> It's absolutely wild that we'd absolve loan companies from this due diligence for young adults with less credit history and no ability to default on the loans.
We haven't absolved them per se. At first they tried to get the data and make smart decisions, but there just wasn't enough data for them to make good decisions, so they denied everyone. That's why the government got into the business of backing the loans in the first place -- it was the only way to get the loan companies to make the loans.
> For the rich, those talented enough to earn scholarships, and those willing to accommodate loan companies' stringent conditions on risky borrowing, degrees with poor monetary returns will absolutely stick around as they always have.
There wouldn't be enough students to support that, because amongst those people, many would still choose the lucrative majors.
> Also, you may be right that schools start to prioritize programs that allow borrowers to earn enough to repay their debt. Why is this a bad thing?
Now we have a philosophical debate. Do we want to live in a society where no one studies philosophy, poetry, art, music, creative writing, and so on? Ironically, someone who studied philosophy would probably be more suited to answering this question than I am.
I think we might have different fundamental viewpoints here, and that's okay.
In my view, current government policy is actively enabling people to dig themselves into holes of debt which they'll never be able to get out from.
It's great that people are choosing to study art, music, and philosophy. I personally have a degree in music, and it's one of the great joys of my life! Whether the government should loan me an absurd amount of money strictly for those pursuits, though, is a different question. There's great value in history, but I think most people would hardly endorse a government policy of loaning anyone a few hundred thousand dollars in living expenses to go to their public library and read about the Civil War for a few years.
Also, it's completely feasibly to encourage a broad range of studies while also conferring a degree in an employable field. This is the model of liberal arts schools: you study art, music, philosophy, literature, etc. but you can leave the school with a degree in an employable field.
As far as I understand it, your belief is that without the government lending people money with minimal constraints, fields that are less employable would go away almost entirely. I don't agree that this would be the case, but if that's where you're coming from I think that's a reasonable enough disagreement that we can land on.
We haven't absolved them per se. At first they tried to get the data and make smart decisions, but there just wasn't enough data for them to make good decisions, so they denied everyone. That's why the government got into the business of backing the loans in the first place -- it was the only way to get the loan companies to make the loans.
> For the rich, those talented enough to earn scholarships, and those willing to accommodate loan companies' stringent conditions on risky borrowing, degrees with poor monetary returns will absolutely stick around as they always have.
There wouldn't be enough students to support that, because amongst those people, many would still choose the lucrative majors.
> Also, you may be right that schools start to prioritize programs that allow borrowers to earn enough to repay their debt. Why is this a bad thing?
Now we have a philosophical debate. Do we want to live in a society where no one studies philosophy, poetry, art, music, creative writing, and so on? Ironically, someone who studied philosophy would probably be more suited to answering this question than I am.