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Comment by kaesar14 | Hacker News Reader

There are many who would argue that the willingness of a 18 year old to shoulder enormous financial responsibility to gain benefits largely denied to them by the way modern American society is constructed is not a real defense of the reasonableness of student loans.

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Sure, but that opens up a lot of other difficult topics, all of which are very nuanced. If we're not going to consider 18 year old's adults, we need to re-visit the age limits on voting, military service, and other large financial contracts.

In the end, it always comes down to (some degree of) personal responsibility. Just because the government (or your job, or your family, or some guy you met on the street) offers you a new and novel way of ruining your life, it doesn't mean you have to take it. If the choice is pay your student loans and keep your credit score, or pay your rent and avoid being homeless, well, that's a terrible choice to have to make, but the answer is obvious, and the manner by which someone ended up in that situation is also pretty obvious.

But is that the type of society we want? One in which a rather large percentage of the population is dealing with those terrible choices regularly? And the rest of the population says "you should have been smart enough to not fall for it"?

Personal responsibility matters for sure. And to have freedom we have to allow personal responsibility rather than try and protect everyone from everything. But if someone comes up with a clever way to put a massive number of people in debt by leveraging common human failings, to the point that it threatens their ability to have shelter, do we not do something about it rather than allowing that clever someone to just become king (metaphorical)? Not to mention, wouldn't we want to head off both the growing apathy by some and the growing anger by others towards the rest of us lest it eventually threaten the country itself and its character?

I disagree massively with your last point, on the manner by which someone ended up there being obvious. Our current children are being raised by parents who grew up in a very different time, and the world has never been more complex. The tradeoff isn’t as simple as an educated adult making a bad financial decision, it’s actual children taking on huge burdens with little to no guidance in complete accordance with what society is telling them to do to get ahead, cause thats what worked 30 years ago.

> actual children

18-year-olds are not "Actual children".

> taking on huge burdens with little to no guidance

I don't know if this is still the case but when I took out student loans nearly two decades ago I had to go through "entrance counseling" and "exit counseling", explaining very clearly and meticulously what I was getting myself into.

Sure, not legally, but relative to the life experience required to even somewhat competently navigate the complexities of the modern world, 18 year olds are functionally children. Your entire life to that point is school, for many people, sheltered from the harsher realities of life and finances.

That entrance and exit loan counseling is a privilege for sure. I just graduated from a top 25 ranked private school and was never given loan counseling, and none of my peers were either. Thankfully I picked a high paying field, succeeded in it, and had parents with a ton of financial knowledge to help me effectively plan how to pay for it all, but the vast majority of my peers had no such luck on those three fronts. It’s especially telling that you went to school two decades ago, as no one going to school right now legitimately thinks the college student loan process is clearly presented in terms that are easy for the AVERAGE 18 year old to understand. Meanwhile, the costs have gone up...I don’t know, at least 100% since you went to school? Shit, tuition went up 4 grand while I was still in school.

> as no one going to school right now legitimately thinks the college student loan process is clearly presented in terms that are easy for the AVERAGE 18 year old to understand

I went to university nearly 30 years ago, and I didn't take out any loans the first few years. I did the last year, and even then I didn't think the process was remotely understandable. I remember getting a check and there was a pretty hefty fee that had been taken out, reducing my net by a moderate percentage. I couldn't find any good explanation of this, nor anyone at the school who could explain it.

I had no 'entrance' and 'exit' loan counseling.

> That entrance and exit loan counseling is a privilege for sure. I just graduated from a top 25 ranked private school and was never given loan counseling, and none of my peers were either.

Entrance/exit counseling is required for any federal student loan. Perhaps your loans weren’t federal?

> Meanwhile, the costs have gone up...I don’t know, at least 100% since you went to school? Shit, tuition went up 4 grand while I was still in school.

UCLA, one of the top schools in the world, costs $13k in tuition for the year for residents. Think about that, a world-class education for a little more than $1k/month.

Nope, I had federal loans. No counseling. Not sure what to tell you. A quick search of my student email account reveals a "required" exit counseling session, which I was not aware of until searching for it in my email at this very moment. No other attempt to contact me to get the counseling, and I very much successfully graduated without going. So seems the school at least doesn't really care too much.

As for your last point, I'm not sure how that matters? By my count, 14 of the top 25 universities globally are American private institutions. Not all of us were lucky enough to be raised in states with the caliber of public universities of California, and for us, the chance at a better life was one of those top private universities. That was a dream sold to me by the educational system my entire primary and secondary school life, and while it did work out for me, it's not working for thousands of young people and needs to be changed.

There are lot's of other options than taking out massive loans. Community College for two years then transferring to a state school is still fairly affordable and won't impact the vast majority of individuals in post-college job searches/careers.

It's just a lot less fun than going to a Big 10 school or the big name school.

Well-endowed private schools often offer more grant-based financial assistance than public schools, to the extent that the net cost for people who aren't upper income can be less than CC plus state school, as well as providing much better career prospects.

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