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Forget housing, let's fix the college bubble


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2011 Nov 21, 11:39pm   33,867 views  105 comments

by StoutFiles   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Americans would have a crapton more money for house payments if college wasn't so insanely expensive. It's pretty hard for people to pay their mortgage when they have crippling student loans that they can't escape from. Parents have to decide whether to throw away their nest egg on the kids or let them deal with crippling debt themselves.

Why is college so expensive and why isn't the government stepping in?

#housing

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104   corntrollio   2011 Nov 30, 10:23am  

EBGuy says

And after the crash, Thiel insisted there hadn’t really been a crash: He argued the equity bubble had simply shifted onto the housing market. Thiel was so convinced of this thesis that until recently, he refused to buy property, despite his soaring personal net worth. And, again, he was right....
Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
See techcrunch for the whole article.

Except that Thiel did lose money on his house in SF if I remember correctly.

If you read the article, it doesn't actually contradict what I said:

Thiel’s solution to opening the minds of those who can’t easily go to Harvard? Poke a small but solid hole in this Ivy League bubble by convincing some of the most talented kids to stop out of school and try another path. The idea of the successful drop out has been well documented in technology entrepreneurship circles. But Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek wanted to fund something less one-off, so they came up with the idea of the “20 Under 20″ program last September, announcing it just days later at San Francisco Disrupt. The idea was simple: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead.

Two weeks ago, Thiel quietly invited 45 finalists to San Francisco for interviews. Everyone who was invited attended– no hysterical parents in sight. Thiel and crew have started to winnow the finalists down to the final 20. They’ll be announced in the next few weeks.

Basically, his goal is to find smart, motivated, ambitious kids. Of course they'll do well. I've said this in other threads too.

105   MisdemeanorRebel   2011 Nov 30, 12:44pm  

corntrollio says

Then your argument is that some charts suck, not advanced degrees suck

That was my argument from the beginning. thunderlips11 says

I believe those charts that compare the earnings of various educational levels are too simplistic.

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