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The Fed's Startling Student Debt Numbers That Every Young Person Should See
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
What I’m about to tell you is not my own opinion or even analysis. It’s original data that comes from the United States Federal Reserve and national credit bureaus.
- 40 million Americans are now in debt because of their university education, and on average borrowers have four loans with a total balance of $29,000.
- According to the Fed, “Student loans have the highest delinquency rate of any form of household credit, having surpassed credit cards in 2012.”
- Since 2010, student debt has been the second largest category of personal debt, just after a home mortgage.
- The delinquency rate for student loans is now hovering near an all-time high since they started collecting data 12 years ago.
- Only 37% of total students loan balances are currently in repayment and not delinquent.
The rest—nearly 2 out of 3—are either behind on payments, in all-out default, or have entered some sort of deferral program to delay making payments, with a small percentage still in school.
It’s pretty obvious that this is a giant, unsustainable bubble (more on this below). But even more important are the personal implications.
University graduates now matriculate with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.
Debt is another form of servitude. Like medieval serfs, debt keeps people tied to jobs they dislike in places they don’t want to be working for bosses they hate doing things that make them feel unfulfilled.
Debt makes it very difficult to walk away and start fresh.
In fact, ‘starting fresh’ is almost legally impossible when it comes to student debt. Even in US bankruptcy court, student debt cannot be discharged in almost all cases.
It is an albatross that hangs over you for a decade or more if you do make the payments, and it follows you around for the rest of your life if you do not.
(I’m not suggesting anyone default on what they owed—simply pointing out that nearly every other form of debt can be discharged EXCEPT for student debt.)
This kind of debt has a huge impact on people’s lives.
Again, according to the Federal Reserve, “[G]rowing student debt has contributed to the recent decline in the homeownership rate and to the sharp increase in parental co-residence among millennials.”
So the Fed’s own analysis shows that student debt is a cause for people in their 20s and 30s to live at home with their parents. Amazing.
This certainly hollows out the argument that a university degree is a one-way ticket to a higher salary, brighter future, and better standard of living.
Look, I’m not going to try to tell you that a university education is worthless or a cruel joke.
There are clearly both tangible and intangible benefits to completing a four-year degree, especially for vocations in science, medicine, etc.
But let’s be honest—many kids end up at university by default. They don’t know what they want to study. They don’t know ‘what they want to do’.
They’re just sort of expected to enroll, attend, major in something, and graduate.
Much of this is done merely to please other people or satisfy a social expectation without any real sense of whether the path they’ve chosen at that time is the right one.
Modern university education, in fact, is based on the premise that an 18-year old kid can make up his/her mind about what s/he wants to do in life.
But how can they really know what they want to do in life without first having some exposure to life itself? How can anyone know?
Most students grow up living at home with their parents. They graduate from high school. And they go off to college pressed to make some grand life decision without ever having dipped a toe in the world to get a sense of the infinite options.
From this perspective, spending four to five years discussing theory at such a formative age can be terribly counterproductive.
Subsequently graduating with an enslaving level of student debt can make the experience borderline destructive.
Again, it’s not to say that university has no benefit.
The question is whether it’s worth the cost at that particular time, i.e. whether entire generations should be forced into a cookie-cutter path where everyone spends ages 18-22 in university, graduates with a boatload of debt, starts a career in whichever industry is willing to hire them, and ultimately begins paying taxes.
This route takes away all the choice… the ability to live life deliberately.
It’s how people ‘end up’ doing what they do by default, instead of finding their professional passion and life’s calling.
Most people give up the choice. And it all starts with debt.
It didn’t used to be this way.
Long ago, people actually went to university to learn. That was the goal.
Today we’re told that it’s a necessary stepping stone for social and financial success.
Curious how the data demonstrates the exact opposite.
Like many of our prevailing social constructs, this education system is on the way out.
Just like our unsustainable monetary system in which we award totalitarian control of our money supply to unelected bureaucrats who conjure trillions out of thin air in their sole discretion…
… just like our unsustainable banking system in which commercial banks hold just a tiny fraction of their customer deposits and then gamble away the rest of it…
… and just like our political system in which a government that’s $60 trillion in debt continues to waste money with wanton abandon…
… this education system is unsustainable.
It’s just as unsustainable to expect a 22-year old to enter the world with uncertain prospects and tens of thousand of dollars of debt.
And, like our monetary, banking and political systems, it’s time for a reset.
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I am SHOCKED I tell you, shocked. Obama say's that "Everything is AWESOME", and I beLIEve him </sarc>
$29k will buy a heck of a lot of Alpacas!
Education has been financialized. Put a fork in it.
pods
My wish is that they all default en masse.
they are....and you are going to do the bailing. What is funny...the same idiots will have the same debt after they get bailed....just it will be federal instead of student. We are in delusional denial land on debt! Meanwhile Obama cronies sprint money to taxhavens. How do we stop the criminal bankers?
Yup we're going to do the bailing. Makes me want to take out some nice fat loans right before the bailing begins.
2 sentences into the post I was thinking the same thing. seems like i'm short-changing myself by carrying no debt.
the trick is going to be finding that sweet spot between payment due and the populist critical mass that puts 'write-off student debt' onto ballots.
we've got at least a year or two, i reckon.
Timing is a fool's errand and there are better inflationary hedges than what is purchased with virtually all debt. As best I can tell, the optimal strategy for straddling the fence for an indefinite period of time is to completely deleverage and purchase inflationary hedges. I'll leave the best hedges up to your imagination. To the extent that you have to get by on a cracker, then with no debt, you can do it... to the extent that the rocket ship ignites, then you'll at least have a little exposure.
"(High School) Shooting the Musical, aka After Film School", Feature Length Mockumentary film, is now tearing up the North American Film Festival Circuit.
Shaping up as the next Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Canadian Indie from Vancouver BC Canada...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3576220/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_6
Student Loan Crisis: 18 Facts Both Shocking And Sobering
an extension of high school, grade 13, 14, 15, and 16. now what, do landscaping for the top 10 percent? oh, you could do gods work, ha...
Keep the schools funded! They are GREAT places to brainwash young, impressionable people!
Truthseeker2:
Quit deceptively plugging your blog.
Here are two links to the article you're trying to get personal blog clicks for:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/18-sobering-facts-about-the-unprecedented-student-loan-debt-crisis-in-the-united-states
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-08/18-sobering-facts-about-unprecedented-student-loan-debt-crisis-us
Venturen said " How do we stop the criminal bankers?"
Stop borrowing from them. We bitch and moan about these people and in the very next breath "enable" them. The bankers are the mega obese patient stuffing their face and we are the feeders. One can't exist without the other.
There is no absolute wrong doer here. We are all just as culpable as the bankers. When people start living within their means is precisely the time that the heroin is cut off from the junky bankers.
This could absolutely not have been predicted when GW removed the ability for Student Loans to be defaulted on.
Totally unpredictable!!!!
You either pay the banksters or they pay themselves. Heads you lose, tails they win.
"My wish is that they all default en masse."
Didn't you read the article? 63% are in default or deliquent (so be be in default). That pretty much is a mass default.
Compassion begins at 100% forgiveness and not the slightest bit less. What are you? Some kind of conservative or something?
Green arrow.
I got a Social Security statement years ago that said I had "accumulated" a "balance" of over 100k. At the time, that was 3x my student loan debt (all with SallieMae). Why couldn't I have just had the government offset the two?
Said it before, as soon as something is finacialized, it's fucked.
Unfortunately, EVERYTHING is financialized.
You're saying that I should financialize my wee winky, and then maybe I'll get some? EV Winky backed securities, here we come!
It's no longer four years either, it's very quickly closing in on six years to get through undergraduate because they come to university lacking the education they should have gotten in elementary and high school.
Not to worry comrade, soon we will have universal employment through Obamajobs. For a small federally mandated fee, you and your loved ones can have jobs too!*
*Wages sold separately.
But that 22 year old said she has a school loan to pay off
... one dollar at a time.
MyIRA should cover it.
(isn't that what it's investments are, bundled bad federal paper held as assets?)
From March 25, 2015: Stanford University said Friday it will cover the tuition expenses of students with family incomes below $125,000 a year and “typical assets.”
@Skateboarder
Didn't you see President Underwood talking about AmericaWorks? Wait what? That's a TV show? oh nevermind...
Good because that First Lady is almost as ugly as our real one.
@Skateboarder - Obamajobs sound good ! Is that like the other government dependent jobs - with govt agencies, contractors to government, Wall St. sweetheart legislation, etc, etc, etc ? Half the population is dependent on some type of government check. This should cover the other half.
At least we're not Socialists like those lazy Greeks the media talks about !
They hate us for our freedom.
You don't say. Pilots already pay to work!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_to_fly
The American Education system is another corrupt ponzi scam to enrich a few in academia. It no wonder that academics push for big gov, it's their gravy train. The US spends more than any country on Education yet scores second to last when compared in a global skills study. That's progress.
Harbanger, you hit it on the head. A few are getting wealthy and everyone (especially the students) are getting screwed. Thank you libtards!
Interesting how it mirrors that other ponzi scheme of Wall Street and saving and your "Retirement".
One promising an education that will lead to career employment, the other a "comfortable retirement"; and both an abject lie - the gilded gates to the garden path of false hope and promises, and leading us on to perdition.
They get us coming and going, bled in any way possible, those parasites of the ponziconomy.
The US spends more than any country on Education yet scores second to last when compared in a global skills study.
That's because the schools are grossly UNDERFUNDED! What... do live under a rock or something?
MOAR $$$ is the solution to every problem in the US! Get with the program, man... /s
There is no 'education system'
It's a schooling system that exists.
Big difference.
Even K-12 is fucked. I've talked to a few teachers and students, and the impression that I get is that it's all about to fall apart. I know teachers aren't a popular group on here, but the teachers in NM are treated like absolute garbage. It maybe different in other states, but they're all retiring early or, if it is better out of state, looking for jobs elsewhere. Anybody that they get to replace them is either going to be gone or be a total dumbfuck. All of the ones who simply want to teach are loaded down with an enomrous amount of bureaucratic bullshit surrounding several weeks of standardized testing per year. I had one teacher tell me the schedule, and if I were a teacher or a student, I would be livid. Not only were there weeks of testing, but the teacher had to have the results for 180 students graded and back to the student in less than 2 schooldays. Students have been walking out of class over the shit too. It's one thing to have some testing, but what's going on now is fucking insane. Middle school kids are being put through tests that are longer than the goddamed bar exam. Then we have a reporter who took a bunch of protest letters sent to the secretary of education, picked the two worst letters and said that the kids were dumb because the two worst were representative of the entire group. She did an IPRA test to get the letters and only showed two, so I did an IPRA request to get them and looked at them all.
If you put a good teacher into NM's schools, that teacher will be ground into dust. If you put a bad teacher into NM's schools, good fucking luck getting rid of them.
Everything runs like shit these days. The schools, the government, business, the media, etc...
George Carlin said it best;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE
@El Vaquero - ultimately, it comes down to the parents. If enough of them say "Fuk It !" and keep their kids at home in massive numbers, change would be possible. Unfortunately, the parents come from that same 'schooling' and most have no ideal what real education is. And for many, school seems to be 'free' babysitting for when they are at work.
Within the last couple of years some members of our extended family graduated from high school. Their school is in an upper middle class neighborhood - made up of professionals and business owners. The high school is one of the 'top rated public high schools' in the state. These kids got 'good grades' and were in the 'honor' society. - They cannot write a coherent paragraph. Their math 'skills' are rote. It's obvious that they have no deep understanding of the formulas they use. Critical thinking skills? Forget it. - Many students need to take remedial courses before being able to handle college work (which has also been dumbed down in most places).
What should give us nightmares is the knowledge that members of the police and military have been indoctrinated by this same 'schooling' system. Are you concerned about their taking actions which are un-Constitutional ? The Constitution isn't even mentioned in US schools today. While people were chasing the materialistic 'American Dream' their kids were being dumbed down and brainwashed in 'schools'.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
"Everything runs like shit these days. The schools, the government, business, the media, etc..." That's because it's all under the same management.
If they really wanted to rear younger generations properly, they would try to determine what makes someone tick, as opposed to just throwing them to the wolves and ushering them through the university gates. I can't tell you how many people I meet who have no business doing what they're doing, whether it is lack of intelligence or interest in that particular field. Modern day enslavement.
My little case study is Emory University. The "private" university is directly adjacent to the CDC main campus and it seems to feed directly off the beast like a leech. The university president (he should be called King) lives on a palatial estate in Atlanta that would easily sell for multi-millions. Little plebes like me are allowed to run around the King's forest during the day. Our aristocracy today isn't about earning a wage but access to privilage that is almost beyond calculating. Nothing changes.
40 Million new recruits
unfortunately
Oplerno already offers great classes and no way to go into debt. The current system sucks! You should be able to pick your professor and choice of classes without all the bullshit. You should have better infomraiton regarding instruction and skills your learning. Revolution is here and traditional higher ed is TOAST. What happens when the loans are no longer available? Pop goes the bubble.
Institutions like Oplerno are going to be the only thing standing.
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
The 'education' system does what is designed to do -
Make students passive. Kill their curiosity and creativity. Dumb them down.
The dumbing down project started a century ago. Today it is massively successful. Just talk to recent h.s. graduates and to college students. Talk to their clueless parents & to 'teachers' (both products of the same 'schools'). - - You'll wonder what the Hell they did all those years in classrooms. The tests that 8th graders were required to pass a hundred years ago could not be managed by most college students today. That's 'progress'.
More recently, the crumbling fiat system needs to crank up the rolling debt machine. So they financialized Dumbing Down.
Next they'll probably financialize child abuse and wife beating.
They are lucky to learn about debt slavery at such an early age and low figures. I didn't understand about it until I got a mortgage. And I'm a finance major !!!
Lol, yeah thats basically what they paid for, a little lesson in debt and interest rates and principal and all that. Nothing else really mattered.
The Educational system should refund the tution money paid by the students. That's not even a consideration, is it? Who exactly are we bailing out?
well virtual all university are massive democrat ponzi schemes paying millions to professors that are inebt to teach the next generation how to rip off as many people as possible!
Could you keep it down. You are inhibiting my ability to eagerly anticipate the Final Four.
My oldest, currently in 8th grade and smart as hell, told me the other day he thinks he'd like to become an electrician. I almost jumped out of my chair and did a fucking cartwheel of joy.
If he was smart as hell, he would get a full scholarship like all the top students do. The ones who shouldn't be there are basically paying for the one's who should be there.
I looked up some information on scholarships. Are you aware that 0.3 percent of all students in the US get enough money in scholarships and grants to cover everything? Something like 20,000 students get "full-ride" scholarships, so you're basically saying almost no one should attend a university.
If you meant a full-tuition scholarship, that's fine. I had that along with other scholarships and graduated with minimal debt, but people should realize "full scholarships" are pretty much a myth.
Your kid will be competing against Central American immigrants and their kids in trades. Rich people are not sending their kids to trade skool to learn that shit rolls downhill. Idjit - WTFU. You are happy b/c you don't have to foot the bill. Cannot afford 'em? Dont have em. Think in terms of barrier to entry. Idjit
His kid might have his own contracting firm by age 30 and pulling down $350k per year or more.
The economy is already dead so unless you're in a gov enforced cartel industry, there's no work anyway.
Any industry with a tether to the .gov will survive and prosper. Notice all the home medical 'medicare intermediary' companies popping up? They're going and reading all the medicare legislation that's out there and finding some hook to get into providing something that medicare will cover for the most part, knee braces, back braces, catheters etc. Anything to get hooked into the medicare system and anything that will let them wedge themselves between the recipient and the .gov.
That's just one example too, there are numerous others of similar activity.
350k in gold or Federal Reserve toilet paper?
...or he could do a two-fer, electrician AND an AAS degree for HVAC. He'd be swimming in cash by age 30.
Lots of boomers are gonna need A/C in their twilight years...
HVAC is pretty big right now, i hears. esp. in the expensive parts of CA, FL, HI. good advice.
And those clogged pipes and sewers are more of an emergency.
Plumbers do well.
I tried that once, swimming in cash. Very uncomfortable and scratchy.
If the kid studied to be an electrician & HVAC, but was also guided into obtaining a truly liberal education he would have a great foundation.( A liberal education was originally about liberating one's own mind and learning to truly Think for yourself, not the fake copy most PC places 'teach' today. Just try to disagree with the viewpoints of your professors and see what happens). Yes, you can educate yourself in this and it costs little to nothing to do so. Critical thinking skills are at the heart of it.
Then if he did some foreign travel on his own - particularly in poor third world countries - he would have a great background for recognizing the bullshit in his own society.
As they say - "You can't put an old head on young shoulders. "
If I could snap my fingers and be 18 today, I would take a much different path than what worked years ago.
The world has drastically changed, but most students and parents don't seem to know that.
I have to question that. I personally know 4 who got free rides and am aware of others. I know immigrants who got their masters and doctorates on fellowships and then had TA jobs pulling in $40,000 a yr. This is down here in lowly Alabama during the years my kids were there. Just think how many there must be in large cities. It is a huge racket designed to further the indoctrination of youths and enrich liberal eudcators.
My daughter got the top scholarship at her private college and it paid for 4 years of tuition, but it was not indexed for inflation. It did not pay room and board and by the time she hit her senior year there was a gap of a couple thousand between what the scholarship paid and what the current tuition was. She was valedictorian. She got the top law school scholarship and it was the same deal. tuition olny and the first year tuition times 3 years.
You probably have to be a hardship case to be considered for paying room and board. There are probably some very competitive schools that have huge endowments that are searching for some very special, key students to fill some gaps that pay it all. But yes, very rare. A lot of super gifted students don't need financial help anyhow and it would not make a difference in enticing them.
I hate show offs, its SO obambian...
LOL. That was my dad's advice when I was in high school, and I almost took it.
He was a machinist and Tool & Dye Maker. Almost always had a job, and was never out of work for more than a few weeks. Not even unemployed for long enough to collect UI. He retired at 55, bought a house in BC for cash. For years he'd go to Europe every few years (see friends & family), and spent 3 months in Cancun every winter (and 'went native'), to escape the cold and snow.
Funny thing is, before going on to University, I tried to get a job as a Control Room Operator at a hydro-electric power station. The Aptitude Test indicated that although I had the smarts, I was not a good match in the psychological profile, to make a good fit. WTF? I LIKE control rooms. Go figure.
The world changes, what worked for the father or grandfather may be the worst thing for the son to follow.
Machinist have gotten hit hard. Electricians are currently one of the better trades on commercial sites but even they are finding immigrates moving into the trade and the pay suffering due to the oversupply of workers.
My grandfather did well in the hard times. If my father had followed his steps he would have been screwed badly. Not only by trade but by the company. If I had followed my fathers steps I would have been screwed.
Generations one after the other went to work on the auto line, then one generation found the world changed.
Residential contractors used to be good middle income careers. Then the latins took over the work. Not just the jobs, the latins are the subcontractors.
Yes. 30 years in carpentry, constructing homes. 6 figure income lost to latinos who work without licenses, insurance or paying taxes. You said it well. Nothing here but the national chains who hire them for half what the going rate was. Poorer quality and cookie cutter styles but it is impossible to compete.
My neighbor and I both needed a new roof - our homes are similar - his has a slightly larger roof.
He had a bunch of white guys show up - it took them 7 days and it cost him $11,000.
I had a bunch of Mexicans show up (at 7:00 AM) - they finished the job by 6:00 PM the same day and the total cost was $6,500. They used staples and nail guns to "save time" - my guys used hammers and drove every nail by hand.
When a hurricane blew through a few years later - my roof stayed on - no damage - he lost 1/3 of his shingles.
His insurance company covered the damage - he ask me how he could get a hold of the guys that did my roof.
Only a racist cunt thinks Mexicans don't do good work - just because they do a better job and do it for less - doesn't make it bad.
Admit it, Kirk...you just wanted to sit in the Captain's chair.
Well, just be sure to tell him to keep his electricity away from our tin foil hats cause that shit burns when it melts !!!
My son worked his ass off to stay out of debt.
Had a small fund to work with, which helped.
He decided to go with being a chef.
He's now qualified, with no debt at 20.
I know what you mean.
Give it a year when he gets a wiff of some of that high school poon. Then ask him the question again.
I would encourage him to get a degree in electrical engineering.
He can always twist wires & lay cable while he is in school part time or during the summer - that will also help him learn Spanish. Both good skills for an electrical engineer.
Just be real careful about what engineering field you choose. Don't pick one that can be easily outsourced - - say to bright guys in India.
Print another few trillion and give everyone free education too. It's working so well for healthcare.
"And, like our monetary, banking and political systems, it’s time for a reset."
The time for a reset was March 2009, if TPTB would have let it reset -- maybe eased it down a little. But no, we had to go and juice the system and pretend green shoots and all that. So... here we are down the road and there's that damn can again. Let's kick it.
Put it on my Tab.......
Since when did Obamacare become free? Gruber was right. I guess people haven't filed their taxes yet and seen the penalty for not paying for their gov mandated insurance.
Rearrange a couple of budgets.
Swap military with education.
I think things would improve.
Kids graduating in the UK leave their third rate college with £44k (US$66k) of dent, they're started down the path to this massive debt just months after they're allowed to apply for a modest mobile phone contract.
I went to grad school in the UK, at one of its better schools.
When job recruiters came around, some of us non-Brits went to check it out (for grins). We were shocked how piss-poor the UK wages/salaries were. About half of US or German wages.
No wonder so many leave for Europe, Canada or the US, the first chance they get! And no wonder that so many of my UK classmates decided to apply their math & stats skills in The City, where they actually made a living wage.
"Follow the money". Smart people and crooks do. Especially really smart crooks. E.g., Wall St.
Exactly.
I hear engineers at Spacex like top at like 70k a year and you need to be damn smart and work like a slave to be there.
All the smart engineers go to wall st/finance/insurance where they will work hard, but atleast be paid what they're (somewhat) worth.
Theres no money in 'making' things anymore unless you're the guy who owns the place.
Shit, even know some basic Excel will net you a good job in finance if you're smart ...
Can I borrow everything?
Not all the UK. In Scotland, university tuition is "free" for residents.
My children understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom. One is no good without the other after all.
I heard a good explanation of the difference a while ago. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing it doesn't go in a fruit salad.
Unless, of course, it's a tomato salad.
How did this come about? Is this about it?
- Bankruptcy reform made student loans no longer eligible for dismissal
- Lenders realizes student loans can no longer be discharged in bankruptcy, and ease lending standards.
- Colleges see the demand for higher education go up, and incrementally raise tuitions
And that's the higher minded consequences.
Yes, the pontifs like Krugman should be executed. Justice would be that being done by his own students.
Right. But from a more philosophical point of few, and excluding the Krug, the original well intended idea was to get people to pay off their loans. Former Bankruptcy laws were pretty lenient. It was relatively easy to rack up a lot of debt and then draw a get-out-of-paying-back-your-student-loan card.
Someone was eating those loans. The taxpayer, correct?
So an attempt to was made (again, assuming the high minded POV) to fix that. Make the system more fair.
But their seems to a law of the universe that says fixing one problem often creates more problems. Damned if you do ...
Just more evidence that we should have let all those motherfuckers fail in 2008/2009, at all levels.
I'm with you there brother!
The real problem is banks completely ignoring due dilligence and giving out loans to anyone who can fog a mirror, just to produce more financializeable debt.
At that point you are bound to get a lot of delinquent loans.
Agreed. And that is where any higher minded intentions devolve into greed. A system was found worth corrupting, so the weasels moved in to corrupt it. As you and member 'pods' was saying near the top; financialization. In and of itself, not necessarily evil. But a tool that is custom made for evil doing.
Come on - a whopping 29,000 USD ? If you can't honor that commitment...
Should we make their parents cough up their $66,000 portion of the national debt? Both the student loan debt and the national debt is money long gone!
Ok - 29K is such a burden - create infrastructure jobs and tap the income to pay off the loans. Don't simply forgive the debt. Get them off the couch - and off their iPhones.
Youre blaming the symptom, not the disease. The disease is this "everyone needs to go to college" bullshit sentiment. End that, you end the problem. Blaming students for not working in this shithole of an economy and jobs market is like blaming your nose for a cold.
Sorry - I just finished my 2014 taxes and am in a sour mood. How's this - do you still have to prove you are looking for work to collect unemployment ? How about these individuals who can't meet their commitments are held to the same standard. At best - postpone their repayment - penalty free.
I dont know, Ive never collected unemployment but I think you do have to. The standards are probably bullshit however. I have no problem with your last two sentences except that if you make that the case, it should apply to every government backed loan, not just student loans. They are preying on a bunch of naive 18-22 year olds ffs. They dont know any better.
They are told how great it is to have a college degree, that you MUST go to college, they offer a basically blank check, and the naive kid believes it, goes to school, graduates, and there is no job. At least nothing like they told him/her there would be. Oh and you cant get rid of your debt, no matter what. The people that need to be hung are the assholes pushing that message. Not the poor kid who fell for it, he/she didnt know any better.
Then perhaps the real target should be high school guidance counselors to set the proper expectations. A BS degree in Psychology or phys ed might not make sense. I kind of have my tongue in my cheek but - I'll bet a large number of girls still go to college to meet the right guy and I'll bet a large number of guys go to college to put off working 52 X 40. (But I know there are truely dedicated students - and I'm sure in the end they will have the skills to meet their commitments).
edit : we were reponding at the same moment.
I cant disagree with you there. The problem is bigger than just high school counselors though. They are brainwashed too. Unfortunately 90% of people are brainwashed in this society with this "college for everyone" bullshit. I dont think I know anyone personally who thinks otherwise. Society needs a serious dose of reality.
Oh, there are "green shoots" (pardon the phrase) of awakening starting to happen here and there. I am a child of two teachers who sent me through college, and I finished and work in an industry related to one of my degrees. However, I have a 6 yr old daughter, and my mom and I talk about the prospects for her education. Mom has expressed a skepticism about higher education that it was refreshing to hear, especially from a former teacher (both my folks are retired). We both want my daughter to attend college...but not to get a Theater Arts/French Art History double major. I won't pay for that. I also have an advanced degree from an online school (much cheaper and more flexible than brick-and-mortar) and I'd be okay if she wanted to go that route when the time comes.
I'd be happy as hell if she had the talent and inclination to do something way different too. If she can show me a good business plan and convince me she means it, I'd probably be willing to take the nest egg I'm gathering for her and plop it into a business she wanted to start. I'd pay for tech school or whatever. But it's gotta have real value, and she has to convince me of that.
Of course, the reward for her is that if she IS able to convince me of something, whether it be the worth of some sort of STEM degree or the prospects of a business or whatever, I will hand over the cash. My parents did that for me so that I left school debt free, and that's a legacy that was very much appreciated and that I plan to pass along to the next generation. And my folks did that even though I actually was a Theater Arts major (albeit a more serious one than most) for the first 1.5 years. Until I woke up and aligned my goals with the seriousness of the world I was fast approaching. You probably heard the sigh of relief from my parents from wherever you were.
Final note: just forgiving all that debt is bullshit if it means using taxpayer money to make it good. If they do a jubilee on that then there better be a wholesale clearing out of all the banks, major and minor, who deal in student debt, and there better be people going to jail and jumping off balconies. I went back to school, took out about $20,000 in debt to do it and had it paid back in a little over one year after I left school. There is no freaking way I'm that much smarter than the average person, I'm just willing to work my ass off to get out of debt. Maybe a break needs to be cut, but there needs to be some pain for the stupid decisions these kids made. It wasn't Joe Taxpayer that decided to burn through tens (or hundreds) of thousands in cash for a big party. Welcome to adulthood, kids. It sucks. You'll love it.
"It wasn't Joe Taxpayer that decided to burn through tens (or hundreds) of thousands in cash for a big party."
Bullshit, Joe taxpayer was more than compliant by not protesting the hell out of this shit. I don't remember seeing too many people saying this was a terrible idea. I don't remember an outcry against the president or Congress for doing this. The people get the government (and their retarded decisions) they deserve. Read em and weep Joe taxpayer.
I've taken unemployment twice. Yes, the standards are bullshit. Basically you can phone it in regarding your job search...
Divedivedive - I don't think they have to look for work while on unemployment. We had a substandard employee we let go. He filed for unemployment & got it. $70/week. He has sat on unemployment for the whole 26 weeks. There are signs up all over town at restaurants & retail that they are hiring. He is a young man who is perfect for these entry levels jobs. But here he sits, getting his $70/week.....and this is the last week. What does he do all day, you ask? He spouts communist drivel on Facebook all day.
In this job market that is a fortune
Absolutely no different from the mid-seventies - when repayment of student debt was no big issue.
Are you kidding? There was still something called manufacturing in the US going on back then, colleges were waaaaay cheaper, meaning debt was way less... you dont really have a leg to stand on there bud
I agree, that's the price range of a moderately priced car. If that's a burden that speaks more to the job market than "crushing" debt.
"Come on - a whopping 29,000 USD ? If you can't honor that commitment..."
Reading your comment and almost all others, I keep seeing a PSYCHOLOGICAL mindset (a Paradigm) that suggest we're talking about Debt that is based on real money, i.e. money based on REAL assets -- that are earned or lost. This is NOT the case in our monetary system.
Reminder: When you're talking about a "fiat" (elastic) currency system, based on FRB and Derivatives, you have to consciously remind yourself that this is all merely a BOOKIE GAME.
And the game within the Game is about [drum-roll]... CONTROL. Debt is merely and INSTRUMENT of control over the Sheeple. Hence the need for "PERMANENT DEBT for PERMANENT CONTROL".
"Allow me the control of currency issue of a country, and I care naught who makes its laws". -A.M. Rothschild
Mull it over and over, till you fully 'Grok it'.
Grok it ?
We no longer live in the US - and yet we still need to pay US taxes. We never had a mortgage (of any real size/longevity). We never had kids - no college worries. We both paid off our college loan obligations. We both worked our tails off for 30+ years. Fortunately we were never invested in the market on its downturns. Never paid a penny in credit card debt. At the same time we were both poor enough at one point in our lives to eat peanut butter sandwiches and mac and cheese as our main means of substienece.
mull that over - dude.
its a lot easier when you don't have kids. way to toot your own horn though.
The thing I like most about posts I make on ZH is when there is a mixture of up votes / down votes. That shows me I've struck a nerve (of sorts).
Propaganda says a degree will pay for itself.
Maybe a few decades ago, in the present world, a basic degree will get you one step above flipping burgers.
Hard to pay off $29.000 at the same time as housing, feeding and clothing yourself at a buck above minimum wage.
i am so grateful my son maintains a scholarship worthy GPA. there's a message in there somewhere (except for the grateful part) if you follow my drift.
My 3.91 GPA 8th grader intends to study abroad, at one of the Top 50 universities in the world.
She figured it out that it's a LOT cheaper, and more "educational" in the true sense of the word, as she gets to take in a foreign culture and alternate worldviews (to positively challenge her US worldviews).
That's all very well, but I don't have the heart to tell her that the "worldviews" between the US, and those in Canada or Western Europe are not that great. Still a good life experience though, and a resume differentiator.
I met someone yesterday who works for, or is an alumnus of, Woodstock School in India. Google it. Anyway, this guy told me that Woodstock is going to expand their student body to include a handful of one-semester kids, mostly of high school age. Its a great boarding school and has been around for more than 150 years.
If your kid wants to get his/her worldly experience out of the way, this may do it.
Best.
Send a daughter to India? Do you realize how little respect women in India get? They are rbeaten and raped and the laws do not protect them.
Teach her to catch a ball. The feminazis forced title 9 through, might as well take advantage.
Check out Mexico !
Check out Mexico !
Why?
Reset is long overdue.
Why can't these kids just skip colllege and flee to a third world shit-hole with all of their gold and live the good life with Simon......??
Hes only got so many couches bro
Couches? Sheeeiiiiit. Those are plentiful on the sidewalks of Newark. Some of them might not even be on fire...yet.
Yeah so are burned out cars... Newark is like a preview of hell
It is very important to get those young skulls full of mush into the higher education system for indoctrination.
I think these numbers are grossly understated when you factor in other sources of financial support.
1) Mom & Pop
2) part time jobs (Hooking & Drug sales)
I dated a girl back in the late 90's that had $100K in student loan debt just from 'Law School' and this wasn't an Ivey league school by a longshot. Her undergrad was paid for.
Just lower the damn interest rate. 6.55% is criminal. If you can't discharge, that should show up in the IR.
"Look, I’m not going to try to tell you that a university education is worthless or a cruel joke."
-Tell that to the asshole that racked up $200k in student loan debt getting his degree in Puppeteering...
Jeff Dunham is doing alright
More evidence of how fooked our society is.
or this:
http://lgbt.sdsu.edu/
This licks like a Prerequisite for future Community Organizers, who are aspiring for political office at the Federal, State or County/City level.
Those whacky millennials
The only way to avoid another housing/debt like crisis is to make the interest on student loans fully deductible. Something needs to be done to incentivise borrowers to stay in the system and pay off their debt. I called my senator with a plan to potentially save the student debt system and he never acknowledged the call... tea party types care only about the deficit and he would have been toast if he had suggested anything that might add a cickel to the deficit.
What will obviously happen is that those who default will be forgiven by the government while those who continue to live up to their obligation will get hosed... does that sound familiar.
If they printed it, you don't owe it.
The banksters need to repay us.
The Student Loans system was never sustainable to begin with because all students are subjected to the largesse of BIG Government, BIG Banks n' Bankster compensation, and neoLiberal educators. All these parasites require their fees to manage the largesse of a systemic Ponzi scheme that was never sustainable from inception. Without the miracle of modern day monetary alchemy the whole system grinds to a hault and then proceeds to implode before our eyes. Fannie, Freddie, Sally Mae, AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, et cetera, et cetera.
NOTE: The default rate is supposed to be 5% NOT over 60%.
Blame divorced middle class white woman - remeber they loved Bill C. no matter what he did - who forced gender equality on us, demanded a "college education" opportunity for "everyone," whether they were suited for it or not (think learning styles - very different from child to child); and ran trade schools out of the public school system - really dumb shit idea. At least 2/3rds of today's grads should have gotten workplace skill training before college to be self sufficient - there is always time for a 20-30ish year old to go to finish schooling.
Now watch the politically corect gang - bunch of controlling scoiopaths wanting to run the world and everyone else's life, but never ever admitting they made terrible mistakes on the facts of what was good for the children - spout their usual drivel about women's rights.
The US Department of State ... the logical result of the 'Woman's Rights Movement' ... along with 50 million dead preborns
Modern slavery requires slaves to feed, clothe, house and train themselves for their owners. In other words, slaves have to provide all the maintenance themselves. They have to reproduce for owners too.
"The slave receives a permanent and fixed amount of maintenance; the wage-labourer does not. He must try to get a rise of wages in the one instance, if only to compensate for a fall of wages in the other. If he resigned himself to accept the will, the dictates of the capitalist as a permanent economical law, he would share in all the miseries of the slave, without the security of the slave."
— Karl Marx - Value, Price and Profit 1865
In the mid-1960s, Bob Dylan famoulsy remarked that the only difference between old-age homes and college is that more people die in college.
Pay it back or get conscripted in to the U.S. Armed forces.
Prepare for WW3.
There's a new twist...running with the theme and following the trend ofgenerational sacrifice, the former sacrificing the next, BIG GOV allows you the freedom to send your kid in your stead.
I'm finishing my Masters. I pay outta pocket. I prolly shoulda taken a loan and said "stuff it!"
Nah, theyre not gonna let Obomber go through with that forgive debt bullshit. The banks want their cut.