Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It [Hardcover] Andrew Hacker (Author), Claudia Dreifus (Author) http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Educat...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283722362&sr=8-1 Strongly recommended
Follow the money. An excellent graphical presentation of a guaranteed feedback loop for $$$$. Enjoy. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/student-loan-scheme.jpg
IBR won't be scrapped and is actually up and running right now. My loan payments are in the IBR program. And as for "funding" it? What's there to fund? Either people pay back their loans or they don't. It doesn't matter if IBR is in existence. If somebody can't afford to pay for their normal payments under a different payment plan, then they default and stop paying all together. If they can't afford to pay under IBR, they default and stop paying all together. On the other hand, for those that can afford to pay IBR, but can't afford to pay the normal plan, this prevents the possibility of a default and refusal to pay any of the debt back. And for those like me, it frees up cash flow, while still forcing me to pay back my debt. There's nothing to "fund". It's based on debt that has already been "funded". In fact, it may or may not even reduce the cash flow in the short term for the government. Like I said, some can't afford to pay higher payments and this program provides an alternative to not paying anything while for others, it reduces their month to month payment obligation. The program might even be a wash in terms of cash flow to pay back loans. A win-win really for government and individuals with loan debt.
Exactly. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO START UP A BUSINESS UNDERCAPITALZIED. First, get experts to determine your minimum level of capital required. Next, determine if you have the capital they recommend. Finally, determine if you have the skills and knowledge required to take the business forward. Adequate capital isn't enough.
IMO you are missing the point. It wasn't extravagant consumption that did her in. She didn't blow 90k on a Ferrari or as downpayment on a Miami penthouse condo. She was spending it on an education, something that has been promoted by most elements in society as the responsible thing to do. No doubt she realised, just like you and mayhem did, that in her mid 40s she was not getting any more employable. So she took what she thought was the responsible option, and got further education. Not a degree in musicology or women's studies, not one in ancient history or sanskrit, but a further business degree. Her fault was not to seek an education, but to be snowed by fraudulent con artists into blowing 90k on a mostly worthless piece of paper that wouldn't pass as an education in any other country on the planet. No different to an old person being smooth-talked out of their life savings by a slick cold-calling salesman, or a gullible person falling for a 401k or phishing scam - except in one crucial element: the 401k scammer, the phishing hacker, and the boiler room operator are all currently classed as criminals and would be hunted down and locked up for a long time for their crimes. Whereas the "college" in this crime is given huge taxpayer subsidies and an official stamp of approval while it goes about ruining gullible peoples lives for profit. Did her college explain to her the likely value of her degree, before she signed up? A bit like a good fund manager or financial advisor would explain the risk and reward in stocks before you invest? Or did they just BS her with a fraudulent sales pitch full of lies? I think we all know the answer to that. The current for-profit college education boom is a bubble, just like condos were a bubble, and just like tech stocks were a bubble. It is based around taking people's life savings by smooth-talking and conning them into paying high prices for near-worthless junk, or buying actual quality but paying 3 or 4 times too much for it. It is simply exploiting the gullibility of non-experts for mercenary gain. If someone sells me a tin of beans and it says 100g on the outside, but only has 25g inside, then that's a crime. Why is it any different when finances, housing, or education are involved? At least dot.com speculators and condo flippers were operating out of pure greed, so one can say caveat emptor for them and shed no tears. But just as genuine savers got raped by the 2000 bubble in stocks, just as genuine home buyers got raped by the housing bubble, so genuine students who are trying to improve their skills and career prospects are getting raped by the current for-profit education bubble. A lot of people are still stuck with this idea that it is ok to rape people in a bubble, to ruin lives and steal life savings by blatant lying, which in any other field would be prosecuted as fraud; not only that, but to turn a blind eye when an industry connives to corrupt politicians to change the laws to make such exploitation even more profitable, turning law enforcement and the courts into de facto hired goons for flim flam artists. After two such bubbles and crashes in under a decade, you'd have thought people would have realised by now. Perhaps the forthcoming bust in for-profit education will be the final wake-up call that makes people realise something has to change.
"Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?ref=science