While I like this idea, I’m kind of surprised it reached the top here. I’m curious; do other commenters have come across many people who this would have been helpful for? Can people describe these cases a bit, along with what kind of loan setup would have been most useful?
Agree. I wasted several years doing dead-end minimum wage jobs to pay for my degrees, chose a less prestigious university to do them at due to their lower fees, and still had to take a leave of absence halfway through my master’s partly for financial reasons. Even a regular loan with a reasonable rate of interest would have been fine—the fees in the UK aren’t that high for domestic students (~£5-16k for a whole master’s course) - but at the time the UK government wasn’t giving postgrad loans, and even now they are capped at about 10k so you have to find most of your living costs from elsewhere. A loan of 3-10k would have added a couple of counterfactual years of EA-focused work to my career.
There really doesn’t seem to be much awareness within EA of the basic financial challenges that some people face. When I mentioned my situation, the response was often a confused ‘Why don’t you just borrow the money from your friends/family/bank?’, as if that were an option for everyone. Relatedly, when I mentioned at an EA meetup that I was on the dole because I couldn’t find work, someone asked how much I got (~£65 per week), and said “Oh, is that all? It’s not really worth bothering to claim then, is it?” Someone else was baffled why I took a 24-hour bus trip for $20 rather than pay $80 for a two-hour flight. It’s no wonder EAs are seen as elitist and out of touch.
While I like this idea, I’m kind of surprised it reached the top here. I’m curious; do other commenters have come across many people who this would have been helpful for? Can people describe these cases a bit, along with what kind of loan setup would have been most useful?
I was given a student loan by an EA, which I think was likely a major factor in me being able to work on the things I am working on now.
That sounds like it was a pretty effective spend then. That is pretty good evidence.
Agree. I wasted several years doing dead-end minimum wage jobs to pay for my degrees, chose a less prestigious university to do them at due to their lower fees, and still had to take a leave of absence halfway through my master’s partly for financial reasons. Even a regular loan with a reasonable rate of interest would have been fine—the fees in the UK aren’t that high for domestic students (~£5-16k for a whole master’s course) - but at the time the UK government wasn’t giving postgrad loans, and even now they are capped at about 10k so you have to find most of your living costs from elsewhere. A loan of 3-10k would have added a couple of counterfactual years of EA-focused work to my career.
There really doesn’t seem to be much awareness within EA of the basic financial challenges that some people face. When I mentioned my situation, the response was often a confused ‘Why don’t you just borrow the money from your friends/family/bank?’, as if that were an option for everyone. Relatedly, when I mentioned at an EA meetup that I was on the dole because I couldn’t find work, someone asked how much I got (~£65 per week), and said “Oh, is that all? It’s not really worth bothering to claim then, is it?” Someone else was baffled why I took a 24-hour bus trip for $20 rather than pay $80 for a two-hour flight. It’s no wonder EAs are seen as elitist and out of touch.