College students should borrow as much money as they can get their hands on. It's possible to take out student loans now from Sallie Mae at around 3% interest or less, and you don't need to make any payments until you graduate. I know several beginning freshmen who are wary of going into debt, but there are many compelling reasons to do so.
First, borrowing money at 3% is literally free money. You can drop it in a mutual fund until you graduate, pay the loan back, and keep all the capital gain for yourself. Even if you're afraid the stock market is going to crash again, you could make money on 5 year treasury bills (remember, no payments until graduation, and often no interest).
Second, the time of an average college freshman is worth little more than minimum wage. Some 19-year-olds I know are working two jobs, day and night, for a couple hundred bucks a week, rather than borrowing money and working one job. It hurts their performance at school, and leaves them perpetually tired and busy. If they were to borrow a few thousand dollars a year, the payments they would eventually have to make on the loan would be trivial -- their salary after graduation will be substantially higher than minimum wage.
Both of these factors are caused by the difference between the value of the time of a high school graduate, and the value of the time of a college graduate. To an employer, the time of a college graduate is worth far more than the time of a high school graduate; to the student in question, their time is best spent on their highest priority activity -- school, and then work after graduation. By borrowing money, the student can trade an hour in the future for 2, 3, 4, or more hours in the present.
Such trades could lead to better performance at school, more leisure time, a better social life, and any number of other benefits that may even translate into higher earning potential in the future. What's more, the student could die before graduation, thereby gaining full use of this extra time without paying a penny for it.
I would add that having at least one job in college can prove beneficial for reasons non-financial. I worked full time and went to school full time for about a year and a half. It was torment, but I think that 18 months of experience has proven about as useful finding work as my college degree! Everyone seems to be demanding experience in addition to the degree these days (and that was the case even in 2001, when things weren't so bad off).
Part of me doesn't want my kid to have to work while in college as it's enormously draining (and I've seen more than a couple college careers get derailed due to excess hours worked). On the other hand, if other career fields are like the IT career field, they may not have much of a choice.
Oh yes, I have worked (and am working) full time while I'm in school. But I'm not making minimum wage, either. Getting experience flipping burgers won't count for much, but if you can actually get a job in the field you're majoring in it would probably be worth it.
Working a few hours a week for spending money is fine, but working 40 hours a week for $300 is ridiculous.
Hmmm. normally I'm on the same page as you, strangely today seems out of kilter..
Are you really advocating taking student loans and investing them in something other than your own education? Something other than they are intended?
You seem a good honest Christian. Sure the government is big and easy to take advantage of, but this is downright immoral. Maybe the conservatives are right, government programs are like heroin, we're the addicts, and the government is the pusher.
Well, using student loans for living expenses seems like it would still fit within your categorization of investing in education.
However, I don't think that using the money for other purposes is at all immoral. My student loans did not come with any restrictions as to how the money could be spent (unlike grants, which often do come with such restrictions).
Living expenses could rightfully be considered as support for you educational efforts, but come on...
The government is taxing someone to subsidize your student loan interest rates so you can turn around and buy bonds or mutual funds?
Hm, perhaps the government shouldn't be taxing people for such purposes, if the system is so easy to abuse. :)
It's working within the system. Just as we have no moral obligation to pay more taxes than the bare minimum we owe by law, we have no obligation to take any less benefit from the government than we are entitled to by law.
And.. just one more...
Just because something is legal, don't make it right. The law comes from people. It can NEVER be perfect. If you are setting you personal standards only by what is LEGAL, then you have low standards indeed!
These programs have limited money available, by talking money when you don't need it for the purpose for which it is intended, then you may be depriving someone who does truely need it. Now, THAT would be real harm.
Do you, then, think that I should voluntarily pay more taxes than I am required to do by law?
That's a completely different issue. Taking money that is targeted for education and using it for something else is, at minimum, misrepresentation. You don't have to misrepresent anything when filling your taxes.
It's also LEGAL for large company to file SLAP suits against consumers that are critical of their products, but that still don't make it right. Like I said, the law as a guide for morality is the bare minimum that is required. It will always be so, since man's laws are never perfect or complete. Attempts to make them so further the "government as parent" and "citizen as child" scenario, which I believe, we'd both abhor.
Of course, this places more responsibility on us to consider the morality, not JUST the legality, of our actions. This is one of the foundations of civil society.
I fully agree that legality and morality do not completely overlap, and neither is a proper subset of the other.
But the government has no moral claim on my money other than the law. Unlike, arguably, corporate executives who may be morally obligated to not harrass people with lawsuits.
The only claim the government or society have on my money is the law. There is nothing morally virtuous in giving the government or society more of your money than you have to.
Of course, charity is a completely different issue. Charity is the opposite of tax, because it is not collected by force.
We're weren't originally talking about the government's claim on your money, but do you mean to say that you have no moral obligation at all to support the US governement? None?
Are you saying it's okay to use money obtained from a government program in way it's not intended, as long as you pay, or eventually pay, your taxes? Or as long as you pay at least as much in taxes? I'm not sure how these issues, paying taxes and misusing goverment funds, are related.
Wouldn't this be like saying, "This restaurant's food costs too much, and they won't give any of my money back, so it's okay if I take this nifty light fixture in compensation."?
Of course we have no duty to support the government financially, other than what is mandated by law. If there were no governments, I would be under no obligation to create one. Morality requires me to support my family and to give charitably, but taxation is neither of those. Morality also requires me to obey just laws, and that is why I pay my taxes. But I am under no obligation to pay more than I owe, just as I don't pay more to the AAA than the dues I owe to it.
As for how I use the government money that I get: I obey the law. That is the full and complete extent of my responsibility, since that is the only claim the government has on me.
When you said:
But the government has no moral claim on my money other than the law
I think I originally misunderstood your point to mean that there was no moral obligation to pay taxes. Which I think is clarified when you said:
Morality also requires me to obey just laws, and that is why I pay my taxes.
Which means you do see the moral obligation to pay taxes. Good, but this isn't the crux of our disagreement is it?
So, let's say that you tell me you're down on your luck and ask me for money to buy dinner, so I fork over $5. But it turns out you really didn't need the money for dinner, but in fact had enough money for dinner and weren't really in any danger of going hungry. In fact, you just wanted the extra money to invest in a savings account.
Later that day, someone who really is hungry asks me for money, but I don't have any to spare, since I already gave it to you.
Are you saying that you would have no responsibility for the other person going hungry? No resposibility for letting a false impression stand as to what you were going do with the money?
Seems immoral to me.
Your analogy is almost unusable. Maybe if you were my employee -- my accountant or something -- and you held my money in trust, and then gave me some of it back... or something... eh, who knows. Your analogy doesn't fit at all.
I'm not creating any "false impression", because there is no requirement that loan money be used in the way you appear to want. Maybe that's the idea that was behind the legislation, I have no way of knowing that. If it's not written in the law, there's no basis for your position. Maybe Congress wanted to give me a head start with my retirement plan? Who knows; you can only speculate.
Of course, there wouldn't be any abuse (by any definition) if the program didn't exist.
You're right about my analogy being inappropriate, as far as you view getting your student loan as getting your OWN money back.
You're insisting on coupling the tax issue with the benefit issue. Is this where we're getting wrapped around the axle? Do you consider those who pay more taxes more deserving of government benefits? I see these as completely orthogonal to each other.
You are right though, you are not LEGALLY required to do anything more than the law says....
I say that I'm not morally required to do more for the government than the law requires. Plus, the government shouldn't be handing out benefits to anyone with my money. So, if there's no law against it, I have no moral problem taking advantage of stupid government programs.
Check this link:
http://www.ed.gov/prog_info/SFA/StudentGuide/2000-1/elig.html
The first thing listed on other requirements is:
you must have financial need. This restriction applies to ALL sunsidized loans, which by the desciption that you made, seems to be the type of loan that you advocate taking.
Now, if you take out a student loan to invest the money on something else, then you must have enough money to meet your current needs. Where's the financial need?
Well, I sent 'em my numbers and they decided I was in need. I didn't lie or anything, so I guess I was.