Student Debt regrets
Anyone else wish they took college loans instead of paying upfront to qualify for debt forgiveness. Wish I saw this hindsight
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Yeah. I'm a bit salty for paying them off as quickly as I can. I know people who spend money eating out, cars and partying, and complain about their student loans. Meanwhile I lived frugally trying to pay it off asap and consolidating with a private lender.
I'm curious about how that debt for civil servants thing will work out. How many years do you have to work with a agency?
Teachers, some medical professional, non-profits get their student loan debt forgiven after ten years.
I think I remember reading that for the thousands that apply like 99% get rejected for debt forgiveness.
Also if you are a state/federal prosecutor or district attorney your law school loans are forgiven if you stay in the system for X number of years
No. Neither do I agree with "debt forgiveness". You make a promise, are you a man of your word? ***not you specifically OP. Just saying to those in general wanting bailouts. Complete BS. My neighbor growing up had parents making the same income as my parents and my parents decided to make sacrifices by saving a significant portion of their incomes over many years to have enough money to fund college, I went to state school and paid over half my own way thru working (finished with no debt). My neighbors did not save and their daughter went to private school and she racked up $110k of debt. Now she's begging for a bailout and just now realizing that decisions have consequences? I'm just explaining how many people think about the topic...
I tend to agree with you on debt forgiveness, except in the case of the person pursuing a career that is helping others like teaching in the inner cities. If you are going to borrow 125K to get a marketing degree, there should be no debt forgiveness for you. With that said, something needs to be done about these crazy prices that colleges charge these days. My wife took out 100K in loans to go to law school and yeah it is a burden but we are paying it back.
At the same time, I can see the opposing view which might be: if the banks and auto companies got bailed out in 2009, why shouldn't students get bailed out?
Two things to comment on.
1. I agree that prices are getting out of hand for colleges and that needs to be contained.
2. If you are going to use the Bank and Auto example, the corporations were given a bailout. So shouldn't we bailout the colleges by forgiving their muni debt so they can lower prices.
Student loan forgiveness will have the exact opposite impact--it will make the universities double down in their outrageous behavior.
I'm just having a laugh at libertarians that voted Biden thinking he's a moderate. Yet another wealth redistribution from the bottom to the upper middle class. Also lol at working class voters who still vote Dems. The fact that he's filling his treasury team with CRT experts is spectacular as well. What could possibly go wrong with another round of Marxism?
Dude, he is filling his team with smart and qualified people. This is very unlike the strategy used by the current POTUS, who literally hired a guy to head the EPA who spent a lot of time suing this government entity. We also have the likes of Ivanka and Jared advising this POTUS.
I agree that Trump picking the likes of senile Giuliani, worthless Javanka and Scaramucci probably hindered him. Nonetheless, I raise an eyebrow whenever I read about experts in social sciences. If that social science happens to be social justice, then it's guaranteed bullshit.
For the record, I am referring to this:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-15/biden-fills-economic…
Someone whose expertise is a fraud ideology can only do bad. But I'm sure they will put all their intelligence and qualifications to understand the inequality of representation in the NBA. There is no hope for this.
You guys sound like a bunch of Financial Justice Warriors who need to get off their high horses, this isn’t a moral question it’s an economic one. Just because you’re frugal and saved money, or chose a lesser school doesn’t make you a superior human being.
1. We all know the importance of going to a top school, and even public schools cost 100k in many states after 4 years. Having a system where you have to pay multiples above the average median wage, financially straining parents or saddling the younger generation with debt is bad for society.
2. turning young people into debt slaves hurts consumption, delays household formation, and reduces risk taking. Student debt forgiveness would have a high fiscal multiplier and be beneficial to everyone
3. the government is partially responsible for today’s current tuition price by artificially lowering interest rates and making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy
4. If this is a 1-off debt cancellation, it’s basically a free lunch and will only have positive effects on the economy. I don’t really see any downsides as long as we’re in a deflationary environment
No downsides? Wtf? A student loan holiday just becomes another question of allocating government funds, and how said funds are generated via taxes. Our government is grossly inefficient at using taxpayer money, so why do you think they would get this right? I’m also not some whiny boomer complaining about paying for young people’s debt. This is coming from someone whos parents saved for years to send their kids to college, chose a state school so I could actually pay for, and STILL graduated with considerable amount of debt which I have since paid off. A system where student loans are forgiven is disgustingly offensive to anyone who puts even a smidge of effort into saving for college or paying off loans. Seriously - if they are going to be forgiven anyway, what’s the incentive to even try and save?
We literally just printed 3 trillion that the fed bought in us treasury debt , not to mention all the corporate debt etf’s. When i say no cost, i mean there’s no inflationary cost. You should read up on MMT
You just sound salty because you paid down the debt. If you were actually smart, and knew anything about macro, you would’ve kept a portion as a free option. Once you factor in % chance of inflation, and a % chance of debt forgiveness it was a no brainer trade
Loan forgiveness doesn’t fix anything though. It won’t magically make college more affordable. In my view, the government should address the problem directly and do something about tuition cost, rather than giving forgiveness to consumers. Why let the schools still benefit? They would still be getting their money. If you want to take a more conservative approach, completely deregulate the space and give no loan forgiveness or incentives for kids to go to college. Eventually people will encumber themselves with ridiculous amounts of debt, or people will stop going to expensive schools all together. Loan holidays are the wrong solution in my opinion.
Lol at free lunches. No lunch is free dude. Ever. This is a theft. Working class people mostly don't go to college to begin with. Those who have 50k + or more of debt made very specific choices to end up that way, they are only a portion of graduates.
At best, this is a spoils of war redistribution. Upper middle class graduates from urban areas are among the core of Biden voters, so Biden is taking from the rest of society and giving to them. It's part of politics, there are winners and losers and this is why every election should be treated as a war.
Perhaps in your country working class people don't go to college, but in America they do. They then rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt because their parents are not paying for their college like upper middle class and upper class parents do.
This is a stimulus.
We can talk about if that stimulus is fair, or right, or worthwhile, but leave the bullshit at home for once. This isn't "theft." This isn't "war."
Fed with eternal QE inflating the stock market which is basically a handout to the wealthy meanwhile cap gains taxes are ridiculously low while middle/upper middle class pays income tax. When the inflation train hits, the wealthy own the real assets and will be able to weather the storm meanwhile cash-heavy poor to middle class will see the value of their savings decline. Fed has been stealthily stealing from the poor/middle class and transferring wealth to the rich via stock market inflation since the 80s.
Meanwhile you clowns are whining about student loan forgiveness. The programming is working.
Student loan forgiveness is literally the worst of both worlds. You lend endless money to students which drives up the cost of college as schools realize they can just keep raising tuition. Then you forgive these inflated expenses with taxpayer money lol.
Also there is no bigger bailout for middle / upper middle class than student loan forgiveness. These people are highly likely to be employed and earn above the median wage for their age throughout their entire lives. If you are going to spend billions in taxpayer money just cut a check to the poorest Americans rather than bailing out some kid from westchester who went to NYU.
But you have no problem with billion dollar companies being bailed out right? No problem with endless QE essentially transferring wealth from poor to rich right?
BobTheBaker I have mixed feeling about loan forgiveness. I had to pay back my wife's loans and did not get any help from the government. I think if the government forgives loans, it sends a bad message to people borrowing money for school. I would only forgive loans if the person going into certain fields of employment. At the same time, many companies enjoyed bailouts during the great recession. Why should banks and auto companies get bailed out but not students?
Because America is a Corporatocracy
My family worked hard and I went to a school that was within their budgets, so I never had to take out debt. I don't think it makes sense to forgive it.
^ this. I held 3 jobs during college and majored in relevant topics. I saved and paid off my loans ( no vacations, no new cars, limited going out, etc.) I watched communications majors sit on the couch and smoke week for four years, miss countless classes and then get shitty jobs after graduation. They bought a new car and live in a apartment rather than with roommates. They complain that they are poor. Should we give them a bailout, No. Even if they were teachers, or public administrators they made bad decisions that lead to their life and I just can't fathom giving them a break for their bad decisions.
We give companies a break for bad decisions all the time and no one cares. You've been trained properly.
There is a moral argument to be made against cancelling $50,000 in student loans per person. As someone living far below my means while paying off my education debt, I have mixed feelings on it overall. Still, I try to think about people in situations other than my own, and I genuinely feel for people who have similar levels of debt with nowhere near the resources of paying it off.
There is a "this doesn't actually fix the root problem" argument to be made as well. The disgustingly inflated cost of education, propped up because the government hands massive amounts of debt out to anyone who asks for it, isn't fixed by this proposal.
But there is hardly a "government spending" argument. Just a few years ago, the government gave 600 billionaires a collective $1.7T tax break, so you can miss me on complaining about the fiscal impact of a $1.7T student loan break.
Reducing the student debt problem would be massive for an entire generation of people and also provide a huge boon to the economy.
Would you be opposed to giving every American $50,000?people can then pay off loans if they want or invest it. honestly its the only "fair" solution, all while providing a huge boost to the economy.
opposed*
throwing money at the problem won't prevent it from occurring again. I cannot think of a single example of a stimulus program that solved underlying issues with an economic/political system
forgiving the debt without addressing the underlying issue is akin to putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound. it may look better, but it solves nothing. I'm not intelligent enough to contemplate addressing the issue currently, but I think I have some decent ideas at addressing the root causes.
if I had a magic wand, I'd do 2 things first - remove the moral hazard created from the feds guaranteeing loans (make the schools bear the risk) and allow loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. I believe this would cause schools to apply more scrutiny to who they lend to as well as how they spend money. perhaps they'd reduce waste (I've worked at 2 universities within administration and there's a ton of waste), I don't know, but I believe if you leave the universities with the risk, they would behave differently and competition would help things.
other topics I've considered but admittedly don't have the data on - ending tenure, breaking up teachers unions, free community college & govt sponsored trade schools for jobs that will be needed.
BobTheBaker brings up some a good pointl. this is an issue of how the educational system is structured as well as some general issues with the country. I think that if you only address this issue there are still larger societal problems and the underlying issue of people not being able to get ahead will persist if you don't address broader things
At the end of the day, trying to put a bandaid on a massive gash is going to only sort of help. We have to get to the root cause. The government should stop funding departments with inadequate employment rates and counselors who deceive students by saying "Major =/= Career! Major in whatever you want!" and provide idiotic anecdotal stories should be fired and maybe even charged for what they've done. That would also lower the cost of tuition by reducing overhead.
I can actually see an argument for targeted debt forgiveness for those who graduated into the teeth of Covid-19 and its fallout. For those people, I could see a limited, targeted approach toward debt forgiveness. But a $50,000 blanket handout to the upper-middle class paid for over the next 100-200 years by future generations *without any restructuring of the wasteful higher education system* is perhaps the single most immoral piece of public policy I could possibly contemplate. And to add insult to injury, they are talking about the IRS making up tax law and waving their magic wand to waive the taxability of debt forgiveness. Your net worth increases $50,000 but you owe no taxes on it because the IRS says so. And who has legal standing to sue to prevent this flagrant violation of the law? Absolutely no one. There isn't a single person in America who could claim to be an aggrieved party; absolutely no one could even challenge the IRS in court.
Once again, everyone is making the wrong argument. Quit focusing on the past and your morals.
the important questions to ask are how will this effect consumption, gdp growth, investment, and household formation going forward. People are delaying purchasing houses and having children because of student loan debt. Doesn’t take a genius to see this is a huge drag on the economy, and would benefit the country regardless of whether you have student loan debt or not
Even if you give people a bailout I don't think that this helps either of these problems. I think people are still going to delay getting married, primarily due to women having more options in the work place, which delays the other two. I don't think these trends are necessarily a bad thing either.
This is such a ridiculous argument. For one, every single law on the books or debated is first premised on its morality. Every single law. From litter to seat belt laws. Even a pro-economic growth argument is premised on moral values. So please spare us the "separation between church and state" nonsense.
Secondly, there is an actual debate on the economic multiplier. You're talking about economic growth from student debt forgiveness like it's "settled science." If debt forgiveness is taxed as the law demands then in 2022 you're going to have a helluva lot of people with big, fat tax bills they didn't otherwise expect. Debt paid for by some people will be reallocated to the public, which has to tax someone else (at some point in time) to pay for the principal and interest. Finally, at most only a few million people will receive any benefit. It's hardly a broad-based economic stimulus. You're talking about all 330 million people taking on an enormous fiscal burden for a very tiny slice of the population. It may be the single least effective stimulus ever conceived.
On a related note, I think it’s ridiculous that an 18 year old can make such a huge decision to rack up six figures in debt. If you want to buy a house there’s disclosure after disclosure. There should be debt counselors that make people understand what they’re getting into.
Or you could have a credit limit.
The unfortunate thing is sometimes it is worth it. Rack up debt to go to Wharton with gunning for IB or consulting? Yeah, it’ll pay off. Rack up debt to go to random private college for photography, chances get really slim of being able to pay it back in a timely manner. They both may put someone in $100k+ of debt, but it’s not equal in measure.
Even worse the counselors those 18 years olds sit through tell them that "major =/= career! Major in whatever you want!", sending them down the wrong path.
Agreed. I majored in Business but am a software engineer now. But not all careers are that forgiving on college major.
There are counselors involved and their name is: parents.
I’m grateful for my parents. Not many are so lucky and get really bad advice. I have a cousin who is a senior in high school, the advice she’s gotten has been blatantly incorrect. I’ve had to teach her quite a bit about college and applications. I’m not the authority on the topic either, but I do know that she can’t pursue her dreams of Med school with any major (yeah sure it’s technically possible but less common).
You do realize not everyone comes from college educated 2 parent households?
All of a sudden, the family is important! Maybe promoting healthy family role models instead of open relationships, polyamory, kids free life and similar bs could help?
I think the legalese could certainly help, and some standard boilerplate language could help (e.g. here's the average salary for your major, here's what you will have to pay assuming you finish in 4y and continue borrowing at this rate, and here are some ways you can lessen the amount you need to borrow). my experience when I was reupping my loans was visiting the financial aid office, telling them how many credit hours I was taking, and some lady telling me what part will be subsidized (based on parents' income, even though I got jack shit from them) and what part will be unsubsidized. no explanation of what that means, just "here's what it is, sign here." I had no idea what I was doing, and I didn't even feel uncomfortable seeing those numbers, they made it feel like "this is just the way it works"
and yes financeabc parents play a big part in this, I just never got that education because my parents were bad with money. my mom worked her way through school and my dad got an athletic scholarship, they had a divorce that wasn't messy emotionally, but messy financially so this was always a sore subject. any time I'd bring up student loans I heard "well if your dad did thus-and-such..." and never got anywhere. so yes, parents should be the advisors, but there should also be a backstop for people without a great family unit to learn from. caveat - the internet wasn't nearly what it is today when I was coming up, so hopefully there are more free resources available to students now
I agree with what you are saying about basic disclosures. The students get disclosures but the language may be a little difficult to understand. Only one of my parents went to college but neither of them were involved with my education at all. Most of my peers have parents who were more involved.
We need an applause emoji or something.
Yes. 18-year-olds should not be able to take out this egregious debt load without someone sitting down with them and explaining the ramifications. Can we not have a required, online course for students considering taking out federal loans?
But even then only a fraction of students would honestly pay attention and do well in the class.
I support educating young people about debt. Let's say a counselor (or the kids attends a class) sits down with the student and explains the 125K loan in simple English. Now, the student gets concerned about the debt and does not want to borrow the money. As a result, the student can't go to college and does not want to pursue a job in a trade industry. What other options are available? I think the education about debt should be combined with some type of limit on the cost of education.
Necessitatibus sed corrupti sit. Saepe deleniti nostrum minima exercitationem. Corrupti quisquam nihil alias.
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