Student Debt- Where Can We Draw The Line?

[Socrates]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1318044963' post='2317784']
The GI bill after WW2 raised the US up to new heights. First we need to encourage training in trades that don't require college degrees otherwise in 20 years plumbers and electricians will be making 10 times as much as doctors due to scarcity.
[/quote]
The market will take of such problems - not the government. Scarcity = higher wages = more demand to work in such jobs because of high wages.

Likewise, it should not be up to the government to dictate how young or old people start college. There are geniuses who graduated in their teens and do just fine.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1318122039' post='2318183']However, to demand that employers set no minimal educational standards for many professional or technical jobs requiring specialized knowledge would just be ludicrous - particularly for entry-level positions in which the prospective employee has no working experience.[/quote]
Employers are free to set knowledge qualifications, but they should not be free to require someone to have gained knowledge by attending a school. Once schools are disestablished from our social life, then they will no longer be able to force us into the enslaving debt that this thread is about.


[quote]I think much of our current problems are due to the idea that everybody is entitled to an ever-growing set of government funded resources.
[/quote]
I believe in public resources, but I don't believe in institutionalizing those resources, because institutions are by nature undefinable and insatiable, and as institutions grow beyond necessary limits, they lead to situations like we have now where indentured servitude in schools keeps us in massive debt.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Era Might

[Winchester]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318117411' post='2318149']
Sure, you can determine what are the qualifications for the job, but you should not be able to discriminate against someone for not having met those qualifications by going to a school, anymore than you should be able to discriminate against them for being from a certain country.
[/quote]
What penalty would you have the offender suffer?

[Era Might]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1318125119' post='2318202']
What penalty would you have the offender suffer?
[/quote]
The same penalty he would suffer for other forms of unjust discrimination (racial, religious, etc.).

[Winchester]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318125209' post='2318203']
The same penalty he would suffer for other forms of unjust discrimination (racial, religious, etc.).
[/quote]
So a group of disconnected bureaucrats and judges would determine reality through statistics and then mete out punishment or reward based upon their incomplete data. Understood.

[4588686]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318043411' post='2317770']
We need an amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of schooling." It should be illegal to require someone to have gone to a school in order to get a job (and it should certainly be illegal to require anyone to go to a school). If someone can do the job, they should be as eligible for the job as anyone else, and should not be discriminated against because they have not chosen to learn in an approved, expensive institution. Then, the government should redirect all the money it wastes toward "educating" us and instead foster alternatives where we can learn freely and at our own leisure. The system now puts all its resources into institutions, rather than resources. That needs to end. Institutions are never-ending drains on society. Resources are clearly defined and finite. Adults should have just as much a right to government funded resources as young people. There are a lot of possibilities to create a new system. For example, you could have a system where every citizen has a certain amount of "credits" that entitle them to use government funded resources, and they can use those resources whenever they like (at 16 or at 60 years of age), and there can be incentives to earn extra credits (e.g., by volunteering to help others use their resources you can earn more credits). These resources would not be institutionally defined...for example, if a citizen wants to use his credits to buy books rather than attend a school, he should be allowed to.
[/quote]

Luft.

You're all (highly speculative) theory and no data. You want to fundamentally reorder society but you bring no evidence to bear except *hey, intuitively this sounds right to me!*

[ardillacid]

Don't spend $100,000 on a degree where you aren't going to be able to find a job and/or make peanuts

[Era Might]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1318128165' post='2318233']
So a group of disconnected bureaucrats and judges would determine reality through statistics and then mete out punishment or reward based upon their incomplete data. Understood.
[/quote]
It's already done now. Discrimination is illegal. That's not new.

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1318129119' post='2318244']

Luft.

You're all (highly speculative) theory and no data. You want to fundamentally reorder society but you bring no evidence to bear except *hey, intuitively this sounds right to me!*
[/quote]
So stop reading my posts. There's an "ignore" feature so my posts don't show up. That way you don't have to keep saying the same thing over and over every time I post. I get it: you think my opinions are foolish. So ignore me and be done with it.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Era Might

[4588686]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318129845' post='2318251']
It's already done now. Discrimination is illegal. That's not new.


So stop reading my posts. There's an "ignore" feature so my posts don't show up. That way you don't have to keep saying the same thing over and over every time I post. I get it: you think my opinions are foolish. So ignore me and be done with it.
[/quote]




Ok. And if you don't like reading my continued criticisms of your posts you can put me on ignore.

I don't think you're a fool. I genuinely think you have interesting ideas. I think you are, at times, intellectually lazy in that you don't ever seem to want to do the less sexy work of putting these interesting ideas to the test and backing them with specifics and data.

[Jaime]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318043411' post='2317770']
We need an amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of schooling." It should be illegal to require someone to have gone to a school in order to get a job (and it should certainly be illegal to require anyone to go to a school).
[/quote]


Yeah that's what I want from my surgeon.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1318130528' post='2318261']Ok. And if you don't like reading my continued criticisms of your posts you can put me on ignore.

I don't think you're a fool. I genuinely think you have interesting ideas. I think you are, at times, intellectually lazy in that you don't ever seem to want to do the less sexy work of putting these interesting ideas to the test and backing them with specifics and data.
[/quote]
I don't come on Phatmass to do scientific experiments. I'm here to discuss things. I assume that the people I am discussing with can handle hearing ideas and putting them into context without me having to spell everything out. What do you want? Do you want a bibliography? Do you want me to name drop things I've read for facts and figures? This ain't the place for that. Not for me, anyway...if you want to have such a discussion then feel free to contact me personally and we can discuss anything you want. I come here to post a few times a week when a topic happens to strike my fancy. That's it.

I will take your advice and put you on ignore.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Era Might

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1318130528' post='2318261']I don't think you're a fool. I genuinely think you have interesting ideas. I think you are, at times, intellectually lazy in that you don't ever seem to want to do [b]the less sexy work[/b] of putting these interesting ideas to the test and backing them with specifics and data.[/quote]

[4588686]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1318131084' post='2318273']
I don't come on Phatmass to do scientific experiments. I'm here to discuss things.[/QUOTE]

Right, and part of the discussion is probably going to be, 'Hey, Era, you're ideas would fundamentally reorder the social fabric of our culture, do you have any evidence or really rigorous arguments to back this speculation up with?"

That is a perfectly fair question and if you can't handle it then you should grow thicker skin.

[QUOTE]I assume that the people I am discussing with can handle hearing ideas and putting them into context without me having to spell everything out. What do you want? Do you want a bibliography? Do you want me to name drop things I've read for facts and figures? This ain't the place for that.[/QUOTE]

I didn't there was a law against providing references and specifics on an internet forum. My apologies.

[QUOTE]Not for me, anyway...if you want to have such a discussion then feel free to contact me personally and we can discuss anything you want. I come here to post a few times a week when a topic happens to strike my fancy. That's it.[/QUOTE]

I don't know you personally or how to contact you. The reason I question you more is because sometimes I doubt the extent to which you have researched the topics you are talking about which makes me doubt your theoretical pronouncements. Over a year ago we had an in depth discussion about the tendencies of collectivists states to become homogeneous in their leadership with you referring to the USSR. The USSR is something I have a fair bit of specific knowledge of having done some extracurricular reading and taken some classes from some of the foremost experts on the system and region in the world. From our conversation it was pretty clear that you did not really know anything about the leadership of the USSR and when I asked you specific questions about how, for example, Bukharin's execution and the emergence or Trotskism fit with your assertions of the inherent homogeneity of a collectivist state like the USSR you simply dodged the question and fell back on chat not being the place to go into specifics and gavethe impression of not really understanding the topic. You're right that the extent to which you can provide specific data on an internet forum but the few times you have broached topics I know something about I have come away with the impression that you have not done serious research into the topic. Which makes me very wary of taking your assertions about things I am ignorant of, like education reform, at face value without you providing some specifics.

Again, I don't think you're a fool. I think you have interesting ideas. I just with you showed more signs of doing specific research into the substantive veracity of those ideas so I could take them more at face value.

[QUOTE]I will take your advice and put you on ignore.
[/quote]

I wasn't advising you. I was just making an observation.

[4588686]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1318131694' post='2318287']

[/quote]


You're kinds sexy when you look confused.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1318132264' post='2318298']You're kinds sexy when you look confused.[/quote]
which is to say I'm totally hawt all the time, right?