Concerns That New Department of Education Earnings Test Could Undermine Arts, Public Service Degree Programs

[Anonymous]

I would like to see the data. How many people are taking out loans for graduate level theater, art and dance classes and then defaulting on those loans? A loan repaid is not having a tax payer pay for it! Honestly, I wonder how many people are even taking loans that they can repay for those graduate programs as the interest rate on federal student loans isn’t that great.

What I hate about Republicans today is that they NEVER try to solve any problems. They look for esoteric edge situations and then present them as massive problems to foster culture rage in low information voters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see the data. How many people are taking out loans for graduate level theater, art and dance classes and then defaulting on those loans? A loan repaid is not having a tax payer pay for it! Honestly, I wonder how many people are even taking loans that they can repay for those graduate programs as the interest rate on federal student loans isn’t that great.

What I hate about Republicans today is that they NEVER try to solve any problems. They look for esoteric edge situations and then present them as massive problems to foster culture rage in low information voters!

Is this a question of default or the American taxpayer?

For me, it’s more of a question of whether it’s ethical to allow an 18 year old to take on significant debt for a degree that will burden them for the rest of their lives.

I 100% support this kind of education. I don’t support the debt levels people face unless they come from a rich family.

It is true that just because you get a degree in something, that doesn’t mean you have to work in that field. I had a co-worker a long time ago who had a MA in 18th century French literature. She was never going to work in that field. She owed 100k in student loans (this was ages ago) and we both made 24k.

If parents can’t or won’t stop their kids from taking on debt that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, then maybe the federal government shouldn’t be complicit in that debt.

[Anonymous]

I understand concern about debt, but the rule proposed actually has nothing to do with debt. It focuses entirely on whether the program has an "earnings premium," meaning whether it enables students to make more money than if they'd never gone to college at all. Teaching is very relevant to this. It requires a college degree, it can pay well enough to pay off modest loans, but it might fail that test in some places. I


There was a previously existing rule (it didn't apply to most colleges) that DID focus on debt, looking at whether the average debt to earnings ratio for graduates was sufficient to pay back the debt. Applying that rule universally would actually address concerns about debt, but this doesn't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see the data. How many people are taking out loans for graduate level theater, art and dance classes and then defaulting on those loans? A loan repaid is not having a tax payer pay for it! Honestly, I wonder how many people are even taking loans that they can repay for those graduate programs as the interest rate on federal student loans isn’t that great.

What I hate about Republicans today is that they NEVER try to solve any problems. They look for esoteric edge situations and then present them as massive problems to foster culture rage in low information voters!

Is this a question of default or the American taxpayer?

For me, it’s more of a question of whether it’s ethical to allow an 18 year old to take on significant debt for a degree that will burden them for the rest of their lives.

I 100% support this kind of education. I don’t support the debt levels people face unless they come from a rich family.

It is true that just because you get a degree in something, that doesn’t mean you have to work in that field. I had a co-worker a long time ago who had a MA in 18th century French literature. She was never going to work in that field. She owed 100k in student loans (this was ages ago) and we both made 24k.

If parents can’t or won’t stop their kids from taking on debt that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, then maybe the federal government shouldn’t be complicit in that debt.

Really? Show me how many 18 year olds are taking out massive debt for a graduate program in art, dance or theater! This person would need to have graduated HS at 13/14, and graduated from college by 18. I’d say anyone who accomplished that is pretty darn gifted and will do well. I’d also say the number of actual people in this scenario is negligible!!

[Anonymous]

The arts contribute immensely to the economy. Anyone been to the National Mall lately? The tourists come to go the museums, the theater, concerts, walking tours to see historical and artistic sites. This is true in every major city to some degree. At a time when manufacturing is declining, we should be investing even more in the arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see the data. How many people are taking out loans for graduate level theater, art and dance classes and then defaulting on those loans? A loan repaid is not having a tax payer pay for it! Honestly, I wonder how many people are even taking loans that they can repay for those graduate programs as the interest rate on federal student loans isn’t that great.

What I hate about Republicans today is that they NEVER try to solve any problems. They look for esoteric edge situations and then present them as massive problems to foster culture rage in low information voters!

Is this a question of default or the American taxpayer?

For me, it’s more of a question of whether it’s ethical to allow an 18 year old to take on significant debt for a degree that will burden them for the rest of their lives.

I 100% support this kind of education. I don’t support the debt levels people face unless they come from a rich family.

It is true that just because you get a degree in something, that doesn’t mean you have to work in that field. I had a co-worker a long time ago who had a MA in 18th century French literature. She was never going to work in that field. She owed 100k in student loans (this was ages ago) and we both made 24k.

If parents can’t or won’t stop their kids from taking on debt that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, then maybe the federal government shouldn’t be complicit in that debt.

Really? Show me how many 18 year olds are taking out massive debt for a graduate program in art, dance or theater! This person would need to have graduated HS at 13/14, and graduated from college by 18. I’d say anyone who accomplished that is pretty darn gifted and will do well. I’d also say the number of actual people in this scenario is negligible!!

The person in the example had a Master’s with 100k in debt years ago. Now it’s not uncommon to have a 100k in debt with a bachelor’s if you don’t have family support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The arts contribute immensely to the economy. Anyone been to the National Mall lately? The tourists come to go the museums, the theater, concerts, walking tours to see historical and artistic sites. This is true in every major city to some degree. At a time when manufacturing is declining, we should be investing even more in the arts.

Do you mean make the programs free to attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see the data. How many people are taking out loans for graduate level theater, art and dance classes and then defaulting on those loans? A loan repaid is not having a tax payer pay for it! Honestly, I wonder how many people are even taking loans that they can repay for those graduate programs as the interest rate on federal student loans isn’t that great.

What I hate about Republicans today is that they NEVER try to solve any problems. They look for esoteric edge situations and then present them as massive problems to foster culture rage in low information voters!

Is this a question of default or the American taxpayer?

For me, it’s more of a question of whether it’s ethical to allow an 18 year old to take on significant debt for a degree that will burden them for the rest of their lives.

I 100% support this kind of education. I don’t support the debt levels people face unless they come from a rich family.

It is true that just because you get a degree in something, that doesn’t mean you have to work in that field. I had a co-worker a long time ago who had a MA in 18th century French literature. She was never going to work in that field. She owed 100k in student loans (this was ages ago) and we both made 24k.

If parents can’t or won’t stop their kids from taking on debt that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, then maybe the federal government shouldn’t be complicit in that debt.

Really? Show me how many 18 year olds are taking out massive debt for a graduate program in art, dance or theater! This person would need to have graduated HS at 13/14, and graduated from college by 18. I’d say anyone who accomplished that is pretty darn gifted and will do well. I’d also say the number of actual people in this scenario is negligible!!

The person in the example had a Master’s with 100k in debt years ago. Now it’s not uncommon to have a 100k in debt with a bachelor’s if you don’t have family support.

Don’t evade the question! How many 18 year olds are applying for hundreds of thousands in federal loans to participate in a graduate program in art, theater and dance? How many 22+ year olds? How large is this cohort that needs your moral intervention? Go find the data. I’ll wait.

While you are looking at data, go look up the debt to earnings ratio for students attending a for profit university like the defunct Trump U. How does that data look?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fine with me. Schools should not be offering degrees that never pay off.

Like education?

I don’t know… I kind of feel we should help people who are interested in serving others over self.

We can’t all serve ourselves.

+1 Seriously. Good luck to all the students out there who aren't rich but want to go into teaching, government service, social work and yes, the arts. I guess those fields are only for rich people who want to do them.

[Anonymous]

How is this substantively different from the Biden proposal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this substantively different from the Biden proposal?

As I understand it, the Biden proposal used both debt to earnings and earning premium components to assess programs and only applied to for profit schools and certification programs, rather than degrees programs from non-profit colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fine with me. Schools should not be offering degrees that never pay off.

Well, we shouldn’t be financing such degrees with public loans. If some heiress wants a degree in studio art, she should absolutely be allowed to spend daddy’s money on it, even if the degree will never pay off in a narrow economic sense.

I feel the opposite. If you have an extrememly talented person with limited means, we lose so much by not susidizing the full development of their talents. It's like susidizing theaters and art museums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fine with me. Schools should not be offering degrees that never pay off.

Well, we shouldn’t be financing such degrees with public loans. If some heiress wants a degree in studio art, she should absolutely be allowed to spend daddy’s money on it, even if the degree will never pay off in a narrow economic sense.

I feel the opposite. If you have an extrememly talented person with limited means, we lose so much by not susidizing the full development of their talents. It's like susidizing theaters and art museums.

Why are private grants and scholarships such an unacceptable solution to this problem? Why does it have to be debt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, the people in this forum are AWFUL. Late stage capitalism in its ugliest incarnation. Some of the people posting here just have zero sense that art or education or ideas have any value to society because they don't make someone rich. These MAGA parents think their rape-y investment banker bro is contributing more to society through self-enrichment than an art teacher or public humanities professional ever could. This is why our country can't have nice things.

I have a rising senior and so have checked out this forum for tips. No more. So glad I never encounter these people in real life.

+1 And they don't even realize it. They are probably "educated" in that they have degrees, but they don't have a well-rounded education. It's really sad.

You equate not wanting to pay for something with thinking something shouldn’t exist.

Nobody is saying the arts shouldn’t exist, & nobody is stopping you and your friends from funding them out of your own pockets.

I have 3 degrees in the humanities, & it never occurred to me that the taxpayers were responsible for ensuring I had a chance to learn about Plato or Samuel Johnson.

You must be pretty grateful that you were born rich if you didn't need to take out student loans for any of your THREE humanities degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fine with me. Schools should not be offering degrees that never pay off.

Well, we shouldn’t be financing such degrees with public loans. If some heiress wants a degree in studio art, she should absolutely be allowed to spend daddy’s money on it, even if the degree will never pay off in a narrow economic sense.

I feel the opposite. If you have an extrememly talented person with limited means, we lose so much by not susidizing the full development of their talents. It's like susidizing theaters and art museums.

Why are private grants and scholarships such an unacceptable solution to this problem? Why does it have to be debt?

Sure--just let us know the specific sources of these grants and scholarships. There aren't many.