Is Sallie Mae next for a bailout?Student loan trouble may threaten Sallie Mae lending abilityApril 17, 2008
10/10/2008 1:39:31 AM
Student loans have been unstable since Congress pushed through reductions in Federal subsidies back in 2007. If I remember correctly, nearly every major lender either partially or completely withdrew out of the market since the loans were no longer profitable. Combine that with a tightening credit market thanks to the current subprime mess, and you've got a complete disaster.
10/10/2008 1:54:16 AM
^ Well, yeah--your point that "nearly every major lender either partially or completely withdrew out of the market" was covered in the second excerpt in the OP. Unstable is one thing. The question is, are they, the government and its related entities, going to do yet another massive bailout of the student-loan market?
10/10/2008 2:03:03 AM
per request
8/12/2009 9:20:59 AM
Big changes ahead for student loansProposed legislation would provide more federal loans to students and largely cut the private sector out of the lucrative market.
8/12/2009 12:40:53 PM
8/12/2009 2:24:42 PM
That Sallie Mae bailout was crazy!
8/12/2009 2:32:17 PM
We should just go ahead and change the name of this forum from "The Soap Box" to "Hooksaw's News Bumps". I think the mods would like that.
8/12/2009 2:43:52 PM
How about let's change it to idiots who avoid the topic and just attack? Do you have anything to offer other than snarky, meaningless posts?So, all of you are totally cool with the government just taking over the entire student loan process? If that isn't the ultimate "bailout," I don't know what the hell is.BTW, I'm simply requesting threads be bumped as news warrants--at least I'm trying to stay on top of the issues. Any of you feel free to dazzle us all with your brilliant threads and commentary--if your posts here are any indication, however, I ain't gonna hold my breath.
8/12/2009 5:14:19 PM
8/12/2009 5:18:20 PM
^ Are you stupid or something? The government subsidizes the private loans now--what we're talking about is a complete takeover, you buffoon.
8/12/2009 5:24:57 PM
I thought this was already in place.Good-- cut out the middle man. What purpose is he serving?
8/12/2009 5:30:46 PM
^ Can you fucking read, you goddamned dumbass? Here's one BIG reason--from the fucking article:
8/12/2009 5:34:23 PM
Sallie Mae gouges kids on loans. I got one freshman year and under the ill-advised direction of my mom and grandparents. I'm paying something like 12-13% on a $6300 loan. If that's the private system being subsidized by the federal government and they STILL can't make money, then they don't deserve to do business. As far as I'm concerned Sallie Mae is a piece of shit company and if they go away, I'll be shedding no tears.
8/12/2009 8:09:48 PM
^^I've never met someone with a worse case of chronic foot-in-mouth. Nothing in that quote of yours refers to the purpose of the lending companies. Do you think you're being clever?Bumping the threads is useless without meaningful commentary, which you never offer. This is a discussion forum, not a news feed. You're like a lawyer who expects to win his case by simply bringing the evidence to the courtroom.
8/13/2009 9:10:24 AM
^ Opinions vary.
8/13/2009 3:54:36 PM
bump for hooksy
3/22/2010 7:50:51 AM
Oh my! Triumphant return nigh?
3/22/2010 7:58:45 AM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35974661/ns/politics/
3/22/2010 8:03:04 AM
nice, more redistribution of wealth. and this is coming as soon as I am graduating, so once again, I won't see a penny.
3/22/2010 9:24:30 AM
Sad. That part of the legislation is going to make the underlying problem much worse. The fact that there are already so many government-backed student loans out has caused tuition to go up year after year. This will just allow more people to borrow cheap money, except now it's all going to be government money. As usual, when Congress tries to fix something, they'll end up making the problem substantially worse.
3/22/2010 12:57:56 PM
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, but can you elaborate on this:
3/22/2010 2:35:05 PM
With the current setup, pretty much anyone can get a loan to go to college, regardless of the cost of tuition or the estimated return on investment. If someone wants to go to Duke and get a history degree, they can get a subsidized loan and go. This would not be possible if the government weren't backing the loans.A lot of problems come from this. The primary problem is that universities don't feel pressure to lower tuition, because they know the students can pay whatever tuition hike comes their way. For students, it's rarely a matter of what they can afford, and more of an issue of what college they can get into with their academic record. That's not how it would be in a free market. Let's pretend that Congress did the right thing for once, and removed all government subsidies from the student loan market. What would happen? How many private banks would lend a student anywhere from 20k to 100k over a 4 year period to get a liberal arts degree? Or even a computer science degree? Furthermore, how many students would get a loan if the interest rate was something like 6-10%, which it likely would be?The result of such legislation would be a huge drop in enrollment. People would stop going to college because they couldn't afford it. Now, the first response to that would be "See, now people can't go to college, that's bad, therefore we need government funded loans again." Of course, colleges wouldn't just continue to operate in their current fashion. They'd lower tuition to get people back in the classrooms. They'd have to operate like a normal business that offers a service, which has to be priced competitively, and they'd have to offer a good value. As long as the government is subsidizing these student loans, there is going to be artificially inflated demand for a college degree, which can only cause prices to go up. Also, we don't have normal market forces working in higher education to improve quality and lower prices.The student loan crisis is probably going to be the next one to really blow up, and I have no doubt that Washington will do the exact opposite of what needs to be done.
3/22/2010 3:07:09 PM
people not going to college because they can't afford it is a bad thing for society. I suppose if you were to paint ALL these people as idiots who don't need higher education anyway, you could argue that their lack of educational achievement is perfectly fine.
3/22/2010 3:48:36 PM
Unfortunately, our current higher education system isn't too great anyway. It would be one thing if everyone was going to college, and their degree usually led to a career. That doesn't seem to be the case these days. A bachelor's degree is basically the new high school degree. Hence the "we need market forces improving quality" bit. We also need less people going to 4 year traditional universities, because those degrees are padded with a ridiculous amount of useless bullshit, and more people going through 1-2 year vocational training/certification programs.
3/22/2010 4:01:07 PM
3/22/2010 4:31:49 PM
Let these companies die.
3/22/2010 6:00:07 PM
3/22/2010 6:35:44 PM
I'm sure labor quality has improved globally. The labor force here sucks, though, at least from a business perspective. We have minimum wage, and the cost of living is fairly high. That's why companies are outsourcing to places where they can get better labor for a lower cost. It's just a better value.[Edited on March 22, 2010 at 6:41 PM. Reason : ]
3/22/2010 6:38:25 PM
Didn't you just imply that more degrees were being required? This will force american labor to keep up with it's international competition.
3/22/2010 7:37:11 PM
3/22/2010 8:39:05 PM
they're screwed http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/25/news/economy/student_loans_senate/index.htm?hpt=T1Sallie Mae is now effectively banned from doing what Sallie Mae does, lol
3/25/2010 11:16:01 PM