361–370 of 441 posts
Let's just admit those three facts, and then we can start to have sane policy discussions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious, what are you doing now? What did you intent to major in/did you end up majoring in?
I'm a software engineer now. I majored in math. I've literally had recruiters tell me they couldn't offer me an interview because I didn't study "computers," including once at a college career fair. I wanted to tell that woman about the people who invented computers, but I held my tongue as she threw my résumé back at me.
I've worked with software engineers senior to myself who had B.A.s or Ph.D.'s in math and no degrees with the letters C and S in them, including a few younger, fairly recent graduates.
I do have the magical letters "CS" in my degree, but I also have a second major in mathematics. While I must confess I hardly use a fraction of the math I studied on a daily basis and have forgotten most of it, it has served me well and there have been numerous times I would have been lost without it.
Pardon, but you seem a little bitter. I suspect you have no idea how good you have it, compared to say, most graduates with a degree in humanities from an expensive liberal arts college.
All that being said, if your intended career path is software engineering, I would tend to agree that studying software engineering is the best education to prepare for it.
A big takeaway from this article (for me) is that people are surprised that 17 year old kids don't understand what they're doing when they take out that college loan. Shock and astonishment despite there being little to no preparation for this kind of financial understanding previously in their education. That surprise and shock shocks and surprises me. Honestly it kind of reminds me of the whole Yelp minimum wage th…
What should really be surprising about the Yelp thing is that Yelp didn't understand what would happen. A company that spends money to recruit and train a member of staff but doesn't pay them enough to stay in their job is just throwing money away. That a company the size of Yelp can't see this really obvious situation arising is amazing. I'm surprised their HR people don't get fired over it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My loans average 7%. Federal.
I had a similar problem - I was around 7.8%. I refinanced (with Earnest, though SoFi and others provide similar service) and got it down to 4.71. Increased my payment a bit, and cut my term down by more than a decade. Now, just 117 more payments to go.
My British student loan, from the government, is currently at 0.9%. It's never been more than 5%. I have cash I could use to pay it off, but it earns more interest in a savings account. (And may be useful if I want an extra £12000 towards a house at some point.)
http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the 90s, some unsubsidized loans where north of 9%. I was the oldest of the brood, and my parents didn't have any money, so I chose to go to SUNY whatever for something like $8k/year. Graduated with $1,200 in debt, for my apartment deposit and repairs to my ancient car. MANY of my friends who went to prestigious private schools got bait and switched on aid in their sophomore year and got stuck with loans that they…
My parents didn't have college money set aside for me either, but even if they did, I don't think I would have taken it. I would take it if I had a rich father, but mine wasen't. He liked to brag he was a well paid union electrician, but we seemed to barely get by. After taxes, and my mom's depression shopping. (She didn't spent much, but she needed to buy something everyday. She was clinically depressed before peopl…
I assume you never worked construction? As someone living in a rural area, working outside, staying physically fit (honestly a huge factor for me), working in a different place (all local) every 6-months to 2-years, making a minimum of ~$35K (and more as you learn more skills and management know-how) is not so bad.
I'm not saying education is bad, not at all. I am saying be careful what you disparage...
Thats how its supposed to work, in the UK at least. Student Loans are like a distributed tax that only gets paid by the grads who earn enough to repay. edit: Also, in the UK, once you do earn enough, payment is automatic via deductions from payslips.
So the UK is basically subsidizing worthless degrees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think everyone who has gained an education should then be burdened by an inescapable bondage to a particular high-paying career? What if they decided they would rather be a teacher? A musician and band director? A serial backpacker? What if they are injured and can no longer take the 40, 50, 60 hours in a chair at the office it would require to maintain the level of salary? Just because a college degree is oft…
If you want to go to a very competitive school like MIT, probably. Generally the "best" schools are those that have better access to good professors, and resources that the brightest can best take advantage of. Now you can be bright and not want to make a lot of money out of MIT, but generally the assumption is that in capitalism if it is valuable it is worth money, and if you go into a job that pays a lot you are do…
Another top-school engineering graduate I know spent 5 years building water facilities (pumps, wells etc) in Africa.
> The Education Department has assembled a “behavioral sciences unit” to study the psychology of borrowers and why they don’t repay. Ha! There is a bit of a hypocrisy there -- if big banks / companies piss away money and choose to strategically default then (and some even get bail-outs), it is just business. If people do it for whatever reason, well clearly the are immoral, deficient somehow, their psychology needs t…
The TARP bailout was not money just handed out to banks. It was loans to banking and other industries which was repaid in full overall. And in fact it was the auto industry which failed to repay the loan, not the banking industry. I'm not a fan of the financial sector but let's keep the facts straight here
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should just be normal debt that you can discharge through bankruptcy. I think doing that would likely result in no loans for many students or at least higher interest rates. Hell, if I were 22 with $100K in student loan debt to be discharged, I'd be silly not to declare bankruptcy.
It's not clear to me that this would be a bad thing.