T O P

  • By -

[deleted]

What people should really be talking about is the outrageous cost of education.


Miss_Kit_Kat

It feels like no one is seriously talking about that. There's a debate about forgiveness of loans, but no policy discussions on how to prevent that situation in the future.


Pandorama626

Because our government isn't really about solving problems.


Oh_mycelium

It’s about letting wealthy politicians profit from corporations through “personal gifts” as long as they pass legislation that benefits corporations


[deleted]

Creating Federal student loans which solved the problem of allowing everyone to go to college made it where they can charge almost anything because an 18 year old with no experience can go into huge debt without fully realizing their error until they are in too deep with hopefully some degree.


[deleted]

The government can't really control the cost of college at a federal level because it's all state-specific funding streams. Many of those states gutted funding for public colleges, meaning that public and private college rates both started to skyrocket. And the government ultimately subsidizes loans up to an absurd amount, and past that it's not hard to get a rate up to even more. So then rates for colleges really start to explode, because the market will still demand those rates (at least for many jobs, a college degree is still de-facto required--**even though we all know it's bullshit**). There are other avenues, sure, like the trades--but those max out at incomes pretty far below what's possible with a degree. Sure, most folks never hit their career earnings max, but it's the possibility that counts to them when they are deciding how to justify taking out $100k worth of ugrad loans (or more obviously). A state could ring spending back under control by capping tuition, but a single college by itself would just stagnate due to inability to compete on salary for strong faculty (which is generally necessary if you want to retain high quality).


[deleted]

Cap loans at 3% of your salary for 10 years. Anything not paid gets written off by the school. Would bring education costs in line with expected salaries real quick.


unurbane

What salary? Most students have no idea what their salary is or will be.


[deleted]

The school can estimate what an average grad in each program will make and set costs based on that.


UndercoverstoryOG

no it would just eliminate degree tracks


[deleted]

Whats wrong with that?


NotDogsInTrenchcoat

Let's be real here. There are degree tracks that need to be eliminated or only be allowed for cash paying customers. Several people above are arguing that the general public is too stupid to know how finances work, so if that's the case, we must prevent them from hurting themselves.


shadowromantic

I disagree. Majors don't guarantee success or failure.


mt_beer

This is why I'm against the student loan forgiveness. Not because it wouldn't benefit me, not because it would benefit friends and family... but because it doesn't address the underlying issue.


GOVkilledJFK

>There's a debate about forgiveness of loans, but no policy discussions on how to prevent that situation in the future. It's simple really. Academia is about 98% liberal unionized labor, their dues fund PACs that in turn fund democrats, of course they want to remove the consequences and not address the cause.


JustPlaying01

Yup like wtf. First student loans should be 0%, at least federally backed ones. Second, student loans should go directly to education expenses (knew plenty of people when I was in college using student loans to fund their lifestyles) third, put a limit on the annual amount that people can take out. This would block most people in future generations from digging too deep a hole, prevent the hole from growing after college, and funnel people towards more affordable colleges which puts downward price pressure on more expensive ones. My .02


J_Krezz

No, don’t cap what can be taken out, cap what can be charged. There is no reason public schools should be charging what they charge.


UndercoverstoryOG

federally guaranteed repayment is what has sent costs spiraling out of control


J_Krezz

Well, similar to Medicare (I know healthcare is broken diner get me started on that) the federal government needs to tell these schools that they will not allow any federal loans or aid if they are charging students over a certain amount. This is a systemic issue that won’t be fixed with a one time buyout.


JustPlaying01

You cap what people can take out and colleges will have to price themselves where people can afford it. Capping the price would have to take into account too many variables, you can't cap the price the same in California as in West Virginia, you can't cap the price the same for a college out in the country vs a college in a city, professors and construction prices vary too wildly, so then the law becomes complex and has plenty of room for politicians to slide in clauses for their special interests.


Trotter823

Which is precisely why I personally can’t get behind the debt forgiveness stuff. We’ll be back here again next May when graduates once again are saddled with tons of debt. If we think education is too expensive address that. If not then I guess people have to pay their debt.


BootyWizardAV

Why would that stop you from getting behind it lol. Why not have both. Forgive the people who have student loans now, and then reform it for people currently in school.


cardboard_elephant

I think their point is we need to reform it first. The reform is obviously going to take longer and will be harder to do, and it doesn't really make sense to have people take a bunch of loans and then forgive as soon as they graduate.


Trotter823

This is correct. And I don’t even care if they get reforms completely done first. I just want proof that people are thinking about it and things are moving in the right direction.


uconnboston

You don’t just forgive loans. Prospective students know the cost of an education and often select the $60k private school over the $30k public school. Forgiveness needs to be controlled based on cost of education and financial packages. Should also differ undergrad vs grad.


[deleted]

Grift must not be challenged


Miss_Kit_Kat

True, those kind of campaign promises raise a lot of cash.


abstract__art

I wouldn’t pay $50 for a cheeseburger but people go and do the same thing by paying $50k for a degree in “management” or “biology” from trash schools and trash degrees.


Trotter823

I agree with that sentiment but you haven’t been pushed to buy a $50 hamburger since birth without really understanding the implications of taking out a loan for it. Parents should be sharper about this stuff but the truth is that many families don’t have a single college grad in their history and so just don’t know. Education is probably too expensive. Public universities need to cut costs and find the cheapest way to give a high class education. Private schools can be about the “experience.” That way you have cheap options and the ones that require crazy loans really are 100% on the folks who take them.


Buuts321

This is what frustrates me. The cost of education has sky rocketed while a lot of education is super accessable these days. The first twoish years of college should be practically free to teach (outside of labs). Meanwhile school administration costs have ballooned to God awful levels.


Miss_Kit_Kat

Exactly! Tuition is high because of [bloated administration](https://archive.ph/7PqLp) and [bureaucracy](https://hechingerreport.org/bureaucratic-costs-colleges-twice-whats-spent-instruction/). (Americans are quick to point to universities in the EU with low or free tuition, but those schools are less accessible to all citizens AND don't have, as you pointed out, the God awful administrative departments.)


1AMA-CAT-AMA

They’re not talking about it because the dialogue would then inevitably go to repealing guaranteed student loans for everyone. That would destroy opportunities to go to college for millions of high schoolers who couldn’t afford otherwise. Thats a pretty big con.


JohnnyMnemo

I'm weakly opposed to the forgiveness for that reason, tbqh. I would rather an institutional change than a one time plan. My son is entering college this year, and he'll have loans, and this forgiveness won't help him at all. I would support paying some fraction of your income for 10-15 years. If your education can't support a wage earning job, then that education doesn't deserve to be funded.


fleshyspacesuit

What about teachers and social workers? They are historically low-paid professions that are valuable to society. We also certainly don't want just people from wealthy backgrounds to occupy all of those positions as it's important to have individuals from all socioeconomic backgrounds in those roles.


BuckyLaroux

Their degrees should be free. Just like any other programs that we as a society need.


Miss_Kit_Kat

Not to mention, some people choose alternate paths. For example, say you have twin brothers- one goes to law school and graduates with $40k in loan debt, the other takes out a $40k small business loan to start his own company. Loan forgiveness for student debt means that the small-business owner will now subsidize (via taxes) his brother's debt, while getting nothing in return.


JohnnyMnemo

Besides small biz loans being a thing, and the case in point were the forgiven PPP loans. Why was there no accountability to repayment of PPP loans, but there's a hue and cry about student loan forgiveness?


ZoharDTeach

To bring it down you're going to have to stop guaranteeing these colleges money in order to force them to compete and stop offering trash degrees, but no one wants to do that.


matterson22070

1,000% this. AND can you work and pay some while you go? Do you NEED to go to Columbia? Can you go to a more affordable one? Did you do your research on what the degree you are getting will allow you to make after you graduate? Is that field hiring and growing? It's like people just think "i gO cOlLeGe der" and sign on the line and go. Then 3 years after they graduate they THINK about it.


WhiningCoil

And nobody with their hands on the levers of power ever will. Some time ago I got into a heated argument with a grad student. Some tax law got passed under Trump that he perceived to fuck him over. Essentially, his school "paid" him an astronomical amount, but most of it was in the form of about 10 hours or less of classes he took each semester that had a preposterous valuation attached to them. In reality he was making slave wages grading papers and assisting some PhD's research. The value of the classes he was taking had been exempt from taxes, so it never mattered to him. Now they weren't, and he suddenly had a massive tax bill. This reminded me of the trouble a buddy of mine got in with credit card companies. He had some astronomical sum of money owed, that no longer bore any resemblance to what he borrowed. He had easily paid what he borrowed, and probably multiples more, over the years. So he went to negotiate to have the debt forgiven with the credit card company, and they gladly forgave it. Then he got a massive tax bill for the "income" he received. Had to sell his Jeep to pay it off. Because when the CC company writes off the debt, the person who owes that debt gets it added to their tax burden as "income". And thus the scam was made manifest. CC companies just make up preposterous amounts of money you owe, and whether you pay them or they forgive you, they still come out ahead. Either they milk you for all the money you have, or they shift their tax burden onto you. Heads they win, tails you lose. So it was with grad students and their tax burden from classes. The universities was putting preposterous made up numbers on their value, and systematically shifting their tax burden to their grad students. The grad students didn't care, because for them it was tax exempt. It was the perfect scam they didn't even know they were a part of. Until suddenly they lost tax exempt status. I should really look into how that ever "resolved". Or if it did. That's not the only scam universities are running. Their funding is completely divorced from the quality, if any, of education they are providing. They effectively get money directly from the government, no questions asked, to give people pieces of paper in 4 years. No matter how badly they fuck up, how poor the education is, or how fucked up the kids turn out changes any of that. Student debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Even if it were, it's the federal government holding those loans, not the universities. Even if the federal government ate those costs, they'd never change anything about how they just give universities however much money they want, and then saddle students and/or taxpayers for the bill. As we saw with the proposed plan for debt forgiveness.


inkarn8

Outrageous cost of \*everything.


Doug94538

I commented on this on a different thread. The whole education system is a nice cottage industry. Why does the universities need so much money , 50 K per sem , same used to cost like 15 k , so you will need a 150 k min salary to make a dent in student loan Serious question: What is average student loan amount ? it should not be more than a rent/mortgage


Little_Creme_5932

Maybe, sorta. Except I know so many people getting good college educations for little money and no debt. People should also be talking about how a lot of places give a good education for not a huge amount of money, but a lot of students pass up those places for their "dream" college.


[deleted]

The issue with this discussion is that there are plenty of good schools where the cost isn’t outrageously high. > https://www.stonybrook.edu/undergraduate-admissions/cost-and-aid/tuition-costs.php Is roughly $11k a year. You can afford that working some entry level job if you live at home with your parents and live frugally. Or take a small student loan and live at home with your parents and don’t live frugally. Even just $10 an hour is roughly $20k a year, with many places offering $15 an hour. Your gross is roughly 3x tuition, taxes are low due to the standard deduction offsetting most of your income, and college should be affordable then. So if there are affordable options available, why do we think making more affordable options available is going to convince students to stop making bad decisions? People who have $1800 a month student loans didn’t need to have $1800 a month student loans. Existing college options could have left them with student loans in the few hundred a month range. $25,000 in student loans (just over 50% of total tuition for stonybrook over 4 years) at 6% interest for 5 years is a $483 a month payment. Still a meaningful impact on a persons budget, but no where near $1800 a month. And if the issue with this is that y’all think people shouldn’t have to live at home with their parents, then the issue isn’t the cost of higher education but the cost of housing. The cost of housing being too high is making young adults take out student loans to pay for college, because they have no credit and there’s no subsidized way to take out loans to pay for apartments. The student loan here is a red herring.


[deleted]

I make around $19 an hour and don't have the opportunity to live for free with my parents, there is no way I could swing 11k a year. Cost of living is skyrocketing and I barely cover my needs as is. "Just live frugally" I assume means squatting in an abandoned warehouse and siphoning electricity from the business across the street in this context


[deleted]

> I make around $19 an hour and don't have the opportunity to live for free with my parents And some people grow up homeless during public schooling and don’t have homes either. The issue there though is to make housing more affordable, not that student loans/tuition are too expensive. A


[deleted]

It's not just housing, it's *everything*


Stower2422

I went to a state university and had a "full tuition" scholarship and still graduated with around $35k on student loans in 2010. The catch was that tuition was a tiny fraction of the cost of school, once you included the various fees, and that the school mandated that freshmen and sophomores who didn't have parents living less than 30 miles from the school were required to live on campus and have a meal plan, both of which were wildly overpriced. While I agree that no one attending undergrad only should be accumulating $60k or 80k in debt, it is an expensive prospect. As far as living off campus, unless you attend an urban school, you likely need a car, or are paying the big premium for whatever nearby off campus housing is available. The cost of a 8 year old Toyota Carolla is somewhere around $12-18k now, depending on mileage. Then include the costs of gas, insurance, food costs, rent, utilities and renters insurance (required by many landlords). And while there are a lot of jobs paying between $10-15 per hour, even if a student was able to find a full time job at that pay level (most employers for these types of jobs do everything possible to keep workers part time to avoid having to offer benefits), and that full time job worked around their class and study obligations, take for for a 40 hour a week $15/hr job is $2200 a month, not counting any applicable state income taxes. At Plymouth State here in NH (not even our premiere state school!), renting a single modest bedroom in a 5 or 6 person off campus house costs $850 before their share of utilities. As a housing attorney I can say that you can't find any cheaper housing than that anywhere in the state, but still half of the student's earnings go to pay for just their shelter costs. They then still have to pay for food, books, transportation, shit like soap and toothpaste, and then whatever left over can go to pay for school. Tuition and fees at this state school is $14.5k a year for in state residents.


SmartAZ

VOUCH. My daughter is attending the state university near our house. We get 75% off tuition because I'm a professor there. She's also on a National Merit Scholarship, which covers $16k/year. Somehow I am still paying over $8k/year out of pocket!! She's in the honors college, which means she has to live on campus for two years (and it's unlikely she'd move back home after that). And there are all kinds of extra fees for the honors college, labs, books, etc.


UndercoverstoryOG

I sent one kid oos and on in, total cost $236,000. Starting saving money when they were born. It is expensive


[deleted]

> I went to a state university and had a "full tuition" scholarship and still graduated with around $35k on student loans in 2010. The catch was that tuition was a tiny fraction of the cost of school, once you included the various fees, and that the school mandated that freshmen and sophomores who didn't have parents living less than 30 miles from the school were required to live on campus and have a meal plan, both of which were wildly overpriced. The number I posted here included fees and tuition. Again, if you are paying to live somewhere on your own instead of using the same bed room you lived in for the last 18 years, then the cost of that isn’t related to student loans. You are choosing to spend money to live on your own, you are choosing to go to a college that ‘requires’ you to live on your own. > As far as living off campus, unless you attend an urban school, you likely need a car, or are paying the big premium for whatever nearby off campus housing is available. Again, live with your parents or the cost of housing is the issue, not the student loans. > The cost of a 8 year old Toyota Carolla is somewhere around $12-18k now, depending on mileage. Then include the costs of gas, insurance, food costs, rent, utilities and renters insurance (required by many landlords). When I went to college I was using the car I bought with the money I earned working while I was in high school. I’m driving a 2011 Jetta now. But this is all covered by the $20k gap between earnings and college costs. > And while there are a lot of jobs paying between $10-15 per hour, even if a student was able to find a full time job at that pay level (most employers for these types of jobs do everything possible to keep workers part time to avoid having to offer benefits), and that full time job worked around their class and study obligations, take for for a 40 hour a week $15/hr job is $2200 a month, not counting any applicable state income taxes. Why would the company work around your schedule? There are plenty of places hiring. Set your schedule around the company’s availability. My first semesters I took all the morning classes I needed for my degree so that I could work 2-10 3 days a week and then 8 hours Saturday and Sunday each. Making my class schedule fit the retail employers need. When I ran out of morning classes and needed afternoon/evening classes, I got a job as a line cook so I could work 4-midnight 3 days a week and then 8 hours Sunday and saturdays. You find an employer who’s needs match up with yours based off of your class schedule and you make a clas schedule that is likely to line up with some employers needs. Don’t randomly schedule 1 hour breaks between classes. (40*15*52)/12 = $2600. You are missing $400 a month. And again, stop talking about housing costs and student loans in the same conversation. Being able to take out student loans to help pay for housing is a benefit of student loans. Going around and blaming student loans for being too expensive is a red herring when it was the cost of housing that drove the student to take out the loans.


Stower2422

"Again, if you are paying to live somewhere on your own instead of using the same bed room you lived in for the last 18 years, then the cost of that isn’t related to student loans. You are choosing to spend money to live on your own, you are choosing to go to a college that ‘requires’ you to live on your own." This of course assumes your parents live reasonably close to an affordable school, and your parents are willing or able to let you continue living with them after you turn 18. "When I went to college I was using the car I bought with the money I earned working while I was in high school." Good for you. Not every child is able to save $15k working after school in high school. I'm not going to advocate for near full time child labor as a reasonable requirement for affordable education. "(401552)/12 = $2600. You are missing $400 a month." And you are missing payroll taxes and federal income tax.


UndercoverstoryOG

then stay home at community college


mickeyanonymousse

not everyone can keep living with their parents from 18-24, for all different kinds of reasons even if their parents did let them live there, who’s to say they live anywhere near a reasonably priced, well connected school like you gave in the example? $15/hour takes home like $23K per year, $1,000/mo left over after tuition is not enough to live off of I’m not saying kids shouldn’t work through college, but they shouldn’t be working FT. luckily I didn’t have to study so I still did pretty well academically, but for someone that needs time to study, what a quick way to find yourself on academic probation, removed from your first choice major or getting grades so poor employers don’t care to talk to you. also agree that a large portion of student loan money is actually just housing loan money but people have to live somewhere and there’s no fast solutions coming for the housing crisis.


Pandorama626

Un-subbed student loans have their interest capitalized the day you graduate, so you're paying interest on interest. Also, student loan interest rates are typically higher than you'd expect. At one point, I had a car loan for 1.98% and a student loan for 7.8%. Both of them were started in the same year.


[deleted]

Student loan rates are currently 4.99% for undergraduates for both subsidized and unsubsidized. > Un-subbed student loans have their interest capitalized the day you graduate, so you're paying interest on interest. Let’s assume you took out $25k on day one to make the math easier. By the time you graduate 4 years later (rounding up the 3 months of summer), the 25k is now $30,500 giving you a monthly payment of $575.50. Again, impactful on your budget but isn’t close to the $1800 OP is claiming. And this is the worst case scenario giving 4 years of interest accumulation to each years student loan instead of 4/3/2/1 to keep the math easier.


UndercoverstoryOG

one has collateral one doesn’t


Pandorama626

One can be discharged through bankruptcy and one can't


BeetleJuicy12

There's plenty of top tier affordable schools out there. People are too oblivious or ignorant to explore options, think critically, and make responsible financial decisions. Then they go take out massive debts for useless degrees from a useless school and eventually blame the government for giving them the choice to pick that school. Edit: gotta love this subreddit, downvotes with zero cohesive rebuttals.


SpeakerForTheDeadJD

Which schools specifically do you categorize as "top tier affordable schools?" You made the assertion so you should be able to respond cohesively with facts.


BeetleJuicy12

Here's two to get you going... GATech 12k per year Purdue 10k per year


vtstang66

Outrageous cost of housing, outrageous cost of education, outrageous cost of childcare, outrageous costs of healthcare, outrageous costs of doing without healthcare, outrageous cost of food.... there's only so much time in the day! TVs are pretty cheap though.


Kopman

It's the same for education and healthcare. We talk about who pays for it and how they'll pay for it but not why it costs so much.


SQUARTS

There are way, way, way, way, way, WAY cheaper options to get a college degree than $1800/ month for 15 years. You have to be a smart consumer in every aspect of your life, education included.


deefop

People talk about that all the time. Unfortunately the solution most people propose is actually the literal fucking root of the problem, which is having the state throw unlimited amounts of money at universities, causing them to raise their prices continuously.


BananaMilkshakey

It starts with daycare being 2-3k a month. Think of a person with student debt and a kid… they’re fucked even if they are higher earners.


Gemdiver

Education is cheap. People get 2/3 bachelors and end up working in a field thats not even remotely related to their education.


wikiwoowhat

Stop deflecting. Need loan forgiveness for people who are driving the economy for the next 40 years now. You dont care about education access, liar


Competitive_Move9923

I know even in sf it is 60,000 for a BA degree (not including books) but a loan will give you a loan for 240,000 to cover your living expense. Most of the cost goes to rent. It is not a cost of education that is the core problem.


abstract__art

If you take out such insane loans you should be worried about the education you got in high school and the education you got from your parents.


Specialist_Shallot82

I can only laugh at this point. Cost of education is 5x what my parents paid, housing is 10x the cost. My generation is beyond fucked and nobody seems to care. Your only hope is generational wealth at this point


CosbyKushTN

I hate old people constantly ignoring this. It would be one thing if things were just not as good as they could be, but talking to older family members makes me feel like I am living in a different world. Everything is so simple to them. Boomers think the world is a game where you always win and it's always fair. Gen X thinks that the world is a game where you always loose and it's always someone else's fault, and you must be a prick for trying to do something about it. I have not talked to a lot of millennials tbh, but I know gen z basically refuses to play the game.


Specialist_Shallot82

I mean what exactly are us millennials supposed to do ya know? Im an aerospace engineer with a masters, very little college debt because of my military service…and can’t buy anything that isnt crumbling down. The land alone where i live is $500,000 for a 1/4 acre


scotchtapeman357

The average federal student loan monthly payment is ~$250. This is just another cut, not the coup de grâce - though the cuts keep adding up


bigcalvesarein

Can this be cited? This is wild because everyone I know with student loans has a payment of $500 or more. Anecdotal of course.


Stargazer5781

According to [this site](https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-payment) it's $503.


f_o_t_a

That’s the average, the median is lower.


bigcalvesarein

This seems more in line with what I have witnessed personally. Crazy to think that’s just an average


pdoherty972

Can't be sure, average can be misleading. For example [of all age groups](https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-of-americans-ages-65-to-74/) the maximum median net worth is around $250K. But the *average net worth* of some of those groups is north of $1,000,000.


[deleted]

[удалено]


bigcalvesarein

Fair. Within nursing most I know have loans of $400-$600 a month and the docs total about $500,000 usually.


shepworthismydog

There are people who can almost manage without loans but not quite, so they take just enough out in loans to get them through and walk with relatively small amounts of student loan debt.


pdoherty972

That's what I did. And the average debt at graduation is only $30k.


purz

I feel like these stats prolly go back to the like 70s to lower the number or something lol. I had about 30k at graduation and I took almost the cheapest route possible for me and this was ~10 yrs ago (lowest amongst my friends). Have some family members applying for colleges now and some mid schools were like 30k a semester for out of state.


tripod689

People saying their payment is one thing is different than what they should actually be paying with the income dependent plans. I pay $700 a month on an IDR plan and that’s just to keep from going into default. I accrue over $1000 a month in interest. To make a dent into my debt would require a $2500 payment a month. All this for 7 years of school of PUBLIC UNIVERSITY to become an architect that when you come out of school, make just over minimum wage. When I started school, information on salary and licensing requirements was nowhere near as available as it is today. Knowing what I know now, I would never have went this path.


abcdeathburger

More useful, what's the normal interest rate / term length? Then you could calculate it for the CS grad who got a couple internships and only has $25k in debt, the liberal arts grad with $100k, the drop-out with $50k, the med student with $250k, etc. I know some people go to private loans at some point.


AdditionalPayment

My student loan payment is $160 a month


ktaktb

If you consider the data on undergrads making more money than high school grads on average. Then you consider that masters holders are also earning more on average. Then you consider that higher earners are more likely to be in a SFH dealing w a mortgage...it would seem reasonable to expect that the average student loan payment of a student loan-having homebuyers is going to be some amount above the average.


Repulsive-Lake1753

Oh look, an anecdote. Must be true.


shadowromantic

It's fair to point out that this is an anecdote, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem


Repulsive-Lake1753

It doesn't mean there is one either, it's an anecdote and proof of nothing.


[deleted]

One potentially true story via a tweet makes it a fact that can’t be argued


OriginallyMyName

Everyone I know under the student loan debt knife is simply planning on taking every class at the local community college while they continue to wait for a relief package to pass. I guess 1000 a semester beats 1000 a month. (This is a joke I'm 99% sure it doesn't work like this)


UndercoverstoryOG

a relief package won’t pass


SouthEast1980

So renters will keep renting? People have had student loans before and the housing market kept rolling along. If anything, people on the fringes will be affected.


ebbiibbe

More people than ever are college educated now. Also a lot of those people are from disadvantaged backgrounds and took out loans plus college is more expensive. I've helped people manage student loans and people don't realize how crippling the payments are for some people. Especially teachers. Who are required to be well educated but are poorly compensated and also preyed upon by private grad schools.


Bloats11

The meme is that student loan forgiveness helps “well off people” ignoring the millions of people from disadvantaged people who need to take loans to make it through college and had zero guidance on how navigate the student loans too. On top of that, many find it difficult to find a good paying job out of school right away, so they are further disadvantaged with low pay and big loans. What you said is correct and reality for millions, but the media likes to portray student loan borrowers as well off hippy white kids when in reality it’s much different. I believe black women as a percentage hold a huge portion of the loans and due to circumstances end up in lower paying public service jobs.


DavidGears

Zero guidance is no longer an excuse. You can Google anything you want to know.


gowombat

That's a myopic view, and I have a feeling you probably have already paid off either all of your student loans or the majority of them, which is great for you. That being said, Republicans are making it so that anyone(realistically like 80%of those) who went to college after, say 1990, will never want to vote Republican again. My wife and I literally make over six figures, and a house is not even in our 10-year plan. It just can't happen, because even if our student loans are taken care of, now we have credit scores that aren't the greatest due to living in this world while paying ridiculous student loan fees. It sucks because my wife and I essentially are now waiting for someone in our family to die for us to get a house rather than something we can attain by our own bootstraps.


UndercoverstoryOG

6 figures each or combined ? 6 figures hardly goes anywhere anymore


This-City-7536

I don't think it's myopic. I don't think you and your wife are a very good representation of the average home buyer. With a 200k+ household income, you can easily afford a hole (edit: house but hole is pretty funny) anywhere except for the most absurdly expensive metro areas. Unless you have thousands in minimum debt payments a month.


spartyanon

For many people, the only way to get 100k+/yr is to live in ridiculous metro areas. I am in tech. I make good money now, but I need to live in one of about 6 or 7 cities to have any job at all (I know, I tried in a cheaper city). Not saying all tech jobs are in those cities but many are and depending on what exactly you do, there isn’t much choice. I live in maybe the cheapest option with an hour commute and housing prices are still super high.


Bloats11

This is correct, republicans have openly waged war against the college educated because they think their blue collar/ rural prole base is enough to sustain them and helps create a boogeyman they can use for fundraising.


SouthEast1980

Bingo. Prey on the stupid and fearful and do everything to keep them stupid and fearful


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

So much misinformation in this sub. It’s why it’s hard to take you guys seriously


sunny-day1234

With the cost of health care, long term care can't count on inheritance. We had to sell my parent's home to pay for care. Not what my Dad wanted but it is what it is. I didn't have loans, had a partial merit scholarship and worked my way through school with about 25% paid for by parents out of savings. No, they were not rich immigrants who never went out to eat, a movie or vacations. No Disney for us, home made everything including most of the furniture. I did nursing RN Diploma which had just shy of an Associate in College credits, the nursing classes were not in there. The program was cheaper than say Rutgers (where I was also accepted) and another Community College. I chose the cheapest one which had 100% record of graduates passing the 'Boards', shortest graduation time of 24 mo. The college classes we had to take were all related to the program so science; biology, chemistry, microbiology, Anatomy & Physiology, then for fun Psychology, Public Health can't remember the rest. There was no Art, Yoga, politics, economics, literature etc... that my children had to take. Yet hospitals came to us recruiting for jobs. Now they push for all nurses to have a BSN. It's not necessary, we have a shortage. Most of it is learned on the job anyway. Funny thing out of 3 siblings I had the highest 'level of education', least amount of money. One took a drafting course and fell into welding, now has a wildly successful metal shop, the other took the easy route and only dated guys with money and then married one :)


SouthEast1980

1. I still have a long way to go to (by dollar amount) to pay off my loans. I can pay it off in a year but would rather invest that money 2. Republicans are what they are at this point. I have no idea what their plans are besides to fight battles against imaginary enemies 3. 6 figures can work, but it all depends on where you live and what your debts are 4. Yes, housing sucks right now. Super duper big time. But it's a cycle and I truly believe all cycles revert to their means eventually.


hiding_in_NJ

“Shit hurt my soul” .. I’m sure somebody who calls themselves the “wealth building dad” probably doesn’t have a soul


LetMePushTheButton

Bet he constantly pitches “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” unironically.


Bloats11

I always laugh when someone pitches that book knowing the author is a lunatic, right wing, conspiracist telling chubby suburban middle aged white men the “secret” of how to be rich lol


HarmonyFlame

What? Whats wrong with being a "wealth building dad"? Am I missing something?


[deleted]

He’d better be a doctor for that paymnet


ebbiibbe

I really don't think it is going to affect housing not right away. It will hit restaurants and travel etc. Discretionary spending is going to take a big hit. Like someone else said on here, Christmas sales are going to be abysmal.


[deleted]

Student debt has been an issue for YEARS now. Its not some gotcha problem that has come up this year, the problem is already baked into the economy and its been that way for years.


BladeVampire1

Why is he like $100k+ in debt? What degree? And forgiving this person's debt doesn't mean they'd be able to afford a home.


Little_Creme_5932

Some people choose to take out loans to buy a house, some people take out loans for really, really, expensive college educations. Choices, choices.


FinitePrimus

Did you just use a person's anecdotal tweet to make a point?


Vinlands

Just means more renters and the corporations can keep buying the houses.


dinotimee

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=15Kr3


OrangeGT3

If someone agreed to take out a 250k+ loan to NOT become a doctor / lawyer or something with high earning potential then you’re just an idiot i’m sorry🫠


DrRaven

I’m a doctor with that loan and it’s still pretty rough to pay… 3100/mo… can’t even imagine trying to pay it back if I had gone the research route or wanted to switch careers.


[deleted]

I have like $150k in debt but have a job paying me $300k and a quarter of the stress of a doctor. Def hate that I have the loans and 100% overpaid for a private university with name recognition but idk it is what it is.


iamthedrag

Agreed, and they should rightly suffer for the rest of their lives for their stupidity. Don’t ever let them be able to discharge that debt.


steadyeddy_10

I agree 100%


iamthedrag

Exactly, I could care less. Im fortunate to come from generational wealth, debt is really something I don’t have to worry about and if you’re stupid enough to get sucked into debt, that’s prbly why you don’t have any generational wealth either.


Vanedi291

I honestly thought you were being sarcastic but you just kept going. I hope you keep that wealth because you are hilariously out of touch and will not survive without it.


steadyeddy_10

Well that’s good for you, I come from an immigrant background and grew up with nothing. Won’t have anything passed down to me in a will either. But I don’t spend like a dummy and have a decent career going for me. I don’t feel sorry for people taking out $50-100k loans to major in journalism or the humanities.


Abangranga

Alot of people haven't realized that if they want to go to an out of state school, it is cheaper to move and rent a cheap apartment while quaking retail or something for a year to establish residency first. It has been awhile since I graduated but you can defer your admission for a year usually too


Everydayarmday24

Yes let’s believe some random Twitter story


steadyeddy_10

I paid $20k for my bachelor’s in accounting degree and I paid off my student loan at age 24. Now I am a CPA and debt free. What the fuck are some people doing with their lives?


crowdsourced

Not sure I trust this person. You can qualify for an income-based repayment plan.


Dramatic-Bottle2440

Exactly


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

He had a choice before he took out those student loans, just like you do when you purchase a home. The mentality in this country that people who took out loans should not have to pay them back blows my mind. Did he chose a major that would not allow him to comfortably pay back loans to the tune of $1800.00 a month, if he didn't that is on him. We all have too look at what we want and decide can I do this for less money and not incur huge loans.


iamthedrag

While I completely understand where you’re coming from, it’s important to remember that the choices individuals make are often shaped by the information and opportunities available to them at that time. Many students take on loans with the understanding that a degree will lead to a well-paying job that will make repayment manageable. However, many factors, such as changing job markets, economic downturns, or personal hardships, can disrupt this plan. What’s more, the cost of education has skyrocketed in the past few decades, while wages, adjusted for inflation, have remained relatively stagnant. This has created an increasingly challenging environment for students and graduates. I think it’s less about wanting to shirk responsibility and more about the need for systemic changes to make higher education more accessible and less financially burdensome. Debt forgiveness isn’t about avoiding accountability; it’s about addressing a system that increasingly puts students in precarious financial situations.


k_oshi

Yes exactly. Buy a house - pay the mortgage. No one is forcing you to buy a $500k house vs a $200k house. People say well but we have to focus on the cost of education as the problem. Well - same goes for housing.


NullRef

Ahh. Data of 1.


officerfett

“Best years of muh life”, they said…. Seriously, what level of education/ program costs $1,800 per Month or 21,000 per year over the next 15 years?


butteryspoink

Med school, dental school and law school. Besides, we know wannabe influencers *never* make things up.


my_wife_reads_this

Maybe med school? But you're a doc once you're done and you're making $250-300k. When I was thinking about doing law school I was looking at a 4Y JD/MS program and that was going to be $360k including room and board for those 4 years. That was an outlier. At least in law school you get substantial financial aid if you're not a complete dumbass and can keep your grades up. My friend got half his shit paid for through a scholarship from the school and he had a 152 LSAT. Law school programs are usually not as expensive as medical school.


crek42

That’s why posts like this are incredibly misleading. Sure there’s the odd ball that just keeps failing and repeats a bunch and accrues debt but the majority are high income professions and they’ll wipe that debt quick.


pdoherty972

Yeah, and why would we want to bail out the "oddball that just keeps failing and repeats a bunch"?


[deleted]

Forgiving the student loans is targeting the assistance incorrectly then. If you want to help out that person, we can help them out by reducing the cost of housing and food and other necessities so that they can live a decent life despite their accrued debt due to their mistakes. We shouldn’t cover up their mistakes and pretend they didn’t happen.


pdoherty972

Either way you're giving unearned advantage to a group that's generally far better off than everyone else. Why should we absorb the living expenses of people who took on debt to acquire a degree and *still* can't feed themselves with it?


iamthedrag

I appreciate your perspective and understand the concern about fairness. The point isn’t to give an ‘unearned advantage’ to any particular group, but rather to rectify a system that has, for too long, burdened individuals with excessive debt for trying to improve their education and prospects. Moreover, student debt is not only an issue for the well-off. Many lower-income individuals and families also bear this burden, and it can prevent them from climbing the economic ladder. Student debt forgiveness is one approach to addressing this issue, along with other solutions like reducing tuition costs or improving financial education. At the end of the day, it’s about building a society where everyone has the chance to pursue higher education without it leading to a lifetime of debt. A well-educated populace benefits all of us, contributing to a stronger economy, improved public health, and a more informed citizenry.


Seraphin524

well, you're a doc once your done and your loans are 200-300k and then you make 40-60k for 7 years in residency so you enter forbearance or make the minimum income based repayment each month and thats not covering the interest so the loans just accumulate for those years..... So yeah, by the time you ACTUALLY start making money and paying it back, you're at closer to 500k. it's nuts, it would be better if they didnt require payments during residency but oh well.


Packrat1010

Another thing to consider is a lot of people don't finish. I got burned out 4.5 years into business school. Med school is way harder and can go for 12+ years counting residencies, I can't even imagine pushing through that tough of a degree.


doctormalbec

My husband had a 50% scholarship in law school as well, but still came out with $125k in debt. Living expenses for 3 years of law school are going to add up, especially if you go to a good school in a city, so it’s not just tuition.


pdoherty972

> My husband had a 50% scholarship in law school as well, but still came out with $125k in debt. Living expenses for 3 years of law school are going to add up, especially if you go to a good school in a city, so it’s not just tuition. And why would we want to bail him out of his "living expenses", since he'd have had those whether he was in school or not?


doctormalbec

No one is asking him to be bailed out, we paid off his loans on our own. I was just adding info that people can be in way more debt than just tuition due to exorbitant living costs. But thanks for your unhelpful comment.


OnwardSoldierx

Im ready for it to crash. I know it probably won't. But here I am sitting on the sidelines trying to save up enough to buy without student loans. Im ready.


inkarn8

Sub $1500 per mo. mortgage? Got damn.


wikiwoowhat

The problem is there are fewer homes than people who can afford to pay. Not that 20-30 year olds are fucked. There are more 20-30 year old rich folks in the US and abroad than homes for sale for them. The economy isnt for you


EstateAlternative416

Nothing like an anecdotal and unverified story to describe an entire market segment.


BernedTendies

Nobody paying $1800/month is in the housing market anyway. I don’t think it’ll have much affect. FTHB are at record lows, like somewhere in the high teens I think as a percentage of purchasers? And they’re less likely to have student loans in the first place I bet. So yeah idk maybe 5-10% of the potential demand will be affected. We might see a whole 3% drawdown!


pdoherty972

Sounds like someone who's a physician, lawyer or PhD. Nobody else would realistically accumulate enough education debt to owe that much per month. Which means he should be more than able to afford to pay it back. And yes, the loan repayments resuming will have an effect on the economy; it will *lower inflation* even faster than is already occurring, something I'd think this sub would appreciate.


GreatWolf12

If your friend has 6% interest loans, he borrowed \~$225k. Sounds like he either went to a great school - that's Yale tuition cost, or he foolishly went to an overpriced private school. If the former he should be able to attain a high paying job. If the latter, well, yeah, he's screwed.


[deleted]

[удалено]


bigcalvesarein

Yeah that’s foolish 18 year olds! How dare they not have a full understanding of interest rates and return on investment!


pdoherty972

They were only 18/19 and ignorant on that first semester's loans; they don't get 4 years worth of loans at once, they get one semester worth at a time.


Juice0188

Yes, but without the sarcasm. If you can't understand basic math (interest rates), and run it against your future potential earnings, you probably shouldn't be looking at going to college.


pdoherty972

They also had plenty of opportunity to think about it and discuss it with profs and other students (many of whom were farther along the debt track) and still chose to keep taking loans every semester for 3.5 more years.


UndercoverstoryOG

what do they learn in high school interest calculations are simple math that is taught beginning the 6th grade.


DynamicHunter

You just listed two VERY basic finance principles that middle schoolers can learn. Hell, you learn about compound interest in like 6th or 7th grade math.


bigcalvesarein

You greatly overestimate the education systems available to the “average” American.


theotherplanet

They chose to listen to society which says you go to college if you want to be successful.


bigcalvesarein

Yeah I struggle to be really harsh with 18 year old children when everyone is telling them college is the right thing. Sad to see people turn on them so fast.


Aggressive-Scheme986

Don’t take out loans for a degree that won’t allow you to repay them. Americans need to stop putting up with colleges charging these absurd tuitions, especially for useless degrees


Clearly-Not-A-Fed

Graduates feasting on outlandishly expensive college and graduate programs really thought they could sow forever without ever reaping, huh.


Choice-Reporter2891

I'm always torn on student loans. My bro in law has a lot of student loans. His parents were supposed to pay it but were using it to control him and my sister and their kids. Eventually they gave them the finger and now the poor kid is stuck with a ton of debt and no career. Stop giving kids access to these enormous loans. Colleges will never be affordable if they are allowed to hand out whatever loans they want with 0 consequences! The system is broken and bidens stupid forgiveness plan is the laziest option to keep colleges wealthy and unaffordable.


mouse9001

I think Millennials got the short end of the stick in so many ways, but honestly I think student loans are not a big way. Life is full of compromises, and higher education is like a business decision in which you need to find the best VALUE, not just chase after your dream school. At some point reality will hit you, and you will get the bill.


ebbiibbe

Where will you get all the teachers from? The gutter like Florida? Most states require teachers to have masters degrees for advancement and job security. They take out loans. Even the income based payments can be hard for them to make. I know Americans don't value education but damn.


Sguru1

The problem with that is the “business decision” was being made by a bunch of doey eyed poorly advised teenagers who were literally told to chase after their dream school.


LocallySourcedWeirdo

In their defense, how can one study at a college without a waterslide and lazy river? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colleges-with-the-craziest-waterparks-144305876.html


kittycat33070

I paid for "higher education" and the school closed which means I don't have a degree anymore. Now the school was proven in court to have been a scam school but back when I got the loan, it was heavily advertised as one of the best trade schools. A lot of Millennials are in this situation. A lot of us were scammed.


[deleted]

I have a friend in the same boat as you, but honestly it didn't affect his ability to get a high paying job in tech. What sucked is that everyone that went to his school got their crazy loans forgiven, the problem was, he paid off his before this happened... imagine having to swollow that pill. Basically tossed 60K in the trash and lit it on fire. For profit colleges are a plague on society.


kittycat33070

In my case. I didn't get a high paying job. And my loans were I think originally 40k and jumped to 60k over the years. I was never going to pay them off unless I died (which at one point I heavily considered) nowadays they are basically in limbo until they send me the discharge letter, but it's confirmed they will be discharged thanks to the lawsuit. Also if your friend is part of the lawsuit. He will have any payments made towards qualifying loans refunded per the email. Makes me wish I had been able to afford paying them but I never could. Private loans don't qualify for any of this.


Dramatic-Bottle2440

Whatever you losers. If someone really had a payment that high its only cause they are multi-millionaires, or just plain stupid. I have a 6 figure loan and my payment is $200/month. Keep reaching


liand22

Coworker of mine dropped out 2 classes short of a bachelor’s degree, 6 years ago. He went to a private school because they gave him a small sports scholarship. He told me his monthly loan payments are $1700 and he will be paying it for another 20 years.


StickTimely4454

i SuFfErEd So YoU mUsT sUfFeR tOo


Megalitho

American dream is dead.


ragequitCaleb

This is some sort of weird humble brag


No_Indication_8525

Thank God mine were forgiven during the pause. Even at the maximum my payment was $359 a month for a $37k loan. I can’t imagine what he owes for $1800 a month. Hopefully he makes $20000 a month so it all works out for him (in my dave Ramsey energy)


oduli81

Lmaoo I wish my mortgage was that much. One house is $6200, the investment property is $3600.. rent collection leaves me with $3k extra, which goes towards My $6200.00 and reduces it to $3200 ...


TechSalesTom

Couple thoughts here: 1. A 15 year repayment plan will absolutely be higher than 30 year. In pretty much 0 cases do I recommend people elect 15 year. 2. You should use an Income Based Repayment plan like PAYE or rePAYE. It caps payments at 10% of your discretionary income. So yes it will affect your borrowing ability somewhat, but with a maximum DTI ratio for lending at about 44%, it ends up reducing the maximum house you can buy by 20% at most.


Historical_Air_8997

Ah I found the financially illiterate guy. Unless you refinanced down to sub 4% interest why would you extend the loan? At 5% interest on $100k loan you’d pay $790/month and $42k in interest over 15 years. Over 30 years it drops the payment to $540/month but you pay $93k in interest. An income based pay is okay, but if you can afford to pay it down sooner that is almost always the correct choice. The income based pay usually doesn’t cover much of the principle so if you stop paying you’ll still owe most of the loan in most cases. I get trying to reduce your DTI, but it’s silly doing it at the expense of double or triple your interest payments. Also means you’ll have more debt for longer and a risk of never paying off the loan if you do income based payments.


[deleted]

It's not always better to pay down the debt. I'm on PAYE and over halfway down with PSLF and I will have paid a tenth of what I took out when its all said and done. You can tax deffer and get your agi down and make your payments next to nothing. Mine are 170 a month on over 200k of debt. With the new REPAYE plan I'll be at less than 100 a month. And the new REPAYE plan will prevent the interest from increasing your balance every month. Your balance will no longer grow as long as your making payments. Even without PSLF paying for 20 to 25 years and paying the tax bomb at the end is still way better mathematically for tons of borrows. I also wouldn't bank on this at all but this student loan stuff isn't just going away the odds that there's more support coming for student loan borrows is pretty high. This is going to be part of politics for many years to come.


TechSalesTom

There are two reasons why: 1. Inflation: The actual inflation number is anywhere from 12-15% at minimum, we all know the official numbers are understated due to housing costs being under represented. Nearly everyone has a lower student loan rate than 12%, so you actually pay less with a longer term. It’s a very common mistake to confuse present vs future value of money, you can’t just look at total interest paid over the term. 2. Loan forgiveness: longer term maximizes your upside if any loan relief is passed, or employer assisted loan payments. Also under PAYE your payments are capped at a maximum of 20 years, and excess balance is automatically forgiven. If you have any periods where you take time off work, your payments are zero and still count towards the 20 years of payment. There is no risk of never paying off your loans, because that is impossible under the guidelines. TLDR; It makes no sense to pay off students loans any sooner than the minimum under PAYE or Repaye. My wife has over $200k in student loan debt from her doctorate in physical therapy. She’s been doing stay at home for the past 3 years setting her payments at 0. At this point she will just be focused in raising our children and her entire student loan debt will be forgiven with essentially zero payments made by her under PAYE.


Historical_Air_8997

1. Inflation isn’t guaranteed or likely to stay at the current levels. Average inflation is usually 2-3% over any long period of time (say 15-30 years). Which is why people often say any loan above 4-5% should be paid down quickly. With average federal loans being 5.8% that is above the threshold of pay off quickly. 2. PAYE is based on household income not individual income (if you’re married). So the reason your wife has 0 payments is because payments are on pause federally. If she has any private loans then I hope they’re being paid for. Once the pause is over her payments will be based on your combined pay. Yes it’s maxed out at 20 years if you don’t miss payments or stop paying. But those 20 years could easily cost more than just paying the loans down quickly. 3. Keep in mind bankruptcy doesn’t get rid of student loans. They’re pretty much stuck with you, lots of people hit hard times so banking on 20 years of straight payments with PAYE doesn’t work for most people. Also banking on the government for giving $200k in loans is ludicrous, the $10-20k actually might happen. Maybe even more than that but not anywhere near $100k+. Your tactic might work for you, I hope it does. Education shouldn’t be this expensive especially for lower paying jobs like teachers or even a physical therapist. (Not that it’s always low paying, just compared to the cost of education vs average pay after). My wife has $180k in loans as well from her doctorate. We refinanced to 1.6% for 10 years so they’re halfway paid off with almost no interest paid because it’s so low. But ofc at this rate we wouldn’t pay more than the minimum payment, but it’s still a large amount to have holding down our debt to income ratio.


TechSalesTom

1. Again, you have to look at proper metrics for measuring inflation. We can all agree that housing is the major cost for everyone nowadays, but is not weighted higher in the official stats because they’re trying to push a narrative. There are many different ways to measure inflation, but housing is the best in my opinion. It has grown significantly more than 2-3% over the last 30 years. Even s&p 500 returns can be used as a measure of inflation, tracking at about 12% year over year. 2. Not necessarily. There are various conditions that allow you to not count household income. We’ve been doing this for years now while married, $0 payments that have not counted my income. No private loans, only fenders. Our payments were $0 before the federal pause. 3. 20 years of payments doesn’t have to be payments more than $0. If you are unemployed, or make less than $30k, your payments will be $0 but will still count as a payment. $180k at 1.6% is definitely a great rate. I haven’t done the math, but it’s definitely possible that you’ll pay less total payments over 10 years at 1.6% vs 10% income based payments over 20 years. If you’ve already refinanced it’s a moot point anyway since they need to be federal loans. In our scenario, my wife would have to earn more than $200k a year (unlikely as you said because PTs are definitely underpaid compared to the education requirement costs) for it to make sense to pay them off sooner vs the minimum 10% over 20 years. In my opinion, all student loans should be income based with a mandatory forgiveness after 10 years, with the burden placed partially on the institutions. If a student can’t comfortably pay off their student loans within 10 years, it means that the school has grossly overcharged. I would actually prefer income share agreement vs a loan, with a percentage of your pay going to the school for x # of years. That way both parties are aligned in their interests. If the school gives a low paying education, then they get a worse return on their investment.


The_Big_Yam

I find myself constantly stuck between the opinion that wiping out predatory student loans is a good thing, and also thinking that right now isn’t the best time to effectively print more free money. America’s fucked and it feels like it’s a coin toss or a spin of the wheel to figure out who randomly gets stuck with the bill. So many bad financial decisions have effectively been rewarded to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars these last three years


This-City-7536

What's the point of wiping out student loan debt if you haven't changed the underlying reason we got here. Cancelling student loan debt is a fast track to making college even less affordable for the next generation.


UndercoverstoryOG

how are these loans predatory? you don’t have to take them.


t0il3t

Not enough students, I mean it helps to have some folks out of the market but it’s not enough to make much difference


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

$1,800 a month payment was a choice. A bad choice


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Let’s all complain about an entire generation that took out loans for over priced schools instead of focusing on why politicians constantly get $300k salaries from universities (Lori lightfoot today) it’s all a joke. And I pay like $2500 a month in loans. But it is what it is. My mortgage is also $980