Posted on 12/18/2018 10:35:06 AM PST by Baynative
I am curious about the growing conversation over the repayment or forgiveness of the $1.3 TRILLION (and growing) student loan debt.
Like everyone I knew who didn't have full scholarship, I worked my way through college and I don't remember ever meeting anyone who had a student loan.
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
About 25 years ago the cost of college started to shoot the moon, and with it loans to pay for those escalating costs.
A quarter century of letting the problem fester later, a generation of first-time homebuyers aren’t able to buy homes because they spent that credit on a degree... then as likely as not didn’t get a job that needed the degree.
The amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in the system is mindblowing.
The American empire is almost over.
“Graduated in 83. No offense but you are a dinosaur. I am too I graduated in 88
Thanks for the best laugh that I will have all day——I graduated in 1954.
.
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What other poor life choices should working people subsidize?
I’d like to be a lay about, degenerate, gambler.
I figure a yearly payment of $300K a year would be a good start.
You are correct, my older sister engaged in educational loan fraud for nearly a decade until they cut her off. She lied about everything regarding income and expenses to get the maximum stipend while living rent free in a rental our parents owned. Changed majors whenever she got close to graduating and returned or sold textbooks for cash.
Still a useless eater with no degree, looking for new ways to fleece the taxpayer.
I don't know if the "college experience" is today what is used to be.
The partying and debauchery has been replaced with safe spaces and trigger alerts.
Of course, my first annual salary after college was 5200.
May I ask - what are the sources of these loans? Federal guaranteed loans at max, are $5000 per year for undergraduates. Who also was loaning money? What terms and guarantees did they require?
Just curious, as I am trying to learn.
Worked 2 years full time and lived at home after HS before starting college. Saved almost $10,000 by 1976 when I started college. Tuition and Room and board at a decent P5 State school was around $650/quarter. Books around $100. (3 Qtrs per school year).
Dorms were not plush. Two per room. Sometimes 3 at the beginning of the school year for freshmen.
Meals were adequate but nothing too diverse or special. A far cry from what I’m hearing dorm life is like today.
Worked summers construction for $4.00/hour. Made it through in 4 1/3 years plus 1 summer session with an engineering degree.
Finally had to ask my father for $100 my last month as I was completely broke by then. Otherwise nothing and no loans.
Knew people who took loans because there was no interest and they could make 10% or more interest in a CD account back then. I just didn’t want to have it hanging over my head.
Funny story. Was home one weekend at church and another parishioner was discussing things with my father and said something about feeling sorry for him since I was in college -that it put a burden on him financially. He and I both knew he wasn’t paying dime one, but he didn’t say a word.
That being said, letting me live at home those 2 years before and 3 summers was plenty of support, I suppose. Plus I got a job locally and lived at home for another year before I bought my own house. So was able to save for the down payment during that time.
For non traditional students the max goes up and upon graduating the balance was only about 80 k but with interest and late fees it is over 100
I graduated in 1985 from the SUNY system. Two years at SUNY Morrisville Ag & Tech. Two more years at SUNY ESF @ Syracuse University. BS Wood Products Engineering from, minor in marketing from SU. Debt free. My parents paid for instate tuition. It was about $2500/year back then.
Even then I thought it was crazy what the kids next door at Syracuse University were paying. In 84-85 SU was $8K/year. There were a lot of JAPS(Jewish American Princess) from Long Island that were sent there for one reason: FIND A HUSBAND. I had three job offers within a month of graduating. I am still at the company I chose in 1985.
My 20 year old son is in his Junior year at the University of NH in Manchester, NH. He is working on a degree in Biomedical Technology/Engineering. He commutes to school.
His internship this past summer was with a company started by Dean Kamen. He has about $12K in student debt. He is already making payments. I paid off his car loan because he has a 4.0 GPA. However, he wants to go to graduate school. He is looking at Dartmouth, Harvard and Penn State. He states that if he is accepted they will pay him a stipend.
I was working with a gal that decided she wanted to pursue a Masters in Public Administration. She had a high paying job just under $100K/year but she still took out a $75,000 loan to pay for the online masters from Villanueva. But she kept spending the money on lavish dinners and entertainment. I was shocked and kept reminding her that was her college money. It made no difference.
College is a return on investments calculation. Either the cost of college is justified by the return the degree with provide, or it is not.
Parents need to have this discussion with their children and sit down and do the math with them.
If a kid does is not 100% committed to a career that requires and justifies a degree, that kid has no business going to college. Get a job and work until you figure it out.
I took some student loans but paid them off years ago.
Not like today. Tuition has just reached unaffordable levels.
I got accepted at a fairly elite school back in the early 80’s. Tuition at the time was $13,000/year (and I didn’t go because my dad thought that was too expensive).
Undergrad tuition at that same school today is more than $60K.
FReepers don’t want to hear this but once enough of the electorate demand that their loans be forgiven, it IS going to happen.
The explosion of Federally guaranteed loans has inflated the price of college way, way beyond what a typical student can earn working his way through school.
It’s obvious that the loans will never be repaid (in the aggregate). I have a senior graduating May 2019 with no loans, a sophomore with no loans so far, and three more to go.
I presume President Kamala Harris will forgive all the loans (a new Emancipation proclamation) the day after I write the last check.
My undergrad was $4000/year (all in) at a private school. My NYS medical school was $1600/year, my Regents scholarship paid half, and I paid the other $800 working as a letter carrier in the summer.
Medical school now costs $350 000 - $500 000.
“Cost of University education has nearly tripled relative to the economy.”
Price, for some, “of University education has nearly tripled relative to the economy.”
There are lots of kids that pay less than your kid would.
Who gets to pay $0?
Can you say “underprivileged”?
Completely wrong!
You can get students loans for anything now.
There are people who left their jobs (In the case I am going to cite - a K-12 teaching job!) borrow3ed money to go to graduate Ed school at an Ivy League university to get a Master’s degree in Puppetry (I am serious!) They financed it with student loans. By the time they were done they owned almost $200K. They essentially had a house of debt to manage. After they were done there was no teaching job to return to! The state/county had filled the position. There are lots of other examples if you research it. Since the colleges have no skin in the game on this, they can offer utter nonsense (And do!) and people pay for it. The USG doesn’t care or really can’t care because of the way the current law is written. Basically its free money and no one ever really polices it. All from public/private college/university or the for-profit colleges & training institutes benefit from it. Possibly the student benefits but only if he/she is not stupid with the money, however many are so they and the taxpayer are left with the debt.
Probably the only solution is cancel the debt & close the program down for 5 years or permanently. Closing it down permanently would in reality do wonders for the entire education/training establishment. The hucksters & scam artists both on the education/training & student side would close down. People & institutions would have to look at ROI again and whether maintaining things like Ancient Abyssinian Heuristic Studies (and others) Departments would be worth doing. As well as scores of do-nothing administrators & vacation resort-like dorms & amenities.
My legislative proposal for student loans:
1. Cap new federal student loans at
a. $6,000/first year - general college education,
b. $8,000/second/third/fourth year - general college education,
c. $4,000/additional year - general college education
d. $10,000/additional year - general college education, four-year college degree earned
e. $12,000/year - college education on a regionally/nationally accredited engineering track or domestic licensing/certification law accepted teacher/nursing/physician assistant track,
f. $20,000/first/second/third year - bar accepted accredited law school education,
g. $30,000/year - domestic licensing law accredited dentist/medical doctor education.
2. Increase the yearly caps by 20% if the college has in the prior academic year generally been able to timely provide its students with courses needed to graduate in the normal timeframe to earn a degree.
3. Semester caps for a college shall be half of the yearly caps.
4. Term caps for a college shall be yearly caps divided by the number of terms per year.
5. Require colleges to co-sign their associated new federal student loans.
6. Limit new federal loans outstanding for attendance at a college to 80% of the real property value (and securities) pledged to the federal Department of Education as collateral.
7. Allow new student loans signed or co-signed by a person at the time of issue related to the student by blood, adoption or guardianship to be subject to bankruptcy discharge ten years or more after issue, excluding deferment periods, less
a. six months for every interest rate percentage above four,
b. one month for every $100 in debt add-ons such as fees and charges.
Make the shovel smaller.
“Medical school now costs $350,000 - $500,000.”
My neighbor’s daughter went to school to become a physician assistant.
I think it took her about two years and about $70,000 in total.
Change the path.
Allow physician assistants to learn in further steps to become medical doctors.
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