generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

And I believe the interest paid on student loans is tax deductible but not the principal.

Yeah, the interest is deductible. It's something, but much.

The income-based repayments are specific programs and don't apply to most loans.

Does anyone have links to really good data on the debt loads of recent grads, not just average but distribution, median, etc? I'm in the middle of a really annoying argument with smug older lefty types who don't get what this overblown student debt crisis thing is all about.

which thread?

not here, on facebook

that was a joke

haw

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/vermilyea20130625a.htm

there are some recent numbers and distributions there

argh expensive private college professor blathering on about knowledge for knowledge sake cliches. Fuck that at $50K a year. Blood boiling.

A book is a set of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of ink, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A set of text-filled or illustrated pages produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book, or e-book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/01/jobless-europe-young-qualified

less bad than the chronic unemployment in the article obv but there's a hardcore of ppl in jobs they don't want w/little chance to change the situation increasingly growing bitter and not buying houses or having kids, on the off-chance they might need to move elsewhere to better their sitch *cough*

"You have to find a routine," she says. "You need a routine. And to meet other people like you, that's really important. To understand that it's not your fault, you've done nothing wrong, that everyone's in the same boat." But still, some mornings "you wake up and there's … no meaning to getting out of bed".

this is surprisingly true

there's never been any meaning to getting out of bed

getting out of bed means you have started your active day, even if the activities of your day have only a slender meaning.

less bad than the chronic unemployment in the article obv but there's a hardcore of ppl in jobs they don't want w/little chance to change the situation increasingly growing bitter and not buying houses or having kids, on the off-chance they might need to move elsewhere to better their sitch *cough*

Yeah, it's obviously a bit easier to get a job in London but enjoy five years living like a student. Maybe if you meet a nice boy / girl you can throw 50% of your collective income at rent and utilities on a one-bed flat small enough to break quality-of-life regulations for 1970s council properties. Save your pennies and we might even sell 35% of it to you for roughly the same as you'd have paid for a three-bed house in the suburbs had you been born 15 years earlier. And enjoy reapplying for your job every 18-24 months when your boss wants to reduce headcounts / keep things fresh. Don't worry about the £80,000 of student debt you owe as a couple, you'll never have a chance to pay it back, we'll just bleed you for a couple of hundred a month until you're 50.

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-expendables-how-the-temps-who-power-corporate-giants-are-getting-crushe

My boss was having a whinge about the state of UK education this afternoon and raised an interesting idea. He suggested that the current trend towards increasing contact time with students - tied into the idea of the student as a consumer who needs to be given vfm - has destroyed the value of degrees for employers. Vocation-focused courses aside, he claimed the true worth of a degree, prior to the shift, wasn't as a mark of intelligence but of the ability to work independently and responsibly towards a particular goal. What that goal was didn't really matter. The decrease in the importance of research and independent reading at the undergraduate level means it's easier to simply breeze through, passively consuming information. Ultimately, the more practical and consumer-focused the course, the less it reveals about the individual.

well being that the trend is in the opposite direction in America I don't think there is anything to that idea

I think there's something to it. I remember when fees were going up there was discussion about UK universities turning into American ones, where it's so expensive that you demand to get something for your money and thus get your hand held every step of the way. Ivy Leagues probably explode that notion or maybe they're just an exception to the rule.

universities where you get your hand held every step of the way are the exception to the rule in america

show up, don't show up, they don't give a crap really, they've already got your money. if you drop out even better, more suckers to reel in

My experience at US vs UK was very much in line with the hand-holding. At least comparatively.

I wouldn't call it hand-holding exactly, but the expectations for independent study (and thought, tbh) are appallingly low, at least in my experience going to and working at a few colleges.

(in the US)

My boss was having a whinge about the state of UK education this afternoon and raised an interesting idea. He suggested that the current trend towards increasing contact time with students - tied into the idea of the student as a consumer who needs to be given vfm - has destroyed the value of degrees for employers. Vocation-focused courses aside, he claimed the true worth of a degree, prior to the shift, wasn't as a mark of intelligence but of the ability to work independently and responsibly towards a particular goal. What that goal was didn't really matter.

Hmm this is interesting. I sometimes wonder what goes on in the mind of my rejectors.

Assuming I'm not bollocks, of course. It could just be that.

I've got a pet theory. I'm wary of it though, because it's very self-serving. It goes like this:

- Having a degree on your CV is not much good at all for getting a sales job or just some job to make money whilst looking around for a job that your degree is relevant to. People look at it, think, 'oh, this person wasted three years' and write you off. Evidence: well, I'm getting nowhere with it and it's been years.

– Meanwhile, good luck applying online or through application forms to those jobs to which your degree is relevant! Those jobs are going to people with pre-existing connections. Evidence: totally anecdotal, based on people I know, but fucked if I've got any actual data on what connections they have or how they're using them.

all my experience tbh.

I read various online articles about how to get a job, and a common theme from top $$$ guys is 'Hah - you may have a degree, young sir, but I want to see a proven track record of hands on mettle. Impress me. Wear a red tie. Don't wear a red tie. You've got to stand out. You've got to prove you can fit in. Why don't you have a youtube video explaining why I should hire you? Delete your facebook account', etc, etc.

If that's an accurate representation of what people are looking for when they hire, then it explains a lot, but again, dunno if these guys are just blustering, and I'm latching on to that as an excuse to be lazy.

I do think independent study classes are treated as a privilege here, given only to high-achieving students who have already proven themselves--afaict they're almost unheard of in undergrad? Much more common in post-grad. If having to go to class and listen to lectures and be tested or turn in work periodically on the reading is what you're calling "hand-holding" then yeah, I guess.

Profs usually down-grade for missing class and generally treat it like high school, basically. They just throw material at you faster and the class sizes are larger (for low-level lecture courses).

Looking for work is destroying my mind and sense of self-worth :(

do i dare go BACK to college???

I'm thinking about going back to university, as well.

The income-based repayments are specific programs and don't apply to most loans.

Is this true? Your loans have to be under the government, which means you'd need to consolidate private loans (if you are able to ) in order to qualify for IBR.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101012270

The largest bank in the United States will stop making student loans in a few weeks.

JPMorgan Chase has sent a memorandum to colleges notifying them that the bank will stop making new student loans in October, according to Reuters.
The official reason is quite bland.
"We just don't see this as a market that we can significantly grow," Thasunda Duckett tells Reuters. Duckett is the chief executive for auto and student loans at Chase, which means she's basically delivering the news that a large part of her business is getting closed down.

The move is eerily reminiscent of the subprime shutdown that happened in 2007. Each time a bank shuttered its subprime unit, the news was presented in much the same way that JPMorgan is spinning the end of its student lending.

"It's no longer sustainable and not the right place to allocate capital in the future," HSBC Holdings Group Chief Executive Michael Geoghegan said in a statement the day HSBC shut down its subprime unit in 2007.

"Lehman Brothers announced today that market conditions have necessitated a substantial reduction in its resources and capacity in the subprime space," the press release issued in August 2007 said.

Is there a way of finding out what % of student loans taken out come from JPMorgan currently? If it's even something like 5%, and no-one else is interested in filling the gap, that's a lot of people not being able to go to college, right?

As I recall, private lending has just basically been forced out by the fact that government loans are better and more popular. Don't know of any cases where students are forced into private loans b/c they can't get govt ones?

Ah okay, wasn't sure how the US system worked

Feel like this belongs here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23972952

A university graduate says he was left humiliated after being asked to dance to a Daft Punk song during a job interview at an electronics superstore.

Alan Bacon, 21, thought working at Currys in Cardiff would be ideal given his love of cameras, and he spent a week preparing for the interview.

But instead of showcasing his skills, he ended up doing robotic-style dancing "like a scene out of [BBC TV comedy] The Office".

Currys has since apologised.

It has also admitted that the dance segment of the interview had been a mistake and was not part of its official recruitment processes.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

I ended up dancing to Around the World by Daft Punk, doing rubbish robotics in my suit in front of a group of strangers”

Alan Bacon
Mr Bacon has been looking for work since gaining his degree in documentary, film and TV from the University of South Wales in July.

He said he was finding the process "extremely hard" because so many people were job hunting.

After finding out he had an interview for a sales assistant role at Currys Megastore in Newport Road, he was told he would have five minutes to talk to interviewers about his hobbies.

So, armed with photographs to highlight his love of astronomy, he went to the group interview on Tuesday.

But he said he was left "incredulous" as the group was told it was being split into two, with each having to make up a dance.

The bulk of full-time students entered through the UCAS system with A-levels or equivalent qualifications and many of the University's degree courses are selective in that they require specific A-levels or above average grades for entry.[citation needed]

The University of South Wales is recognised as one of Wales’s five major research universities and a leader in key areas of specialist research,[citation needed] such as sustainable energy, educational development, creative industries and the arts, mobile communications, humanities, sports injury and performance, new business incubation, and innovation for technology and start-up companies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUe_Pi8NfT4

Bacon haha amirite guys

As I recall, private lending has just basically been forced out by the fact that government loans are better and more popular. Don't know of any cases where students are forced into private loans b/c they can't get govt ones?

― "Dave Barlow" is the name Lou uses on sabermetrics baseball sites (s.clover), Friday, 6 September 2013 23:11 (Yesterday) Permalink

My understanding was that the private loans were less about "not being able to get" govt ones then about filling the gaps, i.e. amounts over and above the govt loan program limits. Which I think you would almost certainly need if you were going to finance 100% of the cost of an expensive private college. But maybe they've increased the govt loan limits, IDK.

there are also PLUS loans for that, although the terms don't seem spectacular?

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/death-of-an-adjunct-703773/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/fashion/Millenials-Millennials-Generation-Y.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“I feel like their work ethic is a legitimate concern, even though it sounds like you’re a whiny old person complaining about the youth,” said Jared Neumark, 31, who produced the video for Official Comedy. “There’s this focus on enjoying your work, and that creates a huge problem because there needs to be a part of the population that has not-so-much-fun jobs, more labor-intensive jobs, or that are, like, lawyers.”

Jared Neumark is a millennial so I don't understand who "they" are that he's talking about.

are Millennials and Gen Y the same? I thought they were 2 different generations -- like Gen Y were born between 1976 and 1990, and the Millennials are the generation after?

Gen X = born between early 60s and early 80s
Gen Y / Millenials = born between early 80s and early 2000s