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I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

benjaminlabaschin.com

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Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#41

Post by jqpabc123 »

tivert wrote: post #17
jqpabc123 wrote: post #6

The cost of higher education has been increasing at 3-4x inflation for decades. It has finally nullified any socio-economic advantage it once held as evidenced by the large number of graduates unable to repay their student loans. The solution --- stop steering your kids toward college. AI is working toward eliminating many of these "careers" in the near future anyway. Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A bu…

> It has finally nullified any socio-economic advantage it once held as evidenced by the large number of graduates unable to repay their student loans. I think you're over-reacting to some anecdotes. > The solution --- stop steering your kids toward college. AI is working toward eliminating many of these "careers" in the near future anyway. > Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A business as simple as landsc…

Also it doesn't seem super wise, period, to advise your kid to go into some low skill/low capital business, then expect them to magically make a successful small business out of it.

Any less wise than sending them to some diploma mill and expecting them to make a successful career out of it once they are saddled with debt?

Student loan debt is approaching $2 trillion with over 22 million borrowers. Everybody and his brother has bought a degree which makes one not all that special in the current economy.

Degree or not, success in today's environment is highly dependent on personal initiative. I personally know plumbers and landscapers and roofers and delivery drivers who are *very* successful --- mainly because they multiple their skills by hiring others. I also know plenty of college grads who work low skilled service jobs.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#42

Post by dragonwriter »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15
Workaccount2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College definitely has historically paid off, people have just been impatient with the return timeline. The fruits of a degree don't start to really manifest until your 30's, assuming you got a practical degree. They become undeniable by your 50's. Going forward though, I think the combination of AI and extreme degree dilution (everybody has a degree) are going to absolutely railroad a bunch of gen-z kids down the li…

It is not the timeline that is the problem, but the volatility. Getting a degree is no guarantee you will be able to obtain a job that will allow you to pay off the loan while maintaining a quality of life somewhere near "basic needs met." So you're throwing yourself at a credential that businesses use as an application checkbox and hoping for the best. That's a lot of debt to incur the name of hope.

> Getting a degree is no guarantee you will be able to obtain a job that will allow you to pay off the loan while maintaining a quality of life somewhere near "basic needs met."

With recent changes to the income-based repayment terms on federal loans, and if, like the vast majority of loan-dependent students those are your only loans, its pretty close (and, at worst, if yo can’t the repayment won’t cost anything.)

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#43

Post by yurishimo »

anon7331 wrote: post #27

I paid off ~65K in student debt in one year (first year as a developer)... it's totally doable, especially in the USA.

I wouldn't say 65k per year is doable for _most people_. It's easy to forget how privileged we are with developer salaries. Most people end school with student loan amounts roughly to one year's salary. Assuming you pay 25% of your income towards the loans, that's still a 3-5 year payoff assuming raises and low inflation.

Congratulations on your achievement though! Being debt free is not normal anymore and it comes with a surprising amount benefits in other areas of your life.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#44

Post by jve »

The chart is weird/misleading: https://benjaminlabaschin.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/gar...

Drawing $17xx bar and slapping $1494,97 onto it... whereas other bars match the label with the height.

I just couldn't parse how $1,4xx - $1,4yy would end up $408,56. And then in the text there is a number not charted: $1902 to just add to confusion, but OK, that's not what you get on hand.

And then "$1106.42 per month, my public loans $387.02. Altogether, I would owe $1493.22" - the sum is actually .44

Author should fix something.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#45

Post by arethuza »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #6

The cost of higher education has been increasing at 3-4x inflation for decades. It has finally nullified any socio-economic advantage it once held as evidenced by the large number of graduates unable to repay their student loans. The solution --- stop steering your kids toward college. AI is working toward eliminating many of these "careers" in the near future anyway. Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A bu…

"The cost of higher education has been increasing at 3-4x inflation for decades."

Well, the CS degree I got in the UK in the 1980s cost me literally nothing - no fees and a full grant for living expenses (which I added to by working in the summer breaks).

Given the amount of tax I've paid, that was an excellent investment by the UK taxpayer!

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#46

Post by tayo42 »

gspencley wrote: post #26
tivert wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has finally nullified any socio-economic advantage it once held as evidenced by the large number of graduates unable to repay their student loans. I think you're over-reacting to some anecdotes. > The solution --- stop steering your kids toward college. AI is working toward eliminating many of these "careers" in the near future anyway. > Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A business as simple as landsc…

IMHO the more reasonable reaction is to take an objective look at what you want to do with your life and a hard look at what the requirements are for achieving that. Some fields require a post-secondary education. You can't get around that. If you want to be an engineer or a doctor, you need to go that route. In that case, I agree with you. Look for more affordable options and figure out how to meet the requirements…

> at what you want to do with your life

Your asking 16, 17 and 18 year olds without any life experience outside of high school to do that though.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#47

Post by tivert »

gspencley wrote: post #26
tivert wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has finally nullified any socio-economic advantage it once held as evidenced by the large number of graduates unable to repay their student loans. I think you're over-reacting to some anecdotes. > The solution --- stop steering your kids toward college. AI is working toward eliminating many of these "careers" in the near future anyway. > Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A business as simple as landsc…

IMHO the more reasonable reaction is to take an objective look at what you want to do with your life and a hard look at what the requirements are for achieving that. Some fields require a post-secondary education. You can't get around that. If you want to be an engineer or a doctor, you need to go that route. In that case, I agree with you. Look for more affordable options and figure out how to meet the requirements…

One thing you and the OP are not accounting for is social status and flexibility.

A lot of people will judge you for not having a college degree, and choosing not to get one will put you in a position of either having to just accept that or work harder to prove yourself (and you may not even be given that chance).

Also choosing to forsake a degree just plain blocks off a lot of paths. Say, in your late 20s, you decide landscaping ain't for you, and you want to become a doctor. If you never bothered to get an undergrad degree because if some impression that the direct value wasn't worth it (e.g. I don't need those "networking connections"), making the switch got a lot harder: you're going to start from square one, at a life stage where that will be more difficult. If you already have a degree, you can get in the position to take the MCATs and by rocking a semester and change worth of basic science classes. Landscaper -> doctor is a pretty extreme example, but the same situation applies to other areas. I know developers who switched careers from other fields. I don't think they'd have been given the chance if they went high school -> landscaping -> coding bootcamp. Even (early in my career), I knew one developer (who was pretty good), but only had a 2 year associates degree, and the fact that he lacked a 4 year degree hobbled him in many ways.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#48

Post by willcipriano »

zeroCalories wrote: post #38

That's pretty good, congratulations. I don't mean to suggest you did the wrong thing, but I want to share a perspective from one of my friends. She has a similar amount of debt, and is simply choosing to make minimum payments for the rest of her life, maybe even default at some point. She says that spending her money on herself while she is young enough to enjoy it is more important than living frugally for decades t…

Encourage them to get a trade.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#49

Post by dijit »

runako wrote: post #30
dijit wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah c'mon, this must be some kind of fallacy of which I'm unaware of. I am in position where I would be able to pay that amount down (averaged over 10y) with the same QoL; however I do not have a degree and I live in Europe which pays significantly under what the US does. People keep forgetting that we (and OP) got obscenely lucky in our industry. We are very well compensated compared to our contemporaries; but if any…

> I am in position where I would be able to pay that amount down (averaged over 10y) with the same QoL; however I do not have a degree. Bully for you! You are an outlier. Your employer may also be an outlier. That's wonderful for you, but it is irresponsible to recommend to any young person that they bet their futures on being able to 1) find 2) when they are hiring 3) and click with the hiring manager an outlier fir…

Unsure mate, if you have to pay $200k to get your foot in the door then the system is rigged in favour of the elite (again).

I think you're suffering a bit from sunk cost fallacy and a little bit of "got mine", there's absolutely no reason to continue this.

I (and practically all of my friends) may be outliers, but if nothing else it's proof that you can do highly specialised jobs with vocational education.

As mentioned, higher education has massive value to society, but if it is product that forces you into a considerably unfavourable economic position from the beginning of your career, and certainly not as a gate for establishing yourself to employers -- that it has been used that way does not mean that it's a good idea.

There are many stupid things we do as a society, like changing our clocks backwards and forwards every year; the only reason it continues is inertia and our stubbornness to change.

Re: I Paid Off $194k in Student Loans in Six Years. It Wasn’t Easy

#50

Post by somenameforme »

runako wrote: post #20
zer8k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you made all the right choices. You spent $200k on a degree which awarded you a job that allowed you (with some expected struggle) to pay it off. Congratulations.

Bingo. This is the counterpoint to the "college is dead" crowd. OP is now 30 and has a career that will let him save/invest $200k every 6 years (before any future raises).

The "college is dead" crowd generally refer to people pursuing majors with no reasonable impact on their earnings, which is the overwhelming majority of people. Somebody who goes to school and decides to major in sociology because they find the classes fun, isn't going to be repaying their $200k of debt anytime soon.
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