Posted on 05/31/2012 6:39:59 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
Even as total outstanding student debt rises to $1 trillion, lawmakers have yet to allow loans to be discharged in bankruptcy.
Without an escape clause, these loans can strangle a person.
Take 36-year-old Nick Keith, who remains $142,000 in debt eight years after graduating from culinary school. He's featured in a new film, "Default: The Student Loan Documentary," in which several college graduates expose the pitfalls of the private student loan industry.
"I want to educate the public about the facts," Keith said. "My life has become a daily swim in a tar pit with very little hope of ever getting out."
Keith's father only agreed to co-sign a student loan if he stuck with an engineering degree at Iowa State University, but even with decent grades, he knew it wasn't a right fit.
He dropped out sophomore year and later turned to the California Culinary Academy–without his dad as a safety net–hoping to put his love for healthy eating to use.
"The culinary academy commercials were on the Food Network every 15 minutes," he said, and only required 12 months of study with a three month externship.
He fell for their sales pitch, hook line and sinker
"I should have seen all the signs. [The campus tour guide] had a used car salesman answer for everything," Keith recalls.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
So you’re ok with what the schools are doing?
That one sentence tells me all I need to know. This "kid" no doubt frittered away his younger years watching the Food Channel and had visions of being the next Gordon Ramsey or Anthony Bourdain. Figured this "culinary school" would short cut him to the culinary big leagues.
If only this kid took some time to read some books by these people at the top of the culinary pyramid on just hard it is to break into the business. For the most part, if you are not "apprenticing" at a four-star restaurant by the time you are 20, forget about getting to the big leagues and accept the fact you will forever be short-order cooking at the Applebees or some golf club.
“So you’re ok with what the schools are doing?”
Pretty much, in that they are ‘educating’ kids on the real world (probably the only time they do that). I do have a problem with government being an enabler though.
The rules should be the same, whether or not the debt is for an education or a used car. If, via the rules, you can stiff the used car dealer, then you should be able to do the same to Harvard. If those aren't the rules, then God damn the rule maker!
The rule maker's involvement is manifest in the above chart!
College tuition should be like buying a sports car or a big-screen TV or whatever. It shouldn't be a protected category. There should be no protected categories. Protected categories are merely a way for 'Rat politicians to buy votes.
Going to college should be simple as a financial transaction. You pay your tuition, you go to school.
Oops, you borrowed your tuition, and now you can't pay? Tough cookies! That's between you and whomever you borrowed from! Same rules as if you put the big-screen on your credit card!
The only reason different rules exist is Democrat politicians buying votes! God Damn the Rule Makers!
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