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Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

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51–60 of 238 posts

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shareholder capitalism. they have zero accountability except to their shareholders. Random thought that just came to mind. Have coalition of debt holders (borrowers ) ever considered buying stock in these companies to influence them in the form of another company that is jointly owned or invested in by thousands or tens of thousands of folks? Eg, mass activism campaign launches request for everyone to invest X% of…

the combined assets of the entire class of student debtors is probably NEGATIVE (they are debtors, remember) whereas the assets of even a single major shareholder (Carl Icahn as a benchmark) are in the billions of dollars and outweigh the rest of it combined. this is one of the side effects of the massive income and wealth inequality American style capitalism causes.

Present assests- probably, but when taken over a longer time scale this makes increasing sense. many folks with >100k debt usually have several grad degrees , medical, engineering, law, etc, & whether annualized or summed, their future earnings may be productively invested into an advocacy campaign which would not only benefit them but others who have less natural income cushion and thus less of a parachute.

Individual mega-investors are no doubt powerful, but what about investor collectives. if a single company and/or entity can take on even 1/10th the power of Icahn collectively, it is something worth considering.

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#52

> There is no expectation that the servicer will act in the interest of the consumer... Navient says its public statements encouraging borrowers to contact the company didn’t mean it would act in their best interest. So, pardon in advance for the vulgar language, but why the fuck is this OK? From any company? I'm getting real damn sick and tired of "what the big print gives, the spidery print takes away" and how we'r…

> So, pardon in advance for the vulgar language, but why the fuck is this OK? From any company?

Because that's the default rule when it comes to arm's-length transactions in the economy? Unless there is a special relationship (e.g. doctor-patient), everyone takes care of their end of the transaction. The government offers very generous loan repayment options for student borrowers. It's Navient's job to collect payments, which helps keep the whole system solvent and lowers interest rates for other borrowers. Why should it be its job to help borrowers figure out their repayment options?

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be helpful (though very difficult) if we could isolate the branding/signaling value of certain colleges from the education/training value of colleges, to ascertain the nature of the return on investment value that is being derived from colleges or varying statures, locations, etc. "What we are buying" through 4 years of college seems to be getting less and less clear to me, and the administrators are very mu…

The Department of Education has stats on the average salary after graduation at many institutions (realize this is only a weak proxy for the signals you want, but is at least correlated). You can play with, and download, their data here: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

Just looked up the school I dropped out of. I made >2x in my first year of dropping out than what it says is average salary for new graduates. Suckers.

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#54

It's mind-blowing how the majority of high school students are lied to each year about the ROI of college. The internet has re-written the rules, and high school educators don't know how to teach that. I would have benefited so much more from a program that taught how to be self-sufficient and the major, major benefits of living debt free. Context: $150k in student loans - lucky enough to have an electrical engineeri…

I don't have much to add but that it's nice to see comments from someone in the same situation as me. When I was growing up, I was basically told that an undergrad STEM degree was a golden ticket, and when I asked about how such an expensive tuition could be worth it, I was told time and time again that I would make more than enough money to pay it off. Turns out I make just enough money to keep up with my minimum payments, but not enough to keep up with terrible interest rates on 100k+ of debt and pay rent.

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#55
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm getting real damn sick and tired of "what the big print gives, the spidery print takes away" I propose "the bigger the print, the stronger the statement". Therefore, if you make one claim in 24 point and then attempt to rescind or modify it in 8 point, the 24 is legally binding because it was larger and so nullified the smaller. This also means that if you want to place limitations (like 'one per customer' etc)…

Brilliant idea

[deleted]

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#57

It's mind-blowing how the majority of high school students are lied to each year about the ROI of college. The internet has re-written the rules, and high school educators don't know how to teach that. I would have benefited so much more from a program that taught how to be self-sufficient and the major, major benefits of living debt free. Context: $150k in student loans - lucky enough to have an electrical engineeri…

It's not just the internet. It's also a question of supply and demand. Supply is up; demand is down. ROI on college can be quite good, but you have to pick the right major - "have a college degree" won't get you too far any more unless you're planning to work for the government.

One of the big problems is structural changes in the legal business. It used to be if you didn't have a very marketable undergraduate degree you would go to law school. But discovery work that used to be the bread and butter of newly minted lawyers is now being done by computers.

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#58

While I appreciate that people are sour about student debt, I don't think Navient, qua big business, should behave in any other way. I personally think public universities should be free and highly selective, rather than the opposite. But I also think taking out loans with no plan to repay them is criminally stupid. If the education product being sold is fraudulent, go after the fraudulent institution (as has been do…

> privatizing The core of the issue is still the university tuition rates, and universities involved are usually not privatized. These public institutions have become profit centers, benefiting from the captive audience of young career seekers, and cranking up administration overhead costs in their budgets to absorb the increased amounts of loan money available to prospective students. Loans are always hardball busin…

It's a vicious cycle imo. (cheap money -> higher tuition -> political pressure for more cheaper money -> ...)

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#59

Everyone, if you are with any major big loan lender, please consider refinancing under So-Fi or others.

I've heard you lose a lot of rights refinancing that way.

Really? Any links/citations/posts? Curious about this.

Also debatable as to whether you had those rights in the first place (see: this thread)

Re: Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the combined assets of the entire class of student debtors is probably NEGATIVE (they are debtors, remember) whereas the assets of even a single major shareholder (Carl Icahn as a benchmark) are in the billions of dollars and outweigh the rest of it combined. this is one of the side effects of the massive income and wealth inequality American style capitalism causes.

Present assests- probably, but when taken over a longer time scale this makes increasing sense. many folks with >100k debt usually have several grad degrees , medical, engineering, law, etc, & whether annualized or summed, their future earnings may be productively invested into an advocacy campaign which would not only benefit them but others who have less natural income cushion and thus less of a parachute. Individu…

there is asymmetry of purpose as well as asymmetry of net worth. an individual mega investor spends as much as he (or she, but lets be honest, its almost always he) wants on anything at all. a class of several tens of thousands of investors in a collective will struggle with their decision making in all the expected ways.
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