Posted on 02/04/2019 9:05:23 AM PST by SeekAndFind
And the death spiral birth rates(an absolute must to keep the Ponzi schemes rolling) are adding to the catastrophe.
“We came of age during in an era of plentiful jobs and relatively high wages”
Uh, maybe front end Baby Boomers. By the mid-70’s, those of us in the mid-50s cohort faced 16% interest rates, 10% unemployment, out of control inflation, oil embargos and closing factories. This was the reason Reagan was elected: he was the first MAGA candidate, promising to end all this crap.
Ouch!!!! I am 62 and get continual robo calls from marketers trying to "help" me with my student debt.
My stock answer:
1- I am 62 years old (which to me gives the implication that it is a ridiculous notion that I might still have student debt
2- I tell them that I NEVER HAD any student debt. That is not entirely true because I borrowed $2,500 in 1979 to finish up, but I had it paid off in a year.
I guess I owe them an apology. They know the score better than I, and I am a banker. I have never had a lot of confidence in my generation, and this confirms that I was correct.
Not all baby boomers spent all they made and more. Those that didn’t are having a comfortable retirement.
Another article about why people who took college loans were taken advantage of and need to have them forgiven?
Are these the same baby boomers who gave us Clinton and Obama?
“We Boomers might find ourselves back where we started during the Vietnam War, in the streets protesting an outrageously predatory government.”
Go for it,Boomers——reality is tough./s
.
A problem of our own making. We as a society have been willing to transfer our wealth to the Marxist ponytailed professors with no questions asked. For decades people have been writing about larceny and people just kept paying the random. Too late to cry about it now. It’s a heavy task master and he must be paid.
Now, about that “free” tuition....
My retirement has been fine so far and I expect that to continue. I paid my college loan off almost 50 years ago. A college education is WAY over priced today. Over priced, politicized and too often lacking in actual education.
Yes I graduated from college in a recession 1974. Thankfully college was relatively cheap back then. I love my kids. Started 529 accounts for them as babies. I would never do a parent plus loan.
Part of the problem is that parents have their kids going to colleges they can not afford. Mine went private and left with loans of 29k not bad. But I have friends who signed parent plus loans owing 100k. Just so they could have a nice college sticker for the car.
I laugh when I get those those calls about my student debt. I worked my butt off as a banker 35 years. I am a big saver. When friends were wasting money at bars I was saving part of my salary, all my profit sharing. I love being retired. I don’t owe anyone a dime.
And the death spiral birth rates(an absolute must to keep the Ponzi schemes rolling) are adding to the catastrophe.
Another thing that I've long thought would be an issue is that those who do have liquid assets like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are eventually going to find that they might ultimately do worse off with them when it comes time to liquidate them to finance their retirement, given the demographic facts on the ground. What happens in a market where you have more sellers than buyers?
Baby Boomers were born from 1946 and 1964. There is a big difference in what the early boomers and late boomers grew up in. I am a 46 boomer and took a total of $2500 student loans to get through BS and MS degrees in a state college with a wife and a child. Started teaching with a annual salary of $6300 (take home $353 month). Paid off student loans in 2 years. Trouble with many boomers with high student loan debt still today is what they did with the loan money when they got it. In the 70s and early 80s students were enrolling in college, getting a lot of loans, buying new cars with it along luxury things and living high. Then many dropped out or flunked out of college and never got a degree which was important in getting many good jobs back then. High debt low income. Early boomers who are now retired seem to be doing much today than late boomers still working.
Good for you. I spent 25 years as a state safety and soundness regulator. Been on the banking side for 14 years. A divorce in 2001 (not of my choosing) and a drug addict son the last 5 or 6 years has kept me from being able to retire, but I am making progress. I don’t mind hard work. Just wish I could have held on to more of it, and I would have had it really been left up to me. Not bitter about it, but disappointed in the way life turned for me.
Did a little research of the numbers.
At the tail end of my U. of Iowa liberal arts quest in 1960, resident tuition was $240/school year.
In 2018 resident tuition for the school year is $7,486.
$100 of 1960 dollars adjusted for inflation equates to approximately $850 in 2019.
You don’t have to play around much with the math to realize what a colossal rip off colleges have become.
Good point.
I’m doing well in retirement; when I was in school Dad gave me a copy of “The Richest Man in Babylon”. Its key lesson was, “A portion of all you earn is yours to keep.”
(I know the original says `part’ but portion fits better)
So I learned to save and invest. Lived like the VW ad that said, “Live below your means” (my first car was a ‘56 Bug).
Before that my favorite cartoon character was the fabulously wealthy Scrooge McDuck, who could squeeze a nickel until it screamed.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well. My wife and I have been blessed.
College debt? Uncle Sam gave me an ROTC scholarship. Then he sent me to Vietnam.
;^)
I think you hit the nail on the head.
I too am a very late boomer, served in the military, and then went to get a degree. I watched as fellow students acquired more loans and had lavish spring break vacations, purchased stereo equipment and other such depreciating assets. I also watched in horror as tuition essentially rocketed into orbit as Pell grants and other “free money” corrupted the system. Finally, guys who loaded up on tuition debt and then dropped out. Saw that too and that could only be financially catastrophic.
Having said all that, there is no reason people should be willing to become indentured servants for a sheepskin. It’s ludicrous. I have kids (who are debt free) and have demanded that they not go into debt for college. No way am I going to allow them to put themselves in a huge financial hole by the time they are 22!
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