Let Them Eat Teslas 461
theodp writes "If you're a bright kid who wants to prepare for the 21st century workforce (PDF) by studying engineering at Purdue, the government will help your parents pay the $100,000 or so tuition tab with a 7.9% interest loan (plus 4% fees) that's likely to be non-dischargeable in bankruptcy and paid back with after-tax money. If, on the other hand, you want to buy a tricked-out $100,000 Model S, Tesla has teamed up with the government, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank on what it calls a 'Revolutionary New Finance Product' that enables those who play the game right to avoid paying sales tax, get the government to pick up the first $15,000 (no down payment needed!), and also receive a 2.95% bankruptcy-dischargeable loan for the balance, the payments for which could be tax-deductible. Yep, 'Revolutionary' may be about right!"
Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Informative)
They can always repo your car.
This is why Education should be funded where the risk is borne by the one making the loan. The repayment terms should be based on a percent of the students income for a fixed number of years.
These guys are trying to do it.
https://www.upstart.com/ [upstart.com]
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Interesting)
Very good point...
With a car loan, the car is collateral. If you default, they can take back the car.
With a student loan, what are they going to do? Cut out sections of your brain?
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Funny)
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Think of it like buying stock. You get a cut of the profits. If the company is wiped out you take a loss.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Insightful)
The one making the loan, of course. Moneylending is investting, and investments aren't risk-free.
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No one underwrites the losses. That's what the interest and fees are for. Or do you think that 4% + 7.9% should be entirely risk free for the lender?
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but college students usually have very little In the way of a credit history, which usually means that the risk is higher so the interest will be way more.
Part of the interest rate is due to the risk - and students don't have enough of a history to tell you if they're likely to default or not. In fact, the government typically underwrites the loan in order to reduce the interest rate - otherwise a student loan would be fairly high risk.
Think about it - you're loaning something easily $150K, and they have little to no credit history, and they won't even BEGIN to repay the loan until 4 or 5 years down the road. AND there's no collateral. It's an unsecured loan for a fairly large sum of money for a long period of time with nothing to judge who likely the person you're loaning money to will repay you.
All for a 4% fee and 7.9% ROI (that often begins accumulating only AFTER the education is over - so it's interest free while enrolled). Most lenders won't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
Credit cards don't loan out that much money (probably 5% of what a student loan would have) and they still charge high rates of interest.
Student loans are risky from the investor point of view - there are way better investments one could put that sum of money in and earn similar returns.
If a lender were to "free market" a student loan, 30+% APR would probably be the norm given the risks, putting education in the hands of the rich (who can probably avoid needing a loan).
And that's why the government underwrites the loan - the lender is only out the interest should the student default - the principle is protected. Otherwise they won't readily put up what a house costs (for the most part) on something so risky - they'd probably make more money buying and selling houses with less risk.
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You're neglecting to consider what the outcome of this is though. If few people will be given loans for post-secondary education, the cost of that education will come down to the point where students can pay for it with a part-time job, the way it *gasp* USED TO BE.
Education costs are so high precisely because the government is guaranteeing loans.
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Galley slaves.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why Education should be funded where the risk is borne by the one making the loan. The repayment terms should be based on a percent of the students income for a fixed number of years.
This is why Education should be funded by The People. If we took the profit motive out of education we wouldn't have to worry about the "administration" making several times what the instructors do for not even teaching.
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This is why Education should be funded where the risk is borne by the one making the loan. The repayment terms should be based on a percent of the students income for a fixed number of years.
This is why Education should be funded by The People. If we took the profit motive out of education we wouldn't have to worry about the "administration" making several times what the instructors do for not even teaching.
Or learning.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
Oooohhh!!! The scary spookiness of Socialism.
You're right of course.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Interesting)
Let the market fund the schools
"The market" won't even train its own employees anymore and you expect them to pick up the tab for education?
At least it'll be self-correcting. The market will cry and sob to it's capitol servants that they can't find anyone smart enough to hire and the government will say "well gee we better open the floodgates so all these people in socialist countries that bothered to provide education can come in" and the ideology will be drowned out.
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"The market" won't even train its own employees anymore
Ever wonder why things just happen? The answer to the above is that there's no incentive to train your own workforce when you can make the requirements sufficiently ridiculous that only an H1-B can fill them. Then you train the H1-B to do the actual job.
The market will cry and sob to it's capitol servants that they can't find anyone smart enough to hire and the government will say "well gee we better open the floodgates so all these people in socialist countries that bothered to provide education can come in" and the ideology will be drowned out.
And what do you know? Even you admit that is what's happening. I do find it odd that you think it's not self-perpetuating.
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I'm happy to pay taxes to educate children and young adults in basic skills such as writing and mathematics.
I don't want to send my tax dollars to for profit "colleges" to pay for worthless education and mind-candy degrees.
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Forget high school graduate. There should be tests that determine these things at various grade levels and failure to pass means being held back. Can't read? Get to do first grade again.
Also allow schools to expel trouble makers. Make their parents pay for their education if they cannot at least manage to not be disruptive. If the parents cannot pay, place them in alternative education situations.
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Forget high school graduate. There should be tests that determine these things at various grade levels and failure to pass means being held back. Can't read? Get to do first grade again.
That's how it was when I was a kid. Most classes had at least one or two flunkies who were a year older.
Also allow schools to expel trouble makers. Make their parents pay for their education if they cannot at least manage to not be disruptive.
Now this, I cannot agree with. There are reasons beyond the parents' control for why a kid might misbehave - the parents of a mentally ill child or adopted miscreant likely have enough problems at home already, without also shifting this burden on them.
Again, when I was a kid, the worst trouble makers were placed in special boarding schools, equipped to handle them. This was paid for by the government
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why Education should be funded by The People.
I agree... to a point. I think public education should be extended two years such that anyone can get an associates or technical degree for free. That seems to be where the sweet spot is these days in terms of return on investment. A high school diploma is more or less worthless these days. At this point in time, I don't think we should be funding people's advanced degrees.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, in the U.S., I fear this would result in a situation where "everyone gets an associates or technical degree", and these programs would end up getting dumbed down so "everyone gets an associates or technical degree" in the interest of "fairness, diversity, and inclusiveness" - just like our K-12 system has. Then, the two year degree would be worth what a HS degree is now - not much.
I think the U.S. should be seriously considering something more like the German system. Put students on one of a few tracks early (maybe fifth grade?). One of these would be a strong academic track which is intended to end up with at least solid STEM MSc or a PhD in one of the "softer and in less demand" disciplines (such as Ancient History). At the other end of the spectrum would be trade oriented curriculum with students learning skills necessary for basic life (some accounting, enough math to figure out interest, basic understanding of government, basic writing skills) and skills specific to a group of trades and including apprenticeships in HS.
If you've ever worked with fifth graders, it's pretty obvious which ones will never be on the academic the track or the one just "below" it. If, in spite of being exposed multiple times to it, they haven't figured out how to compute 6.9 × 0.042 or 42.42 ÷ 0.1, they are extremely unlikely to catch up and even survive Algebra 2 a few years later. However, generally students should be given the benefit of the doubt and put into a higher track if they are "on the bubble" and then be aggressively reevaluated every six months to determine if they should be moved to a less academically demanding track. The requirements and expectations of the tracks should not be adjusted to match the students, the students should be placed in the track that match their motivation, intelligence, and interests.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the U.S. should be seriously considering something more like the German system. ... If you've ever worked with fifth graders, it's pretty obvious which ones will never be on the academic the track or the one just "below" it.
How do you know "which ones will never be on the academic the track"? Did you follow former 5th graders for life?
While I agree "Ph.D.'s for everyone" is nonsense (other than filling the pockets of the education-industrial complex), the German system is too rigid. Should your performance in the 5th grade determine the path of the rest of your life? I refused to do anything in the 4th through 6th grades (family problems) but wound up getting an MSEE (ok, that's the sort of thing you usually keep in the closet, but I know people who got real degrees too). Similarly, an old friend of mine dropped out of high school and 10 years later went to Harvard Law.
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Yes, you would have to end social promotion. This seems to be happening now anyway.
But the high school degree isn't worthless because of social promotion - it's worthless because the whole experience is geared towards the old manufacturing economy of the last century. Even the best students come out with a good mastery of basic concepts, but no training towards any sort of vocation except continuing their education. We have "vocational schools" that do a bit of that, but nothing on the scale of what is need
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Ultimately, claiming that the only way to ensure accountability is the profit motive is claiming that government itself doesn't and can't work. If criminal law can't ensure accountabilty, if elections and recalls can't ensure accountability, then there's no rationale for ANY form of democratic government. So how do you figure the profit motive will work where civil law can't ensure the sanctity of contract? Isn't that an accountability issue? (And you're posting as AC and insulting people to boot - might wa
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing, the free market isn't some magic fairy that shits pots of gold and sprinkles rainbow dust everywhere.
If you want to have education with a profit motive, then the RISK should be borne by universities. Getting government guaranteed loans with bankruptcy exemptions so it can be handed over to a for-PROFIT institution is total bullshit. In this situation, the university is motivated to crank up tuition with no ceiling. When the RISK is borne by universities, they'll price their damn "product" better, screen students better, perhaps even innovate (e.g. charge different amounts for degrees based on perceived ability to earn income).
Of course, that would lead to large stratification of education, with the wealthy drawn like a magnet to the best schools, the poor having to do with leftovers, etc.
And I would argue that outcome is unacceptable for a 21st century superpower, due to the fact that the free market outcome would not adequately distribute available resources, so education should be exempted or removed and handled by "the public" whereby the society itself benefits.
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Here's the thing, the free market isn't some magic fairy that shits pots of gold and sprinkles rainbow dust everywhere.
You do realize that's a really stupid thing to say right?
You're right. He could be arrested for blasphemy.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Insightful)
What's this free market thing you speak of?
Please don't make fun of other people's religious beliefs. The infallibility of the free market is clearly a matter of Faith, as its proponents are impervious to empirical debunking.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:4, Insightful)
How are you going to stop the wealthy from getting better services?
Why should we?
Those that keep letting jealousy and spite rule their thinking process are turning themselves and everyone else into slaves.
Re: Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:3, Interesting)
When institutions like U. of Texas in Austin, U. of Okla and U. of Missouri are all now being funded by the state BELOW 20% of their general budget, it is hard to consider these to be public institutions. Those are the schools I have reason to know about. I'm told the situation is the same across USA -- we are dismantling public universities. I've heard suggestion among some donors to OU that the name should change to University IN Oklahoma since the state isn't choosing to be "of" the school anymore. Too m
also need to cut fluff and filler from Education. (Score:2, Flamebait)
also need to cut fluff and filler from Education.
The non-dischargeable in bankruptcy leads to lot's of joke majors and lot's of iffy schools that spend more ad's then Education.
Also more non college options need to be hear as well as more apprenticeship / trades / tech schools that don't take 4+ years of pure class room.
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It's always funny to hear your illiterate, anti-education rants. Maybe if you had taken some of those "fluff and filler" classes that maybe you could form cogent sentences?
Re:also need to cut fluff and filler from Educatio (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe if you had taken some of those "fluff and filler" classes that maybe you could form cogent sentences?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law [wikipedia.org]
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All right, I can't stop myself (and I tried, believe me). Don't you mean "coherent"?
The word "cogent" might fit there, but it sounded like you were irritated by poor grammar, rather than the post being generally unpersuasive...
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I was with you until the end, I have seen tech school output and it sucks.
Sure they know a couple software products, but nothing of what is going on under the hood. They can tell you what a subnet mask is but not why or how it works. They think packet captures are black magic and that reboot is the solution to all tech problems. They have no idea at a basic level. I had one recently try to claim his network speeds to a host on the same subnet and the same switch changed when he changed the gateway. He had n
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Dammit slashdot let me edit!
"He had no concept of why that is" should have been "He had no concept of why that is wrong."
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CS degrees have nothing to do with what I just discussed. Believe it or not their are universities that have IT and Network administration(Not active directory, actual network stuff, windows people) programs.
Theory and having learned how to learn will mean they can pick up job skills quickly. A lack of theory means those tech school grads will likely never know why or the best way just the way the book says to do it.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Interesting)
Great, so I get a loan and don't work or part time for the first X years.
How about we just admit having an educated society is a good thing and we make a university education free to those who qualify.
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No, because some people are just malicious dicks.
You can't count on rational actors, no one is a rational actor all the time and a few are never rational.
I could also work off the books to avoid paying this, or just leave the country.
What you are talking about is not a loan, but instead a form of indentured servitude.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want education to be taken seriously we have to change our whole culture.
Basketball players make more money than people who cure cancer, kids know this. People who make sex tapes get on TV, people who educate are mocked on TV.
Expecting any different outcome is foolish when our culture flatly does not value education and will not pay for it.
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And those who are unable to find a way to pay for it don't get educated. And businesses who need educated workers will be unable to find them.
Seems to me like that's a piss-poor way of allocating at least one resource: the workforce. Simply through lack of access to capital, you'd limit the productivity of the workforce.
This problem is why we have public education, and why it's a good thing (even for those at the top of the
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This is why Education should be funded where the risk is borne by the one making the loan. The repayment terms should be based on a percent of the students income for a fixed number of years.
This is how my British student loan works. The government underwrites the risk, some privatised company manages everything, and I pay off the loan gradually -- minimum 9% of my earnings over £16,000. The interest rate is low (it was very low, but they changed the rules -- I think it's now 1.5%).
If I were to earn less than £16,000 I wouldn't pay off anything. If I die, or become permanently unable to work, the loan is written off. Everyone is entitled to one loan (I think).
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I should have been more clear. It's not actually a loan but an investment. There is no balance or interest.
The person looking for the funds pledges a certain percent of their income for 10 years. I think this company does their own predictions and figures out how much money they will get per percent. But an exchange could be established where people bid for that amount.
Say it's 5% of income for 10 years. It doesn't matter if you are unemployed the whole time or win the Lottery, you owe the 5%.
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So indentured servitude is what you really mean.
How about instead we recognize the benefit to society of having an educated populace and have university education be made available to qualified applicants at a cost low enough that these schemes are not needed?
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, you mean the summary is misleading me? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Maybe the details of the Tesla deal will bring some truth:
US Bank and Wells Fargo will provide 10% down financing on approved credit, and the down payment is covered or more than covered by US Federal and state tax credits ranging from $7,500 to $15,000. New Jersey, Washington and DC also have no sales tax for electric vehicles. These advantages are not available when leasing.
So buyers don't "get the government to pick up the first $15,000 (no down payment needed!)", but rather they get a government credit that may cover the 10% down payment, assuming their purchase qualifies for the various government programs. There's no further details on what exactly the tax credits are, but my suspicion is that they're generic credits for buying an electric car or other blessed "green" technology, and probably cover 7.5% to 15% of the item's value..
After 36 months, you have the right, but not the obligation to sell your Model S to Tesla for the same residual value percentage as the iconic Mercedes S Class, one of the finest premium sedans in the world, made by Daimler (also a Tesla partner and investor).
Not only is Tesla guaranteeing that resale value, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk is personally standing behind that guarantee to give customers absolute peace of mind about the value of the asset they are purchasing.
And here's the part that's being touted as "revolutionary". The company founder is apparently personally guaranteeing the car's resale value. That's it. We're back to the idealized old days where company owners stood by their products and actually put money behind having satisfied customers. Not really "revolutionary" in my book, but I don't write headlines.
As is usual for Slashdot these days, the summary is sensationalist bullshit and most of the comments are knee-jerk anti-government reactions.
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That is how it works right now.
You don't have to pay back much if you do not make much money. They can only take a max of some percentage, but then the loan takes forever to pay off and interest of course does its dirty work and makes you even more in debt.
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And we could call this taxes, and make education free for all who merits.
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Sure it would. Just the terms would be worse. If anything it would help those who can get into great schools but can't afford it. If you take a lousy major from a lousy school your % of income for a certain loan will be much higher than if you took a major where you could make money.
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Who are these people who get into great schools and cannot afford it?
The great schools seem to have pretty generous scholarship programs.
Either way this ignore the fact that all of society benefits from an educated populace. Even those educations that do not make much money. This means society should at least be chipping in.
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Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Interesting)
What good is universal literacy in a society where the written word is severely restricted? (Goes not only for Cuba)
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Maybe you mean taxpayer funded, but unless every hour of labor is donated, all supplies are donated, the buildings in which education happens are donated, then it's not free. Paying for something in a different way doesn't make it free, although I get that it makes a lot of people feel like it is.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't this more or less the Cuban model
Maybe you mean Canada. All those 'C' countries sound alike to me too, and what's the difference? Universal health care, nearly tuition free university education, a commie is a commie.
And it's getting worse. Even here in America we now have socialized fire and police departments. That's right - no conspiracy theory! If your house is burning down, or you're the victim of a crime, you can request fire or police protection (there's even a hotline for it) and the government will pick up the whole tab. Talk about moral hazard! Before you know it, people will be tossing lighted matches into their homes for fun and walking down the street with $100 bills hanging out of their pockets.
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Even here in America we now have socialized fire and police departments.
In point of fact, most US fire departments are staffed almost completely with volunteers. Sometimes a larger fire company might have a paid chief (like Steve Martin's character in the movie "Roxanne"), but only the largest departments are entirely made up of paid employees.
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of Government force
Hint: in the English language only proper nouns are capitalized.
Re: if parents don't want their children to be edu (Score:3)
"if parents don't want their children to be educated, that's child abuse."
When well funded school systems 'pass' students that cannot read or write, that's child abuse.
When well funded school systems refuse to use standardized tests because their students always fail them, that's child abuse.
Yes, I know what teachers and administrators get paid, that data is freely available.
Claiming that the education failures in the U.S.A. are because there isn't enough funding is like listening to the alcoholic complain
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What is it about extreme libertarianism that makes so many people go after it like eccentric Spanish noblemen tilting after windmills?
I suspect it's the allure of simplicity, and the certainty comes with it. Like an equation that explains half the universe, the idea that everything can be derived from a few simple principles is enticing. Perhaps that's why it seems to have a particular allure for nerds, as people who prefer things systematic and deductive. I prefer things that way myself, but my realist side says empirical data trumps everything.
So what? (Score:5, Funny)
I defy you to prove me wrong.
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"Average annual earnings of individuals with a bachelor's degree are more than 75 percent higher than the earnings of high school graduates. These additional earnings sum to more than $1 million over a lifetime."
http://www.aei.org/article/education/higher-education/how-much-is-that-bachelors-degree-really-worth/ [aei.org]
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Depends which car we're talking about, there are plenty in the 7-digit range. Although yes that is more than a Tesla, however I think that this may be another instance of the mean vs. median problem with a few hyper-rich people skewing the average upwards.
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Actually, he stated a claim, that everyone knows such and such (regardless of the fact that such and such included the evaluation of a subjective opinion, his was still a factual claim). But since you didn't know what he was talking about, I take that as proof that he was wrong.
Lease Tesla (Score:5, Funny)
Sell Tesla.
Use funds for college.
Re:Lease Tesla (Score:4, Informative)
Sell Tesla.
Use funds for college.
Minor detail: if you have a loan against that car, they hold the pink slip. Good luck selling it without one.
Re:Good luck selling it without one (Score:2)
You sir, need some more Business classes! : )
Easy: buy a tesla, go to school (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Buy a tesla
2. Sell the tesla for 90% of its market value
3. ???
4. Profit from a government-financed education at 2.95% (minus 10k or so "lost in transaction")
Re:Easy: buy a tesla, go to school (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently you have never financed a vehicle. The bank holds the actual title, you only get a certificate of registration. You cannot sell the car without the title, and the bank will not release it without the loan being paid off.
So if you tried to sell the car, the bank would take the money and you'd end up with nothing.
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That likely invalidates the loan note and it would come due the minute the sublease starts. Car loans are different based on if this is your personal car or to be used as a business tool/asset.
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Problem: loan will come due on sale, and the lender won't give you the title until it is satisfied.
Not really the same (Score:4, Informative)
While it would be easy to say Government just prefers the sheeple broke and stupid... These really aren't the same. Cars can be repo'ed.. Your education can't be repo'ed.. Further from a Govt perspective the return in tax income from your education is risky.. You might never finish school. Might end up working in India and not paying taxes.. You might never repay those loans if given the choice because you won't lose anything.. The car might seem like a loss, but you will definitely pay taxes on stuff for the car like tires, registration and property taxes etc the employees who built the car will pay income tax etc. Plus there is the political side of green jobs.....
Not exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
As a former student with a non-dischargeable 6.8% loan (due to finally be paid off in two weeks, yay), I agree. Sure, the Tesla might be aimed at Rich Guys right now, but that's the way most new technology goes - especially in cars. How many standard features in this year's Focus or Camry used to be exclusive to high-end cars a few decades ago or less? Quite a few. If you get Rich Guys to make it profitable in the beginning, those technological advancements will become affordable and even standard within most of our lifetimes.
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"charging station" Funny dat. A charging station for an electric car is orders of magnitude cheaper than a petrol station.
Tesla Loan is BS (Score:2, Interesting)
Man geeks are drinking the Tesla Kool-Aid.
The Tesla program costs about $1,100/mo even for their cheapest model and the $15,000 only applies for people in West Virginia.
The $500/mo pricing they keep quoting is a huge fabrication based on "total cost of ownership". Even with their calculator, and assuming the lowest model, you would need to drive that sucker to it's max range 5 days a week every week for three years to actually make the ownership cost $600/mo less than a gas car.
neither should receive government support (Score:2)
A larger fraction of the US population has college degrees than in most other industrialized nations. Encouraging more people to get college degrees will not raise the standard of living or incomes, it will simply mean that we end up with more waiters and cab drivers with college degrees. Subsidizing more college degrees with public funding or loans will mean that tuition rates will keep rising and more and more jobs will require college degrees even though they don't need it.
As for electric vehicles and su
Stop whining, use the arbitrage opportunity. (Score:2)
This reminds me of a quote (Score:2)
Car loan != Student loan (Score:3)
They still aren't really comperable. Even with this sweeheart loan deal, you are going to be out 85 grand in an "investment" that will depreciate down to nearly $0 in 10-15 years. In the mean time you get transportation that you could have had with a couple of $5-10K used cars. That's a whole lot of money down the toilet.
For the student loan, you get an education, which cannot be taken from you by a bankrupcy court either, and is a ticket to the upper 60% of the job market, culminating in 1.6 to 3 times the expected lifetime earnings [publicradio.org] (depending on how much education you get).
If you have to pick only one, take the student loan.
I would still take the Purdue degree (Score:4, Insightful)
I am biased as I already have a Purdue degree, earned 12 years ago. It was far cheaper back then - tuition and fees were less than $7500 per year. Add in the cost of housing and food and I was all in for around $50000. My first job after college paid more than that per year.
Now, 12 years later, I have three quarters of a million dollars in the bank and a six-figure job. I can write a check for a Tesla sedan without flinching. And as the years pass, I will continue to increase my financial standing.
On the other hand, if I were to buy a Tesla sedan and use it for 12 years I would have an obsolete car with a severely diminished battery. Now, don't think that I dislike Tesla. I have high hopes for them. I made a lot of money buying long-term call options several years ago - in fact it was when the Model S was announced and everyone thought they would be out of business in a year. I put my own money on the line, in the face of overwhelming negative opinion.
I think that electric cars will prove to have far lower operating costs than IC cars - and the benefit gets larger the longer you own and the more miles you drive. But let's be perfectly honest. A degree helps you make money. A car costs you money.
Just what we don't need ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I went for a job interview last week, and the hiring VP said their biggest problem is finding developers who know how to program instead of just knowing how to code. Programmers who actually understand things like operations and systems. Programmers who are capable of seeing the big picture and coding at the systems level instead of at the method level.
These days that type of programmer is hard to find, because the days of becoming a computer programmer by starting as an operator or trainee are over. No one will hire anyone without a degree now. And no developer with a degree is willing to start as an operator, they all want $100k/year to pay off their debts. And of course, no one will hire a programmer with a degree as an operator because they are overqualified.
Yet some of the brightest programmers I know don't have degrees. They started at the bottom and worked up. They attended classes here and there, either at school or online, to learn what they needed to learn. They bought books and learned new tech.
But back when I started, companies were willing to hire someone simply because they were smart, creative, and had a great curiosity about how things work. People with good work ethics that worked smarter, not necessarily harder, than their peers.
And we do none of it now because we have been lied to that programming requires a degree. Bullshit. Programming is one of the easiest things in the world to do. I've seen 10 year old kids write code without ever having been to a class. Simply because their brain works a certain way. I've seen programmers learn new styles of programming over a weekend simply be reading a book. Their biggest stumbling block wasn't not going to college, they understood how to do things. But they didn't know the fancy words for everything. They just programmed and got the job done without worrying about technical mumbo-jumbo that really doesn't mean jack squat. Like how 'initialization' was change to 'instantiation'.
If all we want is code monkeys who need a complete spec before writing anything, go ahead. Keep sending them to school. Continue to let the government subsidize people who really have no business writing code because their brain just doesn't have the spatial aptitude that is required for programming. Because they thought it was just a great way to make a buck. Continuing only hiring people based on a piece of paper that only says they know how to pass tests.
Now
It wasn't college that made them successful, it was themselves. College was just a tool they chose to use because it served a purpose. They already had the ability, college was a different way of getting the information.
Starting at the bottom is not a bad way to learn. Sure, it sucks at first. But in 3 or 4 years, you get 3 or 4 years of experience and little or no college debt. Many companies will help with tuition. Granted, it cuts out a lot of companies that will only hire if you have a degree. And it can take a lot of time to find someplace that will do it. But someone that has been writing code at home or part-time for friends and family, and knows how to write a resume, should be able to find something if they truly have talent and interview well. If you don't interview well
But really, do you want to work for a company that is so procedure oriented that they won't look beyond the resume to what a pe
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Like how 'initialization' was change to 'instantiation'.
Oh, but there is a difference. Any CS graduate would be happy to explain it to you. And in the hour or so that this takes, you and I could get a couple of hundred lines of code written.
I doubt these facts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:LOL! American "priorities"! (Score:5, Insightful)
Our government is being managed for the benefit of corporate elites. It's the simplest and most reasonable explanation for what looks like total idiocy from the outside.
Re:LOL! American "priorities"! (Score:5, Insightful)
From the outside?
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- point
Re:LOL! American "priorities"! (Score:5, Insightful)
Our entire economy and society is being managed for the benefit of corporate elites. It's the simplest and most reasonable explanation for what looks like total idiocy from the outside.
FTFY
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Re:LOL! American "priorities"! (Score:5, Insightful)
Education finance has some serious issues that need to be addressed. We aren't going to solve them by crying about auto loans. This entire discussion is flamebait - just fishing for angry rants.
Re:LOL! American "priorities"! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not arguing that education loans should have lower interest rates - just pointing out that the submitter (and maybe the article, but who RTFAs anyway) is specifically picking on Tesla when his beef is with education. Hell, I could walk down to the Subaru dealership and get at worst a 2.9% rate loan with no money down. In any case, I don't think you and I really have differing opinions on the interest rates for school loans and car loans because you are spot on about the investment risk and options in the event of default.
However, I stand by my main point that this summary is written just to rile up the masses.
Nobody here is demonizing Tesla. We are demonizing the government. It is not Tesla's responsibility to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely.
The only federal government involvement here is a $7500 tax credit. This is the same type of credit that's been around for hybrid vehicles for years. You may not agree with them - I don't - but enough people have decided they're worthwhile, so they stick around. Sales tax exemption and state tax credits are the state's issues, write your (much more local) state legislator about those. I know I'd pay full sales tax. TFS is making it sound like everybody's going to run out and get a check from Uncle Sam for $15k and dodge sales tax just for buying a Tesla, but that's a stretch at best and - depending on the tax credit situations in Washington and New Jersey - a outright lie at worst.
Anyhow, I think it's important to talk about the costs of education. People talk about education loans these days as if they're mandatory - ignoring options like scholarships, grants, less expensive school choices, or part time work during college. But this Tesla thing is just an attention grab.
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well what?
They are going to tell someone I went to a legal establishment and paid for legal services?
They already stated they disable this logging on customer cars, but even if they did not who cares if I went to a strip club?
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Exactly, if you're a rich bastard what are you gonna tell the politicians to do, give you a price break on your decadent toys, or make it easier for the peons to get an education, increasing the pool of people who could potentially be a threat to your corporate empire and decreasing the educated workforce's dependence on debt?
Real cost of lease (Score:2)
Actually, the lease is over $1000/month. The $500/month figure is a made up number that comes from applying savings they are wanting you to think you'll make. But the assumptions behind the putative savings specify how much you drive, what your time is worth (assumption being $100/hour), an average price of gas being $5/gallon, and that electricity prices remain stable, and that electricity doesn't suddenly acquire a road tax to make up for the fact that you're using the roads, but not paying for them like
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College isn't a scam, but you have to know what you want out of it. If you don't know what you want to do yet when you graduate high school, you should probably get some employment experience in fields that interest you. You should still take some base level courses at a community college (and do well in them)... all of the 101 courses will probably transfer into whatever you end up doing - but there's no sense in going into deep debt without a clear goal in mind.
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Yes, my school had a co-op program, and I think it was a fantastic experience. While it was great to get money, the real benefit was finding out that I wanted to change majors after the first co-op! Since the co-op program was baked-in, we got three 6-month co-op terms starting our sophomore year.
I agree that it can be difficult to find work in a relevant field before you have a college degree. However, agreeing to do some unpaid intern work while enrolled in a community college is something that many compa
Re:Grow up. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you won't. That's the Big Lie: if you put up with being shat upon for now, you get to do the shitting one day. You won't. It's just a lie to keep you sitting there in a shower of shit rather than fight those who shit on others. It's that simple.
Besides, if by some miracle you actually became an elite yourself, is getting to shit on others really such a desirable goal? How about you grow up, or at leat try to get past your anal stage?
And that's another lie.