31–40 of 83 posts
“MFA in creative writing” The article should be titled “The Absurdity of Useless Degrees”. It’s a very different calculus for someone taking out loans for an engineering degree.
By reading strictly your sentence, I sense a definition of useful as "the way to repay a big debt".
Learning for the sake of learning is great, but not if it costs more money than you have.
My own personal experience with bad debt was my own fault, so I have a habit of blaming the person who willfully enters into debt; I opened a credit card as a young man without understanding the system, racked up huge balances, was eaten alive by interest and was forced to go into collection and settle. That effectively crushed my credit for 8 years. I did however learn a ton and was able to rebuild my credit. My children won't have to learn the hard way, unless they choose (operative word) to ignore the lessons I had to endure.
So without blaming the author for their own actions and writing it off as a "you should've known better"; Is the greater problem these days of a predatory nature by lenders, ignorance (willful or not), or a complete lack of education about an education? Or perhaps D. All of the above.
“MFA in creative writing” The article should be titled “The Absurdity of Useless Degrees”. It’s a very different calculus for someone taking out loans for an engineering degree.
By reading strictly your sentence, I sense a definition of useful as "the way to repay a big debt".
Just don't pay. It is shocking that people feel compelled to repay crooked loans issued by crooked banks run by people who are just playing a game of who can steal the most.
Student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy after 10 years post-graduation (and not fully guaranteed past a certain amount, say $10K or $20K) -- hear me out. The common reason student loans are NOT allowed to be dischargeable is because, in the minute after graduating and without collateral, the student can declare bankruptcy with no effect (the vast majority are not buying a house within the time it would ta…
I'm pretty sure my local high schools cost of administration haven't gone up 237% like colleges the last 20 or so years.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-co...
What angers me the most about debt like this is people often take on far more debt than they need for a degree. For example, going to a university in a different country/state where they cannot get any of the scholarships intended for residents. Another one a lot of my friends have done is going to a university that is substantially more expensive for very little gain. Another common one is renting student housing wh…
I suspect it's the same thing as when buying a house. The numbers are too big and become just numbers, without a corresponding value. 10K more or less doesn't seem to matter all that much, while in other cases one might agonize over a $50 price difference.
When people like Gillette take on debt, why is there never minimal cost-benefit analysis? Or do they ignore it? It's refreshing to read a reflection like hers.
> is there never minimal cost-benefit analysis? Of course not. A huge portion of the population has essentially no understanding of finances, which is why they need to do things like call to ask why their loan balance is going up. Worse, there is a feeling of helplessness when finances seem like a mystery, hence in this case actually needing someone else to tell them to call and ask. This is why the cries of “free ma…
It troubles me that topics like this usually turn into FUD about the 1% instead of recognizing government interference and subsidation as the problem. The parable of the scorpion and frog [1] is exactly relevant. I wish Americans would stop shouting for more government to fix problems the government created in the first place. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog?wp...
Just don't pay. It is shocking that people feel compelled to repay crooked loans issued by crooked banks run by people who are just playing a game of who can steal the most.
Outrageous student loan debt, and the lack of means to pay for them after spending, has been an issue for at least 10 years now and has been thoroughly documented. It shouldn't be a mystery to anyone at this point, and it's baffling why people are still taking on these large debt loads for degrees and programs which don't have a snowball's chance in hell of paying off the debt in a reasonable amount of time. My own p…
I ended up with a decent bit of debt for stupid reasons (e.g. never filed for residency so essentially paid double for college), but was able to dig out pretty easily due to high income. Most people who make stupid decisions can’t dig themselves out easily.