Feds end student loans and institutional support for some majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think liberal arts do provide students with the education that this nation needs. This nation needs a lot of things.

I do think there is value in considering how many loans a young person should take on if pursuing certain degrees. Maybe that is a return on investment concept. But we’ve had waves of people pushing for loan forgiveness because they can’t handle their student loan debt. Much of that push was from people who had degrees, which lead to jobs that didn’t pay them enough, or at least that was the argument.

Maybe no fed loans will equal lower tuition costs for those degrees. People can still get them but without the debt burden.

I’ve struggled with my thoughts on this issue. I think it is irresponsible for young adults to go $300k in debt for a degree in education and do not support public loan forgiveness for choices like this. My nephew incurred a lot of debt for engineering degree - but he chose an OOS option. He will be paying for that degree for years. But it was his choice to go OOS.
My own kids are going in state, public school. Total tuition will be under 70k for all 4 years.
Why should taxpayers pay for poor educational choices young adults are making? Why aren’t parents guiding their children to make financially responsible decisions?

I'm the PP and I agree. But we do have the money to pay for our kids (in-state only) tuition so easy for us to say. There are jobs that are very important but don't pay well, such as social workers. That's a needed profession the pay is terrible. People take on loans for that profession. I'm not saying that tax payer should forgive anyone's loans but it's in our public interest that social workers exist. It's not accurate to say that only high paying jobs are valuable but what do we do with the lower paying jobs that also are valuable? And, I'm not talking about degrees in 18th century French literature (had a friend with 100k in loans with that degree).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think of this?

Will this prediction come to pass: "He predicted that many universities will “cut their losses” by closing programs in the fine arts, humanities, social sciences and ethnic and sexual studies."

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/13/education-department-approves-rule-ending-federal-funding-low-paying/

OP not sure how you do not know this has always been the plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are idiots if we starve the liberal arts. The obsession with creating worker bees for companies instead of fostering a well-rounded education is bonkers.

This

+1

[Anonymous]

"Why should taxpayers pay for poor educational choices young adults are making? Why aren’t parents guiding their children to make financially responsible decisions?"

Because until now we lived in the United States of America where Americans had freedom to chose to go into debt.

If you want to live under a dictatorship then we are no longer the US.

Trump wants more Trump Universities that's his goal nothing more nothing less. It's all about the money flowing to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:where are they measuring the student outcomes? so many students have humanities degrees then go into law school which can have high paying outcomes?

Also, in the age of AI, there may be a market for english, history and philosophy degrees?

agreed. the market for strong writers and humanities only increases as a human add-on to AI skills. this is a short-sighted policy. we need the skills to think critically and write/communicate beautifully.

[Anonymous]

Anyone one on here complaining their tax dollars should not go to student debt.

By all means keep complaining when your tax dollars are going to fly Patel's GF around, Kai Trump running around the Hamptons, ICE funding, Don Jr's cocaine habit, Maralago lobster dinners, Trump's golf, Noem's hair stylist and private jets and cars etc... The waste of this administration is staggering and you are worried about student debt being wiped out???

Find your brain cells.

[Anonymous]

[img]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are idiots if we starve the liberal arts. The obsession with creating worker bees for companies instead of fostering a well-rounded education is bonkers.

This

That’s not what the proposal is about. It’s about terminating useless degrees at $100k a year schools that end up with salaries less than a high school graduate. Go back and read the actual proposal. My expensive “psych”undergrad degree at a $$ SLAC was worthless

You chose for it to be useless. Our kid did psych at an SLAC, took the courses that are quantitative, stats focused, and heavily computational. They now have a great career in organizational psych after a few years as a software engineer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think liberal arts do provide students with the education that this nation needs. This nation needs a lot of things.

I do think there is value in considering how many loans a young person should take on if pursuing certain degrees. Maybe that is a return on investment concept. But we’ve had waves of people pushing for loan forgiveness because they can’t handle their student loan debt. Much of that push was from people who had degrees, which lead to jobs that didn’t pay them enough, or at least that was the argument.

Maybe no fed loans will equal lower tuition costs for those degrees. People can still get them but without the debt burden.

I’ve struggled with my thoughts on this issue. I think it is irresponsible for young adults to go $300k in debt for a degree in education and do not support public loan forgiveness for choices like this. My nephew incurred a lot of debt for engineering degree - but he chose an OOS option. He will be paying for that degree for years. But it was his choice to go OOS.
My own kids are going in state, public school. Total tuition will be under 70k for all 4 years.
Why should taxpayers pay for poor educational choices young adults are making? Why aren’t parents guiding their children to make financially responsible decisions?

I'm the PP and I agree. But we do have the money to pay for our kids (in-state only) tuition so easy for us to say. There are jobs that are very important but don't pay well, such as social workers. That's a needed profession the pay is terrible. People take on loans for that profession. I'm not saying that tax payer should forgive anyone's loans but it's in our public interest that social workers exist. It's not accurate to say that only high paying jobs are valuable but what do we do with the lower paying jobs that also are valuable? And, I'm not talking about degrees in 18th century French literature (had a friend with 100k in loans with that degree).

I’m the PP. I would support limited public loan forgiveness for needed low paying jobs - such as social workers and teachers. My issue is students going to private $SLAC$ and knowing they are pursuing lower paying career fields, and wanting those loans forgiven. Go in state, public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[img]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are idiots if we starve the liberal arts. The obsession with creating worker bees for companies instead of fostering a well-rounded education is bonkers.

This

That’s not what the proposal is about. It’s about terminating useless degrees at $100k a year schools that end up with salaries less than a high school graduate. Go back and read the actual proposal. My expensive “psych”undergrad degree at a $$ SLAC was worthless

You chose for it to be useless. Our kid did psych at an SLAC, took the courses that are quantitative, stats focused, and heavily computational. They now have a great career in organizational psych after a few years as a software engineer.

+1. The bitter truth is those that choose to do nothing with their degree and pursue menial careers will do that no matter the degree. There are bums with CS and math degrees. There are also many successful CS and math majors, obviously. We know a kid who was easily employed after college with an art degree- they worked hard and found what would make them money. If you didn’t use your degree and haven’t sparked a successful career, it’s nobody but your fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Why should taxpayers pay for poor educational choices young adults are making? Why aren’t parents guiding their children to make financially responsible decisions?"

Because until now we lived in the United States of America where Americans had freedom to chose to go into debt.

If you want to live under a dictatorship then we are no longer the US.

Trump wants more Trump Universities that's his goal nothing more nothing less. It's all about the money flowing to him.

This wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t for all the people crying about their student loan debt. Student loan debt was their choice. They need to live with their choices. But since they want to force people to pay for their art history degree, we now have an administration that has swung the pendulum the other way. Congratulations, consequences of crying over your own choices.
I’m not happy with this administration either, but it doesn’t help to have 23-year-old babies crying about their loan debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone one on here complaining their tax dollars should not go to student debt.

By all means keep complaining when your tax dollars are going to fly Patel's GF around, Kai Trump running around the Hamptons, ICE funding, Don Jr's cocaine habit, Maralago lobster dinners, Trump's golf, Noem's hair stylist and private jets and cars etc... The waste of this administration is staggering and you are worried about student debt being wiped out???

Find your brain cells.

Two things can be true at the same time. I don’t want to pay anybody’s student loan debt, and I don’t want to pay for all the administrations stupid shit. Unfortunately, the history of the United States, we’ve always paid for our politicians vacations and fashion choices. However, historically, we have not paid for people to get art history degrees only to work in Starbucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone one on here complaining their tax dollars should not go to student debt.

By all means keep complaining when your tax dollars are going to fly Patel's GF around, Kai Trump running around the Hamptons, ICE funding, Don Jr's cocaine habit, Maralago lobster dinners, Trump's golf, Noem's hair stylist and private jets and cars etc... The waste of this administration is staggering and you are worried about student debt being wiped out???

Find your brain cells.

Two things can be true at the same time. I don’t want to pay anybody’s student loan debt, and I don’t want to pay for all the administrations stupid shit. Unfortunately, the history of the United States, we’ve always paid for our politicians vacations and fashion choices. However, historically, we have not paid for people to get art history degrees only to work in Starbucks.

Why not improve museum funding, so we have more position to higher those experts and inform our society? It’s like people have forgotten the arts exist.

[Anonymous]

Isn't "earn more than the average high school graduate" a rather low bar to clear?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are idiots if we starve the liberal arts. The obsession with creating worker bees for companies instead of fostering a well-rounded education is bonkers.

Liberal arts folks like to say it provides a well-rounded education because that's the only thing liberal arts folks can claim. STEM folks also receive a well-rounded education thanks to those Gen Ed classes but they also learn concrete, focused skills in a field of choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Why should taxpayers pay for poor educational choices young adults are making? Why aren’t parents guiding their children to make financially responsible decisions?"

Because until now we lived in the United States of America where Americans had freedom to chose to go into debt.

If you want to live under a dictatorship then we are no longer the US.

Trump wants more Trump Universities that's his goal nothing more nothing less. It's all about the money flowing to him.

Students can still take on plenty of debt. It just won’t be federally provided. The private sector can fill that niche just fine.