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13 avril 2013

Debt and graduate school – why it’s a bad idea

Last Friday, we had a good discussion on how to pick a graduate program. One issue that came up was debt. I strongly recommended that people only go to graduate programs that provide ample funding. People disagreed (a little) so I wanted to take a moment to explain the underlying logic:
- First, about 50% of doctoral students will not earn a PhD. So it makes no sense to pile up debt for a degree you may not get.
- Second, about 50% of doctoral degree recipients will not work in academia or a tenure track position. It makes little sense to take debt for a job you may not get.
- Third, tenure track jobs have modest salaries. Professors aren’t poor, but we make a middle class salary, not MD salaries.
In financial terms, the academic career is high risk and low pay off. The pay off is mostly in non-financial terms. Once you understand that money is not the guiding principle of the typical academic career, then it makes little sense to invest money in it. Read more...
13 avril 2013

Proposed Student-Loan Reforms Set Activists and Lawmakers at Odds

http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/icons/bottom-line-header.pngBy Allie Bidwell. TWith interest rates on federal student loans set to double this summer, student-advocacy groups have intensified their calls for Congress to find a way to avoid the increase, and lawmakers are scrambling to pass legislation that would overhaul the student-loan system.
President Obama’s loan-reform proposal, which he released on Wednesday as part of his budget for the 2014 fiscal year, suggests switching to a market-based rate, in which interest rates would be set annually and fixed for the duration of each loan. But some experts say that the options being laid out, including the president’s proposal, will provide only short-term relief for borrowers, and that allowing the rates to double may be a better option in the long run. Read more...
10 avril 2013

Student Loan Rate Set to Rise, Despite Lack of Support

New York TimesBy Tamar Lewin. The interest rate on many student loans is scheduled to double on July 1, to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent — just as it was last year, when in the midst of an election campaign, Congress voted to extend the lower rate. Again this year, no one wants the increase to happen, especially since even the current rate is well above market. But once again, there is likely to be a good deal of brinkmanship before the issue is settled. This time around, though, longer-term solutions may be on the horizon.
On Tuesday, the day before the White House plans to send its budget to Congress, student advocacy groups are releasing an issue brief charging that the federal government should not be profiting from student loans, while more and more students bear a crushing debt burden. The brief, citing a February report from the Congressional Budget Office, said the federal government makes 36 cents in profit on every student-loan dollar it puts out, and estimates that over all, student loans will bring in $34 billion next year. Read more...
6 avril 2013

A propos de la "Bombe de la dette étudiante"

http://static.mediapart.fr/files/imagecache/photo_utilisateur_normale/pictures/default.pngPar OLChantraine. La crise de l’université à l’ère de la Contre-Réforme Néo-Libérale est maintenant assez bien documentée et donc connue, par ceux qui veulent savoir, autour d’un certain nombre de questions:
-       la marchandisation des formations, conçues de plus en plus par référence à des aptitudes opératoires adaptées au marché du travail immédiat, abusivement appelées « compétences », où l’utilité sociale n’est plus considérée, remplacée par la compétitivité et la rentabilité financière
-       le management mimétique nourri par le modèle d’une entreprise autoritaire soucieuse seulement de réduction des coûts, de valorisation mercaticienne des produits, d’évaluation par indicateurs bureaucratiques, de normalisation par le stéréotype
-       l’utilitarisme de la recherche et de la publication
-       l’abaissement des disciplines et sciences, réduites à un statut de sous-traitantes des applications
-       la réduction de la « culture » à quelques discours slogans d’un pragmatisme fantasmatique courant d’échec en échec, s’affligeant à chaque étape du déclin dont il est le zélateur
-       la servitude volontaire des universitaires qui préfèrent s’infliger eux-mêmes la potion néo-managériale plutôt que de résister, parce que faisant le calcul (paradoxe du prisonnier, quand tu nous tiens…) que puisque les autres ne résisteront pas il n’y a qu’à se préoccuper de la répartition des restes.
Pourtant reste une question: Pourquoi?
Quelle est la logique économique de cette (ir)-résistible catastrophe?
Le petit livre de François Delapierre, « La bombe de la dette étudiante », (éditions Leprince),  fournit une bonne part de la réponse.
Sans être un ouvrage de recherche originale, il rassemble en une interprétation cohérente un certain nombre de faits socio-économiques constitutifs de la crise contemporaine de l’Université et en restitue la dynamique.
La thèse de l’ouvrage est que le capitalisme a terminé de tirer les conséquences de son projet de « rentabilisation » de l’Université.
Les grandes entreprises, la finance, les banques ont identifié en quoi l’Université pouvait devenir,  enfin!, un domaine économique comme un autre, soumis à la concurrence libre et non faussée, permettant à une grande échelle – de plus en plus à une échelle mondiale – l’extorsion d’importants profits sur les étudiants, leurs familles et l’état. Pour cela elles ont réorienté l’activité universitaire pour en faire une activité de service à grande échelle, dont les produits (notamment le « diplôme ») sont vendus à crédit aux étudiants et à leur famille.
De manière massive aux Etats-Unis ou en Corée du Sud, de manière croissante au Canada au Royaume-Uni, de manière naissante (mais approchant déjà les 10% de la masse étudiante) en France, de manière conquérante dans les relations Nord-Sud, les étudiants et leur familles s’endettent auprès des banques pour acheter de la formation, de la « force de travail » plus ou moins chère, plus ou moins labellisée auprès des écoles supérieures et des universités.
Le plus possible, elles réduisent la place du financement public de la formation aux formations de socle commun, non valorisables sur le marché concurrentiel de la force de travail et veulent accaparer pour le domaine marchand, de concurrence « libre et non fossé », la production de la force de travail financièrement rentable.
Pour cela, elles trouvent des idéologues au sein de l’UMP par exemple, dont une centaine de députés soutiennent que le « prêt étudiant » relève de la justice sociale, ou dans des officines, telle Terra Nova ou des chercheurs de l’Essec, qui défendent l’idée que la gratuité des études et les bourses doivent faire place à la rentabilité et la dette.
Ou encore elles façonnent à leur main « l’espace universitaire européen et mondial ». LRU, AERES, Erasmus mundus, les ECTS, la « semestrialisation », la « logique compétences », la contractualisation  etc… sont leurs outils.
C’est l’aveuglement – ou la trahison? – du parti « socialiste » que d’accompagner sans aucune distance ni critique ce mouvement depuis le début du « Processus de Bologne », ne se différenciant jamais du pouvoir néo-libéral, même lorsque la prétendue « alternance » lui en crée l’occasion.
Par ce processus, bientôt il ne sera plus nécessaire qu’à l’Université on apprenne vraiment quelque chose ou fasse vraiment de la recherche.
Il suffira qu’on prenne le moyen de labelliser des marques aussi prestigieuses que vaines (Sciences Po, par exemple…) ou de se faire référencer à Shanghaï par des bookmakers parfumés académiquement, pour vendre à crédit de la formation à des étudiants, comme aux Etats-Unis on vendait naguère des maisons à la lower middle-class.
Peu importe que l'Université apporte quelque chose aux étudiants, à leurs familles ou à la société. Peu importe l’avancée de la connaissance. Peu importe l’élaboration de la culture.
L’important est que les étudiants entrent dans le système de la dette, et, dès leur entrée à l'Université, se mettent à produire du profit pour la banque, comme un patron de pêche qui se ruine en gavant d’intérêt d’emprunt le Crédit Agricole, comme les Grecs qui gavent la ploutocratie internationale des intérêts usuraires des emprunts contractés par leurs gouvernants corrompus.
Lire le petit livre de Delapierre sera sans doute d’un grand secours pour tous ceux qui veulent comprendre et combattre la ruine programmée de l'Université et des étudiants. Les étudiants québécois ont déjà montré la voie. Continuons à l’éclairer.
Il faut sauver l’Université.
http://static.mediapart.fr/files/imagecache/photo_utilisateur_normale/pictures/default.png By OLChantraine. Crisis of the university in the age of the Counter-Reformation Neo-Liberal is now fairly well documented and therefore known by those who want to know about a number of issues:
- The commodification of training designed more with reference to procedural skills suited to the labor market immediately, wrongly called "skills", where social utility is no longer considered replaced by the competitiveness and profitability

- Management mimetic nourished by the authoritarian model of a business concerned only cost reduction, recovery mercaticienne products, evaluation indicators by bureaucratic standardization by the stereotype
. More...
31 mars 2013

Student loan repayments to increase

(File)Student loan repayment rates will increase from Monday in a move the Government says will mean loans will be paid off quicker. Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce said the median repayment time will decrease by around four months because of the new 12 percent rate.
The Government’s 2012 budget increased the rate from 10 cents to 12 cents per dollar of income. The new rate would save the Government $184.2 million over four years, Mr Joyce said.
“Increasing the repayment rate is also assisting the Government to reduce the cost of the scheme for taxpayers at a time of significant fiscal pressure.”
The change will not impact people who receive income-tested benefits and borrowers who cannot meet their repayments can still apply for hardship provisions. Only borrowers with income over the current threshold of $367 per week or $19,084 per year will be affected. Read more...
30 mars 2013

Banks Write Off $3 Billion in Student Debt Already This Year

By Julia Lawrence. US Banks are now starting to feel a real pinch of the student loan crisis as the number of students who default on their debt is skyrocketing. In just the first two months of 2013, banking institutions have had to write off more than $3 billion in student loan debt, a 36% increase over the same period last year. The data comes courtesy of a report by the credit reporting agency Equifax, which also shows that while part of the increase could be attributed to continuing economic malaise, other factors play a role as well. The borrowing volume is up over the past year as more people secure loans to go back to school to wait out a weak job market and as college tuition continues to grow. Read more...
30 mars 2013

New Database of Complaints on Student Loans

HomeNew Database of Complaints on Student Loans
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday unveiled a new database on consumer complaints on various financial services and products, including student loans. “By sharing these complaints with the public, we are creating greater transparency in consumer financial products and services,” said a statement from Richard Cordray, director of the bureau. “The database is good for consumers and it is also good for honest businesses. We believe the marketplace of ideas can do great things with this data.”
24 mars 2013

Loans offered to thousands more tertiary students

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Maina Waruru. Thousands of Kenyan students pursuing post-secondary technical and vocational education and training, or TIVET, will start benefiting from state loans for the first time this year. Previously, students in public universities had the monopoly on state support.
Learners in TIVET institutions will be able to access support from the Higher Education Loans Board, HELB, to help them meet the costs of their education and repay the debt after graduation. The move is seen by experts as aimed at encouraging more young Kenyans to acquire technical skills, which are acutely lacking across the country. In future, loans will also be extended to students in private institutions and to adult learners. Read more...
17 mars 2013

Student loan writeoffs estimated at $173M

By Michael Woods. Three-year total reaches $716 M. The federal government plans to write off $173 million in unpaid student loans in the coming fiscal year, which will bring its three-year writeoff total to $716 million.
Taxpayers were on the hook for $312 million in Canada Student Loan writeoffs in the 201112 fiscal year and $231 million in the current fiscal year (201213), although the loans in question span many years.
Most student finance experts say forgiving unpaid student debt is simply the cost of doing business, with the government taking on risk to help thousands of people get an education who otherwise couldn't afford it. They also say the federal student loans system is simpler and more forgiving than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Read more...
17 mars 2013

Student loans to require residence permit

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Jan Petter Myklebust. Six applicants for student loans and grants have taken Luxembourg to the European Court of Justice after being turned down by the country’s student loan scheme, CEDIES, on the grounds that they are children of frontier workers. CEDIES claimed that eligibility requires residence in Luxembourg. A court ruling is expected later this year.
In his opinion to the Court on 7 February, Advocate General of Luxembourg Paolo Mengazzi stated that “financial aid for higher education is granted to citizens of Luxembourg and other EU citizens on the conditions that they are residents in Luxembourg”. Read more...
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