Its not funny, but it is kinda funny....that they spent $50,000 on an education and don't understand interest.

When bernie talks about muh free college for all what he really means is more huge six figure jobs for dem union workers

https://transparentcalifornia.com/sa...te-university/has some truely mind blowing salaries for college management and lecturers, although I assume more would vote Hillary than Bernie

That's a good question and I think is part of the problem as well. Either some of these kids grow up in single parent households, unstable/dysfunctional households or the parents themselves have no idea, don't give a chit or haven't taught their children the importance of managing finances. I don't know. Alot of Americans as it is can barely save enough for retirement let alone their children's college education.

At the same time though people in their mid 20s to mid 30s aren't willing to live slightly below their means to be able to pay it off and don't want to give up the lifestyle they are accustomed to.

This is basically how I feel about it tbh. The majority of the massive loan holders were spolied brats living in bubbles, they took out $80,000 for a 4 year degree that only cost $30k. The extra $50k was so they could vacation, spring break, and not work a lick while studying their gender degree and living high on the hog. Now, when the bill has come due all of the sudden its not fair, they we uninformed.

How many auto loans do we forgive? How many idiots buy $60k cars on a $40k salary and end up upside down with a high interest rate? Should we bail them out too? Should we "forgive" their bad choices?

Im being serious. I'm fully against "loan forgiveness", naivety isn't a valid excuse to me. What other things in life can you get out of by saying "i didnt know any better?" srs Life is hard and teaches hard lessons, this is one of them.

i've never had a student loan (all of my college was paid for by GI Bill), so i don't know, but when kids apply for student loans, do they not get this info?

they show you this info before you sign for a mortgage loan.... surely they show it to these kids/parents before they sign for it.

You can go through FAFSA and get thousands of dollars with a couple clicks. Don’t even need to read anything just click lol.

An individual can declare bankruptcy on an auto loan. So I get the point you're trying to make but most loans aren't structured the same as one for higher education and your example doesn't fit. I understand there isn't a fixed asset behind an educational loan which makes the whole bankruptcy thing more complicated. But there are ways around this such as capping interest rates or structuring the loan so it is easier to pay back (such as income based plans). They entire first part of your post is hyperbole and hard to take seriously.

They have all of that stuff for student loans though...

Why try to pay it off when you have someone like Bernie or Yang filling their heads with "debt" relief?

they show it to you but they don't explain it to you, and when you have 15+ pages to sign the eyes start to gloss over and they just want to be done with the ordeal not realizing they'll be paying 25% interest on their loan or something rediculous.

Yangs idea is pretty smart. He's not really for student loan forgiveness, but he wants more companies to offer student loan forgiveness programs (for example high paying jobs in rural areas where there is a high turn over rate). For example, you stay with the company for "X" amount of years (while continuing to pay on the loan) but once you meet the time limit at the company they expunge your loan.

What about all of the people who paid off their student loans in the past? (Say since the housing market crash in ~07).

I don't think that those people should get penalized for working at paying them off quickly and should get reimbursed that amount if we are going to go down the path of forgiving all student loan debt.


Curious what that amount is and maybe lower are defense budget allocation a set amount to cover it for 5 years. The economy would be booming with the one's who already had paid off debt using that forgiveness amount to invest into housing / business etc.

I don't understand. These people went to college right? Like actually attended their classes and are counted among the "smart" "educated" liberal party right?

So how can they not figure out that if you don't pay MORE THAN JUST THE INTEREST PAYMENTS YOU WILL NEVER GET RID OF THE DEBT?? For real, how is this shocking to them? I don't understand. Literally a 6th grader could pull up a pay off calculator and figure out what it would take to pay off a balance in 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years. These people easily could pay off their loans if they utilized an extra 10 hours a week driving uber or bartending on the weekends or anything really. They choose not to because they are entitled and don't think they should not have to be responsible for the debt they signed for at the interest rate they signed for.

What was the point of going to college if, when graduated, you aren't smart enough to figure out how to pay off a dam loan??

It's nonsense though, most everyone understands interest.

People believe they'll be $10K a day when they get out of school and the high payments won't be a problem.

Same result.

I assure you the first part is most definitely not hyperbole, it is extremely common. I know numerous people personally that did just that, im sure plenty of others itt know some as well.

I stand by what I said, im firmly against giving people who made uniformed not so smart choices a reset with our collective tax dollars.

Are these people paying the monthly principal or are they just paying the interest only?

This math ain't adding up, if the debt isn't declining and you've been paying this much. Who the hell only pays interest & no principal payments.

People who can't afford or budget for $1000+/month payments on top of their living expenses. I truly do think that they do not really understand the math of what they are doing and that a lot of parents have failed to protect their kids financially.

There’s a happy medium imo. Free college for everyone and erasing all current student loan debt is an outrageous idea. That said, reducing the current and future interest rates to a very very low % coupled with free CC tuition coupled with increased scholarship money might be the best idea. We need to entice more people to go into STEM fields.

responsible people pay back their loans all of the time. millions and millions of people have paid their loans off. it's the irresponsible deadbeats who make excuses and want everyone else to pay for them. i hate deadbeats. it's the ultimate selfishness.

Thanks Obama! This is exactly what happens when you implement government control over an industry, people get hurt. With the government guaranteeing unlimited, easily attainable money, universities massively jack up the costs to grab as much of that guaranteed, "free" money as possible and young people take as much as they can get without a proper understanding of the consequences. They passed laws prohibiting credit card companies from marketing to students and eliminating private student loans while handing them insane amounts of unforgivable ,government student load money that will haunt them for life.

Despite potentially good intentions people will always suffer when the government is given control to regulate one side of the economic equation and completely ignore the other.
Artificially not only increasing but guaranteeing a huge supply of money available for education, healthcare, whatever without also accommodating for the increase in demand that will create results in huge inequalities hurting the consumer.

This basic reality is nothing new. It is exactly why the United States as one of the youngest nations in the world is the most advanced in the world. Our founding fathers had the opportunity to define the rules for this nation from the beginning based on the knowledge of what didn't work before. The same reason that huge corporations that seemed unstoppable during their time no longer exist. Believing socialist policies could possibly be a good thing today is equivalent to believing shopping from a Sears catalog is better than buying from Amazon. Learn from history don't repeat it.

Educated people making a series of stupid choices. Imagine a 100K loan mess and didn't get a degree out of it though. Ouch. Don't defer payments and don't just make the minimum payment. I didn't spend nearly as much because I just went to a state school but it only took me maybe 4 years to pay off $30K in student loans along with the rest of my debt.

I'm sure some understand it's just that they simply cannot afford to pay more than the principle.

The reality is that the closer you get to Ivy level, the less a person with parents of average or below average means will have to pay. The rich kid's parents (the majority of them) pay for all of it and you mostly get to freeride off of them.

Then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't take out a 100K loan.

I mean that they didn't understand the math of taking on the debt. That is, they didn't understand the schedule of payments and the schedule of their own income. I'm sure they start to understand it pretty well once it starts ass****ing them.

Fun fact: pushing loans was seen as a way to allow poor people access to college partly because the Federal and state government were reducing public funding of colleges. The idea was to get students to cover the short fall by loaning them the money instead of giving them (or the schools) the money and then they could pay it back once they were working.

I'm fine with ending the government backstop.

If you want an alternative to forgiveness then I would go for existing loans being eligible for discharge after 7 years with a credit hit, or after the borrower has paid back at least 110% of the original amount that was loaned to them without a credit hit.

That would give people hope at least.

And, if you want to keep a backstop going forward, then I would go for college education being viewed as a business partnership where the college and the student are both invested. The amount loaned for the endeavor is being invested against a return based on the student's estimated post-graduation income.

So if you are wanting a degree in a low paying field then banks would be willing to loan less money than if you are pursuing a degree in a higher paying field.

If you just want to study something because you are interested in it then you may not be able to get a loan and may need to find a grant or self-fund the experience.

And, if a student graduates, but then can't pay the loan back in a reasonable manner the school should be subject to a claw back of up to 50% of the loan amount as said school either chose a poor candidate to go into business with or provided an insufficient level of education.

That last bit should bring diploma mills to a screeching train wreck style halt. Bonus: schools would have an incentive to help their graduates get established in a career.

ETA: if that wasn't clear the school would be partially guaranteeing the loan vs. the taxpayer.

I know a ton of people that got bachelors and masters degrees. Some are over $100k in debt and live with their parents or live in a van at the park.

Computer science and mba’s too.

I lived in my car for a year and work for Homeland Security now. Still live paycheck to paycheck running airport projects. $100k a year doesn’t cut it if you’re a single dad.

I’ve done everything right except start a family and get crushed by child support and loans.

Some of you, “personal responsibility” or, “lol, learn math before taking loans you can’t pay back that society pressured you to take your entire life” people are absurd

I'm sure a little bit of it has to do with an overestimation of how much their job will be worth or the overall availability of their job.

Professors (especially ones in the humanities) love to talk about the mountains and mountains of income you'll make if you choose their field as a major (sociology anthropology philosophy etc) and why would they tell you any different? They made a career out of that field of work so of course they're going to inflate its importance to impressionable college freshmen.

Jesus that is absolute aids