Posted on 03/17/2012 8:57:01 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Saddled with college debt By Melissa M. Horton, Published: March 16
“You can go to any college you want.”
“You won’t have to pay for college.”
“You’ll have lots of scholarships and financial aid.”
These are just a few of the things my parents said throughout my childhood. I am a second-generation U.S.-born Latina. Growing up in the suburbs of Fort Worth, I was a straight-A student in Advanced Placement classes, with many civic activities on my resume.
At 17, I never could have dreamed that my parents’ promises were lies.
A decade-plus later, I, like many millennials, have more than $100,000 in student loan debt, most of which can be directly attributed to my parents’ unfortunate placement smack in the middle of the middle class and the fact that our family was uneducated about financing higher education.
My parents — a nurse and a police officer — were the first in their families to attend college, though Dad dropped out and joined the Marine Corps during Vietnam. Both baby boomers who attended state universities, they were ill-prepared for their two public-school-educated daughters to attend private universities that left us drowning in debt.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
>>A decade-plus later, I, like many millennials, have more than $100,000 in student loan debt<<
That kind of answers itself — 10+ years in college? Get a job!
Oh, and any student debt forgiveness had better be retroactive to the mid-1970s.
I can’t afford college and it’s all (white people/racism/greedy bankers/sexism/homophobia/George Bush’s) fault.
America is such a terrible backwards place and I hate it.
etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.............
Yes, and, like the majority of Americans for the last 40 years, your parents listened to the wrong people(nanny state, utopian democrats). There is no tooth fairy, or money tree. We have hit the wall.
I have two kids in school, spending 1400-1600/ month on each with tuition management; no aid, no loans, no govt welfare. It comes out on the 10th of every month; actually a pretty good deal if you are the type of person that likes to not depend on the govt. Of course, we drive old vehicles, my favorite being a 1990 ford truck, live within our means, and not upset with college costs. People need to take a look at themselves.
She was LIED to! By her parents! Can you believe that she would castigate her parents in such a manner to make a point? It underlines the underlying aspect to this ‘letter’. She is just another Sandra Fluke...twisting and turning words to emphasize the ‘emotional’ and influence the politics of ‘gimme, gimme, gimme’.
One possible explanation: Her SAT marks must have been horrible. I notice she didn't mention them
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Sneer all you want. Our economy is stilted by students suffocating underneath such huge loans which cannot be discharged even in bankruptcy court! We have Dumbo Dubya & the GOP Congress to thank for that bit of legislation in 05. Not to sound like a broken record but some of us on FR warned about that ill advised “gift” to the loan industry but were shouted down then. The chickens have come home to roost.
On the other side of the coin, taxpayers shouldn’t be completely on the hook for the student’s admitted stupidity. Loan “forgiveness” shouldn’t be painless. Bankruptcy must be initiated to get out of the loans.
Sometimes life isn’t fair and your family doesn’t have extra money to send a kid to college.
I was in that situation when I was 17-yrs old. So I enlisted in the U.S. Army, and when I got out I used the G.I. Bill and my accumulated savings to pay for a university education. I also had two part-time jobs, working as a swing-shift custodian during the week, and at a car wash on weekends. It was hard work, but it can be done.
Can I make an observation, which would get me flamed by liberals............
That $100K of debt didn’t just materialize overnight. It was accumulated over a period of years. She knew that as she went through school, year by year, that the cost and bills were adding up.
I don’t have the answer for this one girl. But clearly this girl needed a “mid course correction” as she was going through school.
Maybe she could have worked her way through school, as many have done before her.
Maybe she could have taken a semester or a year off, and worked, and saved the money for school.
Maybe she could have researched job fields and the appropriate education for some fields, and studied something which would have put her in line to get a decent job after graduation.
I don’t have the answers for this girl, but I do have a lot of questions that she should have been asking over the past ten years.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child!—The Bard
Why would I give a flying flop about her? I put my self through college by working and doing a military tour to get the GI bill because my father couldn’t afford to help. My sons couldn’t get scholarships because they weren’t a minority and they were male (their counselors told them that)and what college credits they’ve earned they have done mostly on their own. Again, I don’t give a flying flop about your petty personal problems or delusions about who owes you what; the rest of us owe you NOTHING!
The line that really removed any consideration for the whiney bitch was referring to herself as a US born latina. She makes it clear that she considers herself hispanic first and American second, if at all.
Piss on her, her parents and any spawn.
“At 17, I never could have dreamed that my parents’ promises were lies. “
good to know you consider your parents liars...my dad offered to do what he could to help pay my college but also said i was going to have to take out loans- which i did and paid back in full....
I knew some people in High School that had all A’s, but no problem solving skills. They were essentially hard working parrots. Just regurgitation of facts with no deep understanding.
If you make even 20 grand a year, you can still pay off a student loan. You might have to move back home for a couple of years and it might be the only pleasure you have in life, but it can be done.
Give me a break.
That struck me as vile also. I guess that that there was no chance that her parents were misinformed, or that college costs have spiraled wildly out of control.
I only hope that the author just chose her words poorly, and doesn't really think her parents deliberately lied to her.
>>Sneer all you want. Our economy is stilted by students suffocating underneath such huge loans which cannot be discharged even in bankruptcy court! <<
Boo freaking hoo. They knew what they were getting into when they received the loans. How about getting a single degree, then a J-O-B? That is the way it used to be. Nowadays it is just like with this foolish girl: 10 years, 2 degrees, no skills, no job.
That is like fat people blaming the owner of the all you can eat buffet for their obesity.
And I repeat: any loan forgiveness had better be retroactive to the 1970s.
I wonder if she would have had the same debt load if she had gone to a state university.
Miss Horton should be getting a call from Obama in 5..4..3.....
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