Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
June 7, 2015 5:01 AM Subscribe
It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.
Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.
Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.
Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.
Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.
I'll say it again, that there exist loans marketed to the youngest and least experienced adults that are not dischargable in bankruptcy is an absolute disgrace. Congress should be ashamed, and it should absolutely be a campaign issue.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:35 AM on June 7, 2015 [194 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 5:35 AM on June 7, 2015 [194 favorites]
I'll say it again, that there exist loans marketed to the youngest and least experienced adults that are not dischargable in bankruptcy is an absolute disgrace.
It is really reprehensible. Students are encouraged to take on extraordinary amounts of debt ("But it is good debt!"), though it is often more of a gamble than an investment. I was lucky -- I went to a college that could afford to offer generous financial aid, so I graduated with only modest student loans which could be paid off quickly. I know plenty of people who will be finished paying student loans about the same time they retire, which seems insane and leads to people having to make the same kinds of decisions that the author of the piece describes.
As an aside, it would be better to credit the author in an FPP like this -- Siegel is prominent enough to merit naming, and doing so would help future searching if the link stops working at some point.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
It is really reprehensible. Students are encouraged to take on extraordinary amounts of debt ("But it is good debt!"), though it is often more of a gamble than an investment. I was lucky -- I went to a college that could afford to offer generous financial aid, so I graduated with only modest student loans which could be paid off quickly. I know plenty of people who will be finished paying student loans about the same time they retire, which seems insane and leads to people having to make the same kinds of decisions that the author of the piece describes.
As an aside, it would be better to credit the author in an FPP like this -- Siegel is prominent enough to merit naming, and doing so would help future searching if the link stops working at some point.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
There's an argument that the author dug his own hole, of course a creative writing degree is not likely to generate sufficient income to pay down loans to attend expensive private college. Especially if you're not willing to explore other career fields outside of "writing" that may bring in such income.
On the other hand, it's a sad state of education that reduces it to a pure economic calculation, and we should want better for ourselves. And whatever the merits of your degree choice, non-dischargability is abominable, and puts the onus of making the economic calculation on 18yr olds with no experience in the real world, rather than on the schools and lending institutions who should bear the risk of default. Where no one bears the burden except the students, and the federal government is complicit, the predatory system is free to grow without restraint. And it has.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:13 AM on June 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
On the other hand, it's a sad state of education that reduces it to a pure economic calculation, and we should want better for ourselves. And whatever the merits of your degree choice, non-dischargability is abominable, and puts the onus of making the economic calculation on 18yr olds with no experience in the real world, rather than on the schools and lending institutions who should bear the risk of default. Where no one bears the burden except the students, and the federal government is complicit, the predatory system is free to grow without restraint. And it has.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:13 AM on June 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
Full disclosure: I made the arguably equally indefensible choice to pay full sticker price to attend private law school. In my defense, at least it was in 2006, just before the complete collapse of the legal market 2 years later. It wasn't quite as obviously terrible then as now. But still, were it not for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (which won't be forgiving any loans until 2017, and we'll see how it fairs once headlines like "Government lawyer writes off $500k student loan" become routine) I would be in the same boat as the author.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:18 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:18 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
There are huge problems with the current student loan system, but people should appreciate that if there are enough defaults, Congress will have no choice but to stop guaranteeing student loans.
The world of higher education without Federal guarantees is going to be very different. Only students admitted to the highest-ranked programs with predictable outcomes for high long-term earnings, will be able to get student loans, and those loans are going to have very high interest rates and aggressive terms. Programs whose students aren't loan eligible ... the vast majority of them ... will either have to close or cut their tuition by 75% or more, and will keep the books balanced by layoffs and salary cuts.
posted by MattD at 6:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
The world of higher education without Federal guarantees is going to be very different. Only students admitted to the highest-ranked programs with predictable outcomes for high long-term earnings, will be able to get student loans, and those loans are going to have very high interest rates and aggressive terms. Programs whose students aren't loan eligible ... the vast majority of them ... will either have to close or cut their tuition by 75% or more, and will keep the books balanced by layoffs and salary cuts.
posted by MattD at 6:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
Or, we could just invest in students, rather than weapon systems.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:22 AM on June 7, 2015 [38 favorites]
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:22 AM on June 7, 2015 [38 favorites]
I thankfully had decent enough credit rating and a little help from my family (who co-signed), so I was able to get a line of credit from my bank instead of through the government. I've watched people ruin their credit with OSAP. here in Ontario. It's fine for the duration of your academic life but once you're finished, that high interest rate comes-a-knocking.*
*I am a Canadian but I have heard plenty of horror stories on this side of the border and students here face the same struggles with debt and payment.
posted by Fizz at 6:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
*I am a Canadian but I have heard plenty of horror stories on this side of the border and students here face the same struggles with debt and payment.
posted by Fizz at 6:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Should be a campaign issue, but will never be for two reasons: first, there's people making a lot of money out of kids, the same who are bankrolling that campaign trail visit to Nowhere OH, and second, nobody (other than those "instead of those pansy art courses should have gone to finance or sold insurance like I did, going uphill in the snow both ways, under blistering heat" types) will openly disagree that those kids shouldn't have their head on a guillotine before they're even 18. Like saving puppies, it's not exactly a great talking point.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:27 AM on June 7, 2015
posted by lmfsilva at 6:27 AM on June 7, 2015
The student loan situation is awful, and I have the greatest sympathy for anyone in that situation. But this is a terrible essay. He comes across as a whiny child. I wish they had printed something by someone who tried to repay their loans and simply failed and gave up, not someone with a huge chip on his shoulder who believes he's too precious to get a higher paying job.
posted by miyabo at 6:28 AM on June 7, 2015 [61 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 6:28 AM on June 7, 2015 [61 favorites]
The world of higher education without Federal guarantees is going to be very different. Only students admitted to the highest-ranked programs with predictable outcomes for high long-term earnings, will be able to get student loans, and those loans are going to have very high interest rates and aggressive terms. Programs whose students aren't loan eligible ... the vast majority of them ... will either have to close or cut their tuition by 75% or more, and will keep the books balanced by layoffs and salary cuts.
If the only other option is to fund it on the backs of millions of low-income kids and fuck up their lives in the process, then good riddance. (Of course, there is a better option - government-funded university - but good luck getting THAT through Congress)
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
If the only other option is to fund it on the backs of millions of low-income kids and fuck up their lives in the process, then good riddance. (Of course, there is a better option - government-funded university - but good luck getting THAT through Congress)
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
There's an argument that the author dug his own hole, of course a creative writing degree is not likely to generate sufficient income to pay down loans to attend expensive private college.
And certainly it is the 18-year old -- who left private school for a public school -- at fault for not choosing a lucrative career, which are just on the trees waiting to be picked.
posted by jeather at 6:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [20 favorites]
And certainly it is the 18-year old -- who left private school for a public school -- at fault for not choosing a lucrative career, which are just on the trees waiting to be picked.
posted by jeather at 6:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [20 favorites]
There are huge problems with the current student loan system, but people should appreciate that if there are enough defaults, Congress will have no choice but to stop guaranteeing student loans.
Of course they have a choice. They could, for example, work out a higher education funding system that isn't one of the most student-unfriendly in the developed world. They won't, but that doesn't mean they don't have a choice.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:31 AM on June 7, 2015 [22 favorites]
Of course they have a choice. They could, for example, work out a higher education funding system that isn't one of the most student-unfriendly in the developed world. They won't, but that doesn't mean they don't have a choice.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:31 AM on June 7, 2015 [22 favorites]
Oh and I have no problem whatsoever with what he did. Default is just another financial transaction with its own consequences, not some great moral calculus. I think more people should default and are held back by being brainwashed into thinking it's somehow immoral.
posted by miyabo at 6:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [36 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 6:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [36 favorites]
Part of the problem is that so, so many jobs require a degree, and then won't pay a salary which allows people to pay for that degree. Like, you can say "lol shouldn't have gone into [x field] then," but what's the other option? Have NO people doing that work, Or only having people from rich families do it?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [35 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [35 favorites]
I think more people should default and are held back by being brainwashed into thinking it's somehow immoral.
I've thought about it, and it's not morality holding me back - it's the fact that I rent, and defaulting would bury my credit at the bottom of a well. How would I ever find an apartment again?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:35 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
I've thought about it, and it's not morality holding me back - it's the fact that I rent, and defaulting would bury my credit at the bottom of a well. How would I ever find an apartment again?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:35 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Instead of defaulting on loans, what would happen if enough young people just left the US altogether in an attempt to pay off loans? I met a few other Americans who were in the same boat as me when I was abroad in Hong Kong and while backpacking. Living in a low tax country while taking advantage of the IRS living abroad exemption meant our take home pay was much higher than many of our friends back stateside, even when astronomical Hong Kong rents were factored in (though living with roommates off the main island led to rents comparable to those of large US cities). From what I gather, most of us were able to get employers to pay for flights out of the US to get settled in new countries.
posted by astapasta24 at 6:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by astapasta24 at 6:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Something doesn't add up here. Lee Siegel was born in 1957. He would have been a college freshman in 1973? I thought that was the good old days of college tuition.
posted by bq at 6:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by bq at 6:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [14 favorites]
It seems like it all worked out for him. By gambling on going to an elite private school and a less than lucrative career, he was able to become a writer with a career.
But that definitely doesn't work for everybody and I'm sure there were many that gambled and lost, defaulting on loans for fancier schools. Which may have been fine in the 70s, but now that gamble involves much higher amounts and with fewer working class jobs to fall on when you fail.
posted by destro at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2015
But that definitely doesn't work for everybody and I'm sure there were many that gambled and lost, defaulting on loans for fancier schools. Which may have been fine in the 70s, but now that gamble involves much higher amounts and with fewer working class jobs to fall on when you fail.
posted by destro at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2015
Part of the problem is that so, so many jobs require a degree, and then won't pay a salary which allows people to pay for that degree. Like, you can say "lol shouldn't have gone into [x field] then," but what's the other option? Have NO people doing that work, Or only having people from rich families do it?
That's one of the many reasons Siegel is not really a great spokesman for this very important issue. I don't love his open contempt for people who work in shoe stores and finance firms. "I’d probably be district manager by now" -- as if that were something shameful! And his chosen line of work -- being a reader and writer -- is, indeed, something that lots of people do without a formal degree, even something lots of people do while holding down another job. Becoming a scholar of literature, on the other hand, is something you actually do need a Ph.D. to do. But guess what -- Siegel also looks down on people in that line of work.
My advice, for people who care about this issue, is to set Siegel aside and throw some money at Rolling Jubilee.
posted by escabeche at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2015 [44 favorites]
That's one of the many reasons Siegel is not really a great spokesman for this very important issue. I don't love his open contempt for people who work in shoe stores and finance firms. "I’d probably be district manager by now" -- as if that were something shameful! And his chosen line of work -- being a reader and writer -- is, indeed, something that lots of people do without a formal degree, even something lots of people do while holding down another job. Becoming a scholar of literature, on the other hand, is something you actually do need a Ph.D. to do. But guess what -- Siegel also looks down on people in that line of work.
My advice, for people who care about this issue, is to set Siegel aside and throw some money at Rolling Jubilee.
posted by escabeche at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2015 [44 favorites]
That 1970s timeline makes more sense to me -- are students these days able to borrow thousands for student loans without having a parent or someone else cosign? Because default does become a moral calculation when you have someone with much more to lose as your cosigner, who has much stricter rules for bankruptcy. I feel like Siegel's experience of relatively consequence-free default doesn't ring true now. In 1973, he could still have discharged his debt in bankruptcy.
posted by gladly at 6:55 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by gladly at 6:55 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
He went to Columbia. Their tuition in 1973 was 3000, or about 16000 today. Some people are paying more today, but that does seem like enough to be angry about.
posted by miyabo at 6:56 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 6:56 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Living in a low tax country while taking advantage of the IRS living abroad exemption meant our take home pay was much higher than many of our friends back stateside
Wait, how does that work? As I understand it, Americans living abroad pay the higher of US tax or tax in their foreign country. The US is the only country that taxes its citizens living abroad. Which is why a lot of rich expat Americans renounce their citizenship. I lived and worked in Canada for a few years and definitely don't remember an exemption, though I think you might get more time to file.
posted by pravit at 6:59 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wait, how does that work? As I understand it, Americans living abroad pay the higher of US tax or tax in their foreign country. The US is the only country that taxes its citizens living abroad. Which is why a lot of rich expat Americans renounce their citizenship. I lived and worked in Canada for a few years and definitely don't remember an exemption, though I think you might get more time to file.
posted by pravit at 6:59 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
In countries where college tuition is paid by the government, you always have a strict tracking system that ensures the government gets its money's worth. I don't believe there is a country where absolutely everyone gets their education paid for, regardless of aptitude or field of interest. This is relatively OK in countries with a robust welfare state that don't have as awful income inequality, nor as horrible a legacy of racism, as the US.
I mean, can you imagine what this would be like in practice in the USA? The children of the wealthy would get their free degrees (with a few token racial minorities and poor students with superlative grades), and everyone else gets shunted to the service industry by age 16. Standardized testing and other quantitative measures would make this decision. This problem would only get worse with automation, because it seems that in 25-30 years, the only jobs that will pay a livable wage will be those higher-order industries and professions that truly require a college education.
All of these issues end up meandering back to the idea of a basic income guarantee, because the primary reason that most folks attend college these days is to qualify for a job that might pay for your food, housing, and health care. If you take the requirement to have a bachelor's degree away from the basic living wage, you'd probably see fewer people applying to college, and those who do for more sincerely intellectual or professional reasons. In fact, if there were a basic income, there would probably be such a reduction in college applications that ironically it might become affordable for the government to pay everyone's tuition, even for the folks who want to major in medieval history.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
I mean, can you imagine what this would be like in practice in the USA? The children of the wealthy would get their free degrees (with a few token racial minorities and poor students with superlative grades), and everyone else gets shunted to the service industry by age 16. Standardized testing and other quantitative measures would make this decision. This problem would only get worse with automation, because it seems that in 25-30 years, the only jobs that will pay a livable wage will be those higher-order industries and professions that truly require a college education.
All of these issues end up meandering back to the idea of a basic income guarantee, because the primary reason that most folks attend college these days is to qualify for a job that might pay for your food, housing, and health care. If you take the requirement to have a bachelor's degree away from the basic living wage, you'd probably see fewer people applying to college, and those who do for more sincerely intellectual or professional reasons. In fact, if there were a basic income, there would probably be such a reduction in college applications that ironically it might become affordable for the government to pay everyone's tuition, even for the folks who want to major in medieval history.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
are students these days able to borrow thousands for student loans without having a parent or someone else cosign?
I think it's less common now, due to increased defaulting (and increased threat of federal oversight of private loans), but in the '00s I, and many of my colleagues, borrowed $100K+ for undergrad and law school (combo of federal and private loans) without cosigners. It was absurdly easy.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:02 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think it's less common now, due to increased defaulting (and increased threat of federal oversight of private loans), but in the '00s I, and many of my colleagues, borrowed $100K+ for undergrad and law school (combo of federal and private loans) without cosigners. It was absurdly easy.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:02 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
In countries where college tuition is paid by the government, you always have a strict tracking system that ensures the government gets its money's worth.
Er, what?
posted by ominous_paws at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Er, what?
posted by ominous_paws at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
The argument against universities misses the point - he complains that they keep jacking up the tuition and this is the problem. But the tuition increases are largely the result of defunding universities. The less federal dollars assigned to the U, the more the burden is passed onto the students. It's not necessarily U greed (although to be fair in some cases it plays a part). It's just another example of what happens when no one wants to pay any taxes, and the tax money that IS gathered is not used for things that we used to value. Like education.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by caution live frogs at 7:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [17 favorites]
I mean the UK had free degrees, and even since then has only allowed charges that are a fraction of what the US has, and Scotland still I believe allows free higher ed for all, and I can't think what you mean by tracking systems that ensures that the govt gets its money's worth? Are you simply making this up off the top of your head?
posted by ominous_paws at 7:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
As I understand it, Americans living abroad pay the higher of US tax or tax in their foreign country.
Foreign earned income exclusion. An even better plan is to marry someone with an EU passport, move to Europe, and have no need for a US credit score.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Foreign earned income exclusion. An even better plan is to marry someone with an EU passport, move to Europe, and have no need for a US credit score.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Can one not work and go to school? I certainly did. It sure helped reduce the amount of debt I owed.
Going into debt to become a reader and writer seems the height of foolishness to me.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:07 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Going into debt to become a reader and writer seems the height of foolishness to me.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:07 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Part of the problem is that so, so many jobs require a degree, and then won't pay a salary which allows people to pay for that degree. Like, you can say "lol shouldn't have gone into [x field] then," but what's the other option? Have NO people doing that work, Or only having people from rich families do it?
I think it's the whole business of degree inflation that causes this problem in the first place. These jobs insist on people with degrees because there are so many to choose from. If people didn't have the degrees. the jobs would still need doing.
And I don't think that employers would only hire from the rich, either. Ultimately, employers need competence, and coming from money is no guarantee of that.
The problem, of course, is it takes some nerve to say 'fuck it, I'm going to take that risk and not go to college'. Though if I were an employer, I suspect I'd take a young person who'd made intelligent independent life choices over going to college every time.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:08 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think it's the whole business of degree inflation that causes this problem in the first place. These jobs insist on people with degrees because there are so many to choose from. If people didn't have the degrees. the jobs would still need doing.
And I don't think that employers would only hire from the rich, either. Ultimately, employers need competence, and coming from money is no guarantee of that.
The problem, of course, is it takes some nerve to say 'fuck it, I'm going to take that risk and not go to college'. Though if I were an employer, I suspect I'd take a young person who'd made intelligent independent life choices over going to college every time.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:08 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Omnious, it means that in European countries where a higher percentage of university costs are directly paid by the state, rather than simply guaranteed by the state with the student-borrower as the first line of payment, the state isn't some kind of Santa Claus, but instead makes a real effort to make sure that a student is capable and motivated for higher education, that the public will get an expected benefit from the degree being pursued, and that costs are otherwise aligned with benefits.
posted by MattD at 7:08 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 7:08 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would love to a reform of higher education financing in the United States that is tied to a workable restriction against meaningless degree inflation / credentialism -- requiring employers to demonstrate an actual relationship between a degree and job duties, and in the absence of that, permitting them to rely upon a standardized competency test and a probationary period to weed out people who lack the discipline and future-time orientation that a college degree supposedly evidences.
posted by MattD at 7:11 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by MattD at 7:11 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
are students these days able to borrow thousands for student loans without having a parent or someone else cosign?
Federal Stafford loan limits go up to $5500-7500, for a total of $31000, very likely less than the cost of attendance at your Local State U. The remainder is made up by Perkins Loans (very minimal, if you are even eligible) and a combonation of private issued loans or Parent PLUS loans, which are limited only by the "full cost of attendance". There's also Grad PLUS loans, again limited only by the "full cost of attendance", which is where you see law students and humantities PhDs (or somewhat less problematically, med students) racking up 2-300k in education loans.
So yes, students can borrow a good bit independently, especially if they opt for grad school, but even that is usually not sufficient for a 4yr undergrad degree from most public, much less private, schools, and the most common option is to drag Mom and Dad along for the ride on a Parent PLUS loan (currently pegged at 10.5% interest, btw).
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:15 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Federal Stafford loan limits go up to $5500-7500, for a total of $31000, very likely less than the cost of attendance at your Local State U. The remainder is made up by Perkins Loans (very minimal, if you are even eligible) and a combonation of private issued loans or Parent PLUS loans, which are limited only by the "full cost of attendance". There's also Grad PLUS loans, again limited only by the "full cost of attendance", which is where you see law students and humantities PhDs (or somewhat less problematically, med students) racking up 2-300k in education loans.
So yes, students can borrow a good bit independently, especially if they opt for grad school, but even that is usually not sufficient for a 4yr undergrad degree from most public, much less private, schools, and the most common option is to drag Mom and Dad along for the ride on a Parent PLUS loan (currently pegged at 10.5% interest, btw).
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:15 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Great, but can we see some fleshed out examples? That description could apply to a ton of different systems depending on one's viewpoint - I don't really think it applies to the UK, but I guess it's possible others would?
posted by ominous_paws at 7:16 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:16 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
That said, I strongly agree with your second post, working in publishing as I do- an industry which rarely hires someone without a degree, but in which a degree is even more rarely a necessary qualification.
posted by ominous_paws at 7:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
The problem, of course, is it takes some nerve to say 'fuck it, I'm going to take that risk and not go to college'.
Or fuck it, I'm going to trades school. Which then leads to some mighty fine-paying jobs.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:21 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
Or fuck it, I'm going to trades school. Which then leads to some mighty fine-paying jobs.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:21 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I mean it's surely uncontrovesial to say taking on massive debt to study the arts is unwise. But it's in deciding what should be done about this situation where we have seventeen year olds or younger making this unwise decision that we get into the substantive arguments.
posted by ominous_paws at 7:26 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:26 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
I hate student loans, and I have a lot of them and there's really no choice. With my bachelor's degree, the only job I could get paid about $10/hr. That was a $1 more than if I didn't have that degree. If I hadn't been living at home at the time, I'd be lucky to have $20 in savings a month. Hopefully when I graduate with my professional master's, I'll make enough to cover my loans, but I won't be much more comfortable than I am now (which is to say, not comfortable at all). Heck even now, I tried really hard to find a roommate and it fell through every time, even though as an autistic person roommate experiences for me have all been horrible, I was willing to do it because of the financial reasons.
It would be great to just default and not care, but renting an apartment would be a nightmare (especially for someone like me who's dependent on public transportation and can't just live anywhere). Also, I would feel guilty about it, I get that a lot of people wouldn't, but I couldn't just walk away I think.
posted by Aranquis at 7:31 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
It would be great to just default and not care, but renting an apartment would be a nightmare (especially for someone like me who's dependent on public transportation and can't just live anywhere). Also, I would feel guilty about it, I get that a lot of people wouldn't, but I couldn't just walk away I think.
posted by Aranquis at 7:31 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Or fuck it, I'm going to trades school. Which then leads to some mighty fine-paying jobs.
*goes back in time and tells past self to consider plumbing/welding*
posted by Fizz at 7:39 AM on June 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
*goes back in time and tells past self to consider plumbing/welding*
posted by Fizz at 7:39 AM on June 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
But it's in deciding what should be done about this situation where we have seventeen year olds or younger making this unwise decision that we get into the substantive arguments.
1) Require that schools survey their graduates to figure out average earnings by major for 10 years after graduation
2) Don't loan money to students who, based data about their school and major, will be paying more than X% on their loans, where X is pretty high to allow some wiggle room
Hopefully this would motivate schools to provide some meaningful career counseling too.
posted by miyabo at 7:40 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
1) Require that schools survey their graduates to figure out average earnings by major for 10 years after graduation
2) Don't loan money to students who, based data about their school and major, will be paying more than X% on their loans, where X is pretty high to allow some wiggle room
Hopefully this would motivate schools to provide some meaningful career counseling too.
posted by miyabo at 7:40 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Can one not work and go to school? I certainly did. It sure helped reduce the amount of debt I owed.
Going into debt to become a reader and writer seems the height of foolishness to me.
Well of course it was a foolish decision. There are plenty of wiser choices he could have made. The issue is that there is a whole industry that exists to lend foolish teenagers tens of thousands of dollars at a time. If a foolish teenager went into a bank and said "I have a vague yet terrible business idea, give me a personal loan for twenty grand," the answer would be "hell no." Put him in a financial aid office instead and its "sign here, here, and here."
posted by that's how you get ants at 7:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [46 favorites]
Going into debt to become a reader and writer seems the height of foolishness to me.
Well of course it was a foolish decision. There are plenty of wiser choices he could have made. The issue is that there is a whole industry that exists to lend foolish teenagers tens of thousands of dollars at a time. If a foolish teenager went into a bank and said "I have a vague yet terrible business idea, give me a personal loan for twenty grand," the answer would be "hell no." Put him in a financial aid office instead and its "sign here, here, and here."
posted by that's how you get ants at 7:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [46 favorites]
The US system where going into debt to get an education, is a situation teeming with problems. But I'm not buying this guy's rationalize his default, and his story hamstrings the point he's trying to make. It wasn't an unforeseen hardship or act of god that made him default. He defaulted because he wanted to be a humbly paid full time creative rather than go into a lucrative career, a track that he seems to have been fully capable of pulling off. A track I think millions from similar modest origins would rightfully envy. And he tries to pull this "maybe I should have just stayed at the shoe store" bullshit. How old is this guy again?
For someone in his situation, the decision to not repay his loans absolutely is part of a moral calculus. And kind of a fucked up one, from what he describes. To borrow money and not pay it back, because he had better things to do with his life than get a well paying 9 to 5, is pretty screwy. Not only does it affect the lenders, and ultimately, people who subsidized his loan, it made things harder for people following in his footsteps. People who needed loans to get into that well paying career that he was clearly above.
He tries to frame his default as making himself into a person that is useful to society. Could he not have gone the profitable route, taken a career that allowed him to pay off his loans, and still have remained a creative? I mean, it's been, what, 30 years? Is he really so useful to society now, that he still can't or won't pay his debt?
If I wanted to discredit the whole notion of offering loans to students, higher education, or cultural elites, I'd have to go no further than this guy.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:45 AM on June 7, 2015 [13 favorites]
For someone in his situation, the decision to not repay his loans absolutely is part of a moral calculus. And kind of a fucked up one, from what he describes. To borrow money and not pay it back, because he had better things to do with his life than get a well paying 9 to 5, is pretty screwy. Not only does it affect the lenders, and ultimately, people who subsidized his loan, it made things harder for people following in his footsteps. People who needed loans to get into that well paying career that he was clearly above.
He tries to frame his default as making himself into a person that is useful to society. Could he not have gone the profitable route, taken a career that allowed him to pay off his loans, and still have remained a creative? I mean, it's been, what, 30 years? Is he really so useful to society now, that he still can't or won't pay his debt?
If I wanted to discredit the whole notion of offering loans to students, higher education, or cultural elites, I'd have to go no further than this guy.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:45 AM on June 7, 2015 [13 favorites]
2) Don't loan money to students who, based data about their school and major, will be paying more than X% on their loans, where X is pretty high to allow some wiggle room
Few people know their major going into freshman year though, except delusional premeds, half of whom will fail organic chemistry. It is actually forbidden to choose a major in some places before sophomore year.
This isn't even an issue of, like, maybe you shouldn't go to college if you don't know what you want to study. For example, someone might easily decide to change their major from biomedical engineering to physics -- and those two majors could have very different career outcomes. It's kind of too late to revoke their loans at that point.
posted by vogon_poet at 7:46 AM on June 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
Few people know their major going into freshman year though, except delusional premeds, half of whom will fail organic chemistry. It is actually forbidden to choose a major in some places before sophomore year.
This isn't even an issue of, like, maybe you shouldn't go to college if you don't know what you want to study. For example, someone might easily decide to change their major from biomedical engineering to physics -- and those two majors could have very different career outcomes. It's kind of too late to revoke their loans at that point.
posted by vogon_poet at 7:46 AM on June 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
I think at a minimum U.S. student loans should be dischargable in bankruptcy.
posted by PJLandis at 7:55 AM on June 7, 2015 [24 favorites]
posted by PJLandis at 7:55 AM on June 7, 2015 [24 favorites]
Student loans were a no-brainer when wages grew. $10,000 issued in debt in 1990 was meant to diminish in value, as wages rose. When wage growth stopped, debt became a trap.
The problem with student debt is that it's sold as a secure asset – that the underlying "asset", meaning the worker, will increase in productive value over time.
Given the changes in the economy, that is no longer a sure thing, and so there is a huge amount of risk now from student loans.
Thankfully, we have a vehicle for assessing risk. The best way to denominate student loans in the current economy would be as equity – 10% of your income until repaid. If you get a great job, you repay more, sooner. If you cannot find a job, you do not have liability until you do.
Interest has to be worked out obviously, but it doesn't make sense using a tool for assets which have predictable future value for a job market that will change completely in our lifetime.
posted by nickrussell at 7:57 AM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
The problem with student debt is that it's sold as a secure asset – that the underlying "asset", meaning the worker, will increase in productive value over time.
Given the changes in the economy, that is no longer a sure thing, and so there is a huge amount of risk now from student loans.
Thankfully, we have a vehicle for assessing risk. The best way to denominate student loans in the current economy would be as equity – 10% of your income until repaid. If you get a great job, you repay more, sooner. If you cannot find a job, you do not have liability until you do.
Interest has to be worked out obviously, but it doesn't make sense using a tool for assets which have predictable future value for a job market that will change completely in our lifetime.
posted by nickrussell at 7:57 AM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
Can one not work and go to school? I certainly did. It sure helped reduce the amount of debt I owed.
UC Berkeley, a state school, costs $23,506 at the least for a year. At $9 hour and working 40 hours a week (and we're thoroughly into fantasy land here that an undergraduate can find 40 hours a week amongst school schedules) it only takes 65 weeks to pay off that tutition.
Assuming you have no other expenses at all and are living with relatives close by who also aren't charging you rent. But since we're already firmly in fantasy land I'll give you that too.
posted by Talez at 8:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [33 favorites]
UC Berkeley, a state school, costs $23,506 at the least for a year. At $9 hour and working 40 hours a week (and we're thoroughly into fantasy land here that an undergraduate can find 40 hours a week amongst school schedules) it only takes 65 weeks to pay off that tutition.
Assuming you have no other expenses at all and are living with relatives close by who also aren't charging you rent. But since we're already firmly in fantasy land I'll give you that too.
posted by Talez at 8:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [33 favorites]
I'd have to go no further than this guy.
It actually occurred to me that this is a Heritage Foundation false flag operation to me too. He's just so darn unlikable.
posted by miyabo at 8:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
It actually occurred to me that this is a Heritage Foundation false flag operation to me too. He's just so darn unlikable.
posted by miyabo at 8:01 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
We have lots of data that can be used to predict future loan repayment ability. The question is whether the government wants to use that data. The answer used to be "hell no" for reasons both noble and mercenary. Now, with the incursions the government is making on the most flagrant abuses of student loans in the for-profit open-admission "colleges," the government has at least conceded to the principle of the question.
But whether it will be willing to follow it to the natural conclusion is not at all clear. We know that very few kids are going to get into medical school who don't come from educated, functional families that get their kids into decent high schools and steer them to high SAT and AP calculus test scores. But how much are we willing to pay for other kinds of kids to pursue pre-med, and to permit those kids to accrue in debt, for the very few to come out the other end with admission to medical school.
posted by MattD at 8:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
But whether it will be willing to follow it to the natural conclusion is not at all clear. We know that very few kids are going to get into medical school who don't come from educated, functional families that get their kids into decent high schools and steer them to high SAT and AP calculus test scores. But how much are we willing to pay for other kinds of kids to pursue pre-med, and to permit those kids to accrue in debt, for the very few to come out the other end with admission to medical school.
posted by MattD at 8:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
"it should absolutely be a campaign issue" - let me introduce you to one presidential candidate.
posted by doctornemo at 8:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 8:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [30 favorites]
I'm 49, and still paying off my student loans (BA, MA, PhD, 1985-1997). I expect to keep paying them into my old age, and possibly handing some to my heirs.
That was the only way I could afford to do higher education. Defaulting wasn't, and isn't, an option.
posted by doctornemo at 8:11 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
That was the only way I could afford to do higher education. Defaulting wasn't, and isn't, an option.
posted by doctornemo at 8:11 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I can't abide the attitude that doing a job one doesn't enjoy is some kind of horrible torture that the author is too good for.
Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar.
-Drew Carey
posted by ftm at 8:14 AM on June 7, 2015 [33 favorites]
Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar.
-Drew Carey
posted by ftm at 8:14 AM on June 7, 2015 [33 favorites]
In the UK system as I understand it you only begin repaying when your income exceeds a certain level, and then you pay only a percentage of your income, irrespective of the size of the loan. After a time, or if you're disabled, or whatever, any outstanding amount is written off. The 'problem' here, such as it is, is that hardly anyone will ever pay off their student loan in full. It is completely impossible for anyone to be stuck with debt they cannot pay, never mind debt that could bankrupt them, and Jesus, not debt that is undischargeable in bankruptcy, what are you even thinking of?
posted by Segundus at 8:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Segundus at 8:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can't abide the attitude that doing a job one doesn't enjoy is some kind of horrible torture that the author is too good for.
Why does one's like work have to be a sadomasochistic experience? Like your entire working life not only should be some grind that you do to live only until you die but you should be fucking proud of it? That you should be proud of dulling this grind through self-medication? So some banker can buy another ivory backscratcher?
Fuck that. It's 2015. Society is fucking better than that. It has to be fucking better than that.
posted by Talez at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [46 favorites]
Why does one's like work have to be a sadomasochistic experience? Like your entire working life not only should be some grind that you do to live only until you die but you should be fucking proud of it? That you should be proud of dulling this grind through self-medication? So some banker can buy another ivory backscratcher?
Fuck that. It's 2015. Society is fucking better than that. It has to be fucking better than that.
posted by Talez at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [46 favorites]
I expect to keep paying them into my old age, and possibly handing some to my heirs.
Luckily for your heirs, student loans won't follow them personally, federally backed loans at least are canceled automatically (well, upon mailing in a discharge due to death form) upon the death of the borrower (or, in the case of Parent PLUS loans, the parent OR student). Private issued loans may or may not follow the estate, depending on the loan terms and the state, and cancelation of private loan debt is still taxable.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Luckily for your heirs, student loans won't follow them personally, federally backed loans at least are canceled automatically (well, upon mailing in a discharge due to death form) upon the death of the borrower (or, in the case of Parent PLUS loans, the parent OR student). Private issued loans may or may not follow the estate, depending on the loan terms and the state, and cancelation of private loan debt is still taxable.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also: stealing is wrong.
posted by Modest House at 8:30 AM on June 7, 2015
posted by Modest House at 8:30 AM on June 7, 2015
What most people don't know though, federal student loan debt is one of only a very few types of government debts that is collectible from Social Security, along with unpaid taxes and child support. So while your heirs may escape, if you have to stop working in your golden years before completing repayment, the government can reduce your disability/retirement benefits to get it back.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:30 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:30 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
It doesn't have to be sadomasochistic, but until the garbage-picking-up robots arrive, people are going to be doing jobs they don't enjoy in exchange for currency.
posted by ftm at 8:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by ftm at 8:33 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
Going into debt to become a reader and writer seems the height of foolishness to me.
Such professions have traditionally been the domain of those with "family money and family connections," to quote Siegel. And in terms of sheer practicality, sure, it's foolish for those without means to lift themselves above their station. But Siegel rebelled against that, yet did so on our dime, which he now steadfastly refuses to return.
Even within myself, I feel mixed emotions about that. The selfish brainwashed American wage slave part of me is muttering, "Where the fuck does he get off thinking it's okay to get a free ride and coast off the backs of everyone else so he can fulfill some pipe dream of his." But the idealist part of me retorts that there's more than enough wealth in our society that we should all be able to follow our educational dreams, regardless of how quixotic they may be. Literally, the entire $1 trillion student debt outstanding could be paid off with the lifetime projected costs of a single weapons program.
And finally, the cynical part of me is snarking that part of his problem is that after burning through all that money he's simply not a particularly good writer, at least not as demonstrated in this article. Flatly describing a banker as being "a balding man in his late 50s," not exactly the height of originality in terms of character description. "I chose life." He could've taken a correspondence course for this level of prose, instead of putting himself into lifetime hock. More directly to the point (as others have already stated), by coming off as unselfconsciously entitled and elitist, he doesn't persuasively argue his cause at all. He's getting a mixed reception even here on mefi, where he's essentially preaching to the overeducated and highly indebted choir.
posted by xigxag at 8:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [25 favorites]
Such professions have traditionally been the domain of those with "family money and family connections," to quote Siegel. And in terms of sheer practicality, sure, it's foolish for those without means to lift themselves above their station. But Siegel rebelled against that, yet did so on our dime, which he now steadfastly refuses to return.
Even within myself, I feel mixed emotions about that. The selfish brainwashed American wage slave part of me is muttering, "Where the fuck does he get off thinking it's okay to get a free ride and coast off the backs of everyone else so he can fulfill some pipe dream of his." But the idealist part of me retorts that there's more than enough wealth in our society that we should all be able to follow our educational dreams, regardless of how quixotic they may be. Literally, the entire $1 trillion student debt outstanding could be paid off with the lifetime projected costs of a single weapons program.
And finally, the cynical part of me is snarking that part of his problem is that after burning through all that money he's simply not a particularly good writer, at least not as demonstrated in this article. Flatly describing a banker as being "a balding man in his late 50s," not exactly the height of originality in terms of character description. "I chose life." He could've taken a correspondence course for this level of prose, instead of putting himself into lifetime hock. More directly to the point (as others have already stated), by coming off as unselfconsciously entitled and elitist, he doesn't persuasively argue his cause at all. He's getting a mixed reception even here on mefi, where he's essentially preaching to the overeducated and highly indebted choir.
posted by xigxag at 8:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [25 favorites]
I believe exactly zero that Drew Carey hates his job.
posted by jeather at 8:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by jeather at 8:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Can one not work and go to school? I certainly did. It sure helped reduce the amount of debt I owed.
what is it about if someone says "can one not" you automatically know whatever they're going to say will reflect a complete obliviousness about the facts of a situation?
Yeah working and going to school is great except that without a degree you'll earn half your tuition back at best, and probably fuck your grades irreparably in the process, rendering that super-expensive degree you just knocked yourself out for potentially useless anyway. Students who have to work full-time have measurably worse graduation rates and outcomes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:37 AM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
what is it about if someone says "can one not" you automatically know whatever they're going to say will reflect a complete obliviousness about the facts of a situation?
Yeah working and going to school is great except that without a degree you'll earn half your tuition back at best, and probably fuck your grades irreparably in the process, rendering that super-expensive degree you just knocked yourself out for potentially useless anyway. Students who have to work full-time have measurably worse graduation rates and outcomes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:37 AM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
The author is an unbearable mix of insufferable smugness and entitlement, with a dash of cluelessness. I got a degree in music composition. To make a living I have largely had to do things unrelated to music. Was my "precious young life" ruined by a life of joyless drone-work? No. To subscribe to the binary that you are either Doing What You Love or Wasting Away is both fallacious and a grievous insult to the millions of people who do jobs that are "beneath" the student-loan-saddled masses. Want to be a writer? Fucking write. If you can't afford to go to Wesleyan, go to community college. But the idea that the world owes you your dream job is obnoxious.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:39 AM on June 7, 2015 [24 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:39 AM on June 7, 2015 [24 favorites]
Like universal healthcare, this is a solved problem the USA seems unwilling to adopt.
In Australia, the government subsidises a portion of higher education costs.
The rest is loaned to you by the government, and you repay via the tax system once you earn approximately more than 2/3rds the average income.
If you gain the marks in your schooling to be admitted to a university course studying poetry (for an example with limited obvious direct financial benefit) you study and graduate with a debt to the government.
It is indexed to inflation, but not at market rates. Should you fail to ever earn an income above low levels, you never repay your loan.
Of course, what happens in the real world is the majority of students of uneconomic degrees eventually decide they would like a higher income, either through their success at poetry, or more likely, as a shoe store salesperson or similar.
They then progressively pay back their student loans by paying a few extra percent on their income tax.
Should they be a successful shoe salesperson, it will be paid back faster. If they fail, they may one day die still carrying their debt, in which case it is extinguished.
What my country has found is that this works out well for all. The graduates tend to want to earn a high income, as most people do, and pay their debts down by middle age. A few never repay, and some repay very swiftly, but it is a simple government programme that encourages more and better education, without crippling debt when people are unable to pay it.
But politicians being what they are, we are now aiming for a more USA style system. God help us.
posted by bystander at 8:49 AM on June 7, 2015 [48 favorites]
In Australia, the government subsidises a portion of higher education costs.
The rest is loaned to you by the government, and you repay via the tax system once you earn approximately more than 2/3rds the average income.
If you gain the marks in your schooling to be admitted to a university course studying poetry (for an example with limited obvious direct financial benefit) you study and graduate with a debt to the government.
It is indexed to inflation, but not at market rates. Should you fail to ever earn an income above low levels, you never repay your loan.
Of course, what happens in the real world is the majority of students of uneconomic degrees eventually decide they would like a higher income, either through their success at poetry, or more likely, as a shoe store salesperson or similar.
They then progressively pay back their student loans by paying a few extra percent on their income tax.
Should they be a successful shoe salesperson, it will be paid back faster. If they fail, they may one day die still carrying their debt, in which case it is extinguished.
What my country has found is that this works out well for all. The graduates tend to want to earn a high income, as most people do, and pay their debts down by middle age. A few never repay, and some repay very swiftly, but it is a simple government programme that encourages more and better education, without crippling debt when people are unable to pay it.
But politicians being what they are, we are now aiming for a more USA style system. God help us.
posted by bystander at 8:49 AM on June 7, 2015 [48 favorites]
In countries where college tuition is paid by the government, you always have a strict tracking system that ensures the government gets its money's worth. I don't believe there is a country where absolutely everyone gets their education paid for, regardless of aptitude or field of interest. This is relatively OK in countries with a robust welfare state that don't have as awful income inequality, nor as horrible a legacy of racism, as the US.
The children of the wealthy would get their free degrees (with a few token racial minorities and poor students with superlative grades), and everyone else gets shunted to the service industry by age 16. Standardized testing and other quantitative measures would make this decision. This problem would only get worse with automation, because it seems that in 25-30 years, the only jobs that will pay a livable wage will be those higher-order industries and professions that truly require a college education.
Harvard, for example, receives Billions of dollars of tax exemptions on its endowment's earnings due to charity status. The wealthy already get massively publicly subsidized education of exactly the sort you describe. Your fear of government interference excluding the poor or streaming isn't really well founded as the government has demonstrated a profound disinterest in regulating the wealthy and their playgrounds despite granting them incredible tax breaks. The future you fear isn't nearly as scary as the present we have.
posted by srboisvert at 8:54 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
The children of the wealthy would get their free degrees (with a few token racial minorities and poor students with superlative grades), and everyone else gets shunted to the service industry by age 16. Standardized testing and other quantitative measures would make this decision. This problem would only get worse with automation, because it seems that in 25-30 years, the only jobs that will pay a livable wage will be those higher-order industries and professions that truly require a college education.
Harvard, for example, receives Billions of dollars of tax exemptions on its endowment's earnings due to charity status. The wealthy already get massively publicly subsidized education of exactly the sort you describe. Your fear of government interference excluding the poor or streaming isn't really well founded as the government has demonstrated a profound disinterest in regulating the wealthy and their playgrounds despite granting them incredible tax breaks. The future you fear isn't nearly as scary as the present we have.
posted by srboisvert at 8:54 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
UC Berkeley, a state school
Technically it is, sure, but California has another layer of universities that is more appropriate for the "state school" moniker.
CSUF represent
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Technically it is, sure, but California has another layer of universities that is more appropriate for the "state school" moniker.
CSUF represent
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
The best thing I ever did was drop out of college while my debt was still manageable -- if you're not getting that social network it's not worth a damn thing.
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
The best thing I ever did was drop out of college while my debt was still manageable
QFT. Burn it to the ground, and salt the earth...
posted by mikelieman at 9:30 AM on June 7, 2015
QFT. Burn it to the ground, and salt the earth...
posted by mikelieman at 9:30 AM on June 7, 2015
My employer offers a student loan repayment program. It's not much, but it's more than zero.
To get that, you have to get hired. Most common roadblock on the "required interview questions" list, far below "have you ever been imprisoned, convicted by mititary court-martial, etc" is "Are you delinquent on any federal debt?" That includes mortgages insured by federal agencies and student loans.
posted by ctmf at 9:37 AM on June 7, 2015
To get that, you have to get hired. Most common roadblock on the "required interview questions" list, far below "have you ever been imprisoned, convicted by mititary court-martial, etc" is "Are you delinquent on any federal debt?" That includes mortgages insured by federal agencies and student loans.
posted by ctmf at 9:37 AM on June 7, 2015
And it's still going to take a while to repay that student loan at GS-6.
posted by ctmf at 9:38 AM on June 7, 2015
posted by ctmf at 9:38 AM on June 7, 2015
And it's still going to take a while to repay that student loan at GS-6.
If you're on the GS pay scale, you qualify for PSLF and likely IBR as well. 120 payments is a long time but worth looking into.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
If you're on the GS pay scale, you qualify for PSLF and likely IBR as well. 120 payments is a long time but worth looking into.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:41 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
That's good info I can pass on, thanks. This has always been an area I feel guilty about not knowing much about when I do hiring interviews.
posted by ctmf at 9:56 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 9:56 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Can you work and go to school? Yes, my partner did that and he still has a boatload of debt because he couldn't earn enough to live and still have time to do well in school, and in turn he was delayed getting through school by working, so it was a long, expensive time. This is in stark contrast to me-- more or less similar college aptitude but a family that could pay for my education. The economic difference between us, solely because of that, shocks me every time I think about it. Both of us just did what we thought we were supposed to do, based on advice from college counselors and parents, and we ended up in such different places. I have a lot of sympathy for people that were sold on educational loans at that age and have decided to default.
The author of that article-- am I Googling wrong, or is he a university teacher in Hawaii? If so, I wonder how his students in that expensive state are doing.
posted by BibiRose at 10:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
The author of that article-- am I Googling wrong, or is he a university teacher in Hawaii? If so, I wonder how his students in that expensive state are doing.
posted by BibiRose at 10:03 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
My impression was that students who worked part time (~10h/wk) did well, but it's not like the maybe $500 you can make a month is going to have a hugely material impact on your loans.
posted by jeather at 10:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jeather at 10:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Like your entire working life not only should be some grind that you do to live only until you die but you should be fucking proud of it?
I think it's more that most people in the US, and actually most people in the world, do not have the massive vast huge privilege to be able to say "this kind of work is boring/awful/beneath me so I won't do it, I'll do something else that pays a pittance because I love it" so when people revel in saying that it sticks in a lot of craws. It's got shades of a Regency gentleman saying "i am a gentleman, sir! not a tradesman!" and then running you over with his thoroughbred and having you shot for poaching.
Also obvsly having a degree will often result in you getting higher pay and better opportunities than someone who doesn't have one, which only means that person A had more money than person B to be able to go to school, not that person A is a better or more deserving or smarter person than person B. But in general society seems to go for the latter regardless.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [13 favorites]
I think it's more that most people in the US, and actually most people in the world, do not have the massive vast huge privilege to be able to say "this kind of work is boring/awful/beneath me so I won't do it, I'll do something else that pays a pittance because I love it" so when people revel in saying that it sticks in a lot of craws. It's got shades of a Regency gentleman saying "i am a gentleman, sir! not a tradesman!" and then running you over with his thoroughbred and having you shot for poaching.
Also obvsly having a degree will often result in you getting higher pay and better opportunities than someone who doesn't have one, which only means that person A had more money than person B to be able to go to school, not that person A is a better or more deserving or smarter person than person B. But in general society seems to go for the latter regardless.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:09 AM on June 7, 2015 [13 favorites]
Surely all these students could just write iPhone apps and become millionaires during their first semester, no? Or should we be supporting sloth and laziness with our tax dollars?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I worked half-time or more during the semesters and full time otherwise, had to pay my full shot of tuition, rent, food, etc, during the first two years, ended up taking an extra year to finish because I couldn't work and manage a full course load, and had 10+% interest rates on the loans I was able to secure. Paid off the loans within five years by making them my #1 priority and denying myself all niceties. Started this all off at age 17, too.
I really can't work up a lot of sympathy for this git. He was irresponsible and stupid. And gets away with it by making his mistakes the responsibility of everyone else. And then has the audacity to whinge on about it — poorly. By the sounds of it, he remains a drag on society. What a shmoe.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I really can't work up a lot of sympathy for this git. He was irresponsible and stupid. And gets away with it by making his mistakes the responsibility of everyone else. And then has the audacity to whinge on about it — poorly. By the sounds of it, he remains a drag on society. What a shmoe.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Most common roadblock on the "required interview questions" list, far below "have you ever been imprisoned, convicted by mititary court-martial, etc" is "Are you delinquent on any federal debt?" That includes mortgages insured by federal agencies and student loans.
To see how common this is, take a look at the DoD's 2014 Industrial Security Clearance Decisions. Ctrl-F "student loans".
Then click on 1997. Exactly one hit.
(Bonus: Foreign governments, criminals, or both probably have this information unredacted due to recent data breaches.)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:32 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
To see how common this is, take a look at the DoD's 2014 Industrial Security Clearance Decisions. Ctrl-F "student loans".
Then click on 1997. Exactly one hit.
(Bonus: Foreign governments, criminals, or both probably have this information unredacted due to recent data breaches.)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:32 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Lee Siegel is 57, according to Wikipedia, which puts him going to college in 1975.
Handily enough, that puts him almost smack dab at the beginning of this graph of the inflation of costs associated with going to college. The Wikipedia article on college tuition in the US does a good job of summarizing the implications:
I remain in his debt, however, for introducing me to the word “sprezzatura”, which I used yesterday to good effect in a conversation about normcore.
posted by Coda at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2015 [14 favorites]
Handily enough, that puts him almost smack dab at the beginning of this graph of the inflation of costs associated with going to college. The Wikipedia article on college tuition in the US does a good job of summarizing the implications:
Lee had it three times easier than any of the poor fucks trying to make it today, which indicates to me I should give a third of a shit about his financial problems.
Cost of living increased roughly 3.25-fold during this time; medical costs inflated roughly 6-fold; but college tuition and fees inflation approached 10-fold. Another way to say this is that whereas medical costs inflated at twice the rate of cost-of-living, college tuition and fees inflated at four times the rate of cost-of-living inflation. Thus, even after controlling for the effects of general inflation, 2008 college tuition and fees posed three times the burden as in 1978.
I remain in his debt, however, for introducing me to the word “sprezzatura”, which I used yesterday to good effect in a conversation about normcore.
posted by Coda at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2015 [14 favorites]
There's an argument that the author dug his own hole, of course a creative writing degree is not likely to generate sufficient income to pay down loans to attend expensive private college.
This is some straight up bullshit. Where are all these well paying, real jobs that will allow newly minted graduates to pay off their massive student loans? Because I went to a private art school and it seems like all my friends and family members who studied "practical" things are just as far up shit creek without a paddle as the people I know who studied painting. If you're going to get fucked in the economy you might as well do what you love instead of facing down a life time of soul sucking exploitation.
Not sure if you've noticed, but people who graduated since 2008 (I was class of 2007) are having a hard time finding "real" jobs with steady paychecks and benefits regardless of what they studied or how far they were willing to bend over for the banks that own their loans. Everyone I know bounces from bullshit temp gig, internship, or entry level position without ever seeing a wage decent enough to afford both their astronomical rent (because all these wonderful opportunities that do exist are concentrated in major cities) and their loans. Every rentier in the universe has one hand in your pocket and the other hand holding an op-ed about how millennials are lazy. Unless you're writing an iPhone app that uses people who don't write iPhone apps to do your laundry for you, of course.
My private art school BFA wasn't the useless piece of paper every internet commenter seems to assume, but I was privileged enough to have a massive scholarship, parental help, and worked every day I wasn't in class. Really the only reason I was able to succeed in my very cut throat industry was because I wasn't immediately thrown to the wolves after graduation with a bill for student loans over my head. Instead I took the money that would have been siphoned away from the actual economy to the banks and started a business. Everyone else I know who wasn't as privileged or lucky had to go get shit jobs to pay back the banks. Now excuse me while I adjust my bootstraps and go burn a flag.
posted by bradbane at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [28 favorites]
This is some straight up bullshit. Where are all these well paying, real jobs that will allow newly minted graduates to pay off their massive student loans? Because I went to a private art school and it seems like all my friends and family members who studied "practical" things are just as far up shit creek without a paddle as the people I know who studied painting. If you're going to get fucked in the economy you might as well do what you love instead of facing down a life time of soul sucking exploitation.
Not sure if you've noticed, but people who graduated since 2008 (I was class of 2007) are having a hard time finding "real" jobs with steady paychecks and benefits regardless of what they studied or how far they were willing to bend over for the banks that own their loans. Everyone I know bounces from bullshit temp gig, internship, or entry level position without ever seeing a wage decent enough to afford both their astronomical rent (because all these wonderful opportunities that do exist are concentrated in major cities) and their loans. Every rentier in the universe has one hand in your pocket and the other hand holding an op-ed about how millennials are lazy. Unless you're writing an iPhone app that uses people who don't write iPhone apps to do your laundry for you, of course.
My private art school BFA wasn't the useless piece of paper every internet commenter seems to assume, but I was privileged enough to have a massive scholarship, parental help, and worked every day I wasn't in class. Really the only reason I was able to succeed in my very cut throat industry was because I wasn't immediately thrown to the wolves after graduation with a bill for student loans over my head. Instead I took the money that would have been siphoned away from the actual economy to the banks and started a business. Everyone else I know who wasn't as privileged or lucky had to go get shit jobs to pay back the banks. Now excuse me while I adjust my bootstraps and go burn a flag.
posted by bradbane at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [28 favorites]
Also: stealing is wrong.
Well shit, someone should tell the student loan companies that.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [19 favorites]
Well shit, someone should tell the student loan companies that.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [19 favorites]
I'm a social worker quick puts me in the 'are you fucking crazy you got a master's to work at a non profit that pays what?' Catagory.
But IBR and teach grant (I hope I'm calling it by the right name) actually aren't that bad, and I pay a percentage each month of my income in exchange for lower pay for 10 years and my student loan debt is forgiven. Yay! I'm now 30 and have 5 years left provided that the new president in 2016 doesn't dismantle the program. It is a huge change that is a step in the right direction.
Being 35 and debt free when so so many people pay for their lifetimes is a relieving thought. Also, I can move into private practice and make more money once it goes through.
When I was in undergrad I did make a stupid decision with my loans and could have had less debt or dischargeable debt. A good percentage of my undergraduate loans are actually medical debt which I could have discharged through bankruptcy. But the medical care got me through school and kept me alive and in school. So I guess that counts.
Walking away from debt and taking the consequences seems irresponsible. But then again me taking the risk a program will exist in ten years with our current political climate may be irresponsible, and I will take a hit on my lifetime earnings because I went this path. And the tax hit from the forgiveness will also hurt.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:44 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
But IBR and teach grant (I hope I'm calling it by the right name) actually aren't that bad, and I pay a percentage each month of my income in exchange for lower pay for 10 years and my student loan debt is forgiven. Yay! I'm now 30 and have 5 years left provided that the new president in 2016 doesn't dismantle the program. It is a huge change that is a step in the right direction.
Being 35 and debt free when so so many people pay for their lifetimes is a relieving thought. Also, I can move into private practice and make more money once it goes through.
When I was in undergrad I did make a stupid decision with my loans and could have had less debt or dischargeable debt. A good percentage of my undergraduate loans are actually medical debt which I could have discharged through bankruptcy. But the medical care got me through school and kept me alive and in school. So I guess that counts.
Walking away from debt and taking the consequences seems irresponsible. But then again me taking the risk a program will exist in ten years with our current political climate may be irresponsible, and I will take a hit on my lifetime earnings because I went this path. And the tax hit from the forgiveness will also hurt.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:44 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also the whole logic of "tuition can always go up because the American worker will always be more valuable in the future" seems awfully similar to "housing prices can always go up because real estate is always more valuable in the future".
Except unlike a mortgage you can't discharge your student loans. Hmm.
But what do I know, I went to art school.
posted by bradbane at 11:58 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Except unlike a mortgage you can't discharge your student loans. Hmm.
But what do I know, I went to art school.
posted by bradbane at 11:58 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I can't imagine I would like Siegel if I met him. He's part of an elitist strata of writing that might as well be another planet to the average young writer these days. I'm a writer who works a "day job" he probably looks down on.
But I also can see the fork in the road when my parents wouldn't pay for private school despite their ability to do so, and I, a naive and frankly stupid teenager, could have signed away my future to join my ritzy high school peers at an elite institution.
I often say that the only good relic of my religious fundamentalist upbringing is a fear of debt, so I went to a public agriculture school and emerged debt free and this gives me a great deal of freedom. It was all luck, but it could have been another way and that scares me.
I was too young to legally drink or vote, but I could have signed my future away.
posted by melissam at 12:05 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
But I also can see the fork in the road when my parents wouldn't pay for private school despite their ability to do so, and I, a naive and frankly stupid teenager, could have signed away my future to join my ritzy high school peers at an elite institution.
I often say that the only good relic of my religious fundamentalist upbringing is a fear of debt, so I went to a public agriculture school and emerged debt free and this gives me a great deal of freedom. It was all luck, but it could have been another way and that scares me.
I was too young to legally drink or vote, but I could have signed my future away.
posted by melissam at 12:05 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
I dropped out of university in the 1980s because I could not hack working full time and attending school (plus, well, undiagnosed ADHD, but it still would have been very difficult). The final prompt to dropping out was taking a 400-level course which in itself had 25 hours of work required per week, 25 hours I didn't have.
I fell into a relatively well-paying career which I generally enjoy--and which I had no knowledge I had any skill at while in college (I took zero classes in the arts or programming, or even anything related to either). I would have graduated with a degree like "English", a "yes I attended college" piece of paper in most of the "real world"--which isn't to disparage it as a valuable thing for society to have more people with that degree.
I worked because while I was willing to borrow the $2000 per year needed to attend the state university (tuition and books), I didn't want to borrow the (outrageous!) $7000 per year needed to attend without working. I was making maybe $6 an hour at my full-time job.
As an aside, attending school while working full time makes school a much different experience than attending it as a full-time student. Part of what attending university is about--connecting with future peers and having your mind expanded through non-classroom experiences--are not going to happen when you're working 8 hours a day and commuting two or three hours more.
posted by maxwelton at 12:12 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
I fell into a relatively well-paying career which I generally enjoy--and which I had no knowledge I had any skill at while in college (I took zero classes in the arts or programming, or even anything related to either). I would have graduated with a degree like "English", a "yes I attended college" piece of paper in most of the "real world"--which isn't to disparage it as a valuable thing for society to have more people with that degree.
I worked because while I was willing to borrow the $2000 per year needed to attend the state university (tuition and books), I didn't want to borrow the (outrageous!) $7000 per year needed to attend without working. I was making maybe $6 an hour at my full-time job.
As an aside, attending school while working full time makes school a much different experience than attending it as a full-time student. Part of what attending university is about--connecting with future peers and having your mind expanded through non-classroom experiences--are not going to happen when you're working 8 hours a day and commuting two or three hours more.
posted by maxwelton at 12:12 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
The career information available to working class kids often sucks.
When I was in high school, information about engineers and computer programmers showed that they made about $10k a year more than writers, editors and all sorts of things I found interesting. What nobody told me was that those tech jobs included people with 2-year diplomas and did not include people who had moved into management, where they were now considered managers in terms of labour market profiles.
Also, when you are working class and it says that a writers makes $53k a year and a family doctor makes $95k and you're thinking about how old you'll be before you start working and you're told that you'll have massive amounts of debt, being a writer sounds decent. But nobody's telling you that the doctor is writing off the lease on their car and that the writer is probably freelancing on the side, just to get to $53k, so those careers are actually further apart.
And people may not tell you that, yes, marketers can make $95k a year, but they have to travel a lot and they probably only work in the big towns. If you want to be a marketer in your home town, you may have to stay in an entry-level position at $35k forever.
Nobody may tell you that you're going to need to do tons of unpaid internships and know people to get into gallery work, journalism, the arts, non-profits and so on.
Or your parents, who don't know anybody who works in white collar jobs, might tell you that you will have massive loans if you go into any of the professions and that you will face massive discrimination for being a woman, never have time to see your kids, etc.
It's disgusting that we expect 18yos to make decisions about their careers using information that is misleading and that lacks the context that middle and upper middle class families have.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 12:20 PM on June 7, 2015 [29 favorites]
When I was in high school, information about engineers and computer programmers showed that they made about $10k a year more than writers, editors and all sorts of things I found interesting. What nobody told me was that those tech jobs included people with 2-year diplomas and did not include people who had moved into management, where they were now considered managers in terms of labour market profiles.
Also, when you are working class and it says that a writers makes $53k a year and a family doctor makes $95k and you're thinking about how old you'll be before you start working and you're told that you'll have massive amounts of debt, being a writer sounds decent. But nobody's telling you that the doctor is writing off the lease on their car and that the writer is probably freelancing on the side, just to get to $53k, so those careers are actually further apart.
And people may not tell you that, yes, marketers can make $95k a year, but they have to travel a lot and they probably only work in the big towns. If you want to be a marketer in your home town, you may have to stay in an entry-level position at $35k forever.
Nobody may tell you that you're going to need to do tons of unpaid internships and know people to get into gallery work, journalism, the arts, non-profits and so on.
Or your parents, who don't know anybody who works in white collar jobs, might tell you that you will have massive loans if you go into any of the professions and that you will face massive discrimination for being a woman, never have time to see your kids, etc.
It's disgusting that we expect 18yos to make decisions about their careers using information that is misleading and that lacks the context that middle and upper middle class families have.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 12:20 PM on June 7, 2015 [29 favorites]
Maybe as a society we could start to believe in the ideal that an education is valuable, regardless of the dollars it generates.
Treating every college degree as a financial exchange is what got us into this fucked up situation in the first place.
But then we'd have to acknowledge the concept of a common social good for this to work.
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:34 PM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
Treating every college degree as a financial exchange is what got us into this fucked up situation in the first place.
But then we'd have to acknowledge the concept of a common social good for this to work.
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:34 PM on June 7, 2015 [15 favorites]
I dropped out of school in the '80s with less then $5000 in student loans which still took me about eight years to pay off. Luckily, I was able to finish my degree for free on my then-wife's benefits as she worked for the university. I'm not sure how I would have managed if I were young now trying to deal with the kinds of tuition that most kids are facing.
Mostly what I got out of the degree was a foot in the door at my first job; I didn't really learn a damn thing at school that I've ever used professionally. I easily learned more about how to code in the first six months at that job than I did in all my undergraduate CS classes combined.
posted by octothorpe at 12:41 PM on June 7, 2015
Mostly what I got out of the degree was a foot in the door at my first job; I didn't really learn a damn thing at school that I've ever used professionally. I easily learned more about how to code in the first six months at that job than I did in all my undergraduate CS classes combined.
posted by octothorpe at 12:41 PM on June 7, 2015
This conversation reminds me of this blog post about a woman that got the PhD but left academia. She's looking back on her life and considering whether she should have just pursued management in retail instead, as the pay would have been exponentially higher than academia.
Maybe I Should Have Stayed in Retail
posted by littlewater at 12:58 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Maybe I Should Have Stayed in Retail
posted by littlewater at 12:58 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Scott Walker and his cronies in ALEC, currently in the midst of burning the once role-model Wisconsin public higher education education system to the ground and pissing in its ashes, will love quoting from and distributing this cavalier, disingenuous piece of shit "writing" as they launch their campaigns to take the performance on the road across the country.
posted by blucevalo at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
Not to mention he was too good for state school which I imagine included the extreme well regarded SUNY system? I am impatient with Mr. Siegel.
posted by bq at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by bq at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
I always come into these threads wondering how something so clearly, egregiously, flagrantly immoral as the US student loan system persists. And then I see not just a few but dozens of defenses of the status quo. He should have done x, he should do y, stop whining, work harder, stop condescending to those with crappy jobs, stop wanting to be better than that, stop thinking that education is a right, improve your tone, stop wanting to do creative work with your life, do rewarding stuff in the interstices of full-time work, stop being foolish as a child, be a better writer, accept the world as it is and make better decisions in it.
Universal basic income gets more unanimous support around here than just asking that education be funded and student loans be dischargeable like every other damn debt. It's not like people are asking for a special dumb-Siegel-bad-writer-life-of-luxury-no-repayment-free-loan system. Just make the US system more like every other functional developed democracy in the world. I don't understand why so many people feel that the status quo, where humanities degrees are severely punished by decades of suffering and any 20-year-old who doesn't anticipate that or is a mediocre artist deserves their punishment, is in such need of defending. But clearly there's nothing like a shitty job or life to cause people to want to tear down anyone hoping for more, particularly if they have any failings whatsoever. It's depressing how a dysfunctional society is self-perpetuating, like an ongoing auto-immune response, perpetually attacking itself rather than the original disease.
posted by chortly at 1:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [32 favorites]
Universal basic income gets more unanimous support around here than just asking that education be funded and student loans be dischargeable like every other damn debt. It's not like people are asking for a special dumb-Siegel-bad-writer-life-of-luxury-no-repayment-free-loan system. Just make the US system more like every other functional developed democracy in the world. I don't understand why so many people feel that the status quo, where humanities degrees are severely punished by decades of suffering and any 20-year-old who doesn't anticipate that or is a mediocre artist deserves their punishment, is in such need of defending. But clearly there's nothing like a shitty job or life to cause people to want to tear down anyone hoping for more, particularly if they have any failings whatsoever. It's depressing how a dysfunctional society is self-perpetuating, like an ongoing auto-immune response, perpetually attacking itself rather than the original disease.
posted by chortly at 1:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [32 favorites]
I think this needed to be said, but Mr. Siegel is not the person to say it. The U.S. student loan system is predatory, and education is way overpriced. I think it's criminal that teenagers can take out colossal loans (before they are old enough to drink!) and can't even discharge them in bankruptcy if they need to. I think an income-based repayment system with caps on the amounts loaned would be much more humane. Australia's system as described above seems like it works well. And I agree about the poor information given to students - especially working-class students - about careers, and what various careers really pay, and how easy (or difficult) it is to enter different careers.
That said: Siegel makes my teeth itch. People do make tough choices about career paths all the time - if not as college graduates, then as prospective parents. I'm in favor of a universal basic income, and yes, some careers are criminally underpaid (teaching) and others criminally OVERpaid (stockbrokers and hedge fund managers). But Siegel is not a unique and delicate snowflake forced to make a living - he has plenty of company, and is not singled out by cruel fate.
And when he said "find a partner with good credit" to leech off of - I thought, fuck this guy. Speaking of Regency gentlemen, that type was called "a fortune hunter." These days, we call that "financial abuse."
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:26 PM on June 7, 2015 [10 favorites]
That said: Siegel makes my teeth itch. People do make tough choices about career paths all the time - if not as college graduates, then as prospective parents. I'm in favor of a universal basic income, and yes, some careers are criminally underpaid (teaching) and others criminally OVERpaid (stockbrokers and hedge fund managers). But Siegel is not a unique and delicate snowflake forced to make a living - he has plenty of company, and is not singled out by cruel fate.
And when he said "find a partner with good credit" to leech off of - I thought, fuck this guy. Speaking of Regency gentlemen, that type was called "a fortune hunter." These days, we call that "financial abuse."
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:26 PM on June 7, 2015 [10 favorites]
Yeah, there's something that goes beyond slippery into the realm of pure disingenuity when someone describes their alma mater, Columbia University, as a "small private liberal arts college".
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:00 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:00 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'm pretty sure the small liberal arts college mentioned in the piece isn't Columbia. Siegel's Columbia degree is from GS, which is the college for older non-traditional students (and post-bac students) - he presumably earned that degree later on.
posted by kickingtheground at 3:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 3:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: A vague yet terrible business idea.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:01 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:01 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Not sure if you've noticed, but people who graduated since 2008 (I was class of 2007) are having a hard time finding "real" jobs with steady paychecks and benefits regardless of what they studied or how far they were willing to bend over for the banks that own their loans.
Hi! I finally got my undergraduate degree last year. I double majored in mathematics and finance, thinking that would be the practical thing to do. Currently, I work two part time jobs. Soon, I will probably have to pick up a third one so I can continue to pay for car insurance. Yeah, I'm not even going to start thinking about those loans anytime in the near future.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:46 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Hi! I finally got my undergraduate degree last year. I double majored in mathematics and finance, thinking that would be the practical thing to do. Currently, I work two part time jobs. Soon, I will probably have to pick up a third one so I can continue to pay for car insurance. Yeah, I'm not even going to start thinking about those loans anytime in the near future.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:46 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'll say it again, that there exist loans marketed to the youngest and least experienced adults that are not dischargable in bankruptcy is an absolute disgrace. Congress should be ashamed, and it should absolutely be a campaign issue.
Yeah, this feels bad on two levels. One, I am now old enough to know how much I didn't know when I first took out loans for school. It turned out well for me, but I had some sense about it that I needed to be careful. But I still didn't have enough sense to really foresee the real and potential consequences of a system that basically says this is the way that you do it to get ahead. I don't know that I like how easy it was for my 18 year old self to have that kind of borrowing power, or at least having been pushed to utilize it.
And on the bankruptcy issue, the reason that bankrupts exists in the first place is in part to take the edge off of the immense risk of taking part in a capitalistic system that can sometimes be punishing. It's a risk that society is willing to write into the rules of the economy because the incentive for taking risk as a whole far outweighs the loss of people actually declaring bankruptcy. So, we are encouraging students to take huge risks to participate, and even actively pushing them in that direction, without the protections that everyone else enjoys in almost every other facet of borrowing to be able to invest in the "game".
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:46 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yeah, this feels bad on two levels. One, I am now old enough to know how much I didn't know when I first took out loans for school. It turned out well for me, but I had some sense about it that I needed to be careful. But I still didn't have enough sense to really foresee the real and potential consequences of a system that basically says this is the way that you do it to get ahead. I don't know that I like how easy it was for my 18 year old self to have that kind of borrowing power, or at least having been pushed to utilize it.
And on the bankruptcy issue, the reason that bankrupts exists in the first place is in part to take the edge off of the immense risk of taking part in a capitalistic system that can sometimes be punishing. It's a risk that society is willing to write into the rules of the economy because the incentive for taking risk as a whole far outweighs the loss of people actually declaring bankruptcy. So, we are encouraging students to take huge risks to participate, and even actively pushing them in that direction, without the protections that everyone else enjoys in almost every other facet of borrowing to be able to invest in the "game".
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:46 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: An overeducated and highly indebted choir.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:14 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:14 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Every time I hear someone say "why don't the kids just do what I did in order to get through college?" I wonder if they're aware that "what I did" is usually "go to college in the eighties." In-state costs at the University of Washington are estimated at just shy of $20K per year; Washington's minimum wage is $9.47, meaning you would have to work almost 2100 hours a year to cover it, not even counting for taxes. That's more than full time. But even if you were the kind of time management powerhouse that would allow you to work more than full time and take a full courseload, it's increasingly difficult to actually FIND a full time minimum wage job; most of your standard big-box retail outlets cap employees at 30 hours a week or less. But thanks to the miracles of just in time scheduling, you can't know when in the week those thirty hours will fall, nor can you have any guarantee that they'll be able or even willing to work around your class schedule.
posted by KathrynT at 6:17 PM on June 7, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by KathrynT at 6:17 PM on June 7, 2015 [30 favorites]
Thirty years of compound interest can add up to an untidy sum. None of my business, of course, but you have to wonder.
Siegel is not a unique and delicate snowflake forced to make a living - he has plenty of company, and is not singled out by cruel fate.
Rather the contrary! He seems to have done all right for himself, reading and writing, weathering the professional embarrassments. Lives with his wife and children in Montclair, NJ, right next to Steve Colbert. (Of course, he might have married money.) Question that comes to mind is - assuming his kids are, like most Montclair kids, college bound - how is this (or was this) to be financed? Is he paying? Their mother? Is he advising them to take loans and default?
(Did he really need two degrees? Cultural Critics Gore Vidal and Truman Capote didn't even bother with one and they did okay.)
(On the other topic, yes, I think college finances are a disgrace.)
posted by IndigoJones at 7:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Siegel is not a unique and delicate snowflake forced to make a living - he has plenty of company, and is not singled out by cruel fate.
Rather the contrary! He seems to have done all right for himself, reading and writing, weathering the professional embarrassments. Lives with his wife and children in Montclair, NJ, right next to Steve Colbert. (Of course, he might have married money.) Question that comes to mind is - assuming his kids are, like most Montclair kids, college bound - how is this (or was this) to be financed? Is he paying? Their mother? Is he advising them to take loans and default?
(Did he really need two degrees? Cultural Critics Gore Vidal and Truman Capote didn't even bother with one and they did okay.)
(On the other topic, yes, I think college finances are a disgrace.)
posted by IndigoJones at 7:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is what tuition was in Pennsylvania (and presumably most other states) in the '80s when I did my first stab at an undergrad degree:
posted by octothorpe at 7:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
College students will pay an average of 7 percent more for tuition and fees in the coming academic year compared with 1987-88, according to a survey to be released today by the College Board.That $1,566 is about $3k in today's money but that's still miles away from what tuition will cost you at a state school these days. Back in the '80s, you could work your ass off in construction during the summer and come up with enough money to pay for tuition and deliver some pizzas or wait tables a few days a week during the school year to cover expenses but a summer job will barely cover your book costs these days.
For students at four-year private schools, tuition and fees will average $7,693 in 1988-89, up 9 percent from last year. Among public four-year schools, students will pay an average of $1,566, up 5 percent, the survey found.
posted by octothorpe at 7:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Every time I hear someone say "why don't the kids just do what I did in order to get through college?" I wonder if they're aware that "what I did" is usually "go to college in the eighties."
And Seigel is whinging on about going to college in the 70s. He really is not the one to be speaking for kids today.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:37 PM on June 7, 2015
And Seigel is whinging on about going to college in the 70s. He really is not the one to be speaking for kids today.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:37 PM on June 7, 2015
Cultural Critics Gore Vidal and Truman Capote didn't even bother with one and they did okay.
I bet Charlamagne Tha God doesn't have a degree and he's way more successful and influential a cultural critic than Lee Siegal. I'm sure I've heard him talking about staying home in Monks Corner while his girl went off to college.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:58 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I bet Charlamagne Tha God doesn't have a degree and he's way more successful and influential a cultural critic than Lee Siegal. I'm sure I've heard him talking about staying home in Monks Corner while his girl went off to college.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:58 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
In Australia, the government subsidises a portion of higher education costs.
The rest is loaned to you by the government, and you repay via the tax system once you earn approximately more than 2/3rds the average income.
I should also point out that when an Australian graduate talks about student debt, they're almost always referring only to their share of actual tuition costs. If you don't have the finances (the means test keeps changing, and I'm not really up on it) you can get Austudy or other government support for your living expenses. Which most will say isn't quite enough to live on but it seems a whole lot better than nothing, which is what I'm guessing is the case in the US from the lack of comments saying "just get the UStudy payments and live off ramen". My uni days are long behind me, but I didn't know anyone then (and still don't know of anyone now) who borrowed money just to live.
posted by pianissimo at 4:20 AM on June 8, 2015
The rest is loaned to you by the government, and you repay via the tax system once you earn approximately more than 2/3rds the average income.
I should also point out that when an Australian graduate talks about student debt, they're almost always referring only to their share of actual tuition costs. If you don't have the finances (the means test keeps changing, and I'm not really up on it) you can get Austudy or other government support for your living expenses. Which most will say isn't quite enough to live on but it seems a whole lot better than nothing, which is what I'm guessing is the case in the US from the lack of comments saying "just get the UStudy payments and live off ramen". My uni days are long behind me, but I didn't know anyone then (and still don't know of anyone now) who borrowed money just to live.
posted by pianissimo at 4:20 AM on June 8, 2015
But the idea that the world owes you your dream job is obnoxious.
How about the idea of financial predation on the young?
You know who does ok? Payday lenders. Good money, easy hours.
Liquor store owners too.
Oh, and pornographers. The guy who invented the Fleshlight is an ex-cop. Public service is for suckers. Repossessions are big too. Kick some people out of their homes, take deadbeats' cars.
Siegel's likeability or lacktherof aside - the general deal with higher public education, as far as I understood it, was the John Adams thing: we study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and
philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music,
etc.
But this is very clearly, not the case. Clearly the education loan industry sabotages the reasons for its existence.
I'm not sure of the solution. There have always been rapacious bastards and probably always will be. Doesn't mean they're right just because they've got a system in place to sucker people out of money.
But I guess I don't hate them. Probably because they're too stupid to understand what they're doing.
A quote from Dune occurs to me though:
Paul’s smile became brittle. He returned his attention to the banker. “The interesting thing about this man was the wounds on his shoulders–made by another fisherman’s claw-boots. This fisherman was one of several in a boat–a craft for traveling on water–that foundered . . . sank beneath the water. Another fisherman helping recover the body said he’d seen marks like this man’s wounds several times. They meant another drowning fisherman had tried to stand on this poor fellow’s shoulders in the attempt to reach up to the surface–to reach air.”
“Why is this interesting?” the banker asked.
“Because of an observation made by my father at the time. He said the drowning man who climbs on your shoulders to save himself is understandable– except when you see it happen in the drawing room.” Paul hesitated just long enough for the banker to see the point coming, then: “And, I should add, except when you see it at the dinner table.”
Or amongst an overeducated and highly indebted choir.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:52 PM on June 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
How about the idea of financial predation on the young?
You know who does ok? Payday lenders. Good money, easy hours.
Liquor store owners too.
Oh, and pornographers. The guy who invented the Fleshlight is an ex-cop. Public service is for suckers. Repossessions are big too. Kick some people out of their homes, take deadbeats' cars.
Siegel's likeability or lacktherof aside - the general deal with higher public education, as far as I understood it, was the John Adams thing: we study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and
philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music,
etc.
But this is very clearly, not the case. Clearly the education loan industry sabotages the reasons for its existence.
I'm not sure of the solution. There have always been rapacious bastards and probably always will be. Doesn't mean they're right just because they've got a system in place to sucker people out of money.
But I guess I don't hate them. Probably because they're too stupid to understand what they're doing.
A quote from Dune occurs to me though:
Paul’s smile became brittle. He returned his attention to the banker. “The interesting thing about this man was the wounds on his shoulders–made by another fisherman’s claw-boots. This fisherman was one of several in a boat–a craft for traveling on water–that foundered . . . sank beneath the water. Another fisherman helping recover the body said he’d seen marks like this man’s wounds several times. They meant another drowning fisherman had tried to stand on this poor fellow’s shoulders in the attempt to reach up to the surface–to reach air.”
“Why is this interesting?” the banker asked.
“Because of an observation made by my father at the time. He said the drowning man who climbs on your shoulders to save himself is understandable– except when you see it happen in the drawing room.” Paul hesitated just long enough for the banker to see the point coming, then: “And, I should add, except when you see it at the dinner table.”
Or amongst an overeducated and highly indebted choir.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:52 PM on June 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
The New York Times Should Apologize for the Awful Op-Ed It Just Ran on Student Loans.
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:57 PM on June 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:57 PM on June 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
I've needed to sit for a minute and find the root of my frustration. I think it lies of the discussion surrounding the "should be" instead of what is.
Fuck that. It's 2015. Society is fucking better than that. It has to be fucking better than that.
I just don't share the optimism about American society. After all, this is the same country where political candidates have repeatedly run on shutting down HUD because there are those who strenuously object to the public funding of housing for the poor. This is also the same country where it's becoming popular to drug test people before providing necessary food benefits. It's a country that took almost two centuries and a war that killed 600,000 to stop people from legally owning other people. The idea that Americans would create a student loan program more generous than it presently is seems to fly in the face of most available evidence. We aren't particularly kind to each other.
Why does one's like work have to be a sadomasochistic experience? Like your entire working life not only should be some grind that you do to live only until you die but you should be fucking proud of it? That you should be proud of dulling this grind through self-medication? So some banker can buy another ivory backscratcher?
I chafe at the notion that not entering your very favorite field or following your passion wherever it leads=serfdom. Someone has to watch the plays, read the books, and buy the paintings. Art needs patrons at all levels and most of us are lucky if we’re middle management.
When I read the disdainful way the author of the op-ed speaks of honest work in retail—well, offended is not nearly strong enough for what I feel. That's because my two best friends in high school made the choice he did not. Both were artistically inclined and were accepted to private, expensive schools but their families couldn't or wouldn't take out the necessary federal loans. My friends chose community college, not even considering private loans. Eventually they let go of their artistic career aspirations. One is in the Navy, the other in customer service. Both have loving partners and are happy with their lives. The choice is not expensive college vs. weeping in the gutter as the original author and others in these comments seem to suppose.
I'll say it again, that there exist loans marketed to the youngest and least experienced adults that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy is an absolute disgrace.
As someone incredibly grateful for my federal loans, who would not have been able to attend of my choice without this assistance, I cannot agree with this statement. However, I would be perfectly fine if private loans were not an option. They weren’t for me I went to school in the early aughts, when parents had to cosign loans. (My family didn’t even consider them as my mom had difficulty getting a credit card in the ‘90s because of her divorce.)
I feel the need to remind people that students who don’t go to college often sign up for military service at 18, potentially risking their lives. It’s the age of legal responsibility. We can debate the wisdom of the status quo vs. extending adolescence to 21 but I am focusing on what is right now. Anyway, I’m not sure we’d want parents making such decisions for their children— I know I wouldn't. I chose taking on some debt to attend a prestigious school, an experience I treasure to this day. I made this choice fully understanding I'd be paying off the loans for most of my life. Without question, I can tell you my mother would have chosen to send me to her alma mater where I would have likely gotten more scholarship money but enjoyed my education a lot less.
I hope that the next generation of potential students watching the student loan crisis are considering alternatives. If change will come, it's going to have to come from students and families who demand and speak with their education dollars. Since we're acknowledging the system is broken perhaps there'll more attention and investment in community colleges; perhaps lazy hiring managers will no longer regard a college education as a gold star of respectability and consider all hardworking young people for entry level jobs. Perhaps guidance counselors in this new reality will offer advice about the costs and realities of a college education. Perhaps middle class American parents will take off the rose colored glasses of their own college experience and treat the process like what it is: a family business decision, putting aside all thoughts of prestige and truly asking what the family can afford. It's not a fun conversation but it’s a necessary one.
posted by CatastropheWaitress at 8:35 AM on June 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
Fuck that. It's 2015. Society is fucking better than that. It has to be fucking better than that.
I just don't share the optimism about American society. After all, this is the same country where political candidates have repeatedly run on shutting down HUD because there are those who strenuously object to the public funding of housing for the poor. This is also the same country where it's becoming popular to drug test people before providing necessary food benefits. It's a country that took almost two centuries and a war that killed 600,000 to stop people from legally owning other people. The idea that Americans would create a student loan program more generous than it presently is seems to fly in the face of most available evidence. We aren't particularly kind to each other.
Why does one's like work have to be a sadomasochistic experience? Like your entire working life not only should be some grind that you do to live only until you die but you should be fucking proud of it? That you should be proud of dulling this grind through self-medication? So some banker can buy another ivory backscratcher?
I chafe at the notion that not entering your very favorite field or following your passion wherever it leads=serfdom. Someone has to watch the plays, read the books, and buy the paintings. Art needs patrons at all levels and most of us are lucky if we’re middle management.
When I read the disdainful way the author of the op-ed speaks of honest work in retail—well, offended is not nearly strong enough for what I feel. That's because my two best friends in high school made the choice he did not. Both were artistically inclined and were accepted to private, expensive schools but their families couldn't or wouldn't take out the necessary federal loans. My friends chose community college, not even considering private loans. Eventually they let go of their artistic career aspirations. One is in the Navy, the other in customer service. Both have loving partners and are happy with their lives. The choice is not expensive college vs. weeping in the gutter as the original author and others in these comments seem to suppose.
I'll say it again, that there exist loans marketed to the youngest and least experienced adults that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy is an absolute disgrace.
As someone incredibly grateful for my federal loans, who would not have been able to attend of my choice without this assistance, I cannot agree with this statement. However, I would be perfectly fine if private loans were not an option. They weren’t for me I went to school in the early aughts, when parents had to cosign loans. (My family didn’t even consider them as my mom had difficulty getting a credit card in the ‘90s because of her divorce.)
I feel the need to remind people that students who don’t go to college often sign up for military service at 18, potentially risking their lives. It’s the age of legal responsibility. We can debate the wisdom of the status quo vs. extending adolescence to 21 but I am focusing on what is right now. Anyway, I’m not sure we’d want parents making such decisions for their children— I know I wouldn't. I chose taking on some debt to attend a prestigious school, an experience I treasure to this day. I made this choice fully understanding I'd be paying off the loans for most of my life. Without question, I can tell you my mother would have chosen to send me to her alma mater where I would have likely gotten more scholarship money but enjoyed my education a lot less.
I hope that the next generation of potential students watching the student loan crisis are considering alternatives. If change will come, it's going to have to come from students and families who demand and speak with their education dollars. Since we're acknowledging the system is broken perhaps there'll more attention and investment in community colleges; perhaps lazy hiring managers will no longer regard a college education as a gold star of respectability and consider all hardworking young people for entry level jobs. Perhaps guidance counselors in this new reality will offer advice about the costs and realities of a college education. Perhaps middle class American parents will take off the rose colored glasses of their own college experience and treat the process like what it is: a family business decision, putting aside all thoughts of prestige and truly asking what the family can afford. It's not a fun conversation but it’s a necessary one.
posted by CatastropheWaitress at 8:35 AM on June 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
I think Siegel comes across like a real shitbag but I dislike the calculus of determining who is a noble enough victim when it comes to decrying a corrupt and lousy system.
posted by phearlez at 8:18 AM on June 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by phearlez at 8:18 AM on June 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
if you’re poor and miss a child-support payment, or if you’re middle class and default on your student loans, then God help you
This is an odd bit to he threw in. I'm fine with there being huge repercussions for you if you miss a child-support payment; it's not comparable to student loans.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:49 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is an odd bit to he threw in. I'm fine with there being huge repercussions for you if you miss a child-support payment; it's not comparable to student loans.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:49 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Fuck that. It's 2015. Society is fucking better than that. It has to be fucking better than that.I just don't share the optimism about American society. ... The idea that Americans would create a student loan program more generous than it presently is seems to fly in the face of most available evidence. We aren't particularly kind to each other.
No, we are not. This is a country founded on the degradation and denegration of others for gain, power, and glory. Empathy is regularly discouraged or ignored. It's always 'us' vs. 'them'.
And to be honest, if Americans really wanted to be kinder to students, there are alternatives to student loans which are less burdensome.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:10 AM on June 11, 2015
What's Left After Higher Education Is Dismantled
But they tell a similar story: There's no set of institutions capable of or interested in providing quality, affordable higher education for a large population outside public schools. We must remember this as state legislatures continue to dismantle, defund and privatize public higher education, because as that project succeeds no one else will step into the void and provide the education that will disappear.posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:14 AM on June 15, 2015
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I agree that the student loan industry is rotten to the core, and maybe it's going to take a lot of individuals doing this very thing to overturn it, but I also wonder if the author is sacrificing more than he expects.
posted by xingcat at 5:06 AM on June 7, 2015 [12 favorites]