Quote (dro94 @ 10 Oct 2020 23:31)
I feel quite strongly that students should pay for their tertiary education for 2 reasons.
1) It wouldn't be fair not to charge them
If it's funded through general taxation then you have a morally backward system whereby the non-university educated workforce subsidise the tertiary education of those that will go on to enjoy a higher earnings potential than them and are likely to earn more in the long term.
2) Educational outcomes are better
University education funded publicly leads to poor educational outcomes due to a lack of funding. The allocation of funds to unviersities given by the government are almost universally lower than the funds a university can raise through charging students the prices they want.
There have been studies of this in the UK where England introduced student loans in 1997, replacing the previous model of a fully government funded policy, whereas Scotland kept their publicly funded universities. This large difference in policy between two neighbouring states has allowed us to study the long term effect pretty well. The result is clear - there has since been a lack of funding to Scottish universities in comparison to English ones which has led to their universities slipping down the national rankings.
Loan or Tax
I'd argue that it's better for student loans to function as a graduate tax where graduates will pay x% of their salary above a set minimum. This would only be paid when the graduate starts working and hits the income threshold, calculated on a monthly basis. If the loans aren't paid off after 25 years they're written off. The government would pay the loans to the university directly while tuition is ongoing and subsequently hold the student loan creditor on their balance sheet, with the graduate tax offsetting this in payments to the government.
I agree with all of this,
BUT only if tuition rates are brought back to reality. American universities are overpriced as fuck, and having an entire young generation start off their work life as debt slaves is not a healthy or even sustainable status quo.
The most I paid at one of the best and most prestigious German universities was a tuition of €1000 per year, and even this type of tuition fee was later abolished in most of our federal states. By the time I graduted with my first degree, I had barely less in my bank account than when I started, and that was mostly due to several years of living costs in one of our most expensive cities. By the time I finished my post-grad degree, my net worth had already doubled compared to when I started my studies.
A few years ago, at a conference, I talked with some American colleagues about the student loan bubble. It was quite shocking to hear that between my net worth and their debt, I was about a quarter million ahead of them at the same age and point in our educational careers. Their degree is worth more because the university is more prestigious internationally, so they can expect to eventually achieve a higher salary than me, but it's still gonna take them at least 12 years, if not longer, to close the gap. And that's only if their career is going well. If it doesnt, for whatever reason, they're beyond fucked with this amount of debt.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 10 2020 05:13pm