AT-
If one wants prices to rise, get the government involved. If you doubt that, then explain the roaring inflation in health care and college, where government is deeply entrenched. For years, government has thrown money at higher education, and it has made attending college more and more expensive. One of the main ways government pumps money into colleges is indirect: the guarantee of student loans. Be that as it may, when one takes out any kind of loan, one needs to be clear about what happens if one can’t pay it back. You see, in bankruptcy court, student loan debt is treated differently from other types of debt.
On June 18, Forbes ran “Can Student Loans Now Be Discharged in Bankruptcy?” by Zack Friedman. This is a must-read article for anyone considering going into debt to attend college. Friedman answers the question of his headline thus: “normally, student loans are not dischargeable.” Student debt can be discharged in a bankruptcy, but one must prove “undue hardship.” Bankruptcy usually leaves one with a ruined credit score and still owing one’s student debt. (The prospective student might also look into this article on bankruptcy at Student Loan Hero.)
Recently, I reported on the PROSPER Act, a bill that has stalled out in Congress. One of the provisions of the PROSPER Act is to end student loan forgiveness. Student loan forgiveness is not bankruptcy; it’s much nicer than bankruptcy. more here
A half hour in the emergency room with a dr just cost me $2500 and he did practically nothing and was no help at all. I continue to get worse.
Also, if you don’t pay off your student loans, when you go to collect Social Security, they will extract payments for your student loan
Point taken Anon but you might benefit from this article on dealing with your medical bill:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-16/how-negotiate-directly-physicians-and-hospitals
There was a significant spike in costs that coincided with the flood of stimulus money in Obama’s first term. It primarily stimulated salary increases and hiring in administration.
A lot of the fat in overhead these past few years has come from increases in student services, often mandated by accreditation agencies and the Feds. On the academic side, cost increases come from, besides the bloated salaries of tenured faculty, imposition of social justice and diversity courses, requirement inflation, “customized” basics courses (math, English, writing, etc.) for each college and even each department.
A sacred cow on many campuses is intercollegiate athletics. Many colleges and universities are bathing in red ink to support these programs. Yes, much of the overhead is maintaining Title IX programs in order to keep marquee programs like mens’ football and basketball, but even those programs cannot pay for themselves on many campuses.
Facilities are another major expense. I am not advocating ugly drab facilities, but some realism needs to be applied.
Books. That, again, is an issue with accreditation agencies. There have been efforts over the decades to reign in the cost of books, but the industry has always quickly countered them. A textbook, for even the most basic course, can cost well over $100, averaging around $300, and it is not uncommon for book expenses to be nearly equal to tuition.
Online courses are not a panacea for costs. Online overhead is expensive as well, and student success in online courses is generally lower, often significantly, than conventional classroom settings.
Making the student more aware of the costs, by making them more responsible, up front, can put tremendous pressure on institutions to make costs more competitive.
These days, students mostly shrug off the costs because they don’t have to pay now, and are assuming that there is a good chance that their loans will be forgiven, eventually, or they could just walk way from them.
I neglected to mention my greatest pet peeve, Student Government. There is no greater creator of waste, corruption and entitlement than Student Government. I would wager that the majority of the Deep State were in Student Government at one time or another.
When I was at the U of U, many moons ago. the Who Cares Party ran on a platform of dismantling student government. They won by a landslide, with the largest voter participation ever. When they tried to make good on their promise, they were threatened with expulsion. Many of them were Seniors and could ill afford to transfer to another institution, so they caved. They thought they were bringing the real world to campus, but they learned that the Ivory Tower is reality.
Student Government is a major source of fungible funding for Administration. Eliminating Student Government was not an option for them. They were more than willing to destroy careers over it.