Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Time To Stop The Sob Stories About Student Loan Debt
Forbes ^ | 09/19/2014 | Jeffrey Dorfman

Posted on 09/19/2014 7:29:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The media and advocates for income redistribution are creating a continual stream of stories about the student loan crisis. We are inundated with sob stories about people suffering under a crushing debt burden. The New York Times alone has had stories on how student loan debt is now a problem for senior citizens, how young people’s lives have been ruined, and how a whole generation will be unable to buy homes because of their student loan debt. Luckily, these stories are based simply on a few scattered cases. In reality, there is no student loan debt crisis and it is time for the media to report the facts, not the sob stories.

The New York Times informed its readers last week that there are now two million people over 60 years old that still have student loan debt, with an average loan balance of $21,000. To put this report in context, those two million seniors represent only three percent of all people in that age bracket and the average balance of $21,000 is only 78 percent of the size of the average car loan ($27,000). Assumedly many more than three percent of Americans over the age of 60 have car loans, yet nobody thinks that is a crisis.

Earlier this summer, The New York Times also implied that student loan debt is blocking younger Americans from buying homes. In reality, as the Times admits later in their article, the rate at which young people are buying homes is simply returning to its previous level because today’s young can see that the twenty-five year real estate bubble is over and there is no need to rush into home ownership.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: debt; studentloan
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 last
To: SeekAndFind

If you marry and both get a job and you live on one salary and save $20,000 a year or more you will have $100,000 in 5 years. You can pay off the debt and still have money for the down payment on a house.
There are 2080/hrs in a work year 40/hrs x 52 weeks.
If your single then good luck at the coffee shop after you graduate with the liberal arts degree.


41 posted on 09/19/2014 9:12:08 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: minnesota_bound
Good luck at the coffee shop after you graduate with the liberal arts degree

Unless you went to a college where the science degrees were hijacked by the liberal arts administration and teachers to justify their salaries and positions. At the University of Tennessee the Microbiology degree was in the Liberal Arts Department and they forced one in order to get the degree in Microbiology to take several liberal arts courses (I called them Mickey Mouse courses). I took 75 hours in microbiology and ignored the liberal arts courses. I didn't get the microbiology degree but didn't care as I got the D.V.M. At other universities I would have had majors and degrees in micro, zoology, biology, and a minor in biochemistry.

42 posted on 09/19/2014 9:41:09 AM PDT by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
I've posted this before and think it is worth posting again:

Logical solution to the student loan crisis:

  1. Write off 25%.
  2. Return 75% to the institutions of origin for collection.
  3. Institutes get to keep 5% for their trouble but must remit the remaining 70% back to the government.
  4. They are free to hold up transcripts, cancel degrees and employ all the other measures they did to collect against the debtors as when they were students.
  5. If the institutions still cannot pay back the government within the normal loan times, the government is free to attach their endowments, real estate and other assets.
  6. Government gets completely out of the loan business and encourages the institutions to line up their own lenders. If a tiny college like Hillsdale (Michigan) can do it, then there is no reason anyone else can't do the same.
  7. Yes, the taxpayer takes a 30% hit up front to liquidate this crap, but that is far better than continuing to grow this monster.

43 posted on 09/19/2014 9:53:02 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: fuzzylogic
Great list to which I'd add:

Get what you can (especially the general education stuff) at a community college. The credits transfer and cost a lot less. You will cut down your graduation debt by 25% to 50%.

Yeah, it is nowhere near as glamorous living at or near home and commuting, but in addition to being a hell of a lot cheaper, you will get classmates and instructors who still have at least one foot in the real world.

44 posted on 09/19/2014 10:00:35 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: cloudmountain

#12 Number 8 is Liberal which means do not care about their fellow man. Oh they will speak of it but they only want what you have and you be &%$#@!


45 posted on 09/19/2014 10:11:54 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I’m also amused by characters like Liz Warren that pitch interest rate breaks as a solution. The interest rate on these loans is almost never the problem. The people with a problem paying these loans back would have a problem if the interest rate was 7%, 3.5%, 1%, 0% ,or even - 1%.


46 posted on 09/19/2014 10:15:17 AM PDT by Ted Grant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I’m also amused by characters like Liz Warren that pitch interest rate breaks as a solution. The interest rate on these loans is almost never the problem. The people with a problem paying these loans back would have a problem if the interest rate was 7%, 3.5%, 1%, 0% ,or even - 1%.


47 posted on 09/19/2014 10:15:27 AM PDT by Ted Grant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: polymuser

The Education Industry has also managed to get the majority of employers to swallow the Kool-Aid. Most value a degree from a swanky university more than actual intellect or ability.


48 posted on 09/19/2014 10:29:56 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I attended a state university in the late 60’s and worked three jobs to pay for my own tuition and graduated debt free. I took classes year-round and graduated in three years, which help keep my overall tuition costs down. But I didn’t know other students who borrowed massive amounts to get their degrees. It was unheard of.

Student loans became a problem when the federal government started guaranteeing them. That made it easier to get the loans, and in turn, allowed the universities to keep raising their tuitions, since the students had borrowed government-guaranteed loans to pay for it instead of paying out of their own pockets. For the last 4 decades, college tuitions have increased tremendously, but the quality of education has gone down, shifting to more indoctrination of liberal ideologies into mushy minds than real-world skills to earn a living with. I mean what is someone going to do to make a living with a degree in LGBT and Womens’ Studies that costs $100,000 in tuition, besides trying to become a lefty professor to teach that same useless information to even more students down the line?

Now, Obama is talking about forgiving student loan debts, which will make the problem even worse. And that will teach those kids more financial responsibility won’t it? [sarcasm]. As always, getting the government involved in any private sector endeavor only makes things worse and lessens competition to brings cost down. It always ends up as a big cluster-f*ck that the government needs to step in and “fix” the problem they created. This is the game plan of big government liberals and their vision on how to stay in power and control of the masses.


49 posted on 09/19/2014 10:38:46 AM PDT by HotHunt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vigilanteman

Good one! Completely agree....and probably a better bet that the student won’t go down the wrong path as do many in those first semesters away from home (frat parties, drugs, etc.). I saw many go down that way...it seemed as though the people I knew that went to community college all finished. I wonder if anyone else experienced similar?


50 posted on 09/19/2014 11:47:47 AM PDT by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing consequences of poor moral choices among everybody)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: fuzzylogic
My daughter actually started at a four year, came home and did the Community College thing once she saw her mounting debt, worked a year in addition and then went back to finish with greatly reduced debt.

Thanks partly to that experience (and, I like to think, good parents), she went back even more serious, focused and determined than when she started.

Our other two girls didn't do the Community College thing, but both took a year or more off to work before going back to finish. We got the same result with them.

Parents who give their children Daddy's credit card and a promise to pay for the full four years do them a grave disservice. Even if the parents can afford it, which most can't.

51 posted on 09/19/2014 11:58:40 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Vigilanteman

-— Logical solution to the student loan crisis -—

We don’t do adult solutions anymore. We piss and moan and wish things were different. Then we kill the scapegoat.

This will only compound the loss, but we’ll be placated. Goldstein is dead!


52 posted on 09/19/2014 12:12:26 PM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Buckeye McFrog
Most value a degree from a swanky university more than actual intellect or ability.

And it's not as threatening to bosses as real intellect and ability.

53 posted on 09/19/2014 12:25:34 PM PDT by polymuser ( Enough is enough.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: ßuddaßudd
Don't know,, heard the story on KSFO driving into work this morning . .
Looky here http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-regents-award-20-percent-pay-raises-to-fix-5765312.php

KSFO San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. Good station. Been on the air FOREVER.
I believe it.

54 posted on 09/19/2014 2:28:10 PM PDT by cloudmountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: minnesota_bound
#12 Number 8 is Liberal which means do not care about their fellow man. Oh they will speak of it but they only want what you have and you be &%$#@!

Lol. The EIGHTH deadly sin is "Liberal," is it? People are always liberal when they are young and stupid. USUALLY people grow up and become conservative.

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."

There is no record of anyone hearing Churchill say this. Paul Addison of Edinburgh University makes this comment: "Surely Churchill can't have used the words attributed to him. He'd been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35!

======================================

I still think it's a good quote, whoever said it.

55 posted on 09/19/2014 2:33:50 PM PDT by cloudmountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Good article about rising tuitions and student debt. The link has an interactive map GIF file.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/09/179578-price-tuition-goes-student-debt-crisis-just-keeps-getting-scarier/?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%7BCAMPAIGN_ID%7D


56 posted on 09/20/2014 8:56:14 AM PDT by HotHunt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson