Comment by carlosjobim

Comment by carlosjobim 3 days ago

That's easily solved with labor market reform. First implement federal and state law that requires every worker performing any profession to have a college degree in that field.

Then companies are evaluated on how much work is produced in their business (for example by revenue), and they have to either contract the equivalent number of people with college degrees, or even better - license the degree from a college graduate. This can also be used to pay for tuition. The student gets a mortgage that pays for her education when she enters college, and then the lender has the right to part of either her salary, or the licensing fee for her degree to companies that need it, or to people who need it.

Let's say a chef who hasn't gone to culinary college, he can pay a culinary college graduate 20% of his salary to use their degree, which is a professional license. Or a company needing programmers. They can hire immigrants or an AI to program, and pay licensing fees to computer science graduates who have the degree.

Think what I thriving market for banks, investors, and insurance companies! They will be able to package these licenses and offer them on the market to individual workers or to companies for competitive and efficient rates. The college student of course gets rewarded as well, as they can rent out their degree, or even sell it. So a good student can get several degrees, and have a very good income from both his own work and from degree licensing fees. Of course we'll make sure that students belonging to an oppressed class be allowed to license their one degree to several places at the same time.

h2zizzle 3 days ago

I... can't tell if this is satire or not.

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carlosjobim 2 days ago

Bank could lend out money to students, with the future college degree as security. After graduation, the student either gets a job that requires that degree, or licenses that degree to another person or to an institution which collects degrees and licenses them on one or several degree licensing marketplaces. Most would use these third-party re-licensers to simplify the paperwork. For example when a company needs to license a degree for a temporary project of just a few months, or when a degree holder takes leave from their own job for let's say three months. Then she can have some income from renting out her degree during that time.
I'm sure you've already thought about the problem of students who have mortgaged their future degree, but do not graduate for some reason. What happens to the money the bank has invested? This problem is mitigated and solved by packing these degree mortgages into Credit default swaps to hedge the risk. Since most students will graduate and be a return on the investment, we will pack all degree mortgages into investment funds, and offer them on the international financial markets, with sophisticated leverage tools. So, investors will not feel the pain if 1 out of 10 students do not finish their degrees, that will be very much offset by those who do - especially when leverage is used.
This is how we solve social and environmental issues, make education affordable to everybody, create a great investment boom, and make the younger generations stakeholders in the economy. Smart parents would take advantage of degree mortgages for very low monthly rates if they sign them for their child already during pregnancy, meaning they could even be paid off before graduation. That's a good start in life!

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selimthegrim 3 days ago

This sounds like those UChicago people who were floating the idea of sponsoring immigrants with cash (read: indentured servitude)

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