The Student Debt You Willingly Took On Is Not My Problem To Solve

The Federalist ^ | 02/17/2020 | Margot Cleveland

[from occupied ga]

I was lucky in that my kid was not a flake. Got through college in 3 years instead of four with a summa cum laude and then went to medical school and has been a practicing surgeon for the last ten years. It cost me about $270,000 altogether in the mid 90’s, and I don’t regret spending a penny of it.

[Buckeye McFrog]

That chart on what degrees cost around the world is another huge factor in driving this.

These kids come out deep in hock and end up sitting in an office next to an H1B holder who got his degree for next to nothing.

[gcparent]

5 to 7k a semester!!! Wow. Mine went to private colleges 50k plus a year each. Damn right they worked part time and summers. Ever hear of work/study. The college gets you a job.

The world is not all STEM. Plenty of degrees between stem and basket weaving.

[Dawgreg]

Our granddaughter took out student loans, has her degree and is working.......she fully intends to pay back her loans. If one of those Communist running for office on the Demonrat side told her she didn’t have to pay them back she’d tell them to go pound sand!!

[ByteMercenary]

Short version of one of my most heartfelt rants ...

I believe that you and several others here recognise that the biggest problem is the higher education (H.E.) portion of the mix. There is no economic pressure on H.E. to control prices and to provide a desirable product. Their position is “pay what we say. We don’t care where you get the money but we will be paid in full before you as a student can set foot in a classroom.”

If H.E. had to stand behind their product financially, things would be drastically different.

[redangus]

Worked every summer, took a year off to earn, worked while in school, took textbooks out of the library one semester because I couldn’t afford to buy them, drove my dad’s leftover cars. My wife and I paid off my student debt in four years(she didn’t have any; parents and scholarships).

[central_va]

5 to 7k a semester!!! Wow. Mine went to private colleges 50k plus a year each. Damn right they worked part time and summers. Ever hear of work/study. The college gets you a job.

You and you kids were penny wise and pound foolish. If I was paying 50K per year I would not work at minimum wage and risk my GPA.

[Verginius Rufus]

At my university most professors (full, associate, or assistant) teach a 4-4 load...there is talk of moving to a 3-3 load but some departments don't like the idea because it would be hard to offer all the courses their students need. I have sometimes taught 5 courses in a semester but the current provost doesn't allow that. We also have a lot of underpaid adjuncts.

There are a lot of state universities which charge somewhere in the $6K to $10K range for annual tuition and fees. If students attend an in-state university, live at home and work part-time they don't have to be deep in debt by the time they graduate. Of course some live too far from a state university to be able to live at home.

[central_va]

I prefer the term “Big Education”.

[central_va]

These kids come out deep in hock and end up sitting in an office next to an H1B holder who got his degree for next to nothing.

The FR old coot "back in my day" brigade won't even get what you said.

[gcparent]

Min wage here is 15 hr. 20 hrs week is 300 wk or 1200 a month before taxes.

[Nevadan]

Re: “Tell me your sob stories from age 12 on, not what you can’t do now, but what you couldn’t do then. Tell what you had to do then and through college to avoid what is now, to you, crushing student debt.“

The system is set up so that a student who actually works jobs in high school to save money for college, as well as summers, and throughout the school year while in college will receive less or nothing in federal grant money than a student who never works at all to help with education costs. At least that was the way it was with our kids.

[central_va]

There is no state with a $15.00/hr min. wage.

[Theoria]

What years?

[Buckeye McFrog]

These kids come out deep in hock and end up sitting in an office next to an H1B holder who got his degree for next to nothing. The FR old coot "back in my day" brigade won't even get what you said.

I am an old coot but I get this. There is a famous story about a company here in town about 15 yrs. ago where some engineer who was $70K in debt on his BSEE discovered that he H1B co-worker in the next cube had gotten his MSEE basically for free in his home country. A FISTFIGHT broke out.

If we're going to run a system where you are expected to go into debt for your training and then pay it back we can NOT be undercutting that by bringing in debt free foreign competition. These debts can not be discharged in bankruptcy. If you can't pay your only way out is to vote your way out, which they will.

[gcparent]

The minimum wage in NYC as if dec 31, 2019 is 15 per hour regardless of size of business. Google it if you dont believe me.

[olivia3boys]

How to make college more affordable: 1) 2 years of community college and then transfer; 2) eliminate student loans which would lower tuition; 3) a BA/BS could be reduced to 3 years instead of 4 (England offers 3 year Bachelor degrees) by reducing electives needed (which in the US are usually leftist propaganda electives anyway).

[entropy12]

So we are the dummies for helping our kids through college?
This is crazy unfair to those who scraped and saved to pay for college. While students were using loans to buy luxury cars and vacations?

[central_va]

What does the min. wage in NYC have to do with going to school and working in Virginia?

[dfwgator]

I assume that forgiven student debt will still show up on a credit report.

And companies use credit reports to make hiring decisions, just saying.