I don’t know why getting help from my parents means I am not allowed to have an opinion about the financial cost of education - I only brought it up in the OP in the interest of completeness. My parents are great people and I owe them for many things, but I worked my ass off for the scholarships and the paycheck that paid for the majority of my education. Believe me, I am fully aware of the financial cost of my education, far more so than someone who borrows all the money and then wriggles out of paying it back. Regardless, that was many years ago (I was out of school for years), and I’ve had many financial responsibilities in the interim that I have not shirked.
Anyways, if you are distrustful of the financial industry and feel that it’s bringing America down, doesn’t it make more sense for someone to borrow funds from family, if possible, rather than enter into a contract with a corrupt system? But I’m not sure I’m in the mood to get into a discussion about that with someone who had gambling debts so large they needed them discharged into bankruptcy.
Just to clarify, I haven’t personally had gambling debts discharged in bankruptcy. I see now that I worded that wrong. I was just using it as an example of the type of debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy, even though student loan debt cannot.
What makes you think that’s an option for most students? Take the silver spoon out of your mouth and use some common sense.
Note how I said ‘if possible’. Even back in the OP I said that I knew I was lucky to get help from my family. I know it’s not an option for some students, but believe me there are a huge number of students whose parents pay all or some of their education fees. Anyways, my parents could only give me a small fraction of what I needed, so I did use common sense when I worked hard to pay for 75% of my own undergrad (and 100% of grad school), without a loan. I never said other people shouldn’t have loans, I just said they should have the stones to pay them back.
BTW My parents are pretty ordinary middle class people, not some crazy rich people - I did not grow up with anything like a silver spoon in my mouth, but thanks for the assumption. My folks were frugal with their money and saved to help us kids go to college. Most financial planning advice suggests putting away a college fund for your children, and yet if kids have a college fund, suddenly that’s a travesty. I don’t get it.
Anyway, when I said it made more sense to take money from your family than the government, I wasn’t saying that nobody should ever take out a loan. I was just pointing out that if you personally distrust the financial system so much, why are you willingly taking out loans from it and then railing against the realities of paying them back?
I’ll tell you where it fits in. A lot of people, much like you, work very hard to earn cash and scholarships to pay for their educations, but the gap between what they’ve been able to earn and what needs to be paid, cannot or will not be paid by their parents. What of them? Basically we have X education cost, much of which can be funded with Y, money earned from jobs/grants/scholarships, etc. The difference, X - Y, still needs to be paid. For some people, that’s 0, for others, it can be expensed by parents, but for the unlucky, it either needs to be borrowed, or they don’t go to college at all. Nobody whose parents couldn’t or wouldn’t help them out wants to hear a nagging session about debt from someone whose parents gave them money.
I have no problem with someone saying “I’m not going to pay the mortgage, here have the house.” The bank now has something of value (it might not want or need a house, but it has one and can exchange it for money). But with a student loan, what does the bank get when the ex-student defaults?
That would be why, as I stated in the OP, I didn’t say anything to this guy in person. It’s also why I started this thread, to see what other people thought - and plenty of people who did take loans have agreed that paying them back is the honest thing to do.
I’m not trying to have a ‘nagging session’ about loans - I don’t know how much clearer I can be that I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a student loan. I was just disagreeing with the idea that every single person needs a college degree to do every job, and that the ‘true cost’ of education is hidden from students. I also take issue with painting anyone who gets even a modicum of help from their parents as having a silver spoon in their mouth and therefore dismissing their opinion.
No, and I haven’t worked as a cashier since summer 2005, so again: thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Furthermore, I took the (apparently irrational) step of going to the school I went to because I liked the education they promised, not because they said, “If you come study here you’ll get a great job as soon as you graduate! We promise, because we’re magical and/or you’re stupid enough to believe it!” I paid them money to take certain classes there. I took those classes. Therefore, the college lived up to their end of the bargain; any contracts between lenders and myself are completely separate.
I was answering your question about why someone would dismiss your opinion on the matter, considering you had help.
I never said, or implied, that you contend there’s something wrong with taking out loans. I think most people can agree student loans are fine way to pay for school, and yes, people should pay back their student loans. I think they should repay them for a couple of the reasons stated in this thread, namely that one cannot repo an education, and that the student loan people are very reasonable. They’ll work out a plan, give you more time, etc. Still, I don’t think MOID’s hostility toward the whole education setup is unreasonable. These kids get told repeatedly that the key to upward mobility is education, yet it’s priced in a way that it is very difficult to afford for anyone who isn’t in a decent position already. I mean, we’ve got universities price gouging their tuition, making themselves look more competitive via price tags. It’s just plain shameful.
So yes, repay your student loans, but if some poor kid goes to college, then finds himself buried under a mountain of debt that is very fucking hard to get from under, and decides to say fuck it, and just walk away from paying, I’m not going to think, “zOMG, how unethical!” I’d be more inclined to think, “That’s just gonna fuck up your credit, and probably make things worse.”
That part was addressed more to MOIDALIZE - he was the one who made it sound like I had said that everyone should just get their parents to pay for everything, which I never said. He was the one who acted like I didn’t know that that wasn’t possible for everyone, and that I had been spoiled with a ‘silver spoon in my mouth’.
Anyways, I agree with **NinjaChick **in that you should be going to school because you want to get the education, not because of the final reward of some job (of course the job is a bonus). I also agree that there is misinformation fed to kids about college and about upward mobility, and that it would be nice if guidance counselors and whatnot were more forthright about what a college education will really get you. Unfortunately, part of the problem is with the somewhat impetuous nature of the teenagers and young adults involved - I know my own decision at that age were not all necessarily well thought out. College was certainly not what I thought it would be like. It’s hard to ask the right questions at that age, since you have little life experience, so I think the education industry does get away with some things that they shouldn’t get away with.
I’ve also heard that if your student loans are in default, they can cancel your passport, so it may not be possible to wait it out abroad. Does anyone know if that’s true?
As one of the first posters to impugn the morals of anyone who took this option allow me to say that I graduated 1 year and 3 weeks ago with about 180K in student loans. Right now I can’t afford to pay the full amount so most of them are in forbearance. For each year I stay in forbearance there will be about 10K of interest that is capitalized. So no it’s not about judgements from people who have no idea what it’s like to be a student today. As I said before it’s about honesty and integrity.
Wow. I can’t even imagine. Hope you’ll be making a whole hell of a lot of money very soon.
Just out of curiosity, is there any limit on how many student loans a person can take out? Can you just stay in school perpetually, living off student loans and deferring them until you die?
Also, what exactly are gambling debts? Who is loaning money to people so they can gamble?
There is. I don’t know exactly how much it is, but there is a maximum amount in federal student loans you can get. Of course, if you want to go with non-subsidized private loans, borrow however much you want.
Look, I have no idea why you’re trying to paint me as someone I’m not just so that you can dismiss what I have to say. It’s no different than what a lot of other people in this thread are saying, and since we’ve had no previous interaction I have no idea why you are coming after me. But, I’m done with this argument, it’s going nowhere.
*And, incidentally, I had to look up who Ricky Stratton was - because, despite your assertions, I’m not old enough to remember that.
I agree with the defenders here in the thread, but there should be some accountability to the banks/government that make the ridiculous loans that will never pay off. I can see some 18 or 19 year old kid getting suckered by the dean of the local private school. He will tell the kid that the $40k/yr tuition is a bargain and that he will easily make 6 figures with a Bachelor’s Degree in Jerking Off from his college; just borrow the money!
And, here is the government/bank loaning you all of this money to go to the school. Why wouldn’t it be true? Maybe if it could be discharged in bankruptcy (say after it was after so many years) then the government would quit loaning to these schools which provide no real employment opportunities after graduation.
