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More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

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Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#391

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 second bcook's response.

I have a good friend of mine who moved locally from the Kansas City area. He was a union carpenter, electrician, and framer there, so he approached our union hall. They snagged him up the same day, and was out on site the next.

He has full benefits. 401k, insurance, vacation, sick pay, etc... And he works for the union hall. He decides the radius where he works, and gets paid 38-52k year, depending on the specifics of the job.

Contracts last here from 6 months-2 years, just because there is that much work available.

I've honestly given thought going down that path, purely because everywhere needs construction. It's damn useful for houses to high rises.

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a big beauraucric .gov. We had a guy who majored in robotics and was one of the best programmers hired in some time. (Iirc, he had some health challenges that made getting underpaid attractive) He got demoted to some horrible computer operator position because an audit of HR revealed his degree, and the auditors found that robotics wasn't computer sciencey enough. The union grieved it and he was eventually…

God bless the union. Exactly the kind of thing they're for.

Better yet to fire HR.

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#393
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's a bit more nuanced isn't it? - Oh of course you're going to college, only losers don't go to college. + But I have to take out loans. - Yep, par for the course. So you're getting peer and parental pressure to get higher education, and in effect make a pretty questionable business decision: it's effectively a modern version of indentured servitude.

Tell them to go to a European university. It's almost free, a lot of countries offer courses in English, they get to see Europe, and even if the living costs are higher, it's not going to be 6 digits expensive/they'd get an education plus a few years adventure for that money.

I agree with your general advice, but I'd add on that university education in the UK is expensive (though not as expensive as the US), so they should be prepared to learn another language (for life outside the University course).

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#395
post #379
post #353

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Really, according to government & the fed unemployment is pretty close to it's lowest in 10 years : https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATE Likewise, what are these people who can't find jobs doing ? They're not asking for unemployment benefits ... https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IC4WSA

They've been out of work too long to qualify for unemployment...

Sorry I'm not actually an American. You lose unemployment after being unemployed for too long ? How long ?

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#396

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Is it necessary for the 17-year old to fully grasp what he's getting into and how to deal with it? The point of an education loan is that it will pay to mature the young person and provide him with the capital necessary to become educated about how to handle debt. And more specifically to obtain skills and experience that can be converted to a prosperous career which allows him to repay what he owes. If a college gra…

The kicker to me is that you can't drink till you're 21; look at porn, buy cigarettes, or consent to sex with an adult until you're 18... but you can sign a federal promissory note for "super debt" that will fuck up your life and the lives of your next of kin.

> consent to sex with an adult until you're 18

Holy shit, there are places in the USA where you have to be 18 to have sex. TIL.

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education on the individual level just doesn't work. People are too dumb. (I had the pleasure of rereading this recently: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-real... ) Those that aren't too dumb lack personal responsibility, which is a separate problem I fully agree is pretty big, so more education might fix that, but that's sort of something you can't learn from a book, and arguably the game of c…

"Education on the individual level just doesn't work. People are too dumb." Honestly, If this is the case, drugs should never be fully legalized. People just can't handle the responsibility. Will addiction be the fault of the company that sold it to you? "and arguably the game of chicken at teaching responsibility by making it illegal to discharge student loans in bankruptcy has just made things worse." It hasn't rea…

You don't even know what you're talking about. Just about every sentence you wrote has some misconception in it.

> Honestly, If this is the case, drugs should never be fully legalized. People just can't handle the responsibility. Will addiction be the fault of the company that sold it to you?

Clearly people can't handle that responsibility. That's why we have alcoholic and tobacco quitting programs and taxation to fund those programs along with education and educational advertising. It's done wonders to get people to quit.

> It hasn't really made things worse. If it wasn't illegal to discharge loans, students would know full well that they most likely would never have to pay it back and just declare bankruptcy when they graduated. That would be a much worse situation for our economy. On top of this, banks would never even take on these loans knowing full well that they would probably never get their money back.

Why is that? It never hurt the economy before. Banks stop giving out loans to uneducated idiots with no care in the world and no intention or ability to be able to pay it back? Banks not giving out loans for schools that couldn't even teach a monkey to do tricks? Oh the horror!

> The student debt problem has been bad for at least a decade. Students continue to knowingly put themselves in this position and then cry afoul when they can't pay the debt back. Lack of knowledge is no longer an excuse. Anybody with half a brain and an Internet connection can clearly see the risks (and nearly everyone now is connected to the Internet 24/7 through their phone).

A decade? You mean the exact amount of time all student (federally or otherwise) loans have been unforgivable? It's precisely why colleges no longer care to educate, and instead scam kids of every dime they have. In every angle, they get scammed, from student apartments (in my town, a shocking 2x the normal cost of a single bedroom apartment), to book stores, where you can't buy your books online with your own loan until after classes start, unless you buy them from the book store at 3 times the Amazon cost, to the classes themselves. These, by the way, are young kids who have no experience, and are told by the grownups who educate them that this is some kind of great deal for them. If course they keep getting scammed, it's a fresh batch every year!

> I see it more as a millennial problem: the culture is to no longer take responsibilities for your own actions and blame others for all of your failures.

It's too bad it's the 40+ year olds that have done all this scamming on their younger generation.

> I can't see this working out with the current climate, unless it completely ruins the intent of a university.

Yes, the conservative christian climate.

> When I was in college, I met many people that really had no business being there (didn't care, didn't put the effort in, or just couldn't handle any of the subjects). With the dumbing down of the SATs and many other measures to make it easier to get into school not based on academics, it seems we are well on our way to ruining our institutions. The ultimate form of anti-intellectualism.

This is entirely caused by the student loan situation and all the parents/teachers stressing their kids to go.

What have I told my son? that student loans are a real form of slavery, and to not take them for any reason. Either pay your own way or don't bother going. If you do go, you'll probably get ripped off unless you go for an engineering, lawyer, or doctor degree.

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#398
post #160

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They have the choice to get a degree that actually makes money, not Studies or Art History.

Being indoctrinated with, "it doesn't matter what the degree is in, just that you have one," absolves them of at least some of the responsibility.

That, as well as a highly linked issue right now that people at the end of their careers are still hanging in the workforce because they can't afford to retire. I think normally if you didn't have 2008, that adage about "just get a degree" might have still rung true. It's not like kids without degrees are making out like bandits in the job market -- it's just that outside of a few lucky / strategic fields, the jobs aren't there.

Which is also why blaming kids sucks for them, because theyre about the least culpable members of society for the macroeconomic conditions that landed them in this predicament.

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people make this kind of assessment they seem to be implying that because a college education is less surefire than it used to be, that it's useless. This is demonstrably false, and a college education is still the best bet a person can make on his or her future. In the same breath people say "all our manufacturing jobs went to China" and "why not go to a vocational school and pick up welding?"

Are you really sure that "a college education is still the best bet a person can make on his or her future" ? College education has quite a lot of worth, but that worth is much less than it used to be and the price is much more than it used to be. A degree that has some value is useless if obtaining it costs you twice as much as that value.

Well, the ROI calculations still often say it is still worthwhile – for example: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600131-too-man... (which cites: http://www.payscale.com/college-roi )

Re: More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments

#400
post #350

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I hear what you're saying, but bankruptcy is most certainly a bailout relative to debtors prison.

That's an interesting perspective, but the U.S.A. does not have debtors' prison. Only bad loans that are not repaid.

Yeah. Historically society has sent people to prison for failing to pay. Today we allow for bankruptcy, which is relatively better.
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