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You took out the loan...YOU pay it off. This is NOT for me or big govt to pay off...sorry.
In the future, kids need to take a VERY hard look at what they are signing up for and research if it is really necessary for success. They also need to consider maybe a trade school or apprenticeship instead.
Unless you are going to med school, law school or engineering school...you might want to re-think your college plans before drowning in debt. That English or Women's Studies degree is not going to help you pay off that 80k dollar college loan debt until you are old and gray.
I totally agree, especially with the bolded parts. A loan for productive purposes is potentially great since the return should be many multiples of the amounts borrowed. One oft he reasons that much installment debt is indeed "crushing" is that nothing productive was obtained from the proceeds. Think, for example taking out a "vacation loan" which when I was in Fourth Grade I thought was a great idea. After enjoying the warm tropical waters for a few days what do you have left? Nothing.
An English or Women's Studies degree is only worthwhile if you are independently wealthy or if it's a steppingstone, say, to law school.
I didn't say that. By all means chase your dreams. However, your friends were aware they would have to pay back the loan. You can't take the money and cry foul later.
I never said they were crying foul at all. I'm not really sure what point your trying to make.
I honestly don't understand your POV. We were able to go to college at a time when it was more affordable, and when starting out we graduated into a world where health care, housing, etc were all more affordable because salaries kept up with COL to a much greater degree. Now these kids graduate into a world where they owe $2500 a month for the same degree I paid $250 a month for, where health insurance costs hundreds a month under an employer plan, where housing costs are skyrocketing..
And we have people saying the solution is for today's kids to limit their dreams, limit what they want to be and want they want to learn. "We got ours, too bad,so sad, that it's all gone now".
The problem isn't that kids pick degrees that don't pay enough for $80,000 in student loans, the problem is the costs themselves.
Again, this whole side conversation started because I said a post sounded like "Let them eat cake" to me, and pages later I still feel that way.
Well, today it is not affordable, so I guess you might have to re-think that Woman's Studies or Art history degree, unless you are wealthy enough to swing paying for it by yourself. LOL
...times change....you cannot make a living, making horse drawn buggies anymore....move on.
I never said they were crying foul at all. I'm not really sure what point your trying to make.
I honestly don't understand your POV. We were able to go to college at a time when it was more affordable, and when starting out we graduated into a world where health care, housing, etc were all more affordable because salaries kept up with COL to a much greater degree. Now these kids graduate into a world where they owe $2500 a month for the same degree I paid $250 a month for, where health insurance costs hundreds a month under an employer plan, where housing costs are skyrocketing..
And we have people saying the solution is for today's kids to limit their dreams, limit what they want to be and want they want to learn. "We got ours, too bad,so sad, that it's all gone now".
The problem isn't that kids pick degrees that don't pay enough for $80,000 in student loans, the problem is the costs themselves.
Again, this whole side conversation started because I said a post sounded like "Let them eat cake" to me, and pages later I still feel that way.
As a retired adjunct university professor I'm well aware colleges are run as a business. If anybody is thinking "let those suckers eat cake" its the universities. Student loans are cash cows and schools will continue to bleed kids for as much as they can.
But...does this mean someone just starting out in life can't chase their dream? Again, of course not. It's important to chase your dreams esp. when young. Granted none of mine panned out but I did attempt them.
Now... Your friend is paying $2500 a month for a degree required to enter a field she dreamed of. She knew she's was going to get hit with a hefty bill. A bill that might take years to pay off. However, that's what she agreed to.
The question then becomes.... "Should" your friend have to pay $2500 a month for the same degree which cost you $250 years back? The same can be said for today's housing market. Should a rental home which was $1625 in 2018 cost $2500 in 2021? Personally, I can think of many things I find which shouldn't be the way they are. However, life has never been fair. Never was and never will be.
Next comes... well if that's the case future generations are going to be in deep trouble. To which I say such dire predictions are nothing new. Every generation spouts them. I was only 12 I but I remember the late 60's and the massive protests, the rioting. A country being torn completely apart. Yet we survived.
Just like I'm sure your friend will survive paying off her student loan.
where health insurance costs hundreds a month under an employer plan
I think you'll find this interesting, and a testament to how badly our health care system is in need of an enema; pardon the analogy.
It's cheaper for me to pay a hand surgeon in cash for a procedure, than it is to buy insurance and pay the deductible.
Cash for a left wrist fusion and bone graft=$2,630.00
Insurance=$600/mo plus $3,000 annual deductible.
I think you'll find this interesting, and a testament to how badly our health care system is in need of an enema; pardon the analogy.
It's cheaper for me to pay a hand surgeon in cash for a procedure, than it is to buy insurance and pay the deductible.
Cash for a left wrist fusion and bone graft=$2,630.00
Insurance=$600/mo plus $3,000 annual deductible.
Yes, I get it. I pay $700 a month with $3000 deductible. And this is the same insurance that left me with $14,000 out of pocket for therapy, a series of epidurals and finally a back surgery.
As a retired adjunct university professor I'm well aware colleges are run as a business. If anybody is thinking "let those suckers eat cake" its the universities. Student loans are cash cows and schools will continue to bleed kids for as much as they can.
But...does this mean someone just starting out in life can't chase their dream? Again, of course not. It's important to chase your dreams esp. when young. Granted none of mine panned out but I did attempt them.
Now... Your friend is paying $2500 a month for a degree required to enter a field she dreamed of. She knew she's was going to get hit with a hefty bill. A bill that might take years to pay off. However, that's what she agreed to.
The question then becomes.... "Should" your friend have to pay $2500 a month for the same degree which cost you $250 years back? The same can be said for today's housing market. Should a rental home which was $1625 in 2018 cost $2500 in 2021? Personally, I can think of many things I find which shouldn't be the way they are. However, life has never been fair. Never was and never will be.
Next comes... well if that's the case future generations are going to be in deep trouble. To which I say such dire predictions are nothing new. Every generation spouts them. I was only 12 I but I remember the late 60's and the massive protests, the rioting. A country being torn completely apart. Yet we survived.
Just like I'm sure your friend will survive paying off her student loan.
To me, the fairness part comes in because those who climbed a ladder are politically pulling up the ladder.
I don't want college to be free but it is an order of magnitude more expensive today than what I paid 17 years ago. It should be the same relative price now adjusted for inflation. The college I went to is in the exact same place in the rankings as it was then, and the education and lifestyle quality and amenities seem more or less the same. Yet it costs over double as much. Someone who wants to replicate my career path will be in double the debt, but the starting salary is only about 15-17% more that what I started with.
The public willfully does nothing about this. If I were a state legislature I'd be issuing subpeonas to the higher ed leadership and forcing them to put on the record what's causing this outraegeous increase in their budgets.
Beyond the moral dimension, it doesn't make good practical sense either. Because of that squeeze it's getting harder to recruit quality new blood for those entry level positions.
Last edited by redguard57; 08-29-2021 at 04:00 PM..
I totally agree, especially with the bolded parts. A loan for productive purposes is potentially great since the return should be many multiples of the amounts borrowed. One oft he reasons that much installment debt is indeed "crushing" is that nothing productive was obtained from the proceeds. Think, for example taking out a "vacation loan" which when I was in Fourth Grade I thought was a great idea. After enjoying the warm tropical waters for a few days what do you have left? Nothing.
An English or Women's Studies degree is only worthwhile if you are independently wealthy or if it's a steppingstone, say, to law school.
English degrees are useful for a variety of things. Tell me, is language something that humans use? Last I checked, yes. Seems to me it would be pretty stupid not to study our own language. We are communicating in that language.... right now.
Women's (gender) studies, and really ANY of the studies etc... are such a small fields they are not even worth the conversation. We are quite literally talking about degrees awarded in the 4 figures per year, out of something like 1.7 million per year awarded total. Last I checked NCES data, all the "studies" added up to 0.4% of degrees awarded. You could eliminate those programs entirely and you've maybe saved any given college less than 0.5% of its budget. Actually you probably cost that college money, because the "studies" are fairly popular electives.
You want to question the economics of a degree that significant numbers of students actually take? Try psychology or business.
As a retired adjunct university professor I'm well aware colleges are run as a business. If anybody is thinking "let those suckers eat cake" its the universities. Student loans are cash cows and schools will continue to bleed kids for as much as they can.
Because they have to in order to survive. I'm curious how you'd run them? Are you going to find priests and nuns who will teach for free?
Quote:
But...does this mean someone just starting out in life can't chase their dream? Again, of course not. It's important to chase your dreams esp. when young. Granted none of mine panned out but I did attempt them.
Now... Your friend is paying $2500 a month for a degree required to enter a field she dreamed of. She knew she's was going to get hit with a hefty bill. A bill that might take years to pay off. However, that's what she agreed to.
The question then becomes.... "Should" your friend have to pay $2500 a month for the same degree which cost you $250 years back? The same can be said for today's housing market. Should a rental home which was $1625 in 2018 cost $2500 in 2021? Personally, I can think of many things I find which shouldn't be the way they are. However, life has never been fair. Never was and never will be.
Next comes... well if that's the case future generations are going to be in deep trouble. To which I say such dire predictions are nothing new. Every generation spouts them. I was only 12 I but I remember the late 60's and the massive protests, the rioting. A country being torn completely apart. Yet we survived.
Just like I'm sure your friend will survive paying off her student loan.
The bill will come due. For every action there's a reaction and all that. If we lock the younger generations out of education and housing by saying "that's life," well, they will take it out on us. Katy bar the door when they get to prime voting age. They will vote in socialism and cut into our pensions and tax our market gains to pay for it. Hope that's what you wanted. Who this will really hit hard will be Gen X, who is starting to sniff retirement. They do not have the numbers to out-vote Millennials and Zs like the Boomers did.
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