The Lawsuit Machine Going After Student Debtors
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/the-student-debt-collection-mess

im going to uni, guess im lucky i dont have to get any loans, my parents are able to pay it off..

i feel bad for the guys who do take on massive debt though

To be honest, I really have little sympathy for students nowadays.  Many of them whine incessantly about how expensive university is and, often, those who are the loudest are those that “have” to have the latest designer clothes and the newest electronic toys, none of which is necessary to one’s education.  In addition, they’re the ones who demand that their institutions have the fanciest facilities, such as food courts and climbing walls in the gyms.  Who’s going to pay for it?

Sorry, kiddies, but, if you want to earn a degree, sacrifices have to be made and you’re not exempt.  Remember the most fundamental law of the universe:  TANSTAAFL (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch).  Welcome to the real world!

In Australia we have HECS which is student loan that you don’t pay back until you start working, they take a percentage of your pay, which could be very little if you are a waitress etc.

While I was a university student, money was never a problem. My parents paid for much of my undergrad education–that was their gift to me. Before I was a grad student, I planned ahead carefully and saved and invested whatever I had left over from my paycheques. I didn’t live extravagantly because I had long-term goals in mind.

To be honest, I really have little sympathy for students nowadays. Many of them whine incessantly about how expensive university is and, often, those who are the loudest are those that “have” to have the latest designer clothes and the newest electronic toys, none of which is necessary to one’s education. In addition, they’re the ones who demand that their institutions have the fanciest facilities, such as food courts and climbing walls in the gyms. Who’s going to pay for it?

Sorry, kiddies, but, if you want to earn a degree, sacrifices have to be made and you’re not exempt. Remember the most fundamental law of the universe: TANSTAAFL (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch). Welcome to the real world!

I agree to a point, here in the UK we only started paying tuition fees after ’98, up to that point the majority funding was through grants based on academic ability and field of study, the intake was decidedly smaller and limited to those that had ability in STEM or core humanities (History, geography and so on) subjects or could afford to do alternatives. The introduction of fees and the simultaneous removal of the grant systems hurt those who’d never been warned to prepare for such an alternative, and I feel those people cannot be held responsible for , fortunately the majority of them were still studying in the old fields and were the last intake to land solid careers so fortunately the damage has been somewhat mitigated.

Successive governments have since relentlessly pursued a target of 50% of all school leavers to attend university. The result has been an explosion in student debt which has only got worse as the universities themselves started taking advantage of the free money on offer to them, going as far as offering degrees in such fields as media studies, gender studies, golf course management and even David f~~~ing Beckham, anything to get bums on seats and rake in the money, standards have dropped across the board and many are now leaving university with tens of thousands of debt with degrees that aren’t worth the paper their printed on.

These people I agree have no room to bitch, their parents have had over a decade to prepare and they themselves knew what they were getting into, if they chose to attend university despite there being other options available, didn’t prepare themselves financially, didn’t take a course that would lead to a solid well paid career and lived it large while they were there then the fault is entirely their own, the problem I have is that once again I will end up paying for it when the debts of such irresponsible people are written off after 30 years.

The post-secondary bloat began in North America in the early 1980s.  Education began being treated as a commodity and government policies changed accordingly.

One result is that post-secondary institutions had more custom than ever.  My own university alma mater went from a student population of around 20,000 40 years ago to about double that nowadays.  Students became “customers” and those of us who taught were “delivering learning”.  (Don’t get me started on that nonsense!)

So, the institutions got bums into the seats.  In order to continue that situation, there had to be turnover, so standards were lowered so that more people graduated, making space available for new applicants.  (The place I used to teach at was delighted whenever there was an economic downturn as people signed up for courses in hopes of upgrading their credentials, thereby giving them an edge in the hiring circus.)  Of course, if it was seen that one could readily graduate from a certain institution, it became all the more attractive to prospective applicants–mustn’t scare the kiddies away by making things hard, right?

Along with that, governments cut their funding to these institutions.  The result was rising tuition and a drive for external cash.  The result is that the post-secondary system has become a gigantic money-harvesting operation.

I am so glad I’m out of it.

If they had no idea of what they were going to have to pay more for tuition, then someone wasn’t paying attention.

But university fees don’t just go to pay for facilities.  They finance the bureaucracy as well and it’s mushroomed since I was an undergrad 40 years ago, in part due to political correctness, feminism, and the SJWs.  After all, educational institutions need all those vice-presidents in charge of diversity and equality, don’t they?

Then there’s the administrative cash grab.  At my university alma mater, the previous president was pulling in around $1 million CDN per year and was living in a house worth her annual salary.  Of course, all of those other educrats have to take their cut as well.  Don’t think for a minute that those salaries and benefits are ever diminished if the institutions ever suffer a shortfall in external funding.

Add to that the imposition of whatever the latest educationist idiocy is:  “student as customer”, “peer learning”, “whole knowledge”, or what have you.  Someone not only has to inflict it in the place, but also ensure that everyone and his dog is properly indoctrinated.  That, of course, will cost money.

Then there are the latest software programs that are “absolutely” necessary, even though they might not work worth a hoot.  Someone has to pay for them as well, so guess who likely gets stuck with the bill?

Academe has, quite simply, become an insane asylum.

RUN!!!!!!