Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

benjaminlabaschin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 104 posts

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

#51

Post by jakelazaroff »

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…

> Instead, orient them toward entrepreneurism. A business as simple as landscaping or construction can be just as financially rewarding as being a corporate desk jockey ... and even more so in some cases.

The key word is "can". About 20% of businesses will fail in a year; about half will fail in five [1]. That means that unless everyone is a serial entrepreneur, most entrepreneurs will still end up needing to work a "traditional" job for most of their careers.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt

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

#52

Post by tigeroil »

jcpst wrote: post #23
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…

That doesn’t work for everyone though. I work for an employer because I don’t want to spend time running a business. It’s just not worth it for a lot of us. I don’t even ever want to be a manager. I’d rather just put in my 40 hours as an individual contributor and then have the remainder of my time to do whatever I need/want.

I feel like this is a massively underappreciated view in general.

I always see people talking about how brilliant it is to run your own business / be your own boss, but I think there's immense value in just finishing and going home at the end of the day.

I say this as a director of a SaaS company...

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

#53

Post by testbjjl »

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…

> But she has also considered marrying, then being a stay at home mom or working under the table jobs so that she can default without getting her wages garnished.

This is not what I would be looking for in a partner. If you brazenly break contracts you willingly entered one day what’s to make anyone believe their contract with you is nonnegotiable.

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

#54

Post by tivert »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #41
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…

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…

> 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?

Come on. Did you even read my comment that you replied to? I said point them "towards a decent but unprestigious state school," that is not "some diploma mill ... [that will leave them] 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.

What you don't seem to understand that "everybody has it" != no longer needed. It just means that it's table stakes instead of a guarantee of success.

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

#55

Post by zeroCalories »

willcipriano wrote: post #48
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.

And if they want to go to college we're back to the original problem. Either help them, or leave them to fend for themselves.

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

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

The average starting salary for a college graduate in the USA is less than that, and most graduates have non-negative other costs, so, no, your outlier description is not representative of what is doable generally in the USA.

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

#57

Post by runako »

dijit wrote: post #49
runako wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mentio…

> I think you're suffering a bit from sunk cost fallacy and a little bit of "got mine"

No, the youth I typically advise are from the types of backgrounds that need every advantage to get the good jobs. They don't "pattern match" the other staff, so they have to compensate by looking better on paper. I have 100% seen people walk into jobs without any credentials; I have not seen anyone do it who doesn't look like management.

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

Should have added that this number is also an outlier. OP possibly works on a team with people who were all-in for $60k over 4 years (in-state tuition, living at home). The giant public university in my city has an average cost after aid of under $20k annually (including room & board). Living at home, a student could make a dent in that working at an amusement park over the summer.

Some people choose a luxury experience, which is fine. But most students don't go to those colleges.

But yes, college is too expensive. We should resume amply funding state universities.

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

#58

Post by willcipriano »

zeroCalories wrote: post #55
willcipriano wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encourage them to get a trade.

And if they want to go to college we're back to the original problem. Either help them, or leave them to fend for themselves.

They probably want to eat candy for dinner as well.

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

#59

Post by tivert »

baron816 wrote: post #28
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…

People’s perceptions of college costs have been skewed by 1) tuition sticker prices, which really don’t reflect what most students pay and, 2) the media reporting on student debt and inflated college costs. I think #2 is made worse because it tends to be young journalists writing those stories from places like Brooklyn after having graduated from a journalism masters program at NYU or Columbia. Yeah, they’re going to…

> I think #2 is made worse because it tends to be young journalists writing those stories from places like Brooklyn after having graduated from a journalism masters program at NYU or Columbia. Yeah, they’re going to have lots of student debt, high living costs, and low-ish income, and their reporting is going to reflect that.

That's a very good point. Our perception is significantly influenced by the biases of the people whose jobs are to give us things to attend to. That can inflate the obsessions of those people way out of proportion to their objective size.

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

#60

Post by zeroCalories »

testbjjl wrote: post #53
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…

> But she has also considered marrying, then being a stay at home mom or working under the table jobs so that she can default without getting her wages garnished. This is not what I would be looking for in a partner. If you brazenly break contracts you willingly entered one day what’s to make anyone believe their contract with you is nonnegotiable.

Dunno about that. Many people have a hostile view of large institutions. They view scamming them as getting what they deserve.
Post reply on HN