General Discussion

and also what to do about students that attend a university for a year then drop out? I know an individual that went to Penn State for two semesters, racked up over 30K in student loans, then dropped out. He didn't do well for the year he was there and thus not much better off than a high school graduate as far as earning potential.

This is a public university and the reasons he left were not the fault of the college. His parents were in no condition to help him with payments. In hindsight he will admit that he had no business even going in the first place and admits that his parents tried to talk him out of it. To his credit he has the loans almost paid off. But even in community college a student can borrow 10s of 1000s of dollars in loans. From my experience as an adult student I see many students that don't really belong in even a community college.

I don't know the answer to this but I suspect that if there were to be a massive overhaul of the way in which we finance college and beyond then it will probably have some kind of entrance requirements of the academic sort and some kind of repayment requirement even if it is in-kind. Also adult students like myself that take college level classes for strictly personal enrichment might find it more difficult to enroll in such classes as those needing them for professional reasons might have priority.

Another issue not specific to the way this thread has developed has to do with the available funding pool for student loans. While painful and I know the pain well, the payment we make for our loans is then used to finance others that wish to gain a university degree. So there might be some reward for the pain of re-payment.