Duke porn star and student loans

[Channing]

It's not the government's fault or even the universities for charging what the market will bear even if she as an individual feels unfairly treated. That the government supplies student loans in the hopes of giving everyone a fair shake at attaining a middle class life is not a bad thing. How we supply those loans and what financial burdens we place on our young people probably needs an overhaul.

Hopefully without wading too deeply into PPB (and these are all just my opinions) ... my biggest gripe with student loans is as italicized above. The market doesn't and won't bear tuition rates at their current levels. The only reason they are sustainable is because of the ability to take out student loans and go absolutely insanely in debt as an 18 year old. While I can potentially see the value of ~$150/200k in debt from Duke if one graduates with a finance degree and heads to Wall St., the same can't be said for someone who graduates with a music degree to go and become a teacher. Becoming a teacher is incredibly noble, but also leads to a career with virtually no capacity to repay that debt (absent third party assistance). The lack of lending standards on student loans, and the lack of self-awareness to be able to say the finance major should be able to take out more debt than the english lit major, is causing the compounding effect of crushing student debt. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it realistic? Absolutely. Of the three parties involved with student lending transactions - the student, the creditor, and the school, only the school is always happy at the end of the day because they go their money. They charged someone $60k/yr.

[YmoBeThere]

Of the three parties involved with student lending transactions - the student, the creditor, and the school, only the school is always happy at the end of the day because they go their money. They charged someone $60k/yr.

As the credit is not dischargeable even in bankruptcy, there are very few situations where the creditor is all that upset.

[moonpie23]

the rub, (npi) is WHICH part time job she chose to earn money to abate her debt. This thread would be miniscule, in comparison, were she to be a musician, software developer, publisher, actor or competitive fisherman....since it's "vice", it's a big story.

[Channing]

As the credit is not dischargeable even in bankruptcy, there are very few situations where the creditor is all that upset.

Unless the debtor can't make payments and creditor needs to extend the period or waste money on collection procedures.

[DukieInKansas]

Hopefully without wading too deeply into PPB (and these are all just my opinions) ... my biggest gripe with student loans is as italicized above. The market doesn't and won't bear tuition rates at their current levels. The only reason they are sustainable is because of the ability to take out student loans and go absolutely insanely in debt as an 18 year old. While I can potentially see the value of ~$150/200k in debt from Duke if one graduates with a finance degree and heads to Wall St., the same can't be said for someone who graduates with a music degree to go and become a teacher. Becoming a teacher is incredibly noble, but also leads to a career with virtually no capacity to repay that debt (absent third party assistance). The lack of lending standards on student loans, and the lack of self-awareness to be able to say the finance major should be able to take out more debt than the english lit major, is causing the compounding effect of crushing student debt. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it realistic? Absolutely. Of the three parties involved with student lending transactions - the student, the creditor, and the school, only the school is always happy at the end of the day because they go their money. They charged someone $60k/yr.

I will give Virginia Tech some credit - a young lady I know that really wanted to go there sat down with someone in admissions or finance and they helped her reach the conclusion that $100K of debt for undergrad and then needing grad school in her discipline wasn't reasonable. As hard as it was for her, she opted to go somewhere close to home for less money and lower living expenses. Made me wish I could win the lottery and pay her way.

[Bostondevil]

Hopefully without wading too deeply into PPB (and these are all just my opinions) ... my biggest gripe with student loans is as italicized above. The market doesn't and won't bear tuition rates at their current levels. The only reason they are sustainable is because of the ability to take out student loans and go absolutely insanely in debt as an 18 year old. While I can potentially see the value of ~$150/200k in debt from Duke if one graduates with a finance degree and heads to Wall St., the same can't be said for someone who graduates with a music degree to go and become a teacher. Becoming a teacher is incredibly noble, but also leads to a career with virtually no capacity to repay that debt (absent third party assistance). The lack of lending standards on student loans, and the lack of self-awareness to be able to say the finance major should be able to take out more debt than the english lit major, is causing the compounding effect of crushing student debt. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it realistic? Absolutely. Of the three parties involved with student lending transactions - the student, the creditor, and the school, only the school is always happy at the end of the day because they go their money. They charged someone $60k/yr.

The average student loan debt for Duke students at graduation is just over $20,000, slightly below the national average in 2011 (the last year I found data). Northwestern caps student loan debt at $23,000 as a comparison. I looked that up when somebody defending the football players union compared their on campus earning options to those of someone on an English scholarship! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! English scholarship. Oh, that's funny. I still haven't stopped laughing. English scholarship.

From what I have read about the current student loan crisis, the majority of the problem comes from for profit universities. Would I like to see all students able to graduate without debt? Absolutely. Do I think $20,000 is crushing debt? It can be and it might lead some people to choose different a different career path but I also do not think it is crushing debt for the average Duke student. Whether or not a finance major should be able to take out more debt than an English Major is a philosophical question that perhaps should be debated. (I'll argue that the answer is no.) But back to our issue of blaming the government for student loan debt, I will admit that government loans play a part, but when the majority of the problem comes from for profit universities, I will also argue that is where we should begin with student loan reform. I will modify my original statement (and still stand by it) that it is not the government's fault that Duke's tuition is as high as it is. They charge what the market will bear. A Duke education is a limited resource. Demand far exceeds supply. The price is high.

[Channing]

Out of curiosity, is that ~20k in debt per student, or is it that the average student who takes out debt lands up with ~20k. I know there is a significant population at Duke that pays full tuition, and that can severely skew the numbers. If Duke students are really graduating with just 20k in debt, good for Duke and I stand corrected.

[Bluedog]

Out of curiosity, is that ~20k in debt per student, or is it that the average student who takes out debt lands up with ~20k. I know there is a significant population at Duke that pays full tuition, and that can severely skew the numbers. If Duke students are really graduating with just 20k in debt, good for Duke and I stand corrected.

Duke caps the loans one can take out at $5k/year. (Obviously, people can theoretically choose to take out private loans if they wish - I personally didn't know anybody that did that for undergrad.) Here is the Distribution of Net Tuition Paid by Duke Students for the 2012-13 Academic Year:

Slide3-sm_0.jpg
http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/what-price-college

[JasonEvans]

Duke caps the loans one can take out at $5k/year. (Obviously, people can theoretically choose to take out private loans if they wish - I personally didn't know anybody that did that for undergrad.) Here is the Distribution of Net Tuition Paid by Duke Students for the 2012-13 Academic Year:

Slide3-sm_0.jpg
http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/what-price-college

I am not blaming you, but the scale on that chart make it utterly useless. The distance between 1 and 10 is the same as between 10 and 100 and between 100 and 1000. Charts must have proper scale for us to understand them.

Here is how that chart should look (ignore the lack of detail on the x-axis): Chart for DBR.jpg

In reality, it shows that an overwhelming number of Duke students pay full tuition. Use that for whatever it is worth in your discussion.

-Jason "you may now return to your conversation about student loans... and not about porn " Evans

[Bluedog]

I am not blaming you, but the scale on that chart make it utterly useless. The distance between 1 and 10 is the same as between 10 and 100 and between 100 and 1000. Charts must have proper scale for us to understand them.

Here is how that chart should look (ignore the lack of detail on the x-axis): Chart for DBR.jpg

In reality, it shows that an overwhelming number of Duke students pay full tuition. Use that for whatever it is worth in your discussion.

-Jason "you may now return to your conversation about student loans... and not about porn " Evans

haha, agreed. The scale is pretty stupid. It obviously was an attempt to make everything look "even." However, I wouldn't say "an overwhelming number of Duke students pay full tuition" unless you consider 55% overwhelming. Your chart looks better, but does make it seem like an overwhelming majority pay full fare, which is probably why the author of that article didn't use a linear scale in that way. 75% of students either pay full fare or nothing at all...What they really should have done is to make the scale linear instead of logarithmic, and have only 3 buckets: $0, $1-$42.3k, and Full Tuition.

[JasonEvans]

haha, agreed. The scale is pretty stupid. It obviously was an attempt to make everything look "even." However, I wouldn't say "an overwhelming number of Duke students pay full tuition" unless you consider 55% overwhelming. Your chart looks better, but does make it seem like an overwhelming majority pay full fare, which is probably why the author of that article didn't use a linear scale in that way. 75% of students either pay full fare or nothing at all...What they really should have done is to make the scale linear instead of logarithmic, and have only 3 buckets: $0, $1-$42.3k, and Full Tuition.

Actually, we should probably be even smarter than that about it. I mean, someone paying $500 isn't really all that different from someone paying nothing, are they? There is no reason to put someone paying $2000 and someone paying $40,000 in the same pool as those are very, very different financial situations. I'd sort into the following buckets.

Less than $1000 (includes folks paying zero, on a full ride -- these are people who have almost no money to pay for college)
$1000 - $10,000 (the cost of a down payment on a car... depending on what type of car it is)
$10,000 - $30,000 (the cost of a down payment on a modest house)
$30,000 - full tuition (these are people who clearly have saved a lot for college or who make a good income that affords them the ability to pay a sizable sum)

Btu that is just my suggestion -- others could come up with something better, I am sure. The main point, in addition to making the chart look more accurate, was that a pretty hefty percentage of Duke students come from a situation where the school thinks the family can afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on college -- which means the family is quite well off compared to the vast majority of society.

-Jason "now, can we please get back to talking about porn?" Evans

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Actually, we should probably be even smarter than that about it. I mean, someone paying $500 isn't really all that different from someone paying nothing, are they? There is no reason to put someone paying $2000 and someone paying $40,000 in the same pool as those are very, very different financial situations. I'd sort into the following buckets.

Less than $1000 (includes folks paying zero, on a full ride -- these are people who have almost no money to pay for college)
$1000 - $10,000 (the cost of a down payment on a car... depending on what type of car it is)
$10,000 - $30,000 (the cost of a down payment on a modest house)
$30,000 - full tuition (these are people who clearly have saved a lot for college or who make a good income that affords them the ability to pay a sizable sum)

Btu that is just my suggestion -- others could come up with something better, I am sure. The main point, in addition to making the chart look more accurate, was that a pretty hefty percentage of Duke students come from a situation where the school thinks the family can afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on college -- which means the family is quite well off compared to the vast majority of society.

-Jason "now, can we please get back to talking about porn?" Evans

Wouldn't some of the people in the lower tuition categories be on academic or even athletic scholarship? So, they don't necessarily have "no money to pay for college." I knew a kid who was a BN Duke and had 75% of tuition paid but I'm certain could have paid full tuition had his family needed to do so.

[johnb]

Student loans are akin to the old housing crisis. Loans are given without paying adequate attention to the quality of the goods the students are buying (i.e., the quality of the education). I'm not worried about the Duke student who borrows $20K (though would love it if Duke could emulate Harvard and Princeton's ability to not require any loans from students with low and moderately low family incomes). The real problem are the schools that are in their own financial/academic trouble and while they may be well-meaning, are essentially ripping off their students.

As outlined here, the biggest problem is not absolute debt but rather the inability to pay it back, generally because they left school without a degree (http://www.forbes.com/sites/akelly/2...who-you-think/)

15% of borrowers do default within 3 years, with rates highest at for-profit colleges (46%). http://www.ticas.org/files/pub/CDR_2013_NR.pdf.

One group of schools ( a consortium of historically black colleges) had very high rates but lowered the rates through a focused effort: http://chronicle.com/article/6-Histo...olleges/64331/

oh, to bring it back to porn:in the film XXX, an HBO documentary on the porn industry, one of the stars said, "it's not like the decision was between porn and Harvard, it was generally between porn and a double wide trailer, a husband with a wife beater t-shirt, and a bunch of kids. For many of us, this is a better life." Or something to that effect, it's been a while since I saw it. So, in that respect, the Duke student is a trendsetter (but only if you can say that Duke is the Harvard of the porn industry)

[Bluedog]

Student loans are akin to the old housing crisis. Loans are given without paying adequate attention to the quality of the goods the students are buying (i.e., the quality of the education). I'm not worried about the Duke student who borrows $20K (though would love it if Duke could emulate Harvard and Princeton's ability to not require any loans from students with low and moderately low family incomes).

Duke eliminated loans completely for families making less than $40,000 back in 2007. (The 40th percentile of household income in the United States is $38k as of 2011.) They also reduced the loan amounts for families making less than $100,000. But, yes, Duke is not at the Harvard or Princeton level of requiring no loans for anybody who qualifies for financial aid (and those in the highest 10% of income in the U.S. can still qualify for financial aid at Harvard.)

[Bostondevil]

Duke eliminated loans completely for families making less than $40,000 back in 2007. (The 40th percentile of household income in the United States is $38k as of 2011.) They also reduced the loan amounts for families making less than $100,000. But, yes, Duke is not at the Harvard or Princeton level of requiring no loans for anybody who qualifies for financial aid (and those in the highest 10% of income in the U.S. can still qualify for financial aid at Harvard.)

That's what a bigger endowment gets you.

Harvard's tuition is on a sliding scale with only those students whose family income is over, I think, $350,000, paying the full amount. Duke doesn't have the endowment to do that for its students. I'll be optimistic and add - yet. But even Harvard counts family income regardless of willingness to pay.

[Bostondevil]

Harvard also gives no athletic scholarships, so, presumably that money is spread around the student body as a whole.

[flyingdutchdevil]

That's what a bigger endowment gets you.

Harvard's tuition is on a sliding scale with only those students whose family income is over, I think, $350,000, paying the full amount. Duke doesn't have the endowment to do that for its students. I'll be optimistic and add - yet. But even Harvard counts family income regardless of willingness to pay.

Interesting use of terminology in a thread beginning with, "Duke Porn Star..."

[Bostondevil]

Interesting use of terminology in a thread beginning with, "Duke Porn Star..."

Pun intended.

See my earlier post.

[YmoBeThere]

oh, to bring it back to porn:in the film XXX, an HBO documentary on the porn industry, one of the stars said, "it's not like the decision was between porn and Harvard, it was generally between porn and a double wide trailer, a husband with a wife beater t-shirt, and a bunch of kids. For many of us, this is a better life." Or something to that effect, it's been a while since I saw it. So, in that respect, the Duke student is a trendsetter (but only if you can say that Duke is the Harvard of the porn industry)

Okay, I'm going to stick up for the tank top t-shirt...I wear them daily and have not participated in the activity they are being associated with.

[YmoBeThere]

See my earlier post.

The one about the English scholarship?