Is Japan Falling Behind in Science and Technology Innovation?

[Grands]

I learned form internet that in the US students ask money from banks to study what they want.
My question is, how many student in percentage do this and have debts to pay after university ?
How easy is to pay back the money they asked ?
There are universities that doesn't worth money?

Thanks.

 

[ISamson]

How easy is to pay back the money they asked ?

Heck hard. But if they get a good job/scholarship they might not have trouble in the future with debts.

There are universities that doesn't worth money?

Probably not, unless you get a scholarship.

 

[Grands]

Heck

What means heck?

 

[ISamson]

What means heck?

I'm sorry. It's not a very good word to use. Short for hell.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=.....69i57j0l5.3303j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Point of clarification: most students do not ask banks for loans. Banks are predatory and if you get a student loan from a bank, you are asking for trouble. Most people get their loan from the government (both state and federal) I had loans from PHEAA and FAFSA. They take about five to ten years to pay off if you have an average loan and pay it off aggressively. The government loans have much lower interest and allow you to pay over much longer, but it's always best to pay as early as possible.

 

[phyzguy]

This Forbes article has some statistics on student loan debt. It's a big problem in the US. Many students take out loans without understanding how difficult it will be to pay them back later.

 

[Grands]

They take about five to ten years to pay off if you have an average loan and pay it off aggressively.

Almost ten years? Are you 100% sure?
It's a lot of time...

It's a big problem in the US

Why there is this problem if US has the greatest economy of the world?

What if a person choose a degree that can't assure a high payed job?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Almost ten years? Are you 100% sure?
It's a lot of time...

My wife, a teacher, is 7 years out of college and still has about half her student loans to pay off.

 

[Grands]

Usually how much high is the student loan, considering also the interests ?

 

[DS2C]

Usually how much high is the student loan, considering also the interests ?

Depends on the school and student need. Some schools cost significantly more than others. Some students get scholarships and request loans to pay for what's left.

 

[Grands]

Ok, I noticed some of the schools are very expensive, like Harvard, but there is a range of the loan? Which is the lowest and which the highest ?

 

[phyzguy]

Why there is this problem if US has the greatest economy of the world?

The US has the largest economy in the world. In recent years this has not translated into a better standard of living for most people in the US. Without making any value judgements, I think I can state that the US does much less to subsidize the cost of higher education than most developed countries. And the cost of higher education is rising much faster than peoples' wages. See the graph below from this Wikipedia page. So students are caught in the middle and have turned to borrowing to make up the difference.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Almost ten years? Are you 100% sure?

I graduated when I was 21, and I celebrated paying off my final loan when I was 28. I got a job about 6 months out of school in my field and double payed as much as I could. Ten years in probably on the lower end of average.

Why there is this problem if US has the greatest economy of the world?

Biggest. The problem is that most of the wealth is concentrated in the top less than a percent of the population. We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions, clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

What if a person choose a degree that can't assure a high payed job?

They work at Starbucks. Even STEM doesn't assure you a job right away anymore. I was out for six months before I got my first job, and my first job's wage was barely livable.

 

[Grands]

I think I can state that the US does much less to subsidize the cost of higher education than most developed countries.

I don't think it's true, Italy invest only 4% of the PIL while USA 5% or more, and USA have a greater PIL than Italy.

Biggest. The problem is that most of the wealth is concentrated in the top less than a percent of the population. We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions, clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

From films USA seems to be such a great country, because there are a lots of cool companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Twitter etc...
There is also hollywood, taxes are very low compared to the european one, I saw that in the US an engineer can earn 100.000 dollars per year, which is 3 times bigger than an italian salary, that is around ( 24.000 euros)

They work at Starbucks.

Starbucks can't be a solution, I don't think that people who work for Starbucks get more money.

Even STEM doesn't assure you a job right away anymore.

It is true?

I was out for six months before I got my first job, and my first job's wage was barely livable.

Which major do you have?

 

[Grands]

We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions, clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

WHAT??!?
In the USA there are people that have no water?

 

[newjerseyrunner]

From films USA seems to be such a great country, because there are a lots of cool companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Twitter etc...

But only a handful of people share the profits of those companies and lots of the profits don't get invested back into the community, they get sent to offshore tax havens. The majority of the country has a thriving economy, the middle class is still one of the most well-off in the world. But the difference between the poor and the rich is one of the widest in the world.

There is also hollywood, taxes are very low compared to the european one, I saw that in the US an engineer can earn 100.000 dollars per year, which is 3 times bigger than an italian salary, that is around ( 24.000 euros)

Taxes are low, but that also means a lot less public services. We have to buy our own medical insurance (or have it provided by an insurer.) That costs an additional thousands of dollars every year. We also tend to squander our taxes on big companies. Walmart for example is responsible for several billion dollars of wasted tax money every year. They pay their employees low enough that they qualify for welfare. This takes the financial strain off of the big companies since they're not required to pay their employees livable wages and force the taxpayers to pick up the rest. Massive loopholes also allow companies like Apple and General Electric to pay negative taxes and actually make money off of the government, again at the expense of the middle class.

Starbucks can't be a solution, I don't think that people who work for Starbucks get more money.

They don't. It's a time killer while you search for a real job.

Which major do you have?

General Software engineering.

WHAT??!?
In the USA there are people that have no water?

Yes, it's quite outrageous. When it came to light in the media, there was a lot of outrage. This crisis is still on-going in poorer parts of the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisisRemember that we are a gigantic country. We have people in extremely isolated regions. I'm not sure it's possible to have a country with 300 million people without major problems like these. Capitalism requires a lot of these things in order to function. Some people also want to live in isolated areas without infrastructure.

 

[phyzguy]

I don't think it's true, Italy invest only 4% of the PIL while USA 5% or more, and USA have a greater PIL than Italy.

What are you talking about here? Where did you get those numbers? What is PIL, anyway? When you say the USA invests 5% of PIL in higher education, what do you mean? The US government? The total amount spent on higher education? Or what?

 

[Grands]

What are you talking about here? Where did you get those numbers? What is PIL, anyway? When you say the USA invests 5% of PIL in higher education, what do you mean? The US government? The total amount spent on higher education? Or what?

Sorry, I wanted to say GDP, in italy we call it PIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

 

[phyzguy]

Sorry, I wanted to say GDP, in italy we call it PIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

OK. What about my other questions.? Where did you get those numbers?

If you look at this study, in 2013 the US government spent $76 billion on higher education. Compared to the US GDP of $17 trillion, this is 0.4%, not 5%.

 

[Grands]

I get them on internet, you can find that numbers here http://data.uis.unesco.org/?queryid=181, and also in others websites.
Italy invest 4% of GDP while US more then 5%, plus the GDP of the US is 18 times bigger.

 

[Mark44]

We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions,

Really? Which parts are you talking about?

clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

Which parts of the country, other than Flint, MI, are you talking about? And the problems with the water supply isn't a matter of poverty, but of corrupt/incompetent local government agencies.

 

[Mondayman]

Which parts of the country, other than Flint, MI, are you talking about? And the problems with the water supply isn't a matter of poverty, but of corrupt/incompetent local government agencies.

I'm not sure if it' the same in the US, but here in Canada many First Nations reserves lack access to clean drinkable water, for the exact reason you mention.

 

[Grands]

No nation of the world gives free drinkable water to people.

 

[Mark44]

No nation of the work dive free drinkable water to people.

Your translation skills need some work. Are you trying to say "No nation of the world gives free drinkable water to people"?

 

[Grands]

Your translation skills need some work. Are you trying to say "No nation of the world gives free drinkable water to people"?

Yes, sorry, it was the T9 that is not in english and sometimes change words.
I wanted to say that there is no country in this world that gives to the people free drinkable water, everyone have to buy it from shop.

 

[russ_watters]

We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions, clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

This is vastly overstated.

Even STEM doesn't assure you a job right away anymore. I was out for six months before I got my first job, and my first job's wage was barely livable.

This is slightly overstated as a general condition, though it may result from conditions during our emergence from the Great Recession and is field specific even within STEM. But a large fraction - probably most - are already above the median US salary with their very first job and unemployment rates tend to be lower than the national average.

Non-STEM specific stats for 25-29 year olds: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_sbc.pdf

 

[Drakkith]

We also have parts of the country that live in third world conditions, clean water is hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

WHAT??!?
In the USA there are people that have no water?

This is vastly overstated.

Just to clear things up with actual numbers, according to washwatch.org, 99.2% of people living in the U.S. have access to "at least basic" water (essentially water from a source that's very likely to be clean and sanitary).

 

[Grands]

Just to clear things up with actual numbers, according to washwatch.org, 99.2% of people living in the U.S. have access to "at least basic" water (essentially water from a source that's very likely to be clean and sanitary).

So which is the problem?

 

[OCR]

Yes, sorry, it was the T9 that is not in english and sometimes change words.

... that could explain some things.

 

[Hawksteinman]

I got a student loan from the government. I spent it all so I loaned money from this website that only gives loans to students :(

 

[Grands]

I got a student loan from the government. I spent it all so I loaned money from this website that only gives loans to students :(

Which website?

 

[jtbell]

Why there is this problem if US has the greatest economy of the world?

The money to run universities has to come from somewhere, and people increasingly don't want to pay taxes to support public universities. In the US, public universities are funded (such as they are) by the individual states, not by the federal government. State legislators don't want to raise taxes, so they cut spending wherever they can, including universities.

In my state, South Carolina, state funding for its public universities, per student, has decreased 37% in the last ten years.

https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/sfp_highered_sc.pdf

Therefore the universities have raised their tuition fees. This is not new, but part of a long term trend, since probably the 1980s.

Some years ago I remember seeing discussion of one of our two "flagship" universities, Clemson University, possibly leaving the state system and going private, because they were getting so little money from the state.

 

[Grands]

The money to run universities has to come from somewhere, and people increasingly don't want to pay taxes to support public universities. In the US, public universities are funded (such as they are) by the individual states, not by the federal government. State legislators don't want to raise taxes, so they cut spending wherever they can, including universities.
Some years ago I remember seeing discussion of one of our two "flagship" universities, Clemson University, possibly leaving the state system and going private, because they were getting so little money from the state.

In my country there are very few private universities and I don't know why, they doesn't have the necessary tools for students, but this is true maybe because even if they are private, the tuitions fees is not high.

Although this I notice there there are also public universities in the US that are in the top 100, maybe also top 50.

 

[jtbell]

maybe also top 50.

From the Times Higher Education rankings that you linked in another thread:

15 - University of California, Los Angeles
18 - University of California, Berkeley
21 - University of Michigan
25 - University of Washington
31 - University of California, San Diego
33 - Georgia Institute of Technology
37 - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
43 - University of Wisconsin, Madison
49 - University of Texas, Austin

These are general rankings, not specifically for physics or science in general, but I'm not surprised at any of these. Except maybe UCLA coming in higher than UCB! These are all "flagship" universities in their respective states, and get preferential funding. They've also probably raised tuition a lot over the years, especially for students who don't come from their respective states. "In-state" students always pay lower rates. Even for them, I'm sure it's much more expensive to attend e.g. the University of Michigan rather than Eastern Michigan University or the other lesser public universities in Michigan.

 

[Hawksteinman]

Which website?

Smartpig

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

I accumulated a bit under $100,000 during my fourteen years at Purdue. I wasn't concerned about that bill coming due because I had agreed in advance to do as a civilian a job I used to do while I was on active duty. The day I started work on that job my student loans were paid off by the taxpayers. (I had been doing the work right along while in school, so there was no question about qualifications.)

My point is that you can find programs that will wipe out student loan debt in exchange for a few years of work that you'll be getting paid for. Obviously, the jobs are not sinecures, but working the loans off is better than laboring for decades to get them paid off out of your own income.

 

[Mark44]

I got a student loan from the government. I spent it all so I loaned money from this website that only gives loans to students :(

In the second sentence, do you mean, "I spent it all so I borrowed money from this website ..." If so, they loaned money to you -- you borrowed money from them.

 

[HAYAO]

My brother went to a college in US (private music college), with half of the fee covered by scholarships. The other half, my parents paid (thus despite a rather middle-high class family, my family was actually rather poor). My parents were quite against loans. I think it costed around $35k per year. So half of that is still like \$17.5k. That's a lot. It's not a surprise that my parents often scolded me out of frustration for rather childish and selfish reasons, and often linked it with how much money they spend on me if I were to say anything back.

It seems like the capitalistic nature of US has gone a bit out of control. Insurance and college are probably one of the most notable ones that I am aware of with my limited information. If I understand correctly, there is a law (I don't know if this is a federal or a state law) that states the raising of the limits in the loan a student can have. That means colleges can raise their fees as much as they want because students can still theoretically pay for it. Practically speaking, that's not a very smart thing to do in terms of raising students who are willing to study, which is like investing for the future. I think they need some regulations to keep it from inflation. It's not good for the future. Also the rise in the cost for public universities in US probably can be attributed to the lack of government funds.

I know that part of US got the economy of US becoming the strongest in the world, but at one point, something needs to be done to also raise the "quality" of the economy as well. We can't have like 18% of the money going to 1% of the people. To build a stronger country, it needs to be a little more flattened out so that everyone can have an equal opportunity to participate (whether one can actually take advantage of that opportunity is up to the individual, of course). I know I am not using technical terms here; I am not very educated in economics, finance, and politics.But does whatever I say even matter? I don't know. I'm Japanese and I live in Japan anyway and we have tons of problems here too. Besides, is this off-topic?

 

[Grands]

My brother went to a college in US (private music college), with half of the fee covered by scholarships. The other half, my parents paid (thus despite a rather middle-high class family, my family was actually rather poor). My parents were quite against loans. I think it costed around $35k per year. So half of that is still like $17.5k. That's a lot. It's not a surprise that my parents often scolded me out of frustration for rather childish and selfish reasons, and often linked it with how much money they spend on me if I were to say anything back.

There aren't good universities in Japan?

It seems like the capitalistic nature of US has gone a bit out of control.

What do you mean?
Capitalism has no limits, it's normal to understand that the tuition fees can cost as much as that universities wants.

But does whatever I say even matter? I don't know. I'm Japanese and I live in Japan anyway and we have tons of problems here too. Besides, is this off-topic?

It's not, which kind?

 

[HAYAO]

There aren't good universities in Japan?

Actually, we lived in the States back when my brother was at the age for college, so it was natural for my brother to go to a college in the States.
And no, there aren't really prestigious music colleges in Japan. (Not that I am in any position to say this because I am not a musician.)

What do you mean?
Capitalism has no limits, it's normal to understand that the tuition fees can cost as much as that universities wants.

This is just simply irrelevant to what I just said. You don't need to rush a response. Take your time to read what others are saying.

It's not, which kind?

Scholarships.

 

[Grands]

Actually, we lived in the States back when my brother was at the age for college, so it was natural for my brother to go to a college in the States.
And no, there aren't really prestigious music colleges in Japan. (Not that I am in any position to say this because I am not a musician.)This is just simply irrelevant to what I just said. You don't need to rush a response. Take your time to read what others are saying.Scholarships.

It's strange, I've never expected that someone have to pay so much money for a music college, in Italy it's almost free, the main problem is to hai money to buy the instrument you want to play.
Although this, the main problem is that with a degree of a music college there aren't good job opportunities.

 

[HAYAO]

It's strange, I've never expected that someone have to pay so much money for a music college, in Italy it's almost free, the main problem is to hai money to buy the instrument you want to play.

Yeah. And my brother plays violin. Why out of all the instruments out there did he have to choose one of the most priciest...

Although this, the main problem is that with a degree of a music college there aren't good job opportunities.

I think this applies for any country.

 

[Grands]

I always thought that Japan is a very civilized country and has everything.
I thought also that Japan is very innovative in tech sectors.

 

[HAYAO]

I always thought that Japan is a very civilized country and has everything.
I thought also that Japan is very innovative in tech sectors.

Japan is civilized. There's not doubt about that.

I don't know about Japan these days about innovative technologies. Japanese corporations don't invest a lot in research anymore, and also pays poorly to engineers and scientists. Government has been shrinking funds for science and college (in the long perspective). Shuji Nakamura is one of the famous examples of this. I really feel that this is a very critical situation that needs a change if Japan is ever to stay one of the great in terms of science and technology.

 

[Hawksteinman]

In the second sentence, do you mean, "I spent it all so I borrowed money from this website ..." If so, they loaned money to you -- you borrowed money from them.

Yes [emoji52]

 

[Vanadium 50]

State legislators don't want to raise taxes, so they cut spending wherever they can, including universities.

True, but that's only half of the story. The other half is that university costs per student are rising much faster than inflation in most states. (SC is an exception - look at e.g. Michigan) In some cases, nearly 10% per year. Has the quality of education gone up similarly? I'd be hard pressed to say so. So state legislatures are not just motivated by an unwillingness to raise taxes, but also by the fact they are getting a worse deal.

OK, now some numbers. 88% of student loans never go into default. So it's hard to argue that the majority of them are unpayable, given that the vast majority of them are paid. By the way, this number is similar for car loans.

The median student loan is about $25,000. The median car loan is $30,000. I'd say education is at least as valuable as a car. Millennials represent 40% of the new car market.

What do we know about defaults?

• School quality is inversely correlated with defaults.
• Student academic performance is inversely correlated with defaults.
• Default rates are not independent of major - STEM and business majors have lower default rates than other majors.

 

[Grands]

Japan is civilized. There's not doubt about that.

I don't know about Japan these days about innovative technologies. Japanese corporations don't invest a lot in research anymore, and also pays poorly to engineers and scientists. Government has been shrinking funds for science and college (in the long perspective). Shuji Nakamura is one of the famous examples of this. I really feel that this is a very critical situation that needs a change if Japan is ever to stay one of the great in terms of science and technology.

I can't believe I'm reading this, are you serious?
Engineers and scientists are low payed in Japan?
Company doesn't invest in R&D?
This are the reason that make me to leave Italy, it's so strange to understand that in Japan where train reach a specs of 400km/h has this kind of problems.