My son just finished his first year of college. The Universities he’s spoken with and the one he’s attending are VERY blatant about manipulating the kids.
They will openly and repeatedly tell the kids they are an ‘adult’ and their parents don’t control them any more. Exactly what kids want to hear.
Sure this guy is dumb for getting that deep into debt. However what the universities are doing is unethical and immoral.
I would not disagree with that.
In this case though it appears he was somewhere between 26 and 27 when he made the decision to quite engineering school. He was hardly a doe eyed 19 year old.
Why not finish engineering school, then if not happy go pursue his dream?
Absolutely! And part of the scam is telling the students how "valuable" their degrees will be. I'm not the biggest fan of federal laws, but consumer protection laws should be extended to higher education.
Colleges should be required to keep, and provide, data on just how marketable their degrees are.
Then if the student still wants to gamble on a weak degree, it's his responsibility.
Don’t neglect the government creating the atmosphere for the massive hikes in college tuition. The “student loan bubble” is being fueled by government telling universities that :everyone should go to college” and providing cheap financing to do so. Sound familiar? Didn’t we just see this movie with housing? The colleges are simply balancing the supply/demand equation by raising prices. What I don’t know, however, is what happens when the bubble bursts...
If he let the loans go into default, then they can easily triple the loan amount through penalities. This is probably how it got to 142K.
He may be stupid but this is Usury and immoral.
He should still have to pay the original loan off with reasonable interest.
“They will openly and repeatedly tell the kids they are an ‘adult’ and their parents don’t control them any more. Exactly what kids want to hear.
Sure this guy is dumb for getting that deep into debt. However what the universities are doing is unethical and immoral.”
Sure, but it is up to the parents to EXERT THEIR AUTHORITY, which exists until the kid can move out and exist on his own. In this case the dad did pretty good - he told junior to either get a degree that can make him some money, or go it alone. It sounds like good guidance to me. As to the college scamming him - yes, but it only works when junior doesn’t trust his parents.