Drowning in Debt
February 16, 2019 10:33 AM Subscribe
In 1983, the average full-time student borrowed $746 ($1,881 in 2018 dollars) per year. The most recent statistics from the College Board indicate that in 2018, the average annual undergraduate loan is now $4,510, while the average graduate loan hit $17,990. In 2016–2017, the average borrower left college with $37,172 in loans.
Holy fucking shit.
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:48 AM on February 16, 2019 [23 favorites]
Auto debt and student debt are gonna walk hand in hand with “rental backed securities” to create a crash that makes 08 look like previews in Hartford.
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 AM on February 16, 2019 [33 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 AM on February 16, 2019 [33 favorites]
I do wonder if there will be a tipping point where it becomes socially acceptable for people just walk away from their loan debt, similar to what happened with underwater mortgages in the last crash. I mean, what are they going to do, repo the knowledge?
posted by Wretch729 at 11:06 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 11:06 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
They can garnish your paycheck.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:07 AM on February 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:07 AM on February 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
They can garnish your paycheck
With a slice of avocado?
posted by thelonius at 11:10 AM on February 16, 2019 [29 favorites]
With a slice of avocado?
posted by thelonius at 11:10 AM on February 16, 2019 [29 favorites]
Getting people to care about the fraud and unmet promises and elimination of Public Service Loan Forgiveness is really hard. I know. I am leadership in a couple umbrella progressive groups and I work in legislative advocacy and people just shrug when you tell them folks who intentionally took below market salaries, passed up better job offers and served their communities were lied to and are not getting their promised loan forgiveness. Suddenly everyone is the worst bootstrap-believin nobody-helped-me you've ever met. It's not a crisis; it's not a cruelty perpetrated on people acting in good faith. It's just, somehow, shrug-worthy and not their concern.
Of the 1.1 million who applied to certify their employment, nearly 900,000 were accepted. Of these, close to 20,000 submitted the completed forgiveness application, but to date, the GAO found just 55 have had their loans cancelled. (The Education Department recently updated the number of loans forgiven to 96.) The average amount of debt cancelled is $58,000 per person. The highest amount was almost $290,000.
That is an outrage. But there's so much to be outraged about. So many people being screwed left right and center out of benefits, that no-one cares.
Me and the spouse have IRAs; we have some savings in our accounts. We have a mortgage on a home and rental property that will be paid off in another ten years. We are nonetheless ruined if my loans are not forgiven as promised.
posted by crush at 11:16 AM on February 16, 2019 [69 favorites]
Of the 1.1 million who applied to certify their employment, nearly 900,000 were accepted. Of these, close to 20,000 submitted the completed forgiveness application, but to date, the GAO found just 55 have had their loans cancelled. (The Education Department recently updated the number of loans forgiven to 96.) The average amount of debt cancelled is $58,000 per person. The highest amount was almost $290,000.
That is an outrage. But there's so much to be outraged about. So many people being screwed left right and center out of benefits, that no-one cares.
Me and the spouse have IRAs; we have some savings in our accounts. We have a mortgage on a home and rental property that will be paid off in another ten years. We are nonetheless ruined if my loans are not forgiven as promised.
posted by crush at 11:16 AM on February 16, 2019 [69 favorites]
i expected total student debt cancellation to be a major talking point during the 2020 primaries and i'm still optimistic it will be. i cannot think of a single issue that would rally the youth vote more. i think the first candidate to seriously propose and advocate for this will basically have a lock on the nomination.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
Apparently a new bill is being pushed through that will automatically garnish all student loan holders’ wages and will allow only two repayment options: 10% of your monthly income or a payment plan of 10 years. That will fuck me over as I’m on a 25 year extended repayment plan that I have neatly learned to balance within my current budget to where I don’t even need to think about it. I’ve never missed a payment. I probably wouldn’t qualify for the 10% cap and having to make payments for a decade max would mean I’d need a second job or a higher paying one. Which...no?
Also fuck being treated like I can’t manage my money.
posted by Young Kullervo at 11:27 AM on February 16, 2019 [23 favorites]
Also fuck being treated like I can’t manage my money.
posted by Young Kullervo at 11:27 AM on February 16, 2019 [23 favorites]
Previously (self link) The Debt Crisis
Or, shorter: liberal democracy was fun but it started to get out of hand and threaten power so welcome to peonage suckers.
posted by The Whelk at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
Or, shorter: liberal democracy was fun but it started to get out of hand and threaten power so welcome to peonage suckers.
posted by The Whelk at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber (Google Books preview). It covers the history and sociology of debt and its link to servitude, and who knew that in ancient Ireland they had a unit of money equal to one teenaged girl.
posted by Brian B. at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2019 [13 favorites]
If I were forced to pay my student loans on a standard 10-year timeframe, my monthly payment would be $200-300 higher than my RENT. So basically I would be destitute. Cool, cool.
posted by Automocar at 11:37 AM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 11:37 AM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Does that mean that all the debt must be paid within 10 years, or does it mean that you make payments for 10 years and then the rest is forgiven?
posted by Autumnheart at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2019
posted by Autumnheart at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2019
this is america, take a guess.
posted by JimBennett at 11:40 AM on February 16, 2019 [29 favorites]
posted by JimBennett at 11:40 AM on February 16, 2019 [29 favorites]
Looks like the standard plan is 10 years, but there are also others where loans may be forgiven after 15-25 years, depending on the plan.
posted by Autumnheart at 11:45 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Autumnheart at 11:45 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I do wonder if there will be a tipping point where it becomes socially acceptable for people just walk away from their loan debt, similar to what happened with underwater mortgages in the last crash. I mean, what are they going to do, repo the knowledge?
You can walk away from an underwater mortgage because their only recourse is to take the property. You can't walk away from student loans because they made the bankruptcy laws specifically prevent that.
posted by srboisvert at 11:49 AM on February 16, 2019 [24 favorites]
You can walk away from an underwater mortgage because their only recourse is to take the property. You can't walk away from student loans because they made the bankruptcy laws specifically prevent that.
posted by srboisvert at 11:49 AM on February 16, 2019 [24 favorites]
I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm about a year away from finishing my undergraduate degree. By the time I'm done, at age 42 and a half, I'll have incurred tens of thousands of dollars of federal student loan debt. Now, I'm in a better position than an undergrad in their early twenties with no work experience, because I already have a job and have been saving for my retirement for some time, and since I work from home my job is portable so I can take it with me when I move across the country this summer to an area where the cost of living is considerably cheaper than where I currently reside and where I'll actually be able to afford to pay my loan payments AND have a somewhat decent life. I'm lucky and I know it. But... I am likely going to be in debt for the rest of my life, because even if I can get these loans paid off on the 10 year schedule, I'd someday like to own a house and that means having a mortgage. And taking out loans was the only way to pay for my education -- after all, I decided to go to school to increase my earning power because the thought of having to compete for a better position in the job market with only a high school diploma was fucking terrifying, even with a couple of decades of experience in the working world under my belt. I didn't exactly have tuition money lying around, you know? Even taking the cheapest options available, the price tag of an education is staggering.
posted by palomar at 11:52 AM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by palomar at 11:52 AM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
I got three degrees loan-free. I managed to get, on average, about 2/3 of my college costs paid for via scholarships (100% for the Associate's, but only ~20% for the Master's). I covered the rest, and my jobs have been high-enough paying to allow that. My wife got nearly 100% of her Associate's and all of her Bachelor's paid for by my GI Bill, so again, no loan.
But of everyone else from my peer group -- in the Army, as a Federal Contractor, in various community groups, and my wife's friends and coworkers too -- I could probably count on one hand the other people who made it to at least a BA with no loans. I have to go back at least half a generation, and often further, to start seeing no-loan degrees become commonplace.
And every single one of those peers has tons of additional hardships because of it. Hardships they shouldn't have to deal with, but that society makes it nearly-impossible to get rid of. We're told that college is the only way forward (and often, though not universally, that can be true), but as college costs have ballooned faster than everything except maybe Zimbabwe's money, that's becoming more and more of a liability. I can entirely understand why lots of people simply want to opt out at this point.
Of course, that's exactly the point: those lucky enough to get decent scholarships or be able to pay up-front have an in-built advantage that has gone from minor a generation ago to become truly astounding today, and someone choosing not to go to college because of the debt is as effective at cementing that social hierarchy as someone going then being shackled to crippling debt. Student debt has gone from a minor effect of inequality to being an ever-more powerful engine for accelerating it. At some point, the system is simply going to break, and I have no idea what the fallout will be, but as the problem metastasizes I can't help but think that almost any outcome is better than continuing the present path.
posted by mystyk at 11:56 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
But of everyone else from my peer group -- in the Army, as a Federal Contractor, in various community groups, and my wife's friends and coworkers too -- I could probably count on one hand the other people who made it to at least a BA with no loans. I have to go back at least half a generation, and often further, to start seeing no-loan degrees become commonplace.
And every single one of those peers has tons of additional hardships because of it. Hardships they shouldn't have to deal with, but that society makes it nearly-impossible to get rid of. We're told that college is the only way forward (and often, though not universally, that can be true), but as college costs have ballooned faster than everything except maybe Zimbabwe's money, that's becoming more and more of a liability. I can entirely understand why lots of people simply want to opt out at this point.
Of course, that's exactly the point: those lucky enough to get decent scholarships or be able to pay up-front have an in-built advantage that has gone from minor a generation ago to become truly astounding today, and someone choosing not to go to college because of the debt is as effective at cementing that social hierarchy as someone going then being shackled to crippling debt. Student debt has gone from a minor effect of inequality to being an ever-more powerful engine for accelerating it. At some point, the system is simply going to break, and I have no idea what the fallout will be, but as the problem metastasizes I can't help but think that almost any outcome is better than continuing the present path.
posted by mystyk at 11:56 AM on February 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
Tell working class kids the only way to middle class stability is taking in college debt and then have them graduate with no prospects and a heavy debt load, cool scam.
posted by The Whelk at 12:03 PM on February 16, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 12:03 PM on February 16, 2019 [31 favorites]
I was real panicked by debt in high school and chose to go to public college on the HOPE scholarship in Georgia, which guarantees free tuition to Georgian residents who keep a 3.0 GPA or better and attend a state school. My parents were wealthy enough to pay my room and board and books outright, and I and got all my undergrad tuition paid for, so I graduated debt free. But shit went bad in unpredictable ways over my PhD, my partner went back to school for nursing and also needed hearing aids, and every time I had any kind of disaster, well, I was on my own--and there have been a lot of disasters, and my pay has been... a little better than just enough to get by, accounting for Austin cost of living, as a grad student; and I've been in grad school for seven years now, ever since I graduated. So I'm about $40 to 50k in debt right now, depending on whether you count just my debt or my spouse's, too.
(I'm the only person in my PhD, as I recall, who escaped having any student debt upon graduation.)
Which, it could be so much worse. So much worse. I don't know how or whether I will ever be able to afford to have kids, but theoretically I should be able to earn enough once I finally graduate to get somewhere with the loans. I mean, quite apart from the cost of actually raising a child and for that matter going through childbirth, I also will need to work out where the cost of AI would come from assuming we don't adopt--it's something that my family needs to figure out a financial plan for, but with a one-income household right now and both of us engaging in education, and my career on track for a postdoc next... when will we have the cash flow?
posted by sciatrix at 12:12 PM on February 16, 2019 [8 favorites]
(I'm the only person in my PhD, as I recall, who escaped having any student debt upon graduation.)
Which, it could be so much worse. So much worse. I don't know how or whether I will ever be able to afford to have kids, but theoretically I should be able to earn enough once I finally graduate to get somewhere with the loans. I mean, quite apart from the cost of actually raising a child and for that matter going through childbirth, I also will need to work out where the cost of AI would come from assuming we don't adopt--it's something that my family needs to figure out a financial plan for, but with a one-income household right now and both of us engaging in education, and my career on track for a postdoc next... when will we have the cash flow?
posted by sciatrix at 12:12 PM on February 16, 2019 [8 favorites]
That's Lamar Alexander's 2019 Higher Education Reauthorization Act bill.
Community College Daily sums it up thusly:
The second part of the senator’s plan is to compress the current nine federal student loan repayment options into just two, both of which could be automatically deducted from paychecks. The first option would retain the 10-year loan repayment plan while the second would be based on a borrower’s income. It would not exceed 10 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income (based on a government formula), but a person with no income would not be required to make a payment, and it would not affect their credit score, Alexander said.
He gave this example: A single parent with an associate degree, $10,000 in federal student loans and annual income of $39,000 would pay $114 a month for 10 years (based on discretionary income of $13,000).
A person not able to make payments could potentially have their loan excused after 20 years. Alexander gave an example using a single community college student with $7,500 in federal loans who dropped out after one year. Based on the student’s annual income of $20,000 and discretionary income of $1,265, he would owe $120 a month. Under Alexander’s proposal, the student would not be able to pay off his loan over 20 years. But under current law the loan would be forgiven.
“Which seems like a policy we should keep,” he added.
I have not seen other summations (except from pro-business publications thrilled that no-one can default if you can garnish their wages). But now I have a research project for some "contact your Congressperson" campaigns. ugh.
posted by crush at 12:17 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Community College Daily sums it up thusly:
The second part of the senator’s plan is to compress the current nine federal student loan repayment options into just two, both of which could be automatically deducted from paychecks. The first option would retain the 10-year loan repayment plan while the second would be based on a borrower’s income. It would not exceed 10 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income (based on a government formula), but a person with no income would not be required to make a payment, and it would not affect their credit score, Alexander said.
He gave this example: A single parent with an associate degree, $10,000 in federal student loans and annual income of $39,000 would pay $114 a month for 10 years (based on discretionary income of $13,000).
A person not able to make payments could potentially have their loan excused after 20 years. Alexander gave an example using a single community college student with $7,500 in federal loans who dropped out after one year. Based on the student’s annual income of $20,000 and discretionary income of $1,265, he would owe $120 a month. Under Alexander’s proposal, the student would not be able to pay off his loan over 20 years. But under current law the loan would be forgiven.
“Which seems like a policy we should keep,” he added.
I have not seen other summations (except from pro-business publications thrilled that no-one can default if you can garnish their wages). But now I have a research project for some "contact your Congressperson" campaigns. ugh.
posted by crush at 12:17 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I know it's on the List of Things We Are Going to Do Once We Defeat the Actual Fascists, but let's make sure while we're forgiving all the student debt that Free Education happens too. It's a goddamn societal investment that helps all of us.
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:22 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:22 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
But seriously, if everyone who relies on one of the 9 repayment alternatives, or is planning for forgiveness, just calls their member of Congress (and writes the 2020 campaigns) with the simple message:
I am a student loan borrower who relies on income-based repayment and was promised loan forgiveness. Elimination of my repayment plan or denial of my forgiveness will cause me and my family significant hardship. What will you do to protect me?
It will make a difference to the legislative priorities.
posted by crush at 12:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
I am a student loan borrower who relies on income-based repayment and was promised loan forgiveness. Elimination of my repayment plan or denial of my forgiveness will cause me and my family significant hardship. What will you do to protect me?
It will make a difference to the legislative priorities.
posted by crush at 12:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
Whenever I read an article like this I think back to how disappointed my teachers were in 2003 that I accepted a huge scholarship to attend a public university instead of taking on tens of thousands of dollars in debt to go to private schools that they considered a better fit. I remember feeling both embarrassed and apologetic to be unwilling to apply for loans to go to school. It really was like a mass hallucination or something.
At least now people are talking about it. Because at the time there was NO counternarrative to the overwhelming drumbeat of "take those loans, you'll never regret it."
posted by potrzebie at 12:49 PM on February 16, 2019 [32 favorites]
At least now people are talking about it. Because at the time there was NO counternarrative to the overwhelming drumbeat of "take those loans, you'll never regret it."
posted by potrzebie at 12:49 PM on February 16, 2019 [32 favorites]
Oh yeah, potrzebie, absolutely. I remember working a part-time job in high school at a big corporation and having an adult give me the (in hindsight) dubious advice that I shouldn't worry about student loan debt. My parents were working class people with middle class incomes (i.e., boomers) and I was the first person in my family to go to college. They had no experience with student loan debt and therefore I got no guidance on the matter.
Frankly, it should be illegal to give student loans to the students. Let the parents shoulder all the cost, if they really want it.
posted by Automocar at 1:04 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
Frankly, it should be illegal to give student loans to the students. Let the parents shoulder all the cost, if they really want it.
posted by Automocar at 1:04 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
Bloomberg report $166 BILLION of that student debt is in serious delinquency and that feels like the tip of a very large iceberg.
The UK student loans system is different but also in serious trouble. The system has an earnings threshold below which you do not repay anything, wage stagnation means that we are nearing a 50% non-repayment rate.
Add in the Brexit impact and the future of HE in the UK is bleak.
posted by fallingbadgers at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
The UK student loans system is different but also in serious trouble. The system has an earnings threshold below which you do not repay anything, wage stagnation means that we are nearing a 50% non-repayment rate.
Add in the Brexit impact and the future of HE in the UK is bleak.
posted by fallingbadgers at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
We’ve been mostly avoiding it, but I think we should be careful about posting comments with “I got through school without debt, but...” This is a thread about student loan debt.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:19 PM on February 16, 2019 [34 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:19 PM on February 16, 2019 [34 favorites]
I wonder when the assumed wave of college closings is going to start - maybe during the next recession. I've read many articles since 2008 on how law schools are in trouble outside the top tier, but closings seem to be only a trickle so far.
It's a "neat" trick - mortgage interest is one thing, but the school loan debt system is getting about as close to ownership of bodies as you can get without formalizing it. The bulk of productive labor of the (often former) middle class now gets siphoned by the rentier class as straight tribute, which is in my opinion a form of ownership of persons. With mortgages there's at least ownership at the end of the tunnel.
Propaganda aside, I think the only reason we don't consider today's society as rough as the early 20th century is because we're not dying of things like scurvy and polio and cholera. For now.
posted by MillMan at 1:21 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
It's a "neat" trick - mortgage interest is one thing, but the school loan debt system is getting about as close to ownership of bodies as you can get without formalizing it. The bulk of productive labor of the (often former) middle class now gets siphoned by the rentier class as straight tribute, which is in my opinion a form of ownership of persons. With mortgages there's at least ownership at the end of the tunnel.
Propaganda aside, I think the only reason we don't consider today's society as rough as the early 20th century is because we're not dying of things like scurvy and polio and cholera. For now.
posted by MillMan at 1:21 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
Because at the time there was NO counternarrative to the overwhelming drumbeat of "take those loans, you'll never regret it."
I don't think that there is a convincing counter-narrative yet. What I mean is, either decision is a gamble. Students with college degrees still do, on average, do better than students without them - even considering the loan debt. But at the individual level it depends on a lot of factors, a lot of which aren't easy to understand or predictable. Students should investigate all of their options, but there's no "safe" option anymore.
Wage stagnation, unnecessary credentialism, outsourcing and automation, a decline in job security, student loans - it all combines into a nightmarish financial picture. It's like we're asking young adults to pick between getting eaten by a bear and getting eaten by a lion, and then blaming them for getting eaten. Because they had a choice, right?
The "smart" choices change year by year. Go be a lawyer. Go be a nurse. Join the trades. But all of them are getting squeezed, and if all the people giving financial advice can't tell you for sure what the right choice is, how do we expect an eighteen-year-old to know?
It's a ridiculous racket and it's so sad to see us pissing away the gains we could have been making in quality of living, all for the super-rich oligarchy at the top.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:27 PM on February 16, 2019 [34 favorites]
I don't think that there is a convincing counter-narrative yet. What I mean is, either decision is a gamble. Students with college degrees still do, on average, do better than students without them - even considering the loan debt. But at the individual level it depends on a lot of factors, a lot of which aren't easy to understand or predictable. Students should investigate all of their options, but there's no "safe" option anymore.
Wage stagnation, unnecessary credentialism, outsourcing and automation, a decline in job security, student loans - it all combines into a nightmarish financial picture. It's like we're asking young adults to pick between getting eaten by a bear and getting eaten by a lion, and then blaming them for getting eaten. Because they had a choice, right?
The "smart" choices change year by year. Go be a lawyer. Go be a nurse. Join the trades. But all of them are getting squeezed, and if all the people giving financial advice can't tell you for sure what the right choice is, how do we expect an eighteen-year-old to know?
It's a ridiculous racket and it's so sad to see us pissing away the gains we could have been making in quality of living, all for the super-rich oligarchy at the top.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:27 PM on February 16, 2019 [34 favorites]
At some point you have to wonder if a lifetime of financial servitude is worth the opportunity to participate in a system that requires you to enter a lifetime of financial servitude to join.
posted by Max Power at 1:29 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by Max Power at 1:29 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
We’ve been mostly avoiding it, but I think we should be careful about posting comments with “I got through school without debt, but...” This is a thread about student loan debt
Thank you GenJi.
That's part of my point. People without this problem, shake their heads and move on. They might even protest the border wall, give money to the local food pantry. They might be calling Congress regularly about the hellscape around us. But try to talk to them about this actual problem, the possible solutions, the additional threats to the programs trying to alleviate the burdens and they find some way to say "sucks to be you" and move on.
posted by crush at 1:30 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
Thank you GenJi.
That's part of my point. People without this problem, shake their heads and move on. They might even protest the border wall, give money to the local food pantry. They might be calling Congress regularly about the hellscape around us. But try to talk to them about this actual problem, the possible solutions, the additional threats to the programs trying to alleviate the burdens and they find some way to say "sucks to be you" and move on.
posted by crush at 1:30 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
If that's your position--and I get it, I'm that way about some of the trash fires now--then stay silent.
posted by crush at 1:31 PM on February 16, 2019
posted by crush at 1:31 PM on February 16, 2019
Aye yo. Everyones looking at once side of the equation, the other is why does it cost so much? Why the price inflation when access to infinite specialist information is basically free compared to the pre internet age.
posted by Damienmce at 1:34 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Damienmce at 1:34 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
My mother failed me in a lot of ways, but I consider the student debt I'm saddled with (from a state school! when I was an honors high school student and had a 3.8 GPA in college!) to be one of the biggest, one that has had rippling repercussions on my young adult life and will continue to impact my child's future as well. The breezy way I was told to just take out loans and get a work study job and a summer job as if those jobs could even make a dent in what I was taking out was truly absurd and I really, really regret not being more knowledgeable even though I'm not sure where or how I could have gotten that knowledge. My five-years-older sibling wasn't even much of a help--her federal student loans had interest rates below that of her savings accounts, and somehow her school let her declare financial independence from my mother for more loan eligibility. When I tried the same thing (because my mother was not contributing a dime), I ended up standing, weeping in the financial aid office while the financial aid officers told me I could only do that if I had a restraining order against my parent.
I'm so, so glad that I will have the know-how to help my child navigate this, because it was really a few mistakes that landed me with this debt (I applied for college for the winter semester, after deciding I couldn't go to art school--which would have given me twice the debt--last minute, after one semester of community college; had I waited two semesters, I would have been eligible for far more aid. But then again, my mother was abusive and I needed to get out of her house.) I know, for example, about Ivy league schools that are affordable; I know ways of getting her college credits in high school. I know state schools are likely going to be free under a certain income threshold and that places like Cornell have reciprocal agreements with those state schools if she has higher aspirations. And I know to steer her away from the expensive, cozy liberal art schools that saddled many of my high school friends from working class families with five or six figures of debt. I'm hopeful I can help her with this--and I know it's my job. I won't leave her high and dry like my mother did, even if we're unlikely to have the money to outright pay for her to go to school.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:34 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
I'm so, so glad that I will have the know-how to help my child navigate this, because it was really a few mistakes that landed me with this debt (I applied for college for the winter semester, after deciding I couldn't go to art school--which would have given me twice the debt--last minute, after one semester of community college; had I waited two semesters, I would have been eligible for far more aid. But then again, my mother was abusive and I needed to get out of her house.) I know, for example, about Ivy league schools that are affordable; I know ways of getting her college credits in high school. I know state schools are likely going to be free under a certain income threshold and that places like Cornell have reciprocal agreements with those state schools if she has higher aspirations. And I know to steer her away from the expensive, cozy liberal art schools that saddled many of my high school friends from working class families with five or six figures of debt. I'm hopeful I can help her with this--and I know it's my job. I won't leave her high and dry like my mother did, even if we're unlikely to have the money to outright pay for her to go to school.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:34 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
What a lot of people don't know until it's too late is that "full ride" won't necessarily cover room and board. My friend's son was accepted to a state school here in town and was awarded a substantial scholarship. But the cheapest room and board option is $15,000 per year. So he's living at home and he's miserable because most (if not all) of his friends from high school are living on campus, wherever they are, and he hates that his family is financially insecure. This is even after using his bio dad's income (practically non-existent) for the FAFSA.
I'm glad for him that my friend convinced him that taking out loans for room and board was a bad, bad idea. He'll be moving out into an apartment with friends in the fall and he's counting the days but he would be fucked if he had taken out that loan. $15,000 plus interest deferred would kill him after graduation. And that's not even the worst of what I've heard about w/r/t student debt!
posted by cooker girl at 1:49 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm glad for him that my friend convinced him that taking out loans for room and board was a bad, bad idea. He'll be moving out into an apartment with friends in the fall and he's counting the days but he would be fucked if he had taken out that loan. $15,000 plus interest deferred would kill him after graduation. And that's not even the worst of what I've heard about w/r/t student debt!
posted by cooker girl at 1:49 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
These articles mostly talk about public loans, but don’t forget about private loans. I can’t. I owe $20k on a $10k principle, with a variable interest rate of 13.5%
That’s in addition to my public loans.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:53 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
That’s in addition to my public loans.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:53 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
For perspective, I’m moving in with family at 33 in part because my loan payments are too high to afford rent here.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:56 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:56 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
But the cheapest room and board option is $15,000 per year.
Yep, that's what got me. It was NJ, so rent wouldn't have been much better even in a shared housing situation. I really hope things are better for students there now. God, do I kick myself a lot for making the choices I did (and one of those choices was to move back in with my abusive mom and commute an hour for my last year of school which . . . sucked. Really sucked.)
Maybe it's just that being medium poor and coming from a toxic family sucks.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:58 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yep, that's what got me. It was NJ, so rent wouldn't have been much better even in a shared housing situation. I really hope things are better for students there now. God, do I kick myself a lot for making the choices I did (and one of those choices was to move back in with my abusive mom and commute an hour for my last year of school which . . . sucked. Really sucked.)
Maybe it's just that being medium poor and coming from a toxic family sucks.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:58 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
88k at almost 7% and my daughter is 17, so that number is going to get higher soon. But Kid Ruki, currently a junior, is taking advantage of a program here where she’s taking a full course load at the community college, tuition free, and having that count as her senior year. Doing this lets her take the second year of an Associate degree tuition free, as well. That’s potentially a six figure savings for us if she can transfer all the credit and get her BA in two years.
As for my own educational debt, I don’t expect to pay it all off before I die, tbh. The repayment amount per month ended up being around 45% of my monthly take home, so I have deferrals on some of my loans that has me paying $250 a month instead. When those deferrals run out, I’ll do deferrals on other loans, and try to keep that up until I can get on SSDI and hope that the disability forgiveness still exists by then. Kid Ruki plans on being an elementary school teacher, so I’d rather pay her loans off than mine. I’m used to living with crippling debt, but I don’t want that for her.
posted by Ruki at 1:58 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
As for my own educational debt, I don’t expect to pay it all off before I die, tbh. The repayment amount per month ended up being around 45% of my monthly take home, so I have deferrals on some of my loans that has me paying $250 a month instead. When those deferrals run out, I’ll do deferrals on other loans, and try to keep that up until I can get on SSDI and hope that the disability forgiveness still exists by then. Kid Ruki plans on being an elementary school teacher, so I’d rather pay her loans off than mine. I’m used to living with crippling debt, but I don’t want that for her.
posted by Ruki at 1:58 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Aye yo. Everyones looking at once side of the equation, the other is why does it cost so much? Why the price inflation when access to infinite specialist information is basically free compared to the pre internet age.
Oh, well, this is an answered question: public higher education used to be far, far more subsidized by state budges than it is now, and also administrative positions in academic institutions have ballooned to massive sizes compared to their previous rates. It's not the instructors who are being paid more; indeed, they are often being paid less to do more teaching work and do it less well.
posted by sciatrix at 1:59 PM on February 16, 2019 [23 favorites]
Oh, well, this is an answered question: public higher education used to be far, far more subsidized by state budges than it is now, and also administrative positions in academic institutions have ballooned to massive sizes compared to their previous rates. It's not the instructors who are being paid more; indeed, they are often being paid less to do more teaching work and do it less well.
posted by sciatrix at 1:59 PM on February 16, 2019 [23 favorites]
when i was 17 i already knew 21 year olds with $200k of debt and it wasn't seen as horrifying or insane because they were Getting An Education
posted by poffin boffin at 2:03 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:03 PM on February 16, 2019 [14 favorites]
(Also: community colleges are great, to those of you talking about having kids about to go to college. Fuck the four-year "college experience" if you can, especially since it's common for colleges to demand that you live on-campus for freshman year, which is way more expensive; instead, aim for two years knocking out gen eds in a community college and then transfer as a junior to finish it off. Sometimes you can get a lot of classes knocked out with AP credit, too.
I routinely have these students in my classes, and there is zero difference in how well they do compared to the traditional four-year students. The sorts of students who have been knocking about in the military or teaching before returning to my classes, yeah, those are different in that those students are usually very organized, know exactly why they are in my classroom, and typically don't need a lot of the support that younger students do. But the community-college-and-then-public-university types? They're not suffering compared to the ones who pay for the first two years. Even if part of the goal is to encourage your kids to live alone for the first time, which I emphatically support, a room in a shared apartment and groceries is still a lot cheaper than most dorm experiences, and they get to have a fridge.)
posted by sciatrix at 2:05 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I routinely have these students in my classes, and there is zero difference in how well they do compared to the traditional four-year students. The sorts of students who have been knocking about in the military or teaching before returning to my classes, yeah, those are different in that those students are usually very organized, know exactly why they are in my classroom, and typically don't need a lot of the support that younger students do. But the community-college-and-then-public-university types? They're not suffering compared to the ones who pay for the first two years. Even if part of the goal is to encourage your kids to live alone for the first time, which I emphatically support, a room in a shared apartment and groceries is still a lot cheaper than most dorm experiences, and they get to have a fridge.)
posted by sciatrix at 2:05 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I am an audiologist and was talking with a colleague of mine from the UK a few months ago. She was really worried because she had to take out $2,500 to finish her doctorate degree. She was shocked when I told her that most audiologists here graduate with $200k in loans for their doctorate. It’s absolute insanity.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Oh, well, this is an answered question: public higher education used to be far, far more subsidized by state budges than it is now, and also administrative positions in academic institutions have ballooned to massive sizes compared to their previous rates. It's not the instructors who are being paid more; indeed, they are often being paid less to do more teaching work and do it less well.
There are ...a lot of predatory administrators out there. I had a front row seat to watch a hostile board turn a profitable no fee school into a financial device, give tons of kickbacks to friends, and leech out every last ounce of capital from the institution before moving on to the next victim. The ones who did the most damage where the well meaning ones who didn’t realize they where being prepped for slaughter cause money hoarding rots your brain.
So yeah, the only retirement plan is the revolution.
posted by The Whelk at 2:10 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
There are ...a lot of predatory administrators out there. I had a front row seat to watch a hostile board turn a profitable no fee school into a financial device, give tons of kickbacks to friends, and leech out every last ounce of capital from the institution before moving on to the next victim. The ones who did the most damage where the well meaning ones who didn’t realize they where being prepped for slaughter cause money hoarding rots your brain.
So yeah, the only retirement plan is the revolution.
posted by The Whelk at 2:10 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
An article about the changes in who gets to be declared an independent for FAFSA purposes: "By law, an associate or bachelor's student must be married, a U.S. veteran, an orphan, an emancipated minor, a homeless youth, a parent who provides more than half of the financial support for a child or have been in foster care for any stint after the age of 13 to be considered independent on the FAFSA.
Financial aid experts say only a small population of students at traditional colleges are independent and the majority of those students are married.
But around 35.6 percent of undergraduates attending a public four-year college say they're financially independent, according to a 2014 study by the American Association of Community Colleges.
Before 1992, a student who earned at least $4,000 for two consecutive years could be considered independent.
Today a student's self-sufficiency is not enough for financial aid administators to grant a dependency override, an administrative ruling that treats the student as independent.
Financial aid officers say it's rare for a college to grant a dependency override and usually only given in a special "dire circumstance" such as for the student who may have recently received a divorce, come from an abusive home or have parents who are incarcerated, among other circumstances."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:16 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Financial aid experts say only a small population of students at traditional colleges are independent and the majority of those students are married.
But around 35.6 percent of undergraduates attending a public four-year college say they're financially independent, according to a 2014 study by the American Association of Community Colleges.
Before 1992, a student who earned at least $4,000 for two consecutive years could be considered independent.
Today a student's self-sufficiency is not enough for financial aid administators to grant a dependency override, an administrative ruling that treats the student as independent.
Financial aid officers say it's rare for a college to grant a dependency override and usually only given in a special "dire circumstance" such as for the student who may have recently received a divorce, come from an abusive home or have parents who are incarcerated, among other circumstances."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:16 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I had perfectly manageable debt until I decided to get another Masters, but I got totally fucked when I took a job because it had an education benefit, which was summarily eliminated. I was already enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness for the small amount of debt I had left over from my previous degree, so I decided to plow on through and finish the degree with the hopes of a federal librarian job. Then Trump happened and the prospect of working for the fed got a lot less appealing.
I'm forty, have 80k in debt, make just enough money that I can't afford to make a lateral move, but not enough money to pay it off. If my PSLF doesn't happen I'm extremely fucked.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:22 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm forty, have 80k in debt, make just enough money that I can't afford to make a lateral move, but not enough money to pay it off. If my PSLF doesn't happen I'm extremely fucked.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:22 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I don't understand how they can rescind these public service loan foregiveness promises. Not only is it an obvious moral wrong but I don't even see how it's legal to change it retroactively.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
I don't understand how they can rescind these public service loan foregiveness promises. Not only is it an obvious moral wrong but I don't even see how it's legal to change it retroactively.
It's not a part of the original promissory note, is how they'll weasel out of it.
posted by Automocar at 2:28 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's not a part of the original promissory note, is how they'll weasel out of it.
posted by Automocar at 2:28 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
why does it cost so much?
Decreased government support to public schools and decreased donations to the non-elite private ones.
Increased technology (and the staff to support it) costs.
Increased administration costs.
A rise in amenities such as better quality food halls and athletic facilities.
Increased grants to preferred students.
Increased reliance on soaking some classes of students, especially international ones, to help pay for those grants. But if you're not in the preferred categories or don't have the knowledge of how to deal with the ins and outs of being considered one, you too end up with the high rate.
Increased availability of money - bureaucracies often have the ability to expand as more money is available to it.
posted by Candleman at 2:32 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Decreased government support to public schools and decreased donations to the non-elite private ones.
Increased technology (and the staff to support it) costs.
Increased administration costs.
A rise in amenities such as better quality food halls and athletic facilities.
Increased grants to preferred students.
Increased reliance on soaking some classes of students, especially international ones, to help pay for those grants. But if you're not in the preferred categories or don't have the knowledge of how to deal with the ins and outs of being considered one, you too end up with the high rate.
Increased availability of money - bureaucracies often have the ability to expand as more money is available to it.
posted by Candleman at 2:32 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
I have $75,000 in student debt. I've managed to pay less than $1000 of it since I accrued the first dollar almost 20 years ago. I plan to continue paying at about that rate until I've died. Fun fact: I've been deferring and forbearing all that time and they've never called me on it. It rules, and my credit is great.
posted by runcibleshaw at 2:37 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 2:37 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
In the UK, in 1983 most students graduated with very little debt; there was a grant to go to university (though it wasn't keeping pace with costs of living), and there were no tuition fees.
In England in 2018, they were graduating £50k in debt (over $60k).
It's like a lot of right wing politics in the UK is based on looking at the crappiest right wing politics of the USA and going "ok, but can we do that in a way that f---s over people harder".
The west the mid-20th century had unprecedented income equality and social mobility (if you were white). It is not in the interests of rich people (or companies) to allow that sort of thing to ever happen again.
posted by Vortisaur at 2:40 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
In England in 2018, they were graduating £50k in debt (over $60k).
It's like a lot of right wing politics in the UK is based on looking at the crappiest right wing politics of the USA and going "ok, but can we do that in a way that f---s over people harder".
The west the mid-20th century had unprecedented income equality and social mobility (if you were white). It is not in the interests of rich people (or companies) to allow that sort of thing to ever happen again.
posted by Vortisaur at 2:40 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
I graduated from an "expensive, cozy liberal arts school" (well articulated by PhoBWanKenobi) owing $40K, largely in private loans, almost 15 years ago. I recently paid it off - I think the total amount including interest was $60K but weirdly, it's hard to figure it out from the records. For the first time since I was 18, I can actually start saving money rather than sending it all to my college or to Sallie Mae.
I have conflicting emotions about my degree. My FancySchool pedigree did get me jobs that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and it's not their fault that my career field imploded (hint, it rhymes with "schmournalism"). However, the full benefits of going to the school were still unattainable as someone whose parents were not wealthy.
The sexy summer internships the school had promoted to me, a gullible 18-year-old prospective student, and my well-meaning parents, that were SO valuable and SO worth the price of tuition? Most of them were unpaid, in expensive cities, where your parents needed to pay your rent while you did menial labor for free. The award-winning extracurriculars? Not possible if you were balancing classes with a part-time job. Every fall I would be subjected to meandering personal essays by fellow students about what a Life-Defining Summer they'd had doing free labor for a prestigious publisher in Manhattan, while I'd spent summer balancing paid freelance gigs with hourly wage work.
And the semester-long apprenticeship that you had to pay full tuition for, while working 12-hour days for a for-profit company? Yes, it got me a job offer before I'd even graduated (I worked my fucking ass off and they loved me for it), but I wasn't able to work part-time that semester, so I was so broke during it that I literally combed through the trash of the person who was renting me a room and ate her discarded food. (Luckily for me, she was a very picky eater and threw out a bunch of perfectly edible food.)
Anyway. I made it through, other people had, and have, it WAY worse, I've paid off my loans, and I did get some kind of objective career benefit from the school, even though it's for shitty classist reasons and not at all about the "quality" of the education I received.
I have now transitioned to a different career field, where a pedigree from my specific FancySchool is meaningless. I keep getting alumni emails from my FancySchool asking me to attend club events, network with other grads and (of course) donate. I don't feel a kinship with other grads, and if I do someday have the ability to donate, it will not be to any academic program, it will be directly to my school's Counseling services, where a therapist there quite literally saved my life and taught me coping skills that helped me survive a reality where I began my adult life already saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
posted by rogerroger at 2:44 PM on February 16, 2019 [28 favorites]
I have conflicting emotions about my degree. My FancySchool pedigree did get me jobs that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and it's not their fault that my career field imploded (hint, it rhymes with "schmournalism"). However, the full benefits of going to the school were still unattainable as someone whose parents were not wealthy.
The sexy summer internships the school had promoted to me, a gullible 18-year-old prospective student, and my well-meaning parents, that were SO valuable and SO worth the price of tuition? Most of them were unpaid, in expensive cities, where your parents needed to pay your rent while you did menial labor for free. The award-winning extracurriculars? Not possible if you were balancing classes with a part-time job. Every fall I would be subjected to meandering personal essays by fellow students about what a Life-Defining Summer they'd had doing free labor for a prestigious publisher in Manhattan, while I'd spent summer balancing paid freelance gigs with hourly wage work.
And the semester-long apprenticeship that you had to pay full tuition for, while working 12-hour days for a for-profit company? Yes, it got me a job offer before I'd even graduated (I worked my fucking ass off and they loved me for it), but I wasn't able to work part-time that semester, so I was so broke during it that I literally combed through the trash of the person who was renting me a room and ate her discarded food. (Luckily for me, she was a very picky eater and threw out a bunch of perfectly edible food.)
Anyway. I made it through, other people had, and have, it WAY worse, I've paid off my loans, and I did get some kind of objective career benefit from the school, even though it's for shitty classist reasons and not at all about the "quality" of the education I received.
I have now transitioned to a different career field, where a pedigree from my specific FancySchool is meaningless. I keep getting alumni emails from my FancySchool asking me to attend club events, network with other grads and (of course) donate. I don't feel a kinship with other grads, and if I do someday have the ability to donate, it will not be to any academic program, it will be directly to my school's Counseling services, where a therapist there quite literally saved my life and taught me coping skills that helped me survive a reality where I began my adult life already saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
posted by rogerroger at 2:44 PM on February 16, 2019 [28 favorites]
Looks like the standard plan is 10 years, but there are also others where loans may be forgiven after 15-25 years, depending on the plan.
One main difference between these plans and the ones for the public service loan forgiveness program is that PSLF is the only one where the discharged balance doesn't count as income.
The other programs where people are barely able to make the monthly income based repayment while the balance continues to grow and balloon - will be counted as income the year it's forgiven and come with the tax bill that just hits at year 25. It worries me immensely and I don't think many depending on that non-PSLF forgiveness are simultaneously saving for that.
posted by Karaage at 2:54 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
One main difference between these plans and the ones for the public service loan forgiveness program is that PSLF is the only one where the discharged balance doesn't count as income.
The other programs where people are barely able to make the monthly income based repayment while the balance continues to grow and balloon - will be counted as income the year it's forgiven and come with the tax bill that just hits at year 25. It worries me immensely and I don't think many depending on that non-PSLF forgiveness are simultaneously saving for that.
posted by Karaage at 2:54 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think one thing that is hard to understand now that I know the broader impacts and understand, frankly, money a bit better is that when you're a working class high school grad you don't really have many options for even renting an apartment or getting food. It's not as if I didn't work all through high school (I did) or all through college (my first semester was the only one where I didn't have a job). But any money I saved from those experiences (making minimum wage, working ~15 hours a week) was blown on applying to college, paying for AP exams, putting down a deposit to secure my spot in college, etc. I know so many people who took out loans which they then used for rent and basic living expenses. Whatever you can make fresh out of high school while also juggling college classes is kind of a drop in the bucket a lot of the time. And then you get stuck. I went to grad school (for very low cost, actually, in a much lower cost of living state) because it was the only way I could move out of state and out of my mother's house--it let me defer my loans for two years. While interest accrued, of course.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:57 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:57 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
But try to talk to [people who've never had SL debt] about this actual problem, the possible solutions, the additional threats to the programs trying to alleviate the burdens and they find some way to say "sucks to be you" and move on.Your points are salient that someone who has not experienced financial horrors of this type are likely to be ill-suited to appropriately comprehend its unique facets. Yet honestly, things are so bad at this point, that I'm not sure it's nearly as true as it once was, at least on this topic.
-- crush
Even if someone hasn't experienced it themselves, part of the whole reality of this ongoing tragedy is that the problem is so pronounced that the only people who don't know multiple other close friends and acquaintances affected by significant SL debt are those who've never had a net worth below multi-digit millions and thus sequester themselves only to the company of their fellow rich. Outside of that bubble, it's everywhere to such an extent that it's impossible to ignore anymore, and the reactions of the public are starting to show that. I venture that, even if those who haven't had SL debt before weren't receptive in the past, you may find that to have changed.
posted by mystyk at 3:08 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
Propaganda aside, I think the only reason we don't consider today's society as rough as the early 20th century is because we're not dying of things like scurvy and polio and cholera. For now.
Just give the anti-vaxxers a bit more time.
The "doomed to repeat it", passive ignorance of history is one thing, but we've got Neo-Gilded-Age Tycoon Vampire Aristocrats, National Socialist Cosplayers, Climate Change Denialists, and a horde of nitwits really into Children Dying Painfully of Easily Preventable Diseases.* All four groups actively anti-education, anti-intellectual in one way or another.
Burdensome student loan debt is a feature, not a bug, when you're dismantling a democratic society.
* (It's like somebody got their "Return Me to the Good Old Days" wish but used a Monkey's Paw to do it.)
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:36 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
Just give the anti-vaxxers a bit more time.
The "doomed to repeat it", passive ignorance of history is one thing, but we've got Neo-Gilded-Age Tycoon Vampire Aristocrats, National Socialist Cosplayers, Climate Change Denialists, and a horde of nitwits really into Children Dying Painfully of Easily Preventable Diseases.* All four groups actively anti-education, anti-intellectual in one way or another.
Burdensome student loan debt is a feature, not a bug, when you're dismantling a democratic society.
* (It's like somebody got their "Return Me to the Good Old Days" wish but used a Monkey's Paw to do it.)
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:36 PM on February 16, 2019 [16 favorites]
*red flags drop behind me* don’t call it comback comrade
posted by The Whelk at 3:41 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 3:41 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
So yeah, the only retirement plan is the revolution
I mean do they understand that this is actually true? Like if they don’t fix this, this is what happens?
Obviously they don’t, no, but like. Call me crazy, but I would prefer not to see blood in the streets.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I mean do they understand that this is actually true? Like if they don’t fix this, this is what happens?
Obviously they don’t, no, but like. Call me crazy, but I would prefer not to see blood in the streets.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:09 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
1) This topic/thread hits enough of my anxiety buttons that I probably won't/can't follow it much further but...
2) When I decided to take out student loans, I very explicitly thought to myself about the 20/25 year "forgiveness" massive income tax bullshit and I figured that I was essentially taking a bet. That either the generations saddled with similar debt as me would gain increasingly political clout and create reasonable reforms OR there would be a socialist revolution OR there would be fascist revolution OR there would be a collapse of industrial civilization (and/or a collapse of the biosphere). If any of those things happen, then that 25 year financial bomb won't really matter. And I really really can't imagine that the current political and economic dynamics have 25 years left in them... or even 10. So it felt (and still feels) like a reasonable bet, although of course I'm terrified in multiple ways.
3) If the Republicans think it's a smart electoral strategy to threaten millions of Millennials and even younger folks in this way, I think they are going to be very surprised in 2020.
posted by overglow at 4:18 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
2) When I decided to take out student loans, I very explicitly thought to myself about the 20/25 year "forgiveness" massive income tax bullshit and I figured that I was essentially taking a bet. That either the generations saddled with similar debt as me would gain increasingly political clout and create reasonable reforms OR there would be a socialist revolution OR there would be fascist revolution OR there would be a collapse of industrial civilization (and/or a collapse of the biosphere). If any of those things happen, then that 25 year financial bomb won't really matter. And I really really can't imagine that the current political and economic dynamics have 25 years left in them... or even 10. So it felt (and still feels) like a reasonable bet, although of course I'm terrified in multiple ways.
3) If the Republicans think it's a smart electoral strategy to threaten millions of Millennials and even younger folks in this way, I think they are going to be very surprised in 2020.
posted by overglow at 4:18 PM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]
Ezra Klein had Katie Porter, a bankruptcy attorney on the podcast recently to talk about debt, which was fascinating and horrifying. I think he also interviewed Warren before that? It’s actually enraging to hear the specific dirty details of how cruel our system is beyond the broad strokes of “we have a debt crisis.”
You can't walk away from student loans because they made the bankruptcy laws specifically prevent that.
Joe Biden should stay out of the election while he’s still widely beloved.
posted by cricketcello at 4:31 PM on February 16, 2019 [10 favorites]
You can't walk away from student loans because they made the bankruptcy laws specifically prevent that.
Joe Biden should stay out of the election while he’s still widely beloved.
posted by cricketcello at 4:31 PM on February 16, 2019 [10 favorites]
So, one thing that is always weird to me here, is we talk about student debt and its promises and lies, without investigating the assumptions and misunderstandings, spoken and unspoken, that lay behind it.
Why was college considered the place to be for upward social mobility? It wasn’t because the actual education in college prepared you better for a job. It’s because it was itself a class signifier. Someone hiring a college student thought that either they were getting someone who would share certain cultural or behavioral markers, or a truly exceptional working class kid who had “made it.”
And is also worth noting that the amount of employers requiring college degrees for their positions after racial discrimination was illegal and culturally based employment tests were no longer allowed to be given out. Then minorities started having more access to college, and you started seeing requirements for graduate school for essentially entry-level positions. You started seeing people and employers insisting that new hires had to have existing experience on the job, which they could often only get through expensive unpaid internships.
Because we don’t usually talk about class in this country, people often conflate economic and social mobility. But the promise of college was always, always, the promise of class-passing, and it was never going to be able to lift all working class students up because that’s not how class works. The promise was ever and always, a few of you will swim while the rest of your class sinks.
I don’t think you can fix the problem while just focusing on the loans themselves. To fix the problem long-term, the working class needs to use their labor power to strike back against unfair employment requirements that require these degrees, or the problem will just start all over again.
posted by corb at 4:35 PM on February 16, 2019 [74 favorites]
Why was college considered the place to be for upward social mobility? It wasn’t because the actual education in college prepared you better for a job. It’s because it was itself a class signifier. Someone hiring a college student thought that either they were getting someone who would share certain cultural or behavioral markers, or a truly exceptional working class kid who had “made it.”
And is also worth noting that the amount of employers requiring college degrees for their positions after racial discrimination was illegal and culturally based employment tests were no longer allowed to be given out. Then minorities started having more access to college, and you started seeing requirements for graduate school for essentially entry-level positions. You started seeing people and employers insisting that new hires had to have existing experience on the job, which they could often only get through expensive unpaid internships.
Because we don’t usually talk about class in this country, people often conflate economic and social mobility. But the promise of college was always, always, the promise of class-passing, and it was never going to be able to lift all working class students up because that’s not how class works. The promise was ever and always, a few of you will swim while the rest of your class sinks.
I don’t think you can fix the problem while just focusing on the loans themselves. To fix the problem long-term, the working class needs to use their labor power to strike back against unfair employment requirements that require these degrees, or the problem will just start all over again.
posted by corb at 4:35 PM on February 16, 2019 [74 favorites]
Automocar, I see PSLF written into the master promissory note here (from studentloans.gov).
Has anyone sued yet on the basis of not having received forgiveness under PSLF? Lots of pissed off lawyers in the mix.
posted by materialgirl at 4:38 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Has anyone sued yet on the basis of not having received forgiveness under PSLF? Lots of pissed off lawyers in the mix.
posted by materialgirl at 4:38 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
It wasn’t because the actual education in college prepared you better for a job.
I hope you mean to say not all degrees prepare you for a better job. Because I definitely got a better job that I could not do or understand without the education I received in my undergrad.
posted by runcibleshaw at 4:50 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I hope you mean to say not all degrees prepare you for a better job. Because I definitely got a better job that I could not do or understand without the education I received in my undergrad.
posted by runcibleshaw at 4:50 PM on February 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
There was another group of students who did successfully sue Devos for not forgiving their loans: those who attended schools that closed (autoplay video in the link)
posted by soelo at 5:02 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by soelo at 5:02 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
> So yeah, the only retirement plan is the revolution
I mean do they understand that this is actually true? Like if they don’t fix this, this is what happens?
If it's not fixed, what happens is:
1) A huge number of working-class people with degrees - or worse, with two years of college and no degree - spend the majority of their working lives in heavy debt. As a result, they buy fewer things, don't go on vacations, pay lower taxes, and often get emergency medical care that the state winds up covering. Their debt becomes everyone's debt.
2) Another huge number of people with student loan debt drop out of the system entirely. Since their wages can be grabbed the moment they enter a bank (and are tied to their SSN), they don't work for bankable wages. They take cash-only jobs, or work-trade arrangements. Right now, this is a tiny niche; with the growing student debt problem, we're likely to see a number of "debt collectives" of people who work on barter and cash rather than credit-rating-based money. They will be open to exploitation from many directions, and since a lot of their working/financial arrangements are outside of normal legal venues, most crimes that happen in the community won't be reported.
3) Noting that both of these are real problems, politicians will create a "debt relief" system that's only accessible to people who understand bureaucracy, have the right social connections, and have the cognitive leisure time to figure out the extensive hoop-jumping required for eligibility. Politicians will declare the problem solved and ignore the growing numbers of people in categories 1 and 2.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:20 PM on February 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
I mean do they understand that this is actually true? Like if they don’t fix this, this is what happens?
If it's not fixed, what happens is:
1) A huge number of working-class people with degrees - or worse, with two years of college and no degree - spend the majority of their working lives in heavy debt. As a result, they buy fewer things, don't go on vacations, pay lower taxes, and often get emergency medical care that the state winds up covering. Their debt becomes everyone's debt.
2) Another huge number of people with student loan debt drop out of the system entirely. Since their wages can be grabbed the moment they enter a bank (and are tied to their SSN), they don't work for bankable wages. They take cash-only jobs, or work-trade arrangements. Right now, this is a tiny niche; with the growing student debt problem, we're likely to see a number of "debt collectives" of people who work on barter and cash rather than credit-rating-based money. They will be open to exploitation from many directions, and since a lot of their working/financial arrangements are outside of normal legal venues, most crimes that happen in the community won't be reported.
3) Noting that both of these are real problems, politicians will create a "debt relief" system that's only accessible to people who understand bureaucracy, have the right social connections, and have the cognitive leisure time to figure out the extensive hoop-jumping required for eligibility. Politicians will declare the problem solved and ignore the growing numbers of people in categories 1 and 2.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:20 PM on February 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
That's part of my point. People without this problem, shake their heads and move on.
I went to university with a tuition of 0€ in Germany and I disagree. It is a problem. Make formal higher education free. No debt and educated citizens: what more could one want?
There were political parties in the past few years who pushed for a tuition of a few hundred euros per year, and in some states they succeeded. But, as far as I know, that has been rolled back be to free again largely due to pushback from students.
I've spoken to one American who complained about his student debt. When I suggested making it entirely tax funded, he considered it unfair because 'Why should tax payers pay for someone elses education?' Which I read as a way of saying that it wouldn't be fair to him because he already had his debt, and now would be paying for others' debt as well.
posted by romanb at 7:28 PM on February 16, 2019 [10 favorites]
I went to university with a tuition of 0€ in Germany and I disagree. It is a problem. Make formal higher education free. No debt and educated citizens: what more could one want?
There were political parties in the past few years who pushed for a tuition of a few hundred euros per year, and in some states they succeeded. But, as far as I know, that has been rolled back be to free again largely due to pushback from students.
I've spoken to one American who complained about his student debt. When I suggested making it entirely tax funded, he considered it unfair because 'Why should tax payers pay for someone elses education?' Which I read as a way of saying that it wouldn't be fair to him because he already had his debt, and now would be paying for others' debt as well.
posted by romanb at 7:28 PM on February 16, 2019 [10 favorites]
I'm remembering a quantitative methods class that I took in college where it came out that a good chunk of the students did not know what percentage of their own tuition they were paying through loans. One of my classmates thought it was ridiculous that others would expect them to know. This was a Fancy School (albeit a Fancy School that was ranked in the top five for financial aid when I applied), and these students were on the hook for thousands of dollars of loans and had no clue about how much it was. Holding kids responsible for that much money is ridiculous, and if there is absolutely no other option but to continue allowing student loans, at least fucking require them to take a class that explains to them what it means.
My husband is a Cooper Union graduate who will never stop being angry about the mismanagement of funds at that institution. It's so easy to fuck up a great thing.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:46 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
My husband is a Cooper Union graduate who will never stop being angry about the mismanagement of funds at that institution. It's so easy to fuck up a great thing.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:46 PM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't understand how they can rescind these public service loan foregiveness promises. Not only is it an obvious moral wrong but I don't even see how it's legal to change it retroactively.
It's not. It's in the promissory note. I know this is an issue that, very legitimately, makes people anxious beyond belief, but we should try to restrict our panic to what's actually happening.
Somewhat similarly, with respect to the current forgiveness applications, the magnitude of shitshowiness is not quite as great as it appears. It only literally became possible for anyone to apply for PSLF in October 2017. In October 2007, FFELP had not yet been discontinued in favor of Direct Loans (which existed, but was a significantly smaller program). FFEL loans are not eligible for PSLF. They can be consolidated over into Direct Loans and become eligible (starting the 120-month clock from the consolidation), but that option didn't originally exist and most people didn't know about it til recently. So the pool of people who are even theoretically eligible at this point is still pretty small.
Which is not to say it's not a shitshow. The NY AG settled with the once very large servicer ACS earlier this year over a number of claims, including misinforming borrowers about their PSLF eligibility. But the number of people who actually qualified who applied was actually way lower than those numbers suggest.
posted by praemunire at 8:29 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
It's not. It's in the promissory note. I know this is an issue that, very legitimately, makes people anxious beyond belief, but we should try to restrict our panic to what's actually happening.
Somewhat similarly, with respect to the current forgiveness applications, the magnitude of shitshowiness is not quite as great as it appears. It only literally became possible for anyone to apply for PSLF in October 2017. In October 2007, FFELP had not yet been discontinued in favor of Direct Loans (which existed, but was a significantly smaller program). FFEL loans are not eligible for PSLF. They can be consolidated over into Direct Loans and become eligible (starting the 120-month clock from the consolidation), but that option didn't originally exist and most people didn't know about it til recently. So the pool of people who are even theoretically eligible at this point is still pretty small.
Which is not to say it's not a shitshow. The NY AG settled with the once very large servicer ACS earlier this year over a number of claims, including misinforming borrowers about their PSLF eligibility. But the number of people who actually qualified who applied was actually way lower than those numbers suggest.
posted by praemunire at 8:29 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
"expensive, cozy liberal arts school"
That's where I went, because at that time and in that place the very generous need-based financial aid made it significantly cheaper than going to a public university. I still graduated with loans, but they were the old kind (i.e., subsidized) and I was able to pay them off in a reasonable amount of time. It still meant starting in the red, versus the more fortunate situation of starting with no debt, but wasn't nearly the life-changing level of indebtedness that is so common now.
The societal effects of slashing funding for education and pushing the cost burden onto poorly-informed 18 year olds are terrible. I know so many people whose lives have been limited and hurt by this, and if I was in the 0.1 percent I'd be feeling nervous about pitchforks and torches.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:53 PM on February 16, 2019
That's where I went, because at that time and in that place the very generous need-based financial aid made it significantly cheaper than going to a public university. I still graduated with loans, but they were the old kind (i.e., subsidized) and I was able to pay them off in a reasonable amount of time. It still meant starting in the red, versus the more fortunate situation of starting with no debt, but wasn't nearly the life-changing level of indebtedness that is so common now.
The societal effects of slashing funding for education and pushing the cost burden onto poorly-informed 18 year olds are terrible. I know so many people whose lives have been limited and hurt by this, and if I was in the 0.1 percent I'd be feeling nervous about pitchforks and torches.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:53 PM on February 16, 2019
My friend's son was accepted to a state school here in town and was awarded a substantial scholarship. But the cheapest room and board option is $15,000 per year. So he's living at home and he's miserable because most (if not all) of his friends from high school are living on campus, wherever they are, and he hates that his family is financially insecure.
Your friends son is stupid. He'll be laughing when he graduates and can buy a house and travel and none of his friends can till they're in their 40s.
They can garnish your wages
Not if you move overseas and never come back. I know a couple people who've done this already.
posted by fshgrl at 9:23 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Your friends son is stupid. He'll be laughing when he graduates and can buy a house and travel and none of his friends can till they're in their 40s.
They can garnish your wages
Not if you move overseas and never come back. I know a couple people who've done this already.
posted by fshgrl at 9:23 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
You can't walk away from student loans because they made the bankruptcy laws specifically prevent that.If I had to point to a single cause of the crisis it would be this. If student debt was like any other debt, the "invisible hand" might actually be a helping one and not just a middle finger. After all, who would loan 30, 40, or even 200K to an 18-year-old with no resume and no established pattern of income or credit usage? Probably not many people, at least not without substantial collateral and a real fat interest rate.
Today? It's all but a sure thing. Even if the poor bastard goes bankrupt, you (the lender) still get yours. So why not throw them a 6% note for 100 grand?
And yeah it's tempting for many folks to blame the students. Don't. Hate the game. How many of us were financially mature when we were in high school? Few, I'd imagine. I wasn't. If you're a high school junior/senior and someone offers you a ton of money to go to the school of your choice with no obvious strings attached, if your family your peers and your teachers are all telling you to "follow your dreams"? It's not at all unreasonable to think that it's a good idea to take the money and do just that.
Christ even if you do go into STEM like the talking heads say you should have, student debt can still fuck you. (So no, the classic right wing talking point of "that's what you get for being an art major" doesn't always apply.) I know at least one person who went into STEM (computer science in their case) and still wound up with a ton of student debt, even many years later! And I doubt they're the only ones.
I'm not sure what the complete solution to this mess is, but a good first step would be to make student debt like any other debt; that is to say dischargeable in bankruptcy. A shit credit score for the better part of a decade is preferable to modern day serfdom. And if it's not a "sure thing", you'd see a lot fewer lenders willing to play ball, and a lot fewer schools set up their programs to maximize what they can extract from student loans. Debt still has a place in the world of university educations (and the world in general), but incentivizing this sort of "debtor for life" behavior is clearly not working out well for us.
posted by -1 at 9:35 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
I have $90,000 in student debt, because 20 years ago I went to a local private college for a Master's degree in Education that fell through because the very new program couldn't deal with someone with a learning disability.
If that bill goes through, I will be completely fucked. Living in the Bay Area, we can barely get by month to month as it is. With that expense? We wont be able to make rent. And there must be tens of thousands of people in my sutuation.
Well, i guess I know what im going to be spending my Five Calls on this month.
posted by happyroach at 11:04 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
If that bill goes through, I will be completely fucked. Living in the Bay Area, we can barely get by month to month as it is. With that expense? We wont be able to make rent. And there must be tens of thousands of people in my sutuation.
Well, i guess I know what im going to be spending my Five Calls on this month.
posted by happyroach at 11:04 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
No one who's ever employed me has given a shit about what college I went to or the college I flunked out of or my GPA. I graduated with a BA - in a subject totally unrelated to my current career - with $1500 in debt.
I completely empathize with people struggling with student loan debt and I know that there are careers that require more than a half-assed BA, but this topic still bothers me.
Please tell me what I'm missing.
posted by bendy at 11:15 PM on February 16, 2019
I completely empathize with people struggling with student loan debt and I know that there are careers that require more than a half-assed BA, but this topic still bothers me.
Please tell me what I'm missing.
posted by bendy at 11:15 PM on February 16, 2019
Please tell me what I'm missing.
well, as a society we spend the first eighteen years of a person's life screaming at them that if they don't go to college they are somehow less than and will be destitute and undesirable for the rest of their life. the fact that this is not TRUE is not readily apparent to most eighteen year olds.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
well, as a society we spend the first eighteen years of a person's life screaming at them that if they don't go to college they are somehow less than and will be destitute and undesirable for the rest of their life. the fact that this is not TRUE is not readily apparent to most eighteen year olds.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
After reading the whole thread I can only say what I wish I knew then and what I hope today's high-schoolers learn.
1. Most important! Take a year off between college and high school. See the world. Get a job on a boat - any boat at all.
2. Don't jump into the major that your parents want you to study without thinking hard about it. Especially don't go into debt for it. If your parents bought you an MIT sweatshirt in 8th grade and pressured you to go there then they should fucking pay for it.
3. Take your first two years of college at a community college. If you decide you want to be a motorcycle mechanic or a plumber don't spend a dollar more than you have to.
4. College doesn't determine your job. What you love does that.
5. My favorite aunt always says, "get your undergraduate degree as cheaply as you can. If you need a graduate degree then go to an expensive school."
posted by bendy at 11:32 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
1. Most important! Take a year off between college and high school. See the world. Get a job on a boat - any boat at all.
2. Don't jump into the major that your parents want you to study without thinking hard about it. Especially don't go into debt for it. If your parents bought you an MIT sweatshirt in 8th grade and pressured you to go there then they should fucking pay for it.
3. Take your first two years of college at a community college. If you decide you want to be a motorcycle mechanic or a plumber don't spend a dollar more than you have to.
4. College doesn't determine your job. What you love does that.
5. My favorite aunt always says, "get your undergraduate degree as cheaply as you can. If you need a graduate degree then go to an expensive school."
posted by bendy at 11:32 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I dropped out because I didn't like college enough to go into debt for it. It wasn't because I carefully analyzed the financial tradeoffs. I just didn't like going to classes enough to borrow money to do it.
Despite the concerns of certain people (hi mom), this life decision has actually worked out pretty ok.
posted by ryanrs at 12:04 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Despite the concerns of certain people (hi mom), this life decision has actually worked out pretty ok.
posted by ryanrs at 12:04 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
No one who's ever employed me has given a shit about what college I went to or the college I flunked out of or my GPA.
When I applied to Google, they insisted on getting my college transcript. I was 30 and my resume said I didn't have a degree.
So I told the recruiter that I still owed $2,500 to the university registrar and they would not release a transcript unless I paid it. So if Google could just send me a check, I will get them the paperwork but it might take a few weeks.
Turns out their "hard requirement" wasn't quite as mandatory as originally described, ha ha.
(This was back in the early days when Google knew they were the smartest people who ever smarted. I understand they have backed off on some of their weirder hiring tactics since then.)
posted by ryanrs at 12:22 AM on February 17, 2019 [6 favorites]
When I applied to Google, they insisted on getting my college transcript. I was 30 and my resume said I didn't have a degree.
So I told the recruiter that I still owed $2,500 to the university registrar and they would not release a transcript unless I paid it. So if Google could just send me a check, I will get them the paperwork but it might take a few weeks.
Turns out their "hard requirement" wasn't quite as mandatory as originally described, ha ha.
(This was back in the early days when Google knew they were the smartest people who ever smarted. I understand they have backed off on some of their weirder hiring tactics since then.)
posted by ryanrs at 12:22 AM on February 17, 2019 [6 favorites]
When I applied to Google, they insisted on getting my college transcript.
Yeah, fuck Google. If you're still in the Bay Area there are jobs everywhere. If not, Portland, OR is on fire with tech jobs.
They love people moving here from California!! (haha they secretly hate us but they employ us because we're awesome.)
posted by bendy at 12:27 AM on February 17, 2019
Yeah, fuck Google. If you're still in the Bay Area there are jobs everywhere. If not, Portland, OR is on fire with tech jobs.
They love people moving here from California!! (haha they secretly hate us but they employ us because we're awesome.)
posted by bendy at 12:27 AM on February 17, 2019
For those entertaining the move overseas option to ignore your debts, I’d like to point out three caveats off the top of my head:
1. Not being able to freely return for funerals or other life events; things will happen while you’re away.
2. Not being able to vote or otherwise easily participate in fixing this US shitshow.
3. Needing to find a way to legally move overseas (eg, work visa), lest you now have problems in two countries and/or are forced to return to the US and face the reckoning. Also not paying your taxes while living overseas can create some further problems.
Just some downer thoughts to throw out there, sorry.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:49 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
1. Not being able to freely return for funerals or other life events; things will happen while you’re away.
2. Not being able to vote or otherwise easily participate in fixing this US shitshow.
3. Needing to find a way to legally move overseas (eg, work visa), lest you now have problems in two countries and/or are forced to return to the US and face the reckoning. Also not paying your taxes while living overseas can create some further problems.
Just some downer thoughts to throw out there, sorry.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:49 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
This was back in the early days when Google knew they were the smartest people who ever smarted. I understand they have backed off on some of their weirder hiring tactics since then.
Google now hires swarms of contractors through staffing agencies, to create multi-tier sets of privileges and separate the "real" employees from the contractors. They strongly prefer to hire people just out of school, claiming they want "fresh ideas" and not "we want to avoid hiring anyone who knows what their legal rights are."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:31 AM on February 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
Google now hires swarms of contractors through staffing agencies, to create multi-tier sets of privileges and separate the "real" employees from the contractors. They strongly prefer to hire people just out of school, claiming they want "fresh ideas" and not "we want to avoid hiring anyone who knows what their legal rights are."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:31 AM on February 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
No one who's ever employed me has given a shit about what college I went to or the college I flunked out of or my GPA.
My graduate school and my professional school absolutely took my undergrad school into account. My first professional jobs took my professional school into account, and I doubt my undergrad had no effect whatsoever. Last time I looked at the stats, a handful of law schools still fills the significant majority of the kind of entry-level jobs you need to get if you want to service your debt.
For those of us who happen not to "look like Mark Zuckerberg," the right formal credentialing can go a long way. Like paying off about $180,000 of debt way.
(Insert routine protest at the hopeless misguidedness of reducing the value of a college degree solely to its economic value.)
posted by praemunire at 1:34 AM on February 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
My graduate school and my professional school absolutely took my undergrad school into account. My first professional jobs took my professional school into account, and I doubt my undergrad had no effect whatsoever. Last time I looked at the stats, a handful of law schools still fills the significant majority of the kind of entry-level jobs you need to get if you want to service your debt.
For those of us who happen not to "look like Mark Zuckerberg," the right formal credentialing can go a long way. Like paying off about $180,000 of debt way.
(Insert routine protest at the hopeless misguidedness of reducing the value of a college degree solely to its economic value.)
posted by praemunire at 1:34 AM on February 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
The most depressing thing to me as an educator about the enormous, crushing burden of student debt is the reduction of higher education to a dollar amount—that the amount you pay, that you’ll make, what your degree is worth has nothing to do with oneself as a human catching up with the past 5,000 years of civilization and instead reduces education to a pyramid scheme where everyone but the administration is getting soaked to their bones.
It’s worth so much more than that, but yet nothing is worth not being able to eat, to secure housing, to be in the wholeness of being. We force people to pay the price of their entire future once they gain the ability to do interesting things with it. It’s an understatement to call it utterly grotesque.
I teach full time at a community college and also work 30 hours a week as a barista, because the system I’m a part of indebted me too deeply to be absorbed fully back into it (and the city I live in loves capital more than community nowadays). That’s weird, and though I think teaching ethics is good for me and my students and society overall, I can’t help but also feel like i’m helping trap my students in a system breaking us all. This should never have gotten to be this way. Education is worth so much more than this monsterous person-crushing machine it’s become.
posted by zinful at 2:20 AM on February 17, 2019 [18 favorites]
It’s worth so much more than that, but yet nothing is worth not being able to eat, to secure housing, to be in the wholeness of being. We force people to pay the price of their entire future once they gain the ability to do interesting things with it. It’s an understatement to call it utterly grotesque.
I teach full time at a community college and also work 30 hours a week as a barista, because the system I’m a part of indebted me too deeply to be absorbed fully back into it (and the city I live in loves capital more than community nowadays). That’s weird, and though I think teaching ethics is good for me and my students and society overall, I can’t help but also feel like i’m helping trap my students in a system breaking us all. This should never have gotten to be this way. Education is worth so much more than this monsterous person-crushing machine it’s become.
posted by zinful at 2:20 AM on February 17, 2019 [18 favorites]
I graduated in 98 with the full Stafford load, almost $19,000. I’m grateful to the MFA writing programs that looked at my applications, laughed behind cupped hands and said, “thanks, but no” because that would have been an absolute, and much more expensive disaster.
With no plans, let alone any idea of how people went about getting jobs,* I did that “teach English overseas” thing to pay back my loan. It worked. I paid back my loan (in the end, $24,000, while people I graduated with were still struggling with theirs), but the cost ended up being that, well, I’ll never really be able to live in America again. While I was “teaching,” my friends crushed under their debt were building experience and connections, and starting careers. Meanwhile, I was doing something that, no matter what the reality was, is considered a joke, a way for kids not ready for “real life” go off and do for a couple years.
By the time I managed to pay off my loans and save up some money, I was already 30, with no work history worth showing.
I have no idea what I would have done had I stayed in America. If things were sink or swim, I would’ve sunk, quickly and loudly. But maybe I might have found something. Maybe I’d have some utterly different life. I’ll never know, because I was 23, and looking at owing more money than I could ever imagine paying back, and that’s even managing to graduate from a school that gave me grants for everything beyond my Stafford loans.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:55 AM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
With no plans, let alone any idea of how people went about getting jobs,* I did that “teach English overseas” thing to pay back my loan. It worked. I paid back my loan (in the end, $24,000, while people I graduated with were still struggling with theirs), but the cost ended up being that, well, I’ll never really be able to live in America again. While I was “teaching,” my friends crushed under their debt were building experience and connections, and starting careers. Meanwhile, I was doing something that, no matter what the reality was, is considered a joke, a way for kids not ready for “real life” go off and do for a couple years.
By the time I managed to pay off my loans and save up some money, I was already 30, with no work history worth showing.
I have no idea what I would have done had I stayed in America. If things were sink or swim, I would’ve sunk, quickly and loudly. But maybe I might have found something. Maybe I’d have some utterly different life. I’ll never know, because I was 23, and looking at owing more money than I could ever imagine paying back, and that’s even managing to graduate from a school that gave me grants for everything beyond my Stafford loans.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:55 AM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
4. College doesn't determine your job. What you love does that.
Please don't do that. If lots of people loved $JOB, then it wouldn't be something you have to pay people to do on a regular basis. It would be something people would pay lots of money to do while they're on vacation. Almost nobody loves sifting through complex paperwork from health insurance companies and financial-services providers for their job in HR. Almost nobody loves walking around putting parking tickets on cars.
It's okay and normal to not love your job, and even to have it be just a job and not anything that particularly defines you. It's okay to have a job that just funds your life instead of in some sense being your life.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:47 AM on February 17, 2019 [60 favorites]
Please don't do that. If lots of people loved $JOB, then it wouldn't be something you have to pay people to do on a regular basis. It would be something people would pay lots of money to do while they're on vacation. Almost nobody loves sifting through complex paperwork from health insurance companies and financial-services providers for their job in HR. Almost nobody loves walking around putting parking tickets on cars.
It's okay and normal to not love your job, and even to have it be just a job and not anything that particularly defines you. It's okay to have a job that just funds your life instead of in some sense being your life.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:47 AM on February 17, 2019 [60 favorites]
When I was applying for financial aid for my undergrad degree, there was no spot to include a parent's student loans as a family financial obligation. Is that still the case?
I think that one of the things that folks who are old enough not to have experienced the current US student loan regime don't realize is that, not only has the average amount of debt gone up a bit, but the loan terms, available repayment options, and so on have changed drastically. From the vantage point of someone who went through college in a previous era and were able to get a salaried white collar job with benefits, establish some financial security, pay off the student loans they did have, and so on, they might think that $30,000 in debt sounds like that mid-range new car that they just bought. Not remembering that they couldn't afford that car when they were just starting out, not considering how the choices they made and options that were available to them would have been restricted had they had such a debt at the time (not to mention the significant changes in the job market and decline in decent jobs), and oblivious to the effects of the new regulations around student debt repayment. Eg. in my cohort, many of us ended up with $20,000-$30,000 student debt loads, but the repayment options were significantly more favorable so it didn't hobble us as much. Plus there were still some entry level jobs that led to careers in which one could, in fact, repay such a debt; and housing costs were definitely increasing but not as bad as they currently are. The entire economic picture has changed significantly since I graduated from my undergrad program. And folks were already complaining about post-grad struggles then, so.
On a third note, I can confirm that overseas voting is absolutely allowed. You can vote in federal and often state level elections, but generally not local elections. You vote in the Congressional district (and state district) of your last US residence. (So if you have stronger ties to a home state, but were residing in a different state as a student, you may want to take the time to re-establish residency in your home state before moving overseas.)
If you are a good little worker cog and are trying to continue repaying your student loans in the US while living abroad, your lender probably only accepts payments drawn on a US bank, and your local banks probably stopped partnering with US banks after 2008, so it can actually be a bit of a challenge. Your lender's online payment system likely accepts credit card payments, but may not have non-US address options in their drop down boxes. And they probably charge an extra "processing fee" for over-the-phone and/or credit card payments. Pro tip: if you point out that if they don't want to take your money, you'd be just as happy not to give it to them, then they'll waive the dumb extra fees - because if you don't have any financial accounts in the US, then the only way for them to get your money is if you send it willingly, so they don't have the leverage to be jerks about it.
If you were to move abroad and stop paying US student loans, IANAL but I don't think that going home for visits would affect anything. Theoretically the US doesn't do debtor's prisons, and it is only your physical body visiting, not your bank accounts. Though if you ever moved back, made any money in the US, had any inheritance, etc., I imagine your lender could probably garnish any of your US income sources including interest for the intervening time.
posted by eviemath at 5:53 AM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
I think that one of the things that folks who are old enough not to have experienced the current US student loan regime don't realize is that, not only has the average amount of debt gone up a bit, but the loan terms, available repayment options, and so on have changed drastically. From the vantage point of someone who went through college in a previous era and were able to get a salaried white collar job with benefits, establish some financial security, pay off the student loans they did have, and so on, they might think that $30,000 in debt sounds like that mid-range new car that they just bought. Not remembering that they couldn't afford that car when they were just starting out, not considering how the choices they made and options that were available to them would have been restricted had they had such a debt at the time (not to mention the significant changes in the job market and decline in decent jobs), and oblivious to the effects of the new regulations around student debt repayment. Eg. in my cohort, many of us ended up with $20,000-$30,000 student debt loads, but the repayment options were significantly more favorable so it didn't hobble us as much. Plus there were still some entry level jobs that led to careers in which one could, in fact, repay such a debt; and housing costs were definitely increasing but not as bad as they currently are. The entire economic picture has changed significantly since I graduated from my undergrad program. And folks were already complaining about post-grad struggles then, so.
On a third note, I can confirm that overseas voting is absolutely allowed. You can vote in federal and often state level elections, but generally not local elections. You vote in the Congressional district (and state district) of your last US residence. (So if you have stronger ties to a home state, but were residing in a different state as a student, you may want to take the time to re-establish residency in your home state before moving overseas.)
If you are a good little worker cog and are trying to continue repaying your student loans in the US while living abroad, your lender probably only accepts payments drawn on a US bank, and your local banks probably stopped partnering with US banks after 2008, so it can actually be a bit of a challenge. Your lender's online payment system likely accepts credit card payments, but may not have non-US address options in their drop down boxes. And they probably charge an extra "processing fee" for over-the-phone and/or credit card payments. Pro tip: if you point out that if they don't want to take your money, you'd be just as happy not to give it to them, then they'll waive the dumb extra fees - because if you don't have any financial accounts in the US, then the only way for them to get your money is if you send it willingly, so they don't have the leverage to be jerks about it.
If you were to move abroad and stop paying US student loans, IANAL but I don't think that going home for visits would affect anything. Theoretically the US doesn't do debtor's prisons, and it is only your physical body visiting, not your bank accounts. Though if you ever moved back, made any money in the US, had any inheritance, etc., I imagine your lender could probably garnish any of your US income sources including interest for the intervening time.
posted by eviemath at 5:53 AM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
if your family your peers and your teachers are all telling you to "follow your dreams"?
I would say even that's a privileged position. I was told I had to go to college in the same way I had to go to high school or elementary school. The only choice was where and cost was not even mentioned as a part of the equation. I was told to just sign on the dotted line.
I only learned about the cost side of the equation four years later, after I had already taken my first job.
College doesn't determine your job. What you love does that.
lolsob
posted by ragtag at 5:57 AM on February 17, 2019 [13 favorites]
I would say even that's a privileged position. I was told I had to go to college in the same way I had to go to high school or elementary school. The only choice was where and cost was not even mentioned as a part of the equation. I was told to just sign on the dotted line.
I only learned about the cost side of the equation four years later, after I had already taken my first job.
College doesn't determine your job. What you love does that.
lolsob
posted by ragtag at 5:57 AM on February 17, 2019 [13 favorites]
I'm honestly surprised the autodidact squad hasn't showed up to admonish us all for paying money for knowledge that is free on the internet or in libraries.
posted by runcibleshaw at 6:51 AM on February 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 6:51 AM on February 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
Your friends son is stupid. He'll be laughing when he graduates and can buy a house and travel and none of his friends can till they're in their 40s.
This is a little reductive and perhaps it's my fault for not stating that my friends are, in fact, poor, and my friends' son's friends are not. His friends' parents are paying any additional costs; they haven't taken out loans. At least, this is what he tells me.
Also, it's a little cruel to say that this young man is stupid for hating being poor at this point in his life. Like, really? He has to like it? He's 19. He can barely see into next week, let alone into his 40s.
posted by cooker girl at 7:37 AM on February 17, 2019 [23 favorites]
This is a little reductive and perhaps it's my fault for not stating that my friends are, in fact, poor, and my friends' son's friends are not. His friends' parents are paying any additional costs; they haven't taken out loans. At least, this is what he tells me.
Also, it's a little cruel to say that this young man is stupid for hating being poor at this point in his life. Like, really? He has to like it? He's 19. He can barely see into next week, let alone into his 40s.
posted by cooker girl at 7:37 AM on February 17, 2019 [23 favorites]
I'm a tail-end boomer, went to school in the late 70s-early 80s, came out with $10K in debt afterward. It was the middle 80s or so when I became politically active, as a result of the student loan default shitshow that made the news. To wit: an awful lot of older boomers had taken out student loans, gotten themselves established in good professions, started families, the whole nine yards, then deliberately went into default on their student loans. Not because they couldn't afford to make the payments, but because there were no repercussions for going into default. Since they could get away with it, why not blow it off?
The last straw for me was discovering that my own state legislative representative, a professional man in his late thirties with a family, had failed to make any payments on his student loans. He had the nerve to whine that the costs of establishing his profession and family made him unable to meet his loan obligations. I was stuck living at home, working a just-over-minimum wage job with no benefits, and I was struggling to make my loan payments, but I was making them. So I had zero sympathy for this idiot who cried poverty when he was so much better off than me. I got active to get him out of office, and was thrilled to see him primaried out of his political career.
Multiply that guy by tens of thousands, and you'll see why the move to make student loan debt undischargeable by bankruptcy had so much support at that time. People like me saw it as forcing people to honor their obligations. We didn't see the big picture, and we never thought it would turn into the pit trap it has become.
I support full loan forgiveness and a return to free/heavily subsidized education...but I also want to see employers take on their share of responsibility again. By that I mean, don't require advanced education for entry-level positions, recognize work/life experience in lieu of or in addition to education, have internal on-the-job education programs and career ladders, and subsidize the costs of any additional education you want your workforce to obtain.
IOW, go back to how it used to be, before the education burden was completely shifted onto the backs of individuals.
posted by Lunaloon at 7:57 AM on February 17, 2019 [12 favorites]
The last straw for me was discovering that my own state legislative representative, a professional man in his late thirties with a family, had failed to make any payments on his student loans. He had the nerve to whine that the costs of establishing his profession and family made him unable to meet his loan obligations. I was stuck living at home, working a just-over-minimum wage job with no benefits, and I was struggling to make my loan payments, but I was making them. So I had zero sympathy for this idiot who cried poverty when he was so much better off than me. I got active to get him out of office, and was thrilled to see him primaried out of his political career.
Multiply that guy by tens of thousands, and you'll see why the move to make student loan debt undischargeable by bankruptcy had so much support at that time. People like me saw it as forcing people to honor their obligations. We didn't see the big picture, and we never thought it would turn into the pit trap it has become.
I support full loan forgiveness and a return to free/heavily subsidized education...but I also want to see employers take on their share of responsibility again. By that I mean, don't require advanced education for entry-level positions, recognize work/life experience in lieu of or in addition to education, have internal on-the-job education programs and career ladders, and subsidize the costs of any additional education you want your workforce to obtain.
IOW, go back to how it used to be, before the education burden was completely shifted onto the backs of individuals.
posted by Lunaloon at 7:57 AM on February 17, 2019 [12 favorites]
"I do wonder if there will be a tipping point where it becomes socially acceptable for people just walk away from their loan debt"
In some... I guess "cultural alcoves", it's already happening. I only run into people who stress about it online. Everyone I know closely just defaulted until they experienced some windfall decades later. That being said, there are career paths that restrict access based on your credit score in general and your repayment of student loans in particular.
posted by Selena777 at 8:08 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
In some... I guess "cultural alcoves", it's already happening. I only run into people who stress about it online. Everyone I know closely just defaulted until they experienced some windfall decades later. That being said, there are career paths that restrict access based on your credit score in general and your repayment of student loans in particular.
posted by Selena777 at 8:08 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Your friends son is stupid. He'll be laughing when he graduates and can buy a house and travel and none of his friends can till they're in their 40s.So here's the thing. He's not stupid. One reason that he's not stupid is that it's ok to want to have fun experiences that all of your peers seem to be having. But the other reason is that he is actually losing out on some of the real benefits of going to college. One of the real benefits of going to college is getting an education. That is a hill I will die on: the education has value. One of the benefits is getting a credential. He's getting the education, and he's getting the credential. But a third benefit, which is under-recognized, is building a network. The people who you meet and befriend in college can help you succeed in life. That's part of the reason that people who go to Yale end up being really successful. If you're a poor kid from a poor family and neighborhood, it really matters that your roommate's dad is VP of an investment banking firm, because you're a lot more likely to get your foot in the door if a VP forwards HR your resume. That connection, rather than the education or even the credential, is likely the thing that's going to get you your first job. And if you go to State U, your roommate's dad is probably not going to be VP of an investment banking firm, but he may still have connections that can get you a really good internship. If you're living at home, you don't have a roommate. It's really hard to build close relationships with other students, because so much of that relationship-building at American colleges goes on after hours, in dorms, fraternities and sororities, and apartments.
I think that we need to acknowledge that there are tradeoffs to most of the choices that students can make to minimize their debt. They should still probably make those choices, but they're not cost-free, and some of the choices are really complicated and not straightforward. This is not an individual problem that can be solved by individuals doing it better. This is a systemic problem that requires policy solutions.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:20 AM on February 17, 2019 [33 favorites]
Even if someone hasn't experienced it themselves, part of the whole reality of this ongoing tragedy is that the problem is so pronounced that the only people who don't know multiple other close friends and acquaintances affected by significant SL debt are those who've never had a net worth below multi-digit millions and thus sequester themselves only to the company of their fellow rich.
Well, the other group of people are the ones who graduated before all this got terrible, and they're the ones making hiring decisions. At my "progressive" non-profit, two of the top managers didn't want to promote an administrative assistant who'd been at the organization for 15 years because she didn't have a college degree. She hadn't shown interest in "improving" herself. She's a single mother of three children with a unionized job that she does well. I can't imagine a bigger waste of time and money for her than to get a college degree. But try to tell these managers that. They didn't get it. I'm sure they support loan forgiveness and know that it's a problem, but it's abstract. And like eviemath said, they're looking at it through the lens of their own student loan debt. So, on some level, they get it, but they don't GET IT. And until they do, people are going to have to make this impossible choice between debt and not being able to get admin jobs because credentialing is so deeply engrained.
posted by Mavri at 8:22 AM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
Well, the other group of people are the ones who graduated before all this got terrible, and they're the ones making hiring decisions. At my "progressive" non-profit, two of the top managers didn't want to promote an administrative assistant who'd been at the organization for 15 years because she didn't have a college degree. She hadn't shown interest in "improving" herself. She's a single mother of three children with a unionized job that she does well. I can't imagine a bigger waste of time and money for her than to get a college degree. But try to tell these managers that. They didn't get it. I'm sure they support loan forgiveness and know that it's a problem, but it's abstract. And like eviemath said, they're looking at it through the lens of their own student loan debt. So, on some level, they get it, but they don't GET IT. And until they do, people are going to have to make this impossible choice between debt and not being able to get admin jobs because credentialing is so deeply engrained.
posted by Mavri at 8:22 AM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
Please tell me what I'm missing.
I don't know what you expect to be told. This discussion isn't new.
I took my first college class in 2001 - which, according to your profile, is when you joined this site. At the time, tuition was $136 a credit hour. I had a part-time job at slightly above minimum wage, which was $5.15/hr, and lived at home.
I took some time off and didn't actually get my degree until 2012. By this time, tuition at the same university was $245 per credit hour. The same job now paid $7.25/hr, housing and insurance costs had ballooned, and I was no longer living at home. My mother's wages had also stagnated.
I was lucky. I was born early enough that I completed a lot of my credits at the lower rate. By the time I finished, it was unmanageable.
(Tuition is now $284 per credit hour.)
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:42 AM on February 17, 2019 [8 favorites]
I don't know what you expect to be told. This discussion isn't new.
I took my first college class in 2001 - which, according to your profile, is when you joined this site. At the time, tuition was $136 a credit hour. I had a part-time job at slightly above minimum wage, which was $5.15/hr, and lived at home.
I took some time off and didn't actually get my degree until 2012. By this time, tuition at the same university was $245 per credit hour. The same job now paid $7.25/hr, housing and insurance costs had ballooned, and I was no longer living at home. My mother's wages had also stagnated.
I was lucky. I was born early enough that I completed a lot of my credits at the lower rate. By the time I finished, it was unmanageable.
(Tuition is now $284 per credit hour.)
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:42 AM on February 17, 2019 [8 favorites]
Multiply that guy by tens of thousands, and you'll see why the move to make student loan debt undischargeable by bankruptcy had so much support at that time. People like me saw it as forcing people to honor their obligations. We didn't see the big picture, and we never thought it would turn into the pit trap it has become.
So, in short, you bought into a bunch of toxic moralizing about debt, and as a result got played like a fiddle by the banks, resulting in everyone after you getting screwed. You'll pardon me if I don't have much sympathy.
We have a crisis with teaching people about debt in this country, and part of that is that we tie morality to it. We saw this during the foreclosure mess - you would have middle class families go into penury because they saw their underwater mortgage as "an obligation", and the banks using that against them. Meanwhile, upper class individuals who better understood what debt actually meant walked away from bad deals, and wound up better off in the long run.
The banks rely on using morality as a weapon against us - look at the ghouls who call after someone dies to trick the survivors into assuming the deceased's debt using moralizing arguments. The solution to this is to recognize that, and tell the banks that our "obligation" is what's defined in the contract and the law, and no more.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:47 AM on February 17, 2019 [19 favorites]
So, in short, you bought into a bunch of toxic moralizing about debt, and as a result got played like a fiddle by the banks, resulting in everyone after you getting screwed. You'll pardon me if I don't have much sympathy.
We have a crisis with teaching people about debt in this country, and part of that is that we tie morality to it. We saw this during the foreclosure mess - you would have middle class families go into penury because they saw their underwater mortgage as "an obligation", and the banks using that against them. Meanwhile, upper class individuals who better understood what debt actually meant walked away from bad deals, and wound up better off in the long run.
The banks rely on using morality as a weapon against us - look at the ghouls who call after someone dies to trick the survivors into assuming the deceased's debt using moralizing arguments. The solution to this is to recognize that, and tell the banks that our "obligation" is what's defined in the contract and the law, and no more.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:47 AM on February 17, 2019 [19 favorites]
From an old Obama speech: And we know a little bit about trying to pay back student loans, too, because we didn’t come from a wealthy family. So we each graduated from college and law school with a mountain of debt. And even though we got good jobs, we barely finished paying it off just before I was elected to the U.S. Senate. [...] I was in my 40s when we finished paying off our debt. And we should have been saving for Malia and Sasha by that time. But we were still paying off what we had gotten -- and we were luckier because most of the debt was from law school. Our undergraduate debt was not as great because tuition had not started shooting up as high.
The best case college debt scenario here (two Ivy-educated, trained lawyers, with minimal undergrad debt, who worked full-time, in decently paid positions) still required Barack Obama to become famous and have his book earn out before they could pay off their debt in their forties. That is insane. And most of us aren't going to become best-selling authors or the president.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:17 AM on February 17, 2019 [17 favorites]
The best case college debt scenario here (two Ivy-educated, trained lawyers, with minimal undergrad debt, who worked full-time, in decently paid positions) still required Barack Obama to become famous and have his book earn out before they could pay off their debt in their forties. That is insane. And most of us aren't going to become best-selling authors or the president.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:17 AM on February 17, 2019 [17 favorites]
The U.S. economy runs on services and consumer goods. Something like 68% of the U.S. economy was driven by consumer goods last year. (Note that most economists class housing as a consumer good and healthcare as a service, so it's not like that 68% is all Netflix subscriptions and avocado toast.)
The average U.S. consumer used to follow a spending arc where they spent more as they moved through adulthood: People under 25 spent approximately $30K on consumer expenditures, people aged 25-34 spent approximately $48K, people aged 35-44 spent $59K, people aged 45-54 spent $60K. [source: BLS stats]
The spending used to be fueled by setting up households, buying vehicles, getting married, having children.
You look now: Birth rates are dropping, "the millennials are killing [insert consumer good category here]" stories are rampant, retail is in free fall. At the same time, while college costs have shot up, wages have remained virtually stagnant for years now. The way college tuition and student loans work in the U.S. is bad economic policy and bad social policy.
What I worry about -- in addition to the sheer squandering of human potential under crushing debt loads and the collective mental health of everyone involved -- is how easily some politician could point at the slowdown in all that consumer spending and begin shrieking, "If the elites didn't think they needed college, they wouldn't have made us all poor by not spending money!"
Yes, I know it makes little sense. But consider the way people who defaulted on mortgages in the late 2000s were written about, how they hurt everyone else in the neighborhood. And consider the successful exploitation of the politics of resentment in the U.S. We've already got one political party convinced that college educations aren't necessary for society. It will not take much to convince them that people with student loans deserve to be punished for making us all miserable.
After all, if people could be gulled into backing the current state of affairs because they thought it was "forcing people to honor their obligations," they can just as easily throw their weight behind punishing the debt-holders for harming their fellow Americans.
I think student loan reform is vital and necessary. I also think it's a real tricky sell in a country that hates "elites" (and, by extension, college-educated "elites") and loves punishing fellow citizens in lieu of working for a massive overhaul of the whole system.
posted by sobell at 10:35 AM on February 17, 2019
The average U.S. consumer used to follow a spending arc where they spent more as they moved through adulthood: People under 25 spent approximately $30K on consumer expenditures, people aged 25-34 spent approximately $48K, people aged 35-44 spent $59K, people aged 45-54 spent $60K. [source: BLS stats]
The spending used to be fueled by setting up households, buying vehicles, getting married, having children.
You look now: Birth rates are dropping, "the millennials are killing [insert consumer good category here]" stories are rampant, retail is in free fall. At the same time, while college costs have shot up, wages have remained virtually stagnant for years now. The way college tuition and student loans work in the U.S. is bad economic policy and bad social policy.
What I worry about -- in addition to the sheer squandering of human potential under crushing debt loads and the collective mental health of everyone involved -- is how easily some politician could point at the slowdown in all that consumer spending and begin shrieking, "If the elites didn't think they needed college, they wouldn't have made us all poor by not spending money!"
Yes, I know it makes little sense. But consider the way people who defaulted on mortgages in the late 2000s were written about, how they hurt everyone else in the neighborhood. And consider the successful exploitation of the politics of resentment in the U.S. We've already got one political party convinced that college educations aren't necessary for society. It will not take much to convince them that people with student loans deserve to be punished for making us all miserable.
After all, if people could be gulled into backing the current state of affairs because they thought it was "forcing people to honor their obligations," they can just as easily throw their weight behind punishing the debt-holders for harming their fellow Americans.
I think student loan reform is vital and necessary. I also think it's a real tricky sell in a country that hates "elites" (and, by extension, college-educated "elites") and loves punishing fellow citizens in lieu of working for a massive overhaul of the whole system.
posted by sobell at 10:35 AM on February 17, 2019
I do wonder if there will be a tipping point where it becomes socially acceptable for people just walk away from their loan debt, similar to what happened with underwater mortgages in the last crash. I mean, what are they going to do, repo the knowledge?
They're going to take away my professional license and leave me without the means to support myself if I don't pay.
Frankly, it should be illegal to give student loans to the students. Let the parents shoulder all the cost, if they really want it.
This is as much of a fairy tale as government forgiving all loans. Not all of us have parents who can get loans, or who care about whether we go to school, or who have their shit remotely together. A program like this is going to be a slap in the face to a kid whose only parent is in prison, or who is too selfish for this, or who wants to use something like this as a means to continue to control their kid with money, or who will happily get the money and spend it on something else. It's great if your parents would have done this for you, but a lot of us don't have that. College is a way for a lot of us to escape dysfunctional families. It was for me.
For myself - the 2008 crash happened in my third year of law school, a few months before I graduated with something like $113,000 in debt. I had an offer for a job at the low end of what attorneys make and I took it. Since graduating law school, my student loan payments were higher than my rent for about five years. It's not that they dropped then, but that I got enough of a raise to move a few blocks away, to a place where I would have to go outside to buy crack or encounter neo-nazis and where none of my immediate neighbors used their apartment for band practice every day. I was still in a questionable neighborhood where I had to call emergency services for neighbors who OD'ed outside my house, but at my old place I'd found people unconscious in the stairwell and regularly walked into drug deals.
I've since taken a pay cut to work at a non-profit, partly because my prior job was about 75% travel and getting harder and harder with my health issues, partly because I needed decent health insurance, and significantly because taking this new job made me eligible for PSLF. I got my paperwork in the first week I was there and have been approved, and yes, if something happens and the feds try to screw me out of this, I will be suing them. I have another nine years before my federal loans go away, and even then I'll still have private loans. I'm looking into buying a house this year not because I finally have money but because the rental market here is bad and getting worse and it will actually be cheaper to buy than to continue renting.
Student loan forgiveness would mean everything to me. I would actually have a hope of being able to retire, which I currently do not have. My plan as things stand is to work until my disability progresses to the point where I can't, and then file for benefits. At that point I'll get the paperwork to try to show that I'm permanently disabled from working and get my student loans discharged in bankruptcy on that basis, because short of my rich wife showing up, there is no other way out.
When I encounter people who are thinking about law school, I tell them how much debt I'm in and that if they don't need to go to be happy, then they should not go. I went to a top 20 school and a bunch of my classmates have left the field because there is no work.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:09 AM on February 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
They're going to take away my professional license and leave me without the means to support myself if I don't pay.
Frankly, it should be illegal to give student loans to the students. Let the parents shoulder all the cost, if they really want it.
This is as much of a fairy tale as government forgiving all loans. Not all of us have parents who can get loans, or who care about whether we go to school, or who have their shit remotely together. A program like this is going to be a slap in the face to a kid whose only parent is in prison, or who is too selfish for this, or who wants to use something like this as a means to continue to control their kid with money, or who will happily get the money and spend it on something else. It's great if your parents would have done this for you, but a lot of us don't have that. College is a way for a lot of us to escape dysfunctional families. It was for me.
For myself - the 2008 crash happened in my third year of law school, a few months before I graduated with something like $113,000 in debt. I had an offer for a job at the low end of what attorneys make and I took it. Since graduating law school, my student loan payments were higher than my rent for about five years. It's not that they dropped then, but that I got enough of a raise to move a few blocks away, to a place where I would have to go outside to buy crack or encounter neo-nazis and where none of my immediate neighbors used their apartment for band practice every day. I was still in a questionable neighborhood where I had to call emergency services for neighbors who OD'ed outside my house, but at my old place I'd found people unconscious in the stairwell and regularly walked into drug deals.
I've since taken a pay cut to work at a non-profit, partly because my prior job was about 75% travel and getting harder and harder with my health issues, partly because I needed decent health insurance, and significantly because taking this new job made me eligible for PSLF. I got my paperwork in the first week I was there and have been approved, and yes, if something happens and the feds try to screw me out of this, I will be suing them. I have another nine years before my federal loans go away, and even then I'll still have private loans. I'm looking into buying a house this year not because I finally have money but because the rental market here is bad and getting worse and it will actually be cheaper to buy than to continue renting.
Student loan forgiveness would mean everything to me. I would actually have a hope of being able to retire, which I currently do not have. My plan as things stand is to work until my disability progresses to the point where I can't, and then file for benefits. At that point I'll get the paperwork to try to show that I'm permanently disabled from working and get my student loans discharged in bankruptcy on that basis, because short of my rich wife showing up, there is no other way out.
When I encounter people who are thinking about law school, I tell them how much debt I'm in and that if they don't need to go to be happy, then they should not go. I went to a top 20 school and a bunch of my classmates have left the field because there is no work.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:09 AM on February 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
This is as much of a fairy tale as government forgiving all loans. Not all of us have parents who can get loans, or who care about whether we go to school, or who have their shit remotely together.
For serious. I could not have gone to college if it had depended on my parents' borrowing the money. And I don't just mean because their credit wasn't good.
posted by praemunire at 11:32 AM on February 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
For serious. I could not have gone to college if it had depended on my parents' borrowing the money. And I don't just mean because their credit wasn't good.
posted by praemunire at 11:32 AM on February 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also, I think I've told this story before, but I graduated from an Ivy in the nineties with about (IIRC) $4K of debt. My brother graduated in-state from a state university about a decade later with $40K. Adjusting for inflation, my debt at that time would have been a little over $5K. Almost literally an order of magnitude more.
(That money didn't seriously start to get repaid until the end of the noughts. Ha ha, bank!)
posted by praemunire at 11:36 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
(That money didn't seriously start to get repaid until the end of the noughts. Ha ha, bank!)
posted by praemunire at 11:36 AM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
So my masters credits were like 700 a credit hour in 2011, the adjunct made 3000 to 3500 per 3 credit hour course. 21 hours a week of school assistanceship got you one 'free' class. It was a 60 credit hour program that required a 16 hour per week internship the first year and 20 hours a week the second unpaid of course.
There was 20 people per class or so.
I am suposely PLSF eligible in year 7 but like the story states, my payment counts vacilate every time I certify so I'm somewhere between year 4 and 6 depending on who counts and why.
I dunno what I'm going to do honestly . It's just this hole that money disappears into that may just always be there. I have done okay, somehow.
Many of my class cohort live with roomates, never married and definately don't have kids.
Right now all i can do is advocate, wait and vote.
posted by AlexiaSky at 12:45 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
There was 20 people per class or so.
I am suposely PLSF eligible in year 7 but like the story states, my payment counts vacilate every time I certify so I'm somewhere between year 4 and 6 depending on who counts and why.
I dunno what I'm going to do honestly . It's just this hole that money disappears into that may just always be there. I have done okay, somehow.
Many of my class cohort live with roomates, never married and definately don't have kids.
Right now all i can do is advocate, wait and vote.
posted by AlexiaSky at 12:45 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
We have a crisis with teaching people about debt in this country, and part of that is that we tie morality to it.
Have you heard about credit card companies calling people's kids after they die and trying to get them to pay, entirely with no legal obligation, their parent's CC debt? "Don't you think he would have wanted his bills to be paid? Wasn't he that kind of person?" etc. Credit card debt is "unsecured debt"- that means it's riskier to issue, which is why they are allowed to charge high interest rates on it. If the decedent had been carrying a balance for years, the company has probably made many times what they lent. But they not only try to exploit this notion of an absolute moral responsibility to pay absolutely every dollar of what someone simply claims that you owe, based on a magical-thinking idea that compounding interest is simply a fact of how the universe works, but to insinuate that it as an inheritable obligation that can and should be recovered outside of the normal mechanism of settling an estate in probate court. Unbelievable.
I don't know if student loan jubilee is politically possible in this country, but fighting for it is the way to get some kind of meaningful reform, like capping interest at some level. Once someone has made, oh, 100% of what they lent in interest, should we really allow it to keep compounding indefinitely?
posted by thelonius at 1:11 PM on February 17, 2019 [10 favorites]
Have you heard about credit card companies calling people's kids after they die and trying to get them to pay, entirely with no legal obligation, their parent's CC debt? "Don't you think he would have wanted his bills to be paid? Wasn't he that kind of person?" etc. Credit card debt is "unsecured debt"- that means it's riskier to issue, which is why they are allowed to charge high interest rates on it. If the decedent had been carrying a balance for years, the company has probably made many times what they lent. But they not only try to exploit this notion of an absolute moral responsibility to pay absolutely every dollar of what someone simply claims that you owe, based on a magical-thinking idea that compounding interest is simply a fact of how the universe works, but to insinuate that it as an inheritable obligation that can and should be recovered outside of the normal mechanism of settling an estate in probate court. Unbelievable.
I don't know if student loan jubilee is politically possible in this country, but fighting for it is the way to get some kind of meaningful reform, like capping interest at some level. Once someone has made, oh, 100% of what they lent in interest, should we really allow it to keep compounding indefinitely?
posted by thelonius at 1:11 PM on February 17, 2019 [10 favorites]
advocate, wait and vote
I can't stress enough the long-term value of providing detailed complaints to your state AG (and to the CFPB, although that's a even longer term). It will not lead to an immediate fix of your personal problem (unfortunately). It may, however, contribute significantly to policy changes and increased enforcement priority over time.
posted by praemunire at 1:11 PM on February 17, 2019
I can't stress enough the long-term value of providing detailed complaints to your state AG (and to the CFPB, although that's a even longer term). It will not lead to an immediate fix of your personal problem (unfortunately). It may, however, contribute significantly to policy changes and increased enforcement priority over time.
posted by praemunire at 1:11 PM on February 17, 2019
"Don't you think he would have wanted his bills to be paid? Wasn't he that kind of person?" etc.
I'm going to laugh my ass off if someone tries this on me after my dad passes. My dad is firmly of the opinion that dying in debt to a bank means you win.
posted by bile and syntax at 2:16 PM on February 17, 2019 [17 favorites]
I'm going to laugh my ass off if someone tries this on me after my dad passes. My dad is firmly of the opinion that dying in debt to a bank means you win.
posted by bile and syntax at 2:16 PM on February 17, 2019 [17 favorites]
Yes, you can legally vote by mail, fly in and out of the US and pay your taxes without fear of debtor prison. What I was trying to point out is that if you decide to leave the US and abandon your student loan debts, doing those things I listed above becomes a lot more complicated and riskier (both psychologically and practically). Having debt (and not paying it) won't prevent you in and of itself from doing those things, but they become scarier when you're registering addresses with multiple governments, filing taxes, filling out various legal forms, applying for housing/jobs/healthcare/benefits, passing through customs and shuffling money around.
I live overseas, do everything legitimately (votes, taxes, travel, etc.) while paying off my student loans and yet the consequences of accidentally screwing up at any point in this long chain of things-tied-to-other-things is absolutely terrifying. I still get stopped at borders, credit checked or otherwise questioned for whatever random nonsense and every time I worry that it is the last time I'll be able to cross whatever line safely and without fear of some fine-print consequences that I misread or didn't otherwise throw more money at some legal professionals to do it for my dumb, overeducated ass.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:28 PM on February 17, 2019
I live overseas, do everything legitimately (votes, taxes, travel, etc.) while paying off my student loans and yet the consequences of accidentally screwing up at any point in this long chain of things-tied-to-other-things is absolutely terrifying. I still get stopped at borders, credit checked or otherwise questioned for whatever random nonsense and every time I worry that it is the last time I'll be able to cross whatever line safely and without fear of some fine-print consequences that I misread or didn't otherwise throw more money at some legal professionals to do it for my dumb, overeducated ass.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:28 PM on February 17, 2019
Also, moving internationally is extremely expensive, a lot of stuff available for citizens that people crow about aren't going to necessarily be available to you, and jobs are way harder to get as an immigrant, especially if you're in a country like Australia where too many places don't give a shit about your background if it's not hyper local.
posted by divabat at 3:26 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by divabat at 3:26 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
crush, for what it's worth, I was lucky enough to escape massive student loans (mine were of the more reasonable size), but I have been outraged at the insane harm these loans have done to millions of students ever since I became aware of the problem a few years ago. (I mean, I am 99% appalled because student loan debt has harmed countless individuals, made their lives harder every day in a completely unnecessary and unjust way; but I'm also 1% appalled to think of the knock-on effects of that on the national and global economy, that it's taken money away from people who could use it, and spend it productively, which would improve the economy for everyone, and shifted it to multinational megacorps to sit festering in their offshore bank accounts, where it does no one any good.)
I appreciate this thread for reminding me that THIS week I need to contact my members of Congress to demand they do something about the appalling criminality of the Department of Education and their failure to implement promised loan forgiveness, the conversion of grants to loans, and their failure to penalize private loan firms for routine failure to follow the law, but also NEXT week, and regularly thereafter, I need to contact them again to say I support massive re-funding of education, including free tuition plus room, board, and activities at all public colleges (universities and community colleges), plus massive taxes on all private credit companies, including consumer credit, to pay for automatic refinancing of all existing student loans at 0% interest.
(Or, for a START, everything included in Hillary Clinton's education policy. Once Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a specific education plan, I can shift to pushing for that.)
posted by kristi at 4:18 PM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
I appreciate this thread for reminding me that THIS week I need to contact my members of Congress to demand they do something about the appalling criminality of the Department of Education and their failure to implement promised loan forgiveness, the conversion of grants to loans, and their failure to penalize private loan firms for routine failure to follow the law, but also NEXT week, and regularly thereafter, I need to contact them again to say I support massive re-funding of education, including free tuition plus room, board, and activities at all public colleges (universities and community colleges), plus massive taxes on all private credit companies, including consumer credit, to pay for automatic refinancing of all existing student loans at 0% interest.
(Or, for a START, everything included in Hillary Clinton's education policy. Once Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a specific education plan, I can shift to pushing for that.)
posted by kristi at 4:18 PM on February 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
You'll pardon me if I don't have much sympathy.
We have a crisis with teaching people about debt in this country...
Wow. That’s pretty impressively callous. You look at a person saying “I did the thing that I was taught to do, that society burned into my brain was the only good and right thing to do, that, from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of high school was seen as the end point of every day of those 13 formative years of my life” and then express that you have no sympathy for them. And in your next sentence, you lament the lack of the very financial education that wasn’t available to the person you have no sympathy for.
It’s like your position is “shame on you for not somehow knowing the things that no one ever told you about, and that you never even knew were a thing because, in my opinion, society failed you, but still, you somehow should’ve known better.”
Kind of staggering, really.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:43 PM on February 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
We have a crisis with teaching people about debt in this country...
Wow. That’s pretty impressively callous. You look at a person saying “I did the thing that I was taught to do, that society burned into my brain was the only good and right thing to do, that, from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of high school was seen as the end point of every day of those 13 formative years of my life” and then express that you have no sympathy for them. And in your next sentence, you lament the lack of the very financial education that wasn’t available to the person you have no sympathy for.
It’s like your position is “shame on you for not somehow knowing the things that no one ever told you about, and that you never even knew were a thing because, in my opinion, society failed you, but still, you somehow should’ve known better.”
Kind of staggering, really.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:43 PM on February 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
Wow. That’s pretty impressively callous. You look at a person saying “I did the thing that I was taught to do, that society burned into my brain was the only good and right thing to do, that, from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of high school was seen as the end point of every day of those 13 formative years of my life” and then express that you have no sympathy for them.
Yes, because they fucked my generation over. That's why my sympathy is limited. They were so angry about these people "cheating" that they pulled the ladder up after themselves, out of a morality that was weaponized against them and us.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:59 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yes, because they fucked my generation over. That's why my sympathy is limited. They were so angry about these people "cheating" that they pulled the ladder up after themselves, out of a morality that was weaponized against them and us.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:59 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
My son is a sophomore in high school. In 3rd grade, they started making them write down what they wanted to major in, at university. In 8th grade, they had to pick a "high school focus", like a degree plan, that IS NOT CHANGEABLE (easily), for their entire high school career. If they decide they don't like ROTC, or science or premed or prelaw or computer science, well, they're just fucked.
Example; He's been in local and community theatre since elementary school, but the theatre instructor in his high school said "He's not really the type we're looking for, for our program," (meaning "big boys not welcome") and was vicious to him for an entire year before I found out. Like, she wouldn't even let him read the scripts to audition for plays, because "there's nothing there for you". But, because "theatre" was in his degree plan, they won't let him switch to robotics or engineering or welding, they're making him take an entire year of "medical terminology" because somehow that's an elective. (And because he didn't tell me about it, because he didn't want me to make a scene, which...admittedly, might have happened.)
All of this bullshit, in the name of College Preparedness.
He dreads college. His peers dread college. I don't know a single kid who is looking forward to university. Their entire academic lives have been hamster wheels of non-stop rote memorization for tests, and tests, and more tests. Kids that 20 years ago would have been our future doctors and mathematicians and philosophers are noping out of the system.
As for us, we're looking at leaving the public school system all together. It has done nothing but harm, as far as I can tell. Whether that means parochial school, or a "throw them in the woods and see what happens", I don't know.
But man, my kid is just miserable, and I hold the for-profit secondary education market partly to blame. These universities and their million dollar chancellors and football coaches depend on a steady meatgrinder of high school kids unable to judge the financial value of what they've been brainwashed to "need".
My bill for a semester at university was under $500, so $1000 a yearish. For a 15 hour load. (Plus books, plus my living expenses, etc., but the fees to attend a highly ranked Texas university was under $500.) If my son were to take the same course load, at the same university, he wouldn't be taught by professors, he'd be taught by adjuncts, in a class size of more than 300, and his fees would be $11,000. Eleven THOUSAND dollars not including room and board.
It's almost $30,000 a year to go to UT, because it's mandatory to live on campus the first two years. That's obscene.
College isn't a way into the middle class, it's a barrier. It's a hurdle. See if you can jump this, and then maybe, just maybe we'll pay you a living wage. But, I mean, not so much that you can easily pay for that hurdle and then climb the ladder. No, you stay right there on the bottom rungs, so the 1% can kick you down if you get too uppity.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:24 PM on February 17, 2019 [12 favorites]
Example; He's been in local and community theatre since elementary school, but the theatre instructor in his high school said "He's not really the type we're looking for, for our program," (meaning "big boys not welcome") and was vicious to him for an entire year before I found out. Like, she wouldn't even let him read the scripts to audition for plays, because "there's nothing there for you". But, because "theatre" was in his degree plan, they won't let him switch to robotics or engineering or welding, they're making him take an entire year of "medical terminology" because somehow that's an elective. (And because he didn't tell me about it, because he didn't want me to make a scene, which...admittedly, might have happened.)
All of this bullshit, in the name of College Preparedness.
He dreads college. His peers dread college. I don't know a single kid who is looking forward to university. Their entire academic lives have been hamster wheels of non-stop rote memorization for tests, and tests, and more tests. Kids that 20 years ago would have been our future doctors and mathematicians and philosophers are noping out of the system.
As for us, we're looking at leaving the public school system all together. It has done nothing but harm, as far as I can tell. Whether that means parochial school, or a "throw them in the woods and see what happens", I don't know.
But man, my kid is just miserable, and I hold the for-profit secondary education market partly to blame. These universities and their million dollar chancellors and football coaches depend on a steady meatgrinder of high school kids unable to judge the financial value of what they've been brainwashed to "need".
My bill for a semester at university was under $500, so $1000 a yearish. For a 15 hour load. (Plus books, plus my living expenses, etc., but the fees to attend a highly ranked Texas university was under $500.) If my son were to take the same course load, at the same university, he wouldn't be taught by professors, he'd be taught by adjuncts, in a class size of more than 300, and his fees would be $11,000. Eleven THOUSAND dollars not including room and board.
It's almost $30,000 a year to go to UT, because it's mandatory to live on campus the first two years. That's obscene.
College isn't a way into the middle class, it's a barrier. It's a hurdle. See if you can jump this, and then maybe, just maybe we'll pay you a living wage. But, I mean, not so much that you can easily pay for that hurdle and then climb the ladder. No, you stay right there on the bottom rungs, so the 1% can kick you down if you get too uppity.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:24 PM on February 17, 2019 [12 favorites]
(To be fair, I loved university, and have already told Boy that if he wants to take classes at the community college right now, I will drive him down and enroll him.)
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:30 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:30 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
My bill for a semester at university was under $500, so $1000 a yearish. For a 15 hour load. (Plus books, plus my living expenses, etc., but the fees to attend a highly ranked Texas university was under $500.) If my son were to take the same course load, at the same university, he wouldn't be taught by professors, he'd be taught by adjuncts, in a class size of more than 300, and his fees would be $11,000. Eleven THOUSAND dollars not including room and board. It's almost $30,000 a year to go to UT
I'm really not trying to hold you personally responsible for your state's entire educational policy, but it costs that much because your state, like practically every state now, refuses to raise revenue (through taxes or otherwise) to properly fund its public educational system. Truly, most of the cost increases for public universities map onto reduced funding. It turns out that when you (general you!) destroy public goods lest brown people access them, it means that everyone has to pitch in wastefully and personally to replace them in their own lives.
posted by praemunire at 7:55 PM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm really not trying to hold you personally responsible for your state's entire educational policy, but it costs that much because your state, like practically every state now, refuses to raise revenue (through taxes or otherwise) to properly fund its public educational system. Truly, most of the cost increases for public universities map onto reduced funding. It turns out that when you (general you!) destroy public goods lest brown people access them, it means that everyone has to pitch in wastefully and personally to replace them in their own lives.
posted by praemunire at 7:55 PM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
In our case, it was because Republicans deregulated the state university system, then installed chancellors that were political cronies. The big universities like UT were allowed to take over and subsume smaller universities, like SWSTU, which all became part of the UT pricing and teaching modalities.
Yes, the state has absolutely starved the education system. But greed and football did just as much damage.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:55 PM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
Yes, the state has absolutely starved the education system. But greed and football did just as much damage.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:55 PM on February 17, 2019 [7 favorites]
i saw someone refer to student debt cancellation as a fairy tale, and i believe that's true in our current political climate. but trust me when i say it's going to be a major talking point someday soon. because we're simply not going to pay these loans off. many of us are trying, a lot of us aren't, but at the end of the day, we just won't be able to do it. it's too much money from a generation whose prospects in life are looking more and more dire. and if we don't find a legislative solution to that problem, things are going to go bad much quicker than anyone expects.
posted by JimBennett at 10:22 PM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by JimBennett at 10:22 PM on February 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
No one who's ever employed me has given a shit about what college I went to or the college I flunked out of or my GPA.
I'm sorry. I really don't have a handle these days on what recent grads are going through. My only frame of reference is the early nineties when I got my undergraduate degree as cheaply as I possibly could while working three part-time jobs at a time.
My career has never required me to have more than a bachelor's degree if that. From what you're telling me things are different now. I don't necessarily think it's impossible to get a job after graduation, but it's really hard to start out with a professional job with no experience.
My first job after college was pulling CAT-5 cable and punching down patch panels for the telecom office I'd worked for as a student.
My perspective is flawed, I get that. I mean no disrespect but please tell me what I'm missing.
posted by bendy at 10:31 PM on February 17, 2019
I'm sorry. I really don't have a handle these days on what recent grads are going through. My only frame of reference is the early nineties when I got my undergraduate degree as cheaply as I possibly could while working three part-time jobs at a time.
My career has never required me to have more than a bachelor's degree if that. From what you're telling me things are different now. I don't necessarily think it's impossible to get a job after graduation, but it's really hard to start out with a professional job with no experience.
My first job after college was pulling CAT-5 cable and punching down patch panels for the telecom office I'd worked for as a student.
My perspective is flawed, I get that. I mean no disrespect but please tell me what I'm missing.
posted by bendy at 10:31 PM on February 17, 2019
If my comment comes across as snarky or offensive I didn't mean that at all.
posted by bendy at 10:35 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by bendy at 10:35 PM on February 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
So we had the mortgage crisis where we had to worry about home owners and now a student debt crisis, where we need to worry about helping those with college degrees. I assume at some point we might actually worry about those who didn't have the resources for homes or college and send some help their way since many of them are even worse off, but since they didn't have the opportunity to borrow heavily and threaten the economy I guess they can keep waiting.
I mean I'm not against trying to keep the economy on track and certainly don't object to dealing with the ugly absurdity that the advanced educational system has become, but any talk of forgiving debt that doesn't address the disaster the college system has become and contain efforts for reform seems a lot like dumping money into a sinkhole if the system is allowed to keep operating as it has been. The heart warming illusion of college being about education for its own sake should be long dead. It's a job placement program and should be funded by those industries and corporations who will need the future workers that from the system or be revamped so that dream of knowledge for its own sake can mean something again.
There's so much that's out of whack about the system, from how it handles adjuncts and underpays TAs, the way tenure protects abusers and calcifies knowledge, the perverse importance of sport, the increase in administration size and costs, the difficulty the humanities face, and the need to keep adding amenities to lure students and compete within the system for the "best" of them among other things. Pouring cash into that system to keep it afloat without change seems as shortsighted as thinking that banks learned their lesson from the mortgage crisis and have reformed.
There's no question we need to do something about student debt, but it needs more than talk about erasing debt alone to really solve.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:04 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
I mean I'm not against trying to keep the economy on track and certainly don't object to dealing with the ugly absurdity that the advanced educational system has become, but any talk of forgiving debt that doesn't address the disaster the college system has become and contain efforts for reform seems a lot like dumping money into a sinkhole if the system is allowed to keep operating as it has been. The heart warming illusion of college being about education for its own sake should be long dead. It's a job placement program and should be funded by those industries and corporations who will need the future workers that from the system or be revamped so that dream of knowledge for its own sake can mean something again.
There's so much that's out of whack about the system, from how it handles adjuncts and underpays TAs, the way tenure protects abusers and calcifies knowledge, the perverse importance of sport, the increase in administration size and costs, the difficulty the humanities face, and the need to keep adding amenities to lure students and compete within the system for the "best" of them among other things. Pouring cash into that system to keep it afloat without change seems as shortsighted as thinking that banks learned their lesson from the mortgage crisis and have reformed.
There's no question we need to do something about student debt, but it needs more than talk about erasing debt alone to really solve.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:04 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
So we had the mortgage crisis where we had to worry about home owners and now a student debt crisis, where we need to worry about helping those with college degrees. I assume at some point we might actually worry about those who didn't have the resources for homes or college and send some help their way since many of them are even worse off, but since they didn't have the opportunity to borrow heavily and threaten the economy I guess they can keep waiting.
okay so, when i was eighteen neither of my (toxic, checked out, and miserable) parents had worked for five plus years, we were underwater on our house, and their credit was in the dumpster. my (for profit) school, knowing all this, had them apply for something called "Parent PLUS Loans" literally every semester, which my parents were denied for literally every semester, which kicked in enough financial aid to cover the rest of my expenses so that i would still take out the loans required to get me there in the first place. i'm not sure there ARE people without the opportunity to borrow, because by participating in the system the schools have a vested interest in getting as many kids as possible hooked on debt.
also fwiw this is just a really shitty way to frame this issue, especially in a thread where people are commiserating about how debt is ruining their lives. i think it is self evidently obvious that we need to completely restructure secondary education in this country from the ground up, there's a reason why "free college" is a large part of more left leaning presidential candidate's platforms, but "free college" is not enough. to implement that without also forgiving student debt is condemning like thirty years worth of 18 year olds to lifelong misery because they happened to be born between two golden ages.
posted by JimBennett at 12:18 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
okay so, when i was eighteen neither of my (toxic, checked out, and miserable) parents had worked for five plus years, we were underwater on our house, and their credit was in the dumpster. my (for profit) school, knowing all this, had them apply for something called "Parent PLUS Loans" literally every semester, which my parents were denied for literally every semester, which kicked in enough financial aid to cover the rest of my expenses so that i would still take out the loans required to get me there in the first place. i'm not sure there ARE people without the opportunity to borrow, because by participating in the system the schools have a vested interest in getting as many kids as possible hooked on debt.
also fwiw this is just a really shitty way to frame this issue, especially in a thread where people are commiserating about how debt is ruining their lives. i think it is self evidently obvious that we need to completely restructure secondary education in this country from the ground up, there's a reason why "free college" is a large part of more left leaning presidential candidate's platforms, but "free college" is not enough. to implement that without also forgiving student debt is condemning like thirty years worth of 18 year olds to lifelong misery because they happened to be born between two golden ages.
posted by JimBennett at 12:18 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
like, the idea that people were PRIVILEGED to ruin their lives with debt when the housing market was a bubble literally built by preying on poor people... that's a real galaxy brain take.
posted by JimBennett at 12:39 AM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by JimBennett at 12:39 AM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah, you're right, the better idea is to dump money into the broken system and assume it will work better next time. That sure fixed the banks. Talking about student debt without talking about the system that creates it isn't going to solve the problem. I have student debts and I'm only slightly more financially secure than the little match girl, so I'd benefit from "forgiveness", but that's only a bandaid that moves the problem elsewhere if there aren't drastic changes made to how the education system works. Just asserting of course it will be improved doesn't actually convince any more than it did at the end of the mortgage crisis. We just keep moving the bandaids to the next wound and leave the most disadvantaged and discriminated against without any assistance at all.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:10 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by gusottertrout at 1:10 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
So we had the mortgage crisis where we had to worry about home owners and now a student debt crisis, where we need to worry about helping those with college degrees.
These crises affect the entire economy and not just those holding the debt. Major pension funds were hurt by the mortgage crisis, recessions mean less hiring, and credit markets tightening up make it harder to get a car loan. You don't have to be part of the crisis to be affected.
posted by soelo at 5:47 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
These crises affect the entire economy and not just those holding the debt. Major pension funds were hurt by the mortgage crisis, recessions mean less hiring, and credit markets tightening up make it harder to get a car loan. You don't have to be part of the crisis to be affected.
posted by soelo at 5:47 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Just asserting of course it will be improved doesn't actually convince any more than it did at the end of the mortgage crisis.
Besides the fact that there is no actual evidence that the 2008 mortgage crisis had anything to do with lending money to poor people to buy houses (the average down payment was pretty much equal to the past 30 years and was growing when the crash happened), the change made to the mortgage industry (also incorrect nothing was changed) was that credit profile became much more important than income, ie: we completely blocked poor people out of buying houses, even if they had the monthly income to afford them.
Hence why there is a tread above about the 'rise of the midrise', when apartment building had previously been at historical lows. People have to live somewhere.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Besides the fact that there is no actual evidence that the 2008 mortgage crisis had anything to do with lending money to poor people to buy houses (the average down payment was pretty much equal to the past 30 years and was growing when the crash happened), the change made to the mortgage industry (also incorrect nothing was changed) was that credit profile became much more important than income, ie: we completely blocked poor people out of buying houses, even if they had the monthly income to afford them.
Hence why there is a tread above about the 'rise of the midrise', when apartment building had previously been at historical lows. People have to live somewhere.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
These crises affect the entire economy and not just those holding the debt.
Of course they do and that's why it will have to be dealt with instead of putting the money to better use since in both instances we've been sold the lie of unlimited social aspiration. Everyone can own a house! A college degree guarantees a job and financial stability! Both are lies that benefit the sellers of the dream through the money they make off the loans. When things go bad, we make it "right" for those who loaned the money, leaving those who borrowed it in the same place they were when they started or worse.
If we treated universities as the job training centers they mostly are, at least in middle and lower income families, instead of pretending they exist for some grand ideal of the beauty of knowledge, then we could hold them to account for how well they provide access to jobs at the completion of the degree. We could do better at shaping the course needs to the specifics of job needs instead of drawing them out to some arbitrary number of credit hours that magically signal wisdom.
We could allow people to obtain the equivalent of a degree through proof of like knowledge without attending classes at all. We could stop the pretense that students care about and need the classes they have to take but aren't interested in and forget twenty five minutes after they get their degree. We might be able to get over the idea that a degree somehow is necessary for jobs that have little connection to what you study, and that businesses need college graduates to do most of their labor.
College for all, the dream of many, won't add to the amount of jobs that degrees are needed for, except in higher education, so it becomes just high school plus, where almost everyone is expected to go, but where most will, by necessity, still end up with the same crappy job opportunities at the end since there will still be more need for service industry and office work than engineers or whatever other fancy degree one might desire. If everyone goes to college, then the comparative value of the experience declines and what will be important will be which college you went to and what advanced degrees you obtained since having a generic four year degree would mean very little.
There are, of course, occupations that require special education and good reasons for some form of university-like system to provide that as well as allow young people a chance to experience life away from home and become "liberalized" by interacting with others from vastly different backgrounds. There too can be real honest-to-goodness value in learning for its own sake if that is what a person allows themselves to experience. I'm not knocking any of that nor saying there isn't a pressing need to fix the student debt problem as it has gotten way out of hand. I just don't believe that erasing student debt for everyone without looking a lot more closely at the problems that caused the crisis is the right way to go.
Colleges themselves need to be on the hook more for not better guiding people to meaningful job opportunities, industries and corporations need to be paying much more into the system for the workers they need, people who do find lucrative job opportunities after graduating need to repay some of the money they were provided to gain their career, while the rest of us, through the government, need to pay for the careers that require degrees but don't provide high pay. The current system of higher education is outdated for the expectations people have for it and how it might best serve society. It needs to be broken up and put into a more workable and affordable system that fits current needs.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:57 AM on February 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
Of course they do and that's why it will have to be dealt with instead of putting the money to better use since in both instances we've been sold the lie of unlimited social aspiration. Everyone can own a house! A college degree guarantees a job and financial stability! Both are lies that benefit the sellers of the dream through the money they make off the loans. When things go bad, we make it "right" for those who loaned the money, leaving those who borrowed it in the same place they were when they started or worse.
If we treated universities as the job training centers they mostly are, at least in middle and lower income families, instead of pretending they exist for some grand ideal of the beauty of knowledge, then we could hold them to account for how well they provide access to jobs at the completion of the degree. We could do better at shaping the course needs to the specifics of job needs instead of drawing them out to some arbitrary number of credit hours that magically signal wisdom.
We could allow people to obtain the equivalent of a degree through proof of like knowledge without attending classes at all. We could stop the pretense that students care about and need the classes they have to take but aren't interested in and forget twenty five minutes after they get their degree. We might be able to get over the idea that a degree somehow is necessary for jobs that have little connection to what you study, and that businesses need college graduates to do most of their labor.
College for all, the dream of many, won't add to the amount of jobs that degrees are needed for, except in higher education, so it becomes just high school plus, where almost everyone is expected to go, but where most will, by necessity, still end up with the same crappy job opportunities at the end since there will still be more need for service industry and office work than engineers or whatever other fancy degree one might desire. If everyone goes to college, then the comparative value of the experience declines and what will be important will be which college you went to and what advanced degrees you obtained since having a generic four year degree would mean very little.
There are, of course, occupations that require special education and good reasons for some form of university-like system to provide that as well as allow young people a chance to experience life away from home and become "liberalized" by interacting with others from vastly different backgrounds. There too can be real honest-to-goodness value in learning for its own sake if that is what a person allows themselves to experience. I'm not knocking any of that nor saying there isn't a pressing need to fix the student debt problem as it has gotten way out of hand. I just don't believe that erasing student debt for everyone without looking a lot more closely at the problems that caused the crisis is the right way to go.
Colleges themselves need to be on the hook more for not better guiding people to meaningful job opportunities, industries and corporations need to be paying much more into the system for the workers they need, people who do find lucrative job opportunities after graduating need to repay some of the money they were provided to gain their career, while the rest of us, through the government, need to pay for the careers that require degrees but don't provide high pay. The current system of higher education is outdated for the expectations people have for it and how it might best serve society. It needs to be broken up and put into a more workable and affordable system that fits current needs.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:57 AM on February 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
Is this the thread where I offer to sell someone my worthless liberal arts degree that's in the corner under the empty liquor bottles?
I'm 40, 60k+ in debt, have no kids, own nothing of value, and am basically at this point just hoping for an early death.
Going to college was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It is a scam.
Let me know when we start building the guillotines.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 9:21 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm 40, 60k+ in debt, have no kids, own nothing of value, and am basically at this point just hoping for an early death.
Going to college was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It is a scam.
Let me know when we start building the guillotines.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 9:21 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
The world: "Powerful Figure X shouldn't be held accountable or things they did years ago! They were merely a child of 30 years when they did those youthful indiscretions that immediately harmed others."
Also the world: "A 17-year-old child should have known how to forecast the job market, perform a cost-benefit analysis, and correctly predict their future income for the next forty years before taking on that debt. A debt that every authority figure in their lives told them to take on no matter what. They can't even be trusted to vote or drink a beer, but the biggest financial decision of their lives should have been executed perfectly. Fuck 'em and let 'em rot."
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:19 AM on February 18, 2019 [12 favorites]
Also the world: "A 17-year-old child should have known how to forecast the job market, perform a cost-benefit analysis, and correctly predict their future income for the next forty years before taking on that debt. A debt that every authority figure in their lives told them to take on no matter what. They can't even be trusted to vote or drink a beer, but the biggest financial decision of their lives should have been executed perfectly. Fuck 'em and let 'em rot."
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:19 AM on February 18, 2019 [12 favorites]
Yeah, you're right, the better idea is to dump money into the broken system and assume it will work better next time. That sure fixed the banks. Talking about student debt without talking about the system that creates it isn't going to solve the problem.
i don't disagree with this, i just think leaving behind everyone who was fucked over by student debt will do more harm then good, and that your rhetoric in this thread is cold and tone-deaf.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
i don't disagree with this, i just think leaving behind everyone who was fucked over by student debt will do more harm then good, and that your rhetoric in this thread is cold and tone-deaf.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
Last year I gave a talk about the future of universities to a respected midwestern campus.
One prof was enraged when I pointed out the scale of the debt crisis. "It's the students' own faults!" he cried. "They don't *need* this debt. They're just using it to buy expensive cars, sofas, and apartments. It's all bullshit and luxury."
He was the most respected senior professor in that group. You could see the dismay flickering across the room, but nobody wanted to say anything. I politely disagreed with his take, which enraged him further.
During the break several came up to me to apologize, in private.
posted by doctornemo at 12:17 PM on February 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
One prof was enraged when I pointed out the scale of the debt crisis. "It's the students' own faults!" he cried. "They don't *need* this debt. They're just using it to buy expensive cars, sofas, and apartments. It's all bullshit and luxury."
He was the most respected senior professor in that group. You could see the dismay flickering across the room, but nobody wanted to say anything. I politely disagreed with his take, which enraged him further.
During the break several came up to me to apologize, in private.
posted by doctornemo at 12:17 PM on February 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
Yeah, you're right, the better idea is to dump money into the broken system and assume it will work better next time. That sure fixed the banks.
Bailing out banks is not at all the same as bailing out individuals.
posted by bile and syntax at 12:20 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
Bailing out banks is not at all the same as bailing out individuals.
posted by bile and syntax at 12:20 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
"College isn't a way into the middle class, it's a barrier." (SecretAgentSockpuppet)
"Going to college was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It is a scam." (SystematicAbuse)
"I KIND OF RUINED MY LIFE BY GOING TO COLLEGE" (Consumer Reports, cover story, August 2016)
I've been hearing these sentiments across the United States for the past decade.
posted by doctornemo at 12:24 PM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
"Going to college was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It is a scam." (SystematicAbuse)
"I KIND OF RUINED MY LIFE BY GOING TO COLLEGE" (Consumer Reports, cover story, August 2016)
I've been hearing these sentiments across the United States for the past decade.
posted by doctornemo at 12:24 PM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
1. Make college free*.
2. After you make college free, wipe all direct student loans off the books.
3. That's it. That's the whole plan.
*No actual footnote for this. Just do whatever it takes to make it free for everyone who wants to go.
posted by runcibleshaw at 3:27 PM on February 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
2. After you make college free, wipe all direct student loans off the books.
3. That's it. That's the whole plan.
*No actual footnote for this. Just do whatever it takes to make it free for everyone who wants to go.
posted by runcibleshaw at 3:27 PM on February 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
1. Make college free*.
2. After you make college free, wipe all direct student loans off the books.
3. That's it. That's the whole plan.
It's pretty depressing how many of our fellow countrypersons feel that the problem with this plan is that it makes no one suffer.
posted by thelonius at 3:29 PM on February 18, 2019 [14 favorites]
2. After you make college free, wipe all direct student loans off the books.
3. That's it. That's the whole plan.
It's pretty depressing how many of our fellow countrypersons feel that the problem with this plan is that it makes no one suffer.
posted by thelonius at 3:29 PM on February 18, 2019 [14 favorites]
We could stop the pretense that students care about and need the classes they have to take but aren't interested in and forget twenty five minutes after they get their degree.
Hear hear, otherwise known as "Why did I have to memorize fifty billion dates for 4 art history classes and I remember not a one of them and have never needed any of that because I don't work in art history?" I could have learned about art history without spending hours cramming information I'd never remember or use again after the exam.
Moving on....
College for all, the dream of many, won't add to the amount of jobs that degrees are needed for, except in higher education, so it becomes just high school plus, where almost everyone is expected to go, but where most will, by necessity, still end up with the same crappy job opportunities at the end since there will still be more need for service industry and office work than engineers or whatever other fancy degree one might desire.
Yeah. I can say in my workplace right now we have those without degrees, those of us with bachelor's degrees and right now, a temp with two master's degrees who's a whiz at math but is just answering the phones and getting yelled at like everyone else.
College frequently isn't an education for your future job, it's to get past a requirement on the job listing which probably isn't actually needed to do the job. It's there to weed out the riffraff. And nowadays it's not just "have any degree," it's now "have a degree in X, Y, or Z specifically" to weed out even more riffraff.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:07 PM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
Hear hear, otherwise known as "Why did I have to memorize fifty billion dates for 4 art history classes and I remember not a one of them and have never needed any of that because I don't work in art history?" I could have learned about art history without spending hours cramming information I'd never remember or use again after the exam.
Moving on....
College for all, the dream of many, won't add to the amount of jobs that degrees are needed for, except in higher education, so it becomes just high school plus, where almost everyone is expected to go, but where most will, by necessity, still end up with the same crappy job opportunities at the end since there will still be more need for service industry and office work than engineers or whatever other fancy degree one might desire.
Yeah. I can say in my workplace right now we have those without degrees, those of us with bachelor's degrees and right now, a temp with two master's degrees who's a whiz at math but is just answering the phones and getting yelled at like everyone else.
College frequently isn't an education for your future job, it's to get past a requirement on the job listing which probably isn't actually needed to do the job. It's there to weed out the riffraff. And nowadays it's not just "have any degree," it's now "have a degree in X, Y, or Z specifically" to weed out even more riffraff.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:07 PM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
This whole thing is just staggering. It seems like most people I know my age (high school class of '88) didn't get fucked by this, or at least not as badly. It was all cheaper, for one thing, so the loan volume for my friends that went somewhere expensive was way lower -- in 1988, fancy private schools were $15K a year, or 1/2 what some state schools are charging now. And the money was almost free, interest-wise.
All that changed not long, though. It seems like if you're a college grad 10 years or more younger than me, the likelihood that this is part of your life is insanely high.
We should care because these people are being fucked over, and it's bullshit.
I want to be party to fixing it. Are there concrete steps available now beyond things like supporting DSA generally?
posted by uberchet at 5:43 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
All that changed not long, though. It seems like if you're a college grad 10 years or more younger than me, the likelihood that this is part of your life is insanely high.
People without this problem, shake their heads and move on.Like I said, I don't have this problem, but I absolutely don't want shake my head and move on. For one thing, it looks like a fucking iceberg for the economy, but that's not even the reason people like me should care.
We should care because these people are being fucked over, and it's bullshit.
I want to be party to fixing it. Are there concrete steps available now beyond things like supporting DSA generally?
posted by uberchet at 5:43 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
DSA Debt And Finance working group
The Debt Collective
The New Economy Project And Season Of The Bitch
the Rolling Jubilee
Normalize talking about debt forgiveness and jubilee, make it a talking point, bring it up to your lgovefmentsl reps.
posted by The Whelk at 7:35 PM on February 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
The Debt Collective
The New Economy Project And Season Of The Bitch
the Rolling Jubilee
Normalize talking about debt forgiveness and jubilee, make it a talking point, bring it up to your lgovefmentsl reps.
posted by The Whelk at 7:35 PM on February 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
Please don't do that. If lots of people loved $JOB, then it wouldn't be something you have to pay people to do on a regular basis. It would be something people would pay lots of money to do while they're on vacation.
You're right and I'm sorry. I misspoke. In retrospect, my dad joined the Air Force because he had a growing family to support. He spent 26 years there and 2 years after he retired got cancer and died - probably a result of years spent in Titan II silos.
He was as open with me as he could be and I never got any impression that he liked his job or the military in general.
I'm lucky enough that I've been able to take a winding path full of mistakes and poor judgment to finally find a career I love. But I haven't even had a pet in the last 20 years let alone a spouse or kids ever.
posted by bendy at 10:03 PM on February 18, 2019
You're right and I'm sorry. I misspoke. In retrospect, my dad joined the Air Force because he had a growing family to support. He spent 26 years there and 2 years after he retired got cancer and died - probably a result of years spent in Titan II silos.
He was as open with me as he could be and I never got any impression that he liked his job or the military in general.
I'm lucky enough that I've been able to take a winding path full of mistakes and poor judgment to finally find a career I love. But I haven't even had a pet in the last 20 years let alone a spouse or kids ever.
posted by bendy at 10:03 PM on February 18, 2019
This whole thing is just staggering. It seems like most people I know my age (high school class of '88) didn't get fucked by this, or at least not as badly. It was all cheaper, for one thing, so the loan volume for my friends that went somewhere expensive was way lower -- in 1988, fancy private schools were $15K a year, or 1/2 what some state schools are charging now. And the money was almost free, interest-wise.
I'm with you uberchet. Also class of '88.
posted by bendy at 10:07 PM on February 18, 2019
I'm with you uberchet. Also class of '88.
posted by bendy at 10:07 PM on February 18, 2019
"I KIND OF RUINED MY LIFE BY GOING TO COLLEGE" (Consumer Reports, cover story, August 2016)
As much as I like what I do now, I still wish I'd gotten a job on a boat. I'd have never gone to college.
posted by bendy at 10:15 PM on February 18, 2019
As much as I like what I do now, I still wish I'd gotten a job on a boat. I'd have never gone to college.
posted by bendy at 10:15 PM on February 18, 2019
I know there are no silver bullets in this life, but: What if there was a coordinated push to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy? How much of the problem does that solve?
My guess is that it would leave a lot of folks no better off -- bankruptcy is a problem -- but then at least there'd be an out for the most-screwed folks. It might be a place to start, policy-wise?
posted by uberchet at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2019
My guess is that it would leave a lot of folks no better off -- bankruptcy is a problem -- but then at least there'd be an out for the most-screwed folks. It might be a place to start, policy-wise?
posted by uberchet at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2019
Amy Klobuchar just staked out a position against full public support for college tuition.
posted by doctornemo at 9:17 AM on February 20, 2019
posted by doctornemo at 9:17 AM on February 20, 2019
I overheard college students today saying that they felt obligated to get master's degrees just so that they could be competitive and get jobs in the future. To which I said um, you might just rack up a lot of debt you can't pay off, so choose wisely on that one.
More on Amy Klobuchar. Basically she said that we can't afford to give free college to all. Which I think is true. I don't seem to recall hearing how Bernie plans on doing free college for all, somehow? Anyone find anything concrete on that?
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:07 PM on February 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
More on Amy Klobuchar. Basically she said that we can't afford to give free college to all. Which I think is true. I don't seem to recall hearing how Bernie plans on doing free college for all, somehow? Anyone find anything concrete on that?
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:07 PM on February 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
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It ruined my life savings and drained my 401k, and I'm still hopelessly in debt for at least the foreseeable future. I'm lucky enough not to be burdened by student debt, but my unavoidable debt still puts me in a shitty spot...the most noticeable (aside from being forced to reside with my parents), ironically, is that it's become much more difficult to get access to funds to get a nursing degree.
posted by Gatyr at 10:45 AM on February 16, 2019 [12 favorites]