Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I paid off my loans 8 years ago. But I support the forgiveness because I am not a sociopath who wants other people to suffer because I did.
Also my college was much cheaper by virtue of me going in a more favorable time.
When I was in the military, we had the concept of "one-time good deal." Sometimes a window of opportunity opens; some people are in the right time and place to take advantage of it, some aren't. Oh, well. Take the educational benefits of the GI Bill for instance. Those have changed from "war to war," better for the veterans of some wars, not as good for the veterans of others. But you won't usually hear, for instance, a Vietnam war veteran like me protesting a bill that provides an Afghanistan veteran a better deal that I got. We accepted it philosophically.
People who live in anger over others from getting a one-time good deal doom themselves to a mean life.
When I was in college in 1972, my tuition was $25 per credit hour. Minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. I had a part-time job making $2.50 an hour. I could pay off my tuition by the middle of the semester. Today at that same university, tuition is $400 per credit hour. A student would have to make $40 an hour part time to do as well as I did in 1972.
So there’s agreement that student loans lead to bad financial circumstances for a large population… so what restrictions are they implementing, alongside the debt cancellation, to reduce the negative impact these loans have? After all, ‘forgiveness’ implies wrongdoing… so shouldn’t the focus also be on reducing the occurrence of wrongdoing in the first place?
It wouldn't bother me if current student loans were forgiven up to $50,000 because I see the government as being in cahoots with the banking industry and the education industry in luring kids into them with "get a college degree by any means possible or your life will be *****" indoctrination from K-12, then locking them into practically Mafia-style loans with interest continually rising and fees added to the balances seemingly at random. They offer "grant" programs that have such arcane and complex rules that most people, sooner or later, make a mistake and suddenly the "grant" turns into a loan with years of unpaid interest tacked on. The Mafia wishes they had that racket.
But I think any bill to forgive college loans must also come with some very significant simultaneous changes in the loan process. The government has to break away from the banking and education industries; this is just a racket.
First, the loans should be disposable in bankruptcy like any other debt. That will force banks to approve or disapprove them according to the creditworthiness of the borrower like any other debt. Lenders should look at things like the future earning capability of the intended major and the student's current class standing.
Second, the government should acknowledge the fact that a bachelor's degree is not for most people. Most people should be in advanced technological training, which the government ought to promote and support as vigorously as it has been supporting bachelor's degrees.
Third, we ought to look seriously into the government simply financing college for many students in public colleges. That doesn't even need new money--the federal government already spends more money in grant programs than public colleges collect in tuition. But that should also come with some requirements for which degrees get such funding...degrees in proportion to the public need to students who seem best able to achieve them. In other words, government scholarships to government schools done more broadly. Actually, that's rather a return to what many states used to do.
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 08-26-2022 at 11:07 AM..
Not exactly. The government is passing the debt from individual borrowers over to the taxpayers.
Much of what people have been paying is just the interest. I've paid more than my loans were and my balance continues to grow because the interest keeps compounding. The payments are applied to interest first. Not a dime has been applied to my principle. I paid for over 10 years! The interest I now owe is double the amount of the loan. I've made more than double the minimum payments and still gotten nowhere. My family pays far more in federal income tax every single year than the $10K I'm getting my loans reduced by. Were you upset over forgiving the PPL loans? Bailing out the auto, bank, or airline industries? Defense spending? Funds we send overseas? Corporations not paying their fair share of taxes?
1) Here is a list of 500 undone government or school related tasks, which match your degree skillset.
2) Here is the payback allotment IF YOU COMPLETE this task.
3) Choose your task and completion date.
4) Your educating institue will be informed of your choice and TOGETHER you will provide progress reports to meet milestones at designated progress points.
5) If you fail, both you and your institution will be docked for the expense of completing this task it will be shared by each of you. @ Prevailing Government wage + 18% interest.
This does not help my wife because she earns too much. A better solution would be:
1. Student loan interest is 100% deductible regardless of income. No more $2500 cap.
2. Remove accrued interest accumulated during loan deferment period.
3. Slash loan interest to .01% as long as payments are made on time starting Jan 1 2023.
Hopefully this is the beginning of revamping the student loan system. The interest really needs to be changed. It's ridiculous! It's designed so that it can't be paid off by most people. The rates are far too high. I have some triple my mortgage and double my auto loan rates.
Much of what people have been paying is just the interest. I've paid more than my loans were and my balance continues to grow because the interest keeps compounding. The payments are applied to interest first. Not a dime has been applied to my principle. I paid for over 10 years! The interest I now owe is double the amount of the loan. I've made more than double the minimum payments and still gotten nowhere. My family pays far more in federal income tax every single year than the $10K I'm getting my loans reduced by. Were you upset over forgiving the PPL loans? Bailing out the auto, bank, or airline industries? Defense spending? Funds we send overseas? Corporations not paying their fair share of taxes?
That's why I call this a racket that the Mafia would love to have.
Another formula I'd rather see--and I think it's been a Republican proposal--is to take a look at each person's original loan, the amount they've actually paid back, and if they've actually already paid the principle and a good chunk of interest, say "enough is enough" and cancel that loan.
That's why I call this a racket that the Mafia would love to have.
Another formula I'd rather see--and I think it's been a Republican proposal--is to take a look at each person's original loan, the amount they've actually paid back, and if they've actually already paid the principle and a good chunk of interest, say "enough is enough" and cancel that loan.
It's like the feds took a page from the Mafia with the way they have designed this horrendous system.
It takes a quite bright individual to make a college degree pay off.
Either the person is bright enough at the front end to succeed in a difficult--but lucrative--career program.
Or the person is bright enough at the back end to parlay a less difficult program into a lucrative career.
People who aren't bright enough are going to waste a lot of money. Political conservatives will say, "They didn't work hard enough." Political liberals will say, "They were discriminated against."
But the problem is: They simply weren't bright enough to make a college degree pay off.
And frankly, that is most people. Making a college degree pay off requires something like >120 IQ. By definition, most people don't have an IQ that high.
Most people don't need to be trying to get a bachelor's degree. In fact, most people never do. Yet, we've created an education system that, from K to PhD, assumes most people can and will.
I mostly agree. I don't know about the 120 IQ concept, maybe there's some credence in that. There was research into IQs by major conducted by ETS. They put together a list in order of highest to lowest. The damn thing is hard to read, but I posted it for your viewing pleasure.
It probably comes to no one's surprise that engineering and physics were at the top. But probably surprisingly to a lot of people, the arts, humanities, and social sciences tended to outpace (and by a lot) your business, accounting, and health sciences (nursing) majors. That's why I generally find it ironic and laughable when these business major types look down on the liberal arts crowd considering most of those folks are probably intellectually superior. Even more ironic, I've worked with a number of liberal arts majors in the business world who were doing very well. And yeah, they were pretty bright.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
