for no work (welfare and it’s ilk) then that’s a bad thing for the economy.
America was built on keeping the population in life time debt. This is just a quiet form of slavery, without the having to feed them. Next up: a way overpriced mortgage for 30 years!
Education shouldn’t be so expensive. Education is an investment. It can be a productivity tool. C
Instead of ordering from Uber Eats, they’ll be driving for them – if they have a car and insurance.
And Starbucks and other ‘luxury’ things that generation loves like the newest phones and video game consoles they may have to forgo.
I suspect revenues for those companies to take a hit along with their stock prices.
Assuming you are 100% correct, a new phone, console, and starbucks comes out to a few grand a year.
The real problem is they make 60k and facing house payments of 4k. There’s just no way that’s gonna work.
You might say ‘yes, but if they save and invest, over time they will come to be in a better position to do that’
Larcenous morons are in charge of the government, media, and financial system, world war 3 is starting up, and parts of the world are well on the way to being too hot to live in.
In the face of all that, I really can’t fault someone for taking the ‘I have no future, might as well enjoy the present’ bet.
Good. Pay your own debts.
Curious where you might stand politically as an awful lot of members of the GOP had their hands out for Covid loans and submitted the paperwork to have the loans forgiven.
The Covid loans were for the most part well understood to be ‘free money’ that never had to be repaid as long as you used it to pay salaries etc.
So anyone who took one and got the loans forgiven isn’t a hypocrite.
Just because something was legal doesn’t make it moral and doesn’t mean the person doing it isn’t a hypocrite.
Why does everyone always bring up ‘moral’ clause with regards to loans?
Loans are a business contract between 2 parties. Each side has specified obligations and penalties. In the case of the Covid loans the contract was that as long as the money was spent on salaries it did not have to be repaid.
There was no ‘moral’ clause to the loans whatsoever. No wonder so many people are disillusioned with the world. We need to educate people (high school level) on exactly how loans and contracts work.
And when the loan isn’t repaid? Would that not be theft? A lie, maybe?
There’s a bit in the bible about lies.
Have you ever had a loan in your life???
There are clauses in the loan that specify what happens in cases of non-repayment. Things like Cars being repossessed, houses being foreclosed on, wages garnished etc.
A few. I paid them back. I could have skipped out easily, and the consequences would have been bearable, but I didn’t. Not because the penalty outweighed the costs, but because thats what I told someone I would do if they gave me money.
If I dont pay back, I have broken a promise, and in the case where i can pay it back and choose not to, I have lied as well.
Keeping promises and telling the truth are legitimate moral issues… or were until fairly recently.
They are important. Especially in social contracts (ie you borrow 20 bucks from a friend and tell him you’ll pay him back) where there is no recourse.
They don’t matter in the same way in business/legal contracts.
Society seems to have become confused about the difference between the two. When I was in high school we had a senior course that covered the Law and we went into great detail about social vs business/legal contracts and the role of ‘morality’. It’s a shame we don’t continue to have this today.
The crashes we keep seeing are an aggregation of all the people that make business promises that they can’t or won’t keep.
There is a reason for our moral code. It stabilizes our civilization.
It wasn’t a loan without requirement. Everyone that took one had to attest that current economic uncertainty made the loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant. Plenty of people lied on those forms and didn’t actually need the money to operate their business. Surely money is fungible and what they didn’t actually need for payroll just went to buying boats, vacation homes, investment homes, sports cars and RVs.
How do you know they lied? Maybe they really weren’t certain whether or not they might need the money because no one knew how long the lockdowns were going to last and in some places they lasted a lot longer than others.
If people spent the money on those things and it can be proved in a court of law then they go to jail or pay fines. If it can’t be proved then perhaps it didn’t happen the way you think. Did some people ‘put one over’, for sure they did. But as far as I know there is no statute of limitations on this so they could still be charged if someone can prove misallocation of funds.
They didn’t all lie, but a lot did.
But it makes for a very convenient excuse to excuse one’s own behavior while criticizing another’s, doesn’t it?
whatever. So many red states are hypocritical 100 ways on this issue, always talking down government spending and the first to have their hand out for emergency funds etc…
I struggle to think of a better example of hypocrisy.
TACO never did.