Posted on 04/01/2009 9:40:35 AM PDT by Arguendo
I’m about to talk about two little words that make most people cringe. The mere mention of these words usually incites the same reaction in everyone: a) fear b) denial c) a throbbing headache and d) the desire to run away screaming and crying and begging to go to a “happy place.” Yes, I am talking about STUDENT LOANS. If you don’t have one, you know someone who does and you sympathize with them. In the midst of the credit crisis, home foreclosures and bailout turmoil, the amount of debt that graduates are facing is overwhelming.
I am 23-years-old, two years out of college and I am sitting on $115,000 of student debt. And based on my lender’s loan terms, I only have roughly 12 years to pay it off. How much does that make my monthly payment, you ask? A whopping $1,200 a month. And let’s just say my lifelong dream career in television doesn’t lend itself to that. The only option my bank is giving me is to go on “graduated repayment plan.” That means that for four years I will only be paying off the interest every month. How much is that? Well, $115,000 with interest rates between 4-8%… that’s about $600 a month and that doesn’t even touch the principal amount. People don’t pay off houses in 12 years and I am expected to pay off this student loan in an entry level position?
Some might say, “Sam, you shouldn’t have gone to a private school in New York City if you wouldn’t be able to pay it off.” Well, I made a lot of mistakes when signing up for my loans, but I was uneducated on the process and on the repayment and now I’m stuck.
(Excerpt) Read more at ac360.blogs.cnn.com ...
I a have counseled many a youngster to look into the ROTC for a real education. There is no better way to get through med school or engineering than the ROTC. The life skills that military provides are invaluable, unlike the drivel pedaled by degree mills staffed by educrats.
You betcha.
actualy YES student loans should be included.
If the degree obtained from a university is of such POOR VALUE then the university should lose out on the money. This will induce some competition for the universities to provide value and not basket weaving classes.
What makes you think it is the university losing money if a student loan defaults? It is the guarantor of the loan, usually the government (read taxpayers) or some private entity.
My daughter refuses to acquire debt for college. She’s got the first two years fully funded and nothing for after that.
Her answer? “I guess I’d better find a field that I can excel in with a two year degree. If I want more, I’ll pay as I go.”
My husband is *furious*. He demands that she get at least a BA. My daughter says that that’s what *he* wants, he’d better pay for it. Unless he’s writing the check, he has no say.
I’m stuck in the middle. I agree with my daughter, but I see my husband’s point. Too many times have I known people who paid a lot more for their education than it was worth, but most professions with *any* promise require at least a 4 year degree.
My favorite was the girl with an $80,000 student loan and a BA who ended up becoming a housewife. *ug!*
I've found that the school of hard knocks to be one of the most expensive. *sigh*
You didn’t understand what you claimed to understand or you have easily been able to paraphrase it. You’re a sloppy arguer.
My son is a type 1 diabetic. No Army for him. (This *kills* him. He really wanted to join.) We'll help him out as best as we can, but he's going to have to be very *smart*. He's starting out with a serious handicap. I'm trying to steer him to engineering and I keep preaching to not shop for a wife until he's at *least* two years out of college. (And no *babies* any time soon!) Life's not fair. He's going to have to work harder than most and he can't afford the follies of youth. He'll be a better man for it, or he'll fall...
An 18 year old with no credit history or experience in making payments month after month can sign for student loans well in excess of $50,000, before he or she is 21. Some even take on more — $100,000!
The age of majority, to sign such contracts, used to be 21. The banks who wrote loans when I went to school 40 years ago required the parents to co-sign. And then the loans were much smaller, and much smaller in proportion to reasonable starting wages of college graduates. Co-signers not needed today in most cases.
The kids are unwise borrowers, many are not able to repay per the terms. I know that from my experience in collections.
These MAJOR loans to the young, inexperienced and unwise would have gotten any back officer fired for making them forty years ago. Loans of this size are and must be a risk to the lender, and the lenders, throughout history have always required collateral, co-signers, or a exception proof of earnestness (like being the nephew of a Bank Director) to make.
Why MUST they be risk? Because otherwise — as seen in the college loan programs of recent years — they throw billions of dollars up-fronted and unwise money into a system. Into a horde of humans, actually, that horde of educators, the people who run and work at colleges. Easy money makes bad business.
Well, the government took away all or most of the risk. What’s the upshot?
Rotten colleges teaching amorality, immorality, irresponsibility more potently than they teach any other subject. Tens of thousands of graduates with impossible debt burdens who, being so burdened become drags to themselves and society — instead of the young innovators, we have the spent, the lead-weighed marginal performers — marginal because the burden of debt lowers their choices, prevents them from taking career risks at the time of life that career risks would be most productive for society as a whole.
It’s generational rape.
What’s a JD? (just curious)
i want to be on the DR ping list! :)
My daughter spoke to a manager at Walmart. She could get a two year degree in Business Management or Accounting, while working summers and weekends at Walmart. She could then start working full-time "on the floor". Within three years she'd have a management position in the $30k range. No student loans. No hassle. Actual work experience. The opportunity for advancement, especially if she took one or two classes every semester while working full time (paying as she goes) and fluffed up her resume. The same could be said for Lowes, Home Depot, etc. She sees opportunity everywhere. She's not a stupid girl.
“Looks like more than 50% of the CNN posters are on her side, and thinks she should get some free government cash.”
BINGO!
That’s what all this is about. Some chose to live the good life during college, and now want others’ tax dollars to pay for it.
I watched this insanity years ago during my school/grad school days. And the possibility of abuse is unlimited. I knew people in grad school who took out large student loans to pay for fancy apartments, expensive life-styles, summer trips to Europe, and new cars.
Others, of course, used the student loans to finance a good education. The latter, responsible type, is generally not the type to complain about paying it back; and the latter type numbers are much smaller.
For the record, it is very possible for an intelligent person from a poor family to go to an expensive private school without large loans. For example, this is from the web page of Rice University:
Rice will continue its policy of need-blind admission and meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need.
For families whose income is $80,000 or less, Rice will meet 100 percent of need eligibility without loans. That means these students’ financial aid packages will be covered by scholarships, grants, work study and other aid.
For those whose income is above $80,000 and who are need eligible, Rice will cap the amount of loans in financial aid packages at $10,000 for the four undergraduate years (as long as they remain eligible for need-based aid).
Are you advocating not paying other bills as well? Gee welfare on Fr I never thought I'd see the day
Student loans can be discharged for many reasons (I’m in this “business”), and one of them is specifically “totally and permanently disabled with no ability to work again.”
And first you have to prove 3 years of no income. . .
That is the way it should be. If I had a penny for every time my dad told me, "if you don't work for it; you won't appreciate it..." I could have retired as a young man. Seems a lesson overlooked by modern academia.
He said the law was first changed to make school loans nondischargeable because graduates with professional degrees would abuse the process by filing for bankruptcy shortly after graduating since they had the requisite debt burden even though they had valuable degrees. This was obviously a problem, so they changed the law. You said you disagreed with this assessment.
In the post we’re discussing, he asked if you disagreed with his claim about why the law was changed (and had a source to support this) or if you disagreed with the decision to apply this to all student loans and not just those financing professional degrees.
I’m sorry you have a hard time comprehending this. It’s really fairly simple.
A law degree—it stands for Juris Doctor.
yeah.
So do you pay your other bills or live like a liberal off the government tit?
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