<story><title>A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/will-going-college-make-you-happier/613729/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bhupy</author><text>Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What&amp;#x27;s to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn&amp;#x27;t contribute to the nation&amp;#x27;s economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy?&lt;p&gt;I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that overwhelmingly leave the recipient incapable of providing for society in gainful ways.</text></item><item><author>csharptwdec19</author><text>I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement.&lt;p&gt;In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as &amp;#x27;nice to have&amp;#x27; rather than &amp;#x27;increase earning potential&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn&amp;#x27;t really pay for itself, and instead leads to 20+ years of debt, or 10 years of indentured servitude to a non-profit.</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Far from fixing inequality&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Was this the purpose? I thought it was to raise living standards by improving productivity. By and large, broader education has been successful at that. (It went off the deep end, in recent years, with the proliferation of bullshit degrees.)</text></item><item><author>omginternets</author><text>I barely skimmed the article, but I don&amp;#x27;t find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments):&lt;p&gt;- &amp;quot;University degree&amp;quot; is a heterogeneous thing.  While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly &lt;i&gt;economic&lt;/i&gt; value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees.&lt;p&gt;- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees.  Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.&lt;p&gt;- All universities are not created equal.  While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution.  I&amp;#x27;ve found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I&amp;#x27;ve lived in for an extended period of time (France &amp;amp; England).&lt;p&gt;- The exorbitant debt incurred by university tuition in some countries (which need not be named, I think) means the ROI on the university degree has to also be exorbitant.&lt;p&gt;Have I missed anything?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simplify</author><text>&amp;gt; What&amp;#x27;s to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn&amp;#x27;t contribute to the nation&amp;#x27;s economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy?&lt;p&gt;Nothing, and that&amp;#x27;s exactly why education debts need to be dischargeable like anything else.&lt;p&gt;Dischargeable loans makes loan companies have actual responsibility and consequences in deciding who to give loans to. Otherwise, they blindly give out loans (why not, there&amp;#x27;s no risk!), putting all that much money in the system, which college institutions are happy to absorb in higher tuition.</text></comment>
<story><title>A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/will-going-college-make-you-happier/613729/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bhupy</author><text>Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What&amp;#x27;s to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn&amp;#x27;t contribute to the nation&amp;#x27;s economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy?&lt;p&gt;I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that overwhelmingly leave the recipient incapable of providing for society in gainful ways.</text></item><item><author>csharptwdec19</author><text>I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement.&lt;p&gt;In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as &amp;#x27;nice to have&amp;#x27; rather than &amp;#x27;increase earning potential&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn&amp;#x27;t really pay for itself, and instead leads to 20+ years of debt, or 10 years of indentured servitude to a non-profit.</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Far from fixing inequality&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Was this the purpose? I thought it was to raise living standards by improving productivity. By and large, broader education has been successful at that. (It went off the deep end, in recent years, with the proliferation of bullshit degrees.)</text></item><item><author>omginternets</author><text>I barely skimmed the article, but I don&amp;#x27;t find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments):&lt;p&gt;- &amp;quot;University degree&amp;quot; is a heterogeneous thing.  While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly &lt;i&gt;economic&lt;/i&gt; value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees.&lt;p&gt;- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees.  Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.&lt;p&gt;- All universities are not created equal.  While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution.  I&amp;#x27;ve found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I&amp;#x27;ve lived in for an extended period of time (France &amp;amp; England).&lt;p&gt;- The exorbitant debt incurred by university tuition in some countries (which need not be named, I think) means the ROI on the university degree has to also be exorbitant.&lt;p&gt;Have I missed anything?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway894345</author><text>It seems like we should make the debt conditional on the degree pursued. How much you’re allowed to take out in federal loans ought to be a function of the pay associated with that degree. I’m sure it’s not a perfect system, but it seems a lot better than the status quo or solutions that involve burdening society with the economic liability of a glut of (economically) low-value degrees.</text></comment>