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A Modest Proposal: Students Refuse To Become Debt Slaves, Opt To Sell Equity In Their Future Wealth Instead
The topic of the student loan bubble (and even its popping) has been digested to death on Zero Hedge. One topic that has been avoided however, is that of the student equity bubble, for the simple reason that until now the concept did not exist. That may change soon: as the Economist reports, some California students have a modest proposal to the symbiotic University-Banker net worth extraction mechanism - shove your debt. Instead, they will pay for their unaffordable education (except when funded with copious amounts of unserviceable and non-dischargable debt) with equity.
From the Economist:
Rather than charging tuition, they'd like public universities in California to take 5% of their salary for the first twenty years following graduation (for incomes between $30,000 and $200,000). Essentially, rather than taking on debt students would like to sell equity in their future earnings. This means students who make more money after graduation will subsidise lower-earning peers.
It only makes sense - with every firm now scrambling to go public, no matter how worthless, and take advantage of the latest raging excess liquidity bubble, even at the risk of flash crashing before the first trade is executed, why should individuals not be treated like corporations? And, taking it further, why not have the option of what capital structure one would grow into? Simple - because equity is associated with upside appreciation, while debt is much more focused on capital preservation. And while the American Dream teaches everyone, students especially, to believe they can achieve everything and anything in the USSA, but only if they get $100,000 in student debt first, everyone knows this isn't happening. Which is why there just happens to be a double standard when it comes to reinvesting other people's money. In essence: both university and bank would be exposed to unlimited downside, which as we all know, is a viable option only if the banks know they will be bailed out should things turn sour.
It is not clear if this will provide adequate revenue for the university. It also means the university bears more risk, because the tuition it will ultimately receive is uncertain. But the proposal will benefit some students and the principle is not so ridiculous. American universities already practice price discrimination based on parental income. The more money your parents have the larger your tuition bill; richer families already subsidise poorer ones. Why not price discriminate based on future income of the student rather than the current income of the parent?
It also means, in many cases, that degrees that command a higher value in the labour market, like engineering or computer science, will cost more than other degrees, like theatre arts. But if an engineering degree is worth more shouldn’t it cost more? If you think of a degree as an asset which pays dividends in future wages, the asset with a bigger expected pay-out should cost more. Faculty in high-value fields tend to get paid more. Perhaps some of that cost should be passed along to the students.
But think of the arbitrage over majors? One could have an equity funded double major in medicine and accounting, while taking out debt for those blue light special minors in sociology, psychology, English, and everything else actually taught in liberal universities.
Incentives would also change; maybe university departments would become more invested in producing sucessful graduates. But might this undermine the mission of American universities, which is (or is often assumed to be) to provide a well-rounded liberal arts education? If universities become more income focused, will low-yielding, but socially valuable fields like philosophy wind up short of resources? To some degree, the university-for-all model already undermines our idyllic version of university. As more of the population goes to university, and must pay for it, more esoteric subjects naturally become less popular.
A trickier concern may be what happens if this approach is not implemented everywhere? If you know you will study engineering and earn a high salary wouldn’t you then opt for a school with a fixed, up-front cost—assuming that means you’ll come out ahead? Then would all the talented engineers go to other universities and potentially undermine California schools?
So unfortunately, while this is a creative idea, its chance of success is zero. Especially since not only the student "equity" market is dead, but now JPMorgan, as we first noted 3 days ago, is quietly getting the hell out of Dodge University. Ironically, the best option for everyone involved is for the student loan bubble to pop and for college to be equitably priced. Alas, that will never happen as long as the Fed and the government are actively engaged in defining the price of money and the opportunity cost of declining to become a 22 year old leverage mule encumbered with enough debt to last a lifetime.
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Some training in specific subjects can be done online, since you can still do work and show it. Some subjects you can only learn theory online, or it would be difficult. For example, medical degrees. Also, trades.
If this does happen, degrees will have more value in the workplace if fewer people have a broad education and more people have a highly specialized training.
Will this count toward GDP?
The USSA's current version of the USSR's old joke:
"You pretend to lend us money, and we'll pretend to pay you back."
WHy it will never fly - cause the interest is how the university/lender make $ on they endownmwnts - by turning they students into debt slaves...
Shouldn't it say, "Students Refuse to Become Debt Slaves, Opt to Become Actual Slaves instead"? I'm sure this 5% will be ramped up to 100% equity like back in the old days of America fairly quickly. Tea Partiers must be glad to see the country going back to its roots...
Anyone read "The Unincorprated Man"?
Interesting concept.
I read about this dumbest idea in the history of the universe last week.
The idea is since college education is becoming so expensive, it should be free to attend and you pay for it later out of the immense salary you will receive for attending a prestigious institution.
If you graduate and make less than $30k a year you will not have to pay anything back. However if you go over the $30k threshold you will need to start paying and the years you were under the threshold will be added.
Here's the kicker. Say you make an average of $45k for twenty years after graduation, which is actually overachieving in the current labor market, you'll pay back $45k to your school. Which for most universities is now about one year's worth of tuition and board. Millions of students will go to school for four years and pay back less than one years wroth??? The schools will agree to this?
Yes college should cost around $50k for four years, but that is beside the point right now.
Students will be asking the upper 5% of wage earners to subsidize their education. Won't happen. Also taking onto account that 5% of $100k for 20 years is only $100k. Less than the four year tuition at many schools. Even a $100k wage earner wouldn't pay back their own education.
Yes, this was thought up by a bunch of liberal retards going to a liberal California University. BUT IT SURE SOUNDS LIKE IT FEELS GOOD!!!!
With modern technology 4 years of college education should cost close to nothing. Maybe 5k a year, a done via online.
College auditorium education is completely outdated and a waste. One can self educate with high speed Internet for 50 a month.
They are paying for a stamped piece of paper.
We all here know what a piece of paper will b worth here soon.
I got a $160k education in the '90s. Only paid $40k total for it. Too bad I graduated in May of 2000.
What was a $75k job in 1999 became a $30k job in 2001.
Sad...in 5 years an Ipad3 will sell for $50 bucks too. Obsolescence is part of the plan, amigo.
Report: Iran cuts oil exports to Spain and may halt sales to Germany and Italy (Reuters)
You can fuck with Franco, but not Mussolini and Hitler!
Trade school or apprenticeship will be the only education worth anything a few years from now.
Right, actually doing something. Look at most of these 'degrees' people go in debt $50,000 for....liberal arts nonsense.
It already is.
I predict graduates trying to leave the country once that bill comes in...
Congress is already looking at laws to stop leavin the country over back taxes.
Next up any and all debt is my guess.
Then debt prisons.
Neo serfdom bitchez.
5% of ZERO = ZERO
Some Newfie sayings that compliment your 5% theory:
"100% of fuck all is still fuck all"...
"If you buy junk, you'll always have junk"...
"Stay where you're to, I'll come where you're at"...
"By da lard tunder'in Jesus... hand me the profits from dat fuck all"...
"I'm Steve the Noofinlander, an' yerrin Noofinlan' prahprty now. Giddout b'fer I have ya 'rrasted."
"Oh, yeah, d' Pri Minnster, eh? He sure has screwed up tings fer Noofinlan. Life jus' has'n been d' same since 'e made sodomy illegal."
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104262/steve-the-newfoundlander-th...
Fuck sodomy!... wait, is that an oxymoron?
How do you tell when an Newfie girl is finished having sex?
She yells, "Get off me Dad you're crush'n me smokes".
whats the capital of newfoundland??
Ft. MacMurry
Please, Please strike the term "Crony Capitalism" from your vocabulary. There is nothing capitalist about it and by using it we play ball on their home court. Call it facism, plain and simple.
would they get 5% of street sales on drug sales and bookmaking >>>
As long as they don't get shot for wearing a hoodie in Central Florida.
The Other Dave in SF (where all the swans are pink and f***ing proud of it!)
So government workers would get a special 5% pay increase non applicable increase to offset the suffering this would cause.
'faculty' will never permit this .. just as suggested ... more 'valuable degrees' will engender more 'budget' and 'salary' to technical/hard science faculty .... they already have to argue for lab budgets, etc. Schools will readily 'rasie' the tuition for these degrees so the "administrators' can live off the techncial faculty.
Just too much 'envy' and 'coveting thy neighbor's wife' for this proposition to ever get traction
By the way, I've seen a lot of tremendous engineering and science schools 'run away' from their strong practical heritages to be more like some hollywood version of a 'university'. And in the 'backward' old days .... almost every college course was hard ...a "C" was the standard grade if you worked at it ... "an "A' was unusual ..... might as well embrace 'home schooling'/ distance learning for not only k-12 but through most of post-secondary .. cheaper, more effective (go see the data ... it is lights-out way better than 'classroom' education .... someone just briefed me on this ... I was astounded by the clearcut disparity ... .and study after study replcates the findings with minimal 'socialization' impact au contraire to what is always brought up against this.....)
how much of that is a self-fulfilling prohesy of sorts? in general isn't the majority of home-schooling done by the smarter and more involved and more caring and more prescient parents?
where's the control group of inner-city feral beasts whose parents can't see beyond the next high or the next trip to the mailbox for this month's cornucupia of subsidies?
Due the contempt that I hold for universities in general (admin mostly) and the edukation racket in general, I'd dearly like to believe that home schooling is a more productiver alternative (for most), but I do wonder how much the results are inflated by the "test" group.
It's good. Students obviously still believe the lie that education helps you earn more. Kool-Aid Drinkers came up with this proposal.
Hey fucktards, the state university system is already partially funded via taxation. A lot of states base that tax on income. Youre paying in equity whether you attend or not
Surprised that no one linked to Kunstler's monday post.
Strange Jubilee
By James Howard Kunstleron April 9, 2012 9:26 AM Is there a Baby Boomer so dim in this land of rackets and swindles who thinks that he or she will escape the wrath of the Millennials rising? The developing story is so obvious that only an academic economist could fail to notice. Here's how it will go: some months from now, as the financial unwind worsens, and the mirage of gainful employment shimmers away to nothing, and the technocrats of Europe meet nervously by some Swiss lakeside (and are seen glumly shaking their heads), and Romney and Obama try to out-do each other peddling miracle cures for the tanking national self-esteem - a dangerous meme will go forth across the internet, and this meme will say: Millennials, renounce your college loans and set yourselves free! And then something truly marvelous will happen. They will at once disempower the swindling generation of their fathers, teachers, loan officers, and overlords and quite possibly bring on, at long last, the epochal collision of pervasive American control fraud with the hard hand of reality. <Snip> http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/04/strange-jubilee-1.html
So then, anybody willing to naked short themselves post-graduation would get a helluva deal on an education.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH... I can't.. stop.. laughing.. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
CALIFORNIA!! YOU ARE FULL OF FUCKING RETARDS!!!! (save those here on ZH from Kommiefornia).
It too bad parents and children out of high school are still buying into the college education thing. If all the students that were college bound sat out a year to protest the high prices I think colleges would drop them. The other problem is colleges keep hicking their prices because the government funds the loans and states grant scholorships based on lottery money. So the governments at the federal and local levels do not care as people cannot discharge these loans through bankruptcy. The only way I know of getting forgiveness of the loans is to serve 4 years of military service.
I know some of you do not like the military but if I was in over my head with student loans 4 years to get rid of the loans is a great deal by serving. In my small mind 4 years military service versus the debt load after college is a no brainer, especially with the current job market. You even becaime an E-4 as soon as you get out of basic. Now you go the ROTC route while your in and you serve 6 years as an officer. I could do either to not have any college debt in 4 to 6 years.
When I was in, a Bachelor's degree would get you promoted to E-4 when you graduated from AIT. Saw one happen. Also of note, I was talking to a Captain that had gone from E1 to E6 and then O1 to O3 and he said that the worst rank in the Army was O1.
Edit for typo.
agreed 100% - i really do agree with you. except my grandfather and his brother ran from italy in 1914 to dodge the draft and came to usa to avoid getting their silly guido asses blown from here to eternity. lovers not fighters.
so, my point is, wouldn't rather be better to live in a society where things were equitable and fair and one respected each other than a jungle playing snatch and grab it and i dear hope to win the lottery?
i don't know the smell of napalm in the morning, but think i prefer the smell of p.ssy when it's getting a bit ripe.
in retrospect - did ww1 make a lot of sense? so now, i'm going to tell my kids to dodge paying off their college to get their asses blown to etenity in afgan, iraq, syria, liybia, iran, whatever you name it. where does usa as world cop for exxon end? and i'd really rather they got sent back in a box then without the ability to live a life with 2 arms and 2 legs.
for the regs - posted a lot today. this time, i really am done. life is going to be come interesting for those that play the markets.
I recall a few years ago Max Keiser predicting that one day the masses would "take themselves public", as everything else in the world has been financialized and/or commoditized. I though he was joking. Apparently he wasn't.
Harry Shearer (from Simpsons fame) has been saying on 'Le Show' for years to: Copywrite Your Life.
I never took him too seriously until now, but he is the only source for Fukushima news on NPR.
Like finding radioactive iodine in the kelp beds off of the coast of California.
The Other Dave in SF (where all the swans are pink and f***ing proud of it!)
I need to go take a time-out now.
sounds like copywriting your DNA. oops, it's rather late for that because someone has already beaten you to it. GAWD what a pathetic world we've built for ourselves.
The simple and quick solution when dealing with a predator is to starve it to death: thousands of students must refuse to take loans and not go to the university for at least 1 year until tuitions dramatically drop and loan terms become reasonable. How long do you think the universities will last at 50% enrollment?! Of course, this solution may be too difficult to grasp by the newest generation of non-critical thinking sheep.
I agree with your logical thinking, but that is not how universities will think. Faced with a 50% cut in enrollment, they will double tuition and insist they be given more tax money to compensate.
"double tuition" - exactly! This will result in more people not attending and a death spiral to both the university and lenders-checkmate!
"why should individuals not be treated like corporations?"
Supreme court already ruled on this and agreed with your assertion
Zomney said "Corporations are people too, my friend"
must be true..........
Yes, my wife actually owns the company, I just work here for a salary of $1.00 per year. Here is your nickle, oh do you happen to have change for a quarter?
that nickle will be worth more than that dollar shortly
Which is why the payback will be a percentage and not linked to Ben's activity.
Hi,
I'm with University of Phoenix. Please choose your degree in liberal arts and I will gladly hand you a diploma for the small price of 5% of your future earnings for the next 20 year.
Please pass forward this email to all your friends and family! No one is declined!
University of Phoenix.
thats some real profit on ink & paper
They should just sell Kindle® versions of their diplomas on Amazon.
Hilariously fitting
the small price of 5% of your future earnings for the next 20 years...
Isn't that taking a page from Oprah and Johnny Carson's playbook? Let your face, product, idea be presented here and voila! I own a piece from now on!
The Unincorporated Man (Sci Fi Essential Books) by Eytan Kollin and Dani Kollin"The Unincorporated Man is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed."
---
Are we REALLY going to go this route?
Beat you to it!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/modest-proposal-students-refuse-become-deb...
jk, it is an interesting book. I tried to think it all through and the possibilities are endless it seems.
This is not really an equity (indefinite timespan "ownership" piece) but a royalty (claim on % of revenue or income stream for a set period of time).
But in any case, so in theory, I suppose a sharp outfit would be to buy "equity" in all the engineering students since all the tuition is all the same regardless if you are in a lib arts program or in-demand major before they would price the majors accordingly. They could look into bundling thousands of these income streams into derivative asset backed securities based on pooling thousands of these student's royalty payments. They could even build options into the contracts so that the student can discharge the royalty burden by paying off the expected (risk adjusted) NPV left in their contract. They could even "trade" these income streams on exchanges to create "dynamic pools" in which pool managers would have their "Portfolio" and manage buy/sell according to what types of degreed graduates would be in demand. For instance, as architects backbround were in high demand pre-housing bust, if a manager saw or intuited that the housing collapse was coming, he would sell off those streams when they are worth more before the bust. After the bust, such streams would have been worth a lot less. Such a market would almost work like a futures market for "predicting" what types of degrees will be more valuable in the future.
This is an interesting idea though just from a financial innovation perspective.
im white. my family is rich. im republican. i dont know what debt is. can someone explain?
Trolls aren't white, dude, they have green skin.
Highly unlikely that you are white or repugnican, because any white or republicrat can jumble together three sentences with some reasonable grammar and syntax and not look like an idiot in 2 lines.
Your family may be rich because any high paying federal parasite job is a near-certainty if you are (anything other than) white.
With 100% certainty you know about debt, and you/family have quite a bit of it.
...because any white or republicrat can jumble together three sentences with some reasonable grammar and syntax and not look like an idiot in 2 lines.
Bwa ha ha!
There's this website called ZeroHedge on the Internet where you can go read comments from MANY "white republicrats," among a lot of other racial/partisan posters.
You will find a significant percentage of posts that make the white republicrat author look like an idiot in 2 lines or less.
Skools will then be advised by GS to sell Tuition-Revenue Bonds to fund current needs. The author does not address how this makes a college education a better bet by lowering costs/tuition.... This changes the funding mechanism; not the underlying issues.
This plan is ALREADY IN EFFECT.
It's called a garnishment. Try not paying and see if this little nugget of a plan isn't already on the books.
so what type of derivative madness the wicked witch Blythe is wet dreaming of now???? when can i buy some leveraged ETFs of these student futures/??
It's one thing to "refuse," but a whole other thing to be coerced. Welcome to the real world of adult debt slavery, bitchez!
Guess who, quote of the day:
"If you were assigned to a job and prohibited from leaving it, it would restrain the freedom of your career. But it would give you freedom from the fear of unemployment. Whenever a new compulsion is imposed upon us, we automatically gain a new freedom. The two are inseparable. Only by accepting total compulsion can we achieve total freedom."
Warren Buffett?
Nice try... Ellsworth Toohey from The Fountainhead
And who shall train the brave new Marxist footsoldiers under this new regime?
Here is an excerpt from the university in question course listing. Need we say more to this absurd suggestion? How about spend your education dollars on......
an education!
LGBT Studies:
M137. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Perspectives in Pop Music (5)
(Same as Music History M137.) Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of English-language popular music in 20th century, with focus on lesbians, gay men, and members of other sexual minorities as creators, performers, and audience members. Letter grading.
Hell... as long as it sells a few more Apple products. Because iPads = getting educated.
1/2 semester, 3 credits and only $5,000 - but daddy - i went to most of the classes. did you know janis joplin wore glasses and that lady gaga isn't her real name?
JPM news release.... bundle those SBS (student backed securities) and hedge them 40x, wait a few months then roll them over to the FED for face value. Bullish!
Wait.. isn't "MONEY" {fiat, chartal, treasuries, dollars, whatever} ALREADY an option to sell equity in future wealth to begin with? is University the new/next federal reserve?
This is actually, a really good idea.
Because it would force universities to actually give a shit and construct degree programs that make sense.
If you go to college now, its a joke, its going to be 1 year of Bullshit introductory material that doesn't even matter, another year of reviewing the bullshit intro material, then another year where they add 5 chapters to the same book from year 2, and then year 3 ~ 4 are review years and year 5 is scraping together enough credits to escape the program and "graduate".
They make you take meaningless classes, like Gym, or biology when you dont even need that for what you are trying to become.
Its all B.S.
The schools are there to use students names to float paper and counterfeit money via loan origination.
you mean i have to get up in the morning for a 9 a.m. class and learn something after all those great partys?
5% of 0 is?
This a another great American idea.
Hey, those kids should be arguing that California Universities take 5% equity in the value of their Parents houses.
I mean, if we are in recovery, those houses will be above water and gaining 15% a year like the good 'ole days.
Start with Graduate Students in the Departments of Economics and any MBA student.
Bankster Vaporization.
Count me in.
Bring back debtors prisons.
How can you "bring back" something that is already here?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44376665/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/unabl...
Even the article I link you is a lie, calling the imprisoned debt-slaves, all men: "so-called “deadbeat” parents."
Anytime the federal government gets involved in any goods/services, the cost & price of said goods/services skyrocket to the point to where continued government involvement becomes indespensible. This is why health care, education, rents, name the subsidy will continue to rise until it is game over. When my children were born {early 1980s} the feds did not yet subsidize infant formula. A large can cost $1.69. It is now subsidized and cost $18.99 for the same can. This is unsustainable. Read "The Road to Serfdom" by Frederick Hayek to see how this all ends.
I think we should just leave this issue up to politicians to solve. They seem really reliable and concerned with doing what's best for the American people.
Read The Unincorporated Man, it kind of gets into this. When you are born you issued 100,000 shares of the corporation of you. When you go to Uni, you might need to hand over so many shares to attend, based on your potential future earnings and dividends to be paid.
Of course it gets real nasty when you own less than 50% of yourself, the board gets to determine your jobs choices, when to take that vacation, who to marry.
double post
That'll be 100 shares Comrade
Sounds great...but will I be able to buy AAA rated CDOs of a thousand students obligations all chopped up like hamburger? And CDS on those just in case something goes wrong?
If so, I'm gonna be rich! With no risk!
this could happen. because, as it stands, wage garnishment is very difficult and costly to implement on dissatisfied customers who have decided the casino was rigged and refuse to pay. Equity stake simply will mean the signing off on any and all rights for wage garnishing. brilliant, actually. i hope this happens. it will hasten the end of civilized life. I'm long on k-6 privates, parents double income, but grandparents working class. That's a good mark there.
doesn't sound too bad. might give the universities incentive to be something other than diploma mills.
unfortunately it's not a kosher plan. in fact it's like an islamic model: if you succeed then we both succeed. the kosher model is: if you fail we get paid, and if you win we get paid, and - perish the thought - if we should somehow lose, then we're bailed out by our sayanim and.....you guessed it goys and girls......you lose.
(usury has been outlawed for centuries at a time at various junctures in our histories. well, at least it's been outlawed by countries and religions other than the kosher nostra of course)
"It is not clear if this will provide adequate revenue for the university. It also means the university bears more risk, because the tuition it will ultimately receive is uncertain. But the proposal will benefit some students and the principle is not so ridiculous...
It also means, in many cases, that degrees that command a higher value in the labour market, like engineering or computer science, will cost more than other degrees, like theatre arts. But if an engineering degree is worth more shouldn’t it cost more?"
now hold on just one darned minute. that sounds suspiciously like we'd start to allocate our assets more efficiently. we can't have that. where the heck would we end up? ...happier on the net and more productive on the net? pish posh. what the hell is this? ... a free market with the same supply and demand that the econ 101 courses teach?
If the colleges and universities want to get paid under this plan, they will have to reduce or eliminate stupid, dead end courses like Marxist, Women's, Ethnic, Social, etc., which presently offer little or no future to anyone who spent a fortune "studying" them.
My goodness, a gimme-gimme student just gave me a -1. Don't worry little one, the entitlement system is only now being looked at, so your freebies are in no danger. Party on!
No No No No (Deep Purple)
The ENTIRE cost of Education should be deductible against earnings, not just interest. If you want my children to pay the Banksterz the interest, you need to cut their taxes. Simple enuf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNmJfsZbEY
Why would it be desirable for high earners to subsudize low earners. High earners earn more because their skills are in higher demand. Put another way, they take the jubs people need them to do. The whole idea of a free market is to efficiently allocate resources where demand exists. Manpower is a resource and society needs to reward those who serve where society needs. The reward is high pay. If someone chooses to spend 4years getting a degree in underwater basket weaving, dont you think the thought aught to enter there head: is there enough demand for this skill that i can pay back what it costs to learn it?
The Australian govt's HECS/HELP system set up in the 1980s bears some resemblance to this proposal. Students pay back debt through the income tax system once their earnings rise above a generous threshold. As the chief University funder, the govt has some incentive to ensure the courses taught will help pay back the debts faster.
What a silly idea. The result will be inefficient choice of major! If the risk of not getting a job after majoring in ancient Greek Mythology is shifted to others, I will happily studay something that is useless and fun!
Philosophy degrees are socially valuable resources? Why is it so important for the guy who serves my coffee to have read Kant?
Sarcasm aside, it's a good idea. Cash flow should be quite predictable, since it's based on the earnings of graduates already out there, and it eliminates the incentive of universities to lie about their placement rates and trick barely-literate high school grads into dead-end degrees. Currently, there's zero downside risk to universities...once you've got their money, you've got their money.
I had this idea in 2010: http://enginomics.blogspot.com/2010/08/investing-in-people.html