1

So. We go to college. We have to borrow money to go ...because our parents cannot help us (or can't help us enough, or we don't have parents, or whatever). We're stupid, barely adults, with little (or no) experience in financial matters. We're lucky if we can balance our pathetic little check books (we're lucky if we even figure out that you should balance your check books ...and if you've never had an NSF fee for a check you wrote to buy groceries that went $3.92 over your balance, which cost you $20 in NSF-fees before you could borrow $30 in an embarrassed panic from your best friend to cover the check & those fees, well bully for you). We get in over our heads.

It's what idiot kids do: make bad - or more correctly, thoughtless - choices.

"I didn't know" ...or think ...or consider ...or have any clue at all ...

...is normal for a late-teens/early 20's pampered darling in 20th/21st century America.

And SOME of us - yes, us alex (I both sympathize and empathize) - took out those loans WAY before student loans were "bankruptcy proof" (my loans, my college career, were well before Congress passed the laws saying student loans could not be bankrupted).

...and - some of us - found it took us years to get any kind of decent paying job at all upon graduation. Or find a continuous job, that lasted for more than a year or two. Or even find any job (I was unemployed and/or underemployed for far more fucking years after college then I was able to find work ...any work, menial, "out-of-my-field" or what-the-hell ever ...I mowed lawns one summer, one very-bad-year).

...and - some of us - just made "bad decisions' about life and money and what-the-hell-ever. (Kind of like those people who bought homes they couldn't afford, that avaricious bankers loaned to anyways, that the government is so sympathetic over.)

...but now - some of use - are making decent money (though not enough to service those loans, for whatever-the-fuck reason), but we're paying commensurate taxes of those decent-money jobs.

But those fees, that interest, has grown to - perhaps - insupportable sums.

I've paid more than enough in additional state and federal taxes (never being lucky enough, or wise enough, to have been able to avail myself of various tax-advantaged programs, like the federal mortgage deduction for example IYKWIMAITYD, has  meant I often paid $10K - $17K more per year - for years - in taxes, than the average of other people in my tax bracket) to cover that fucking idiot kid's debts. ADDED taxes that I - and that other, protected-class taxpayers did NOT.NOT.NOT have to pay - that would have paid off those fucking loans in ANY one.fucking.year period. (I apologize if I come across as the resentful bastard that I am btw: not.)

...which debt grew - and continued to grow - rather exponentially in the various unemployed/underemployed interim periods.

The student loan program is a fucking racket. Don't you dare feel guilty about desiring reform, alex. Don't you dare buy into the fucking guilt that those bastards want you to feel.

You were screwed. You continue to be screwed.

Reform is owed to all those kids - now adults - and their families, who were told that they would forever be second-class citizens if they didn't some way, by hook or crook, get that fucking useless piece of shit college degree at whatever cost ...and bought into that piece of propaganda.

Yes. I have an opinion about this.

You ain't the Lone Ranger dear.

2 So, the very smart kids who go to Law school can't understand the fine print in the contracts they sign.  These are the same folks who go on to become the Lawyers who write the fine print.

How the hell are the rest of us (not quite bright enough for Law school) supposed to understand?


Doctor heal thyself. 

3

^which will happen about the same time that idiots learn to read blog-posts: missed every damn point she made, eh dickwad?

4 I'm curious, davis, what did you get your degree in?  

5 I didn't miss the points Alex was making, she is on target; however I was trying to make a point as well.

I love Alex, shes smart & funny and I've enjoyed reading her postings.

I'm going back into Lurk mode.

See ya

6 It's too late for you losers, but re:

1 There are some professions that could arguably be considered essential to national security.  Currently Arab linguist would be one (as an example) I would not be opposed to the government picking up the tab for a certain percentage of people attending those programs.

The Army has a Student Loan Repayment program for enlistees with outstanding student loans, which, the last I heard, paid up to $65k in student loans for a 3 year enlistment (AND, as an added bonus, college grads enlist at paygrade E-4).

7 The Army has a Student Loan Repayment program for enlistees with outstanding student loans, which, the last I heard, paid up to $65k in student loans for a 3 year enlistment

I was totally going to go into JAG but I have some health stuff that prohibited it.  Also the short and fat thing and while I can fix fat there's not much I can do about the hobbitry. 
 

8 *keyword*  "sugarmama"

9 We're stupid, barely adults, with little (or no) experience in financial matters.
*snip*
We get in over our heads.
It's what idiot kids do: make bad - or more correctly, thoughtless - choices.

I'm so fucking sick of this bullshit. The insinuation by people in their 40s that late teens and early 20s people are by default drooling morons incapable of even the most simple of abstract thought and planning.

Look. The people who took out loans without even considering whether they will be able to afford them did not do so because they were in their 20s, they did so because they were morons. If they hadn't gotten into the student loan trap at 18, they would have gotten into the interest-only mortgage trap at 27.

There is a certain percentage of people who will be financially responsible without having to see what irresponsibility reaps, and a much larger percentage who will only be financially responsible after the consequences of their idiotic decisions crash down around them.

And I think that not allowing student loan debt to be forgiven through bankruptcy is the single largest contributing factor to the exploding cost of college tuition. Companies don't even have to think twice before evaluating whether it is a wise idea to loan somebody $110,000 for a degree in underwater oboe playing, because those loans have to be paid back. Incidentally, this attitude was also a contributing factor to the mortgage bubble. Mortgage originators would approve anybody and everybody, because they knew they could always turn around and sell the loans to Fannie and Freddie, or some other bank. The people who were approved for their mortgages assumed that the banks wouldn't approve them for more money than they could afford to pay, so they bought the most expensive houses they could.

10 I suppose one solution would be to stop offering student loans.  Then people who can't afford to pay for college out-of-pocket and who weren't high enough performers in high school to earn scholarships won't have to be bothered with those pesky loans whose terms they can't understand.

11 I'm in most of the same boat as Alex, without the default fee (ouch). My first few years out of law school weren't exactly as high-paying as I'd imagined before I went in, so I deferred my loans for as long as I could. Unfortunately, when my deferral period ended I couldn't afford to make the minimum payment on my federally-guaranteed loans so I "refinanced" them thru the gummint right before interest rates took a nosedive. So now I have a mortgage at 7+% and I rent a crappy one-bed apartment. Combine that with some rather pointless use of credit in college and I'm just now getting out of that hole as I prep for my 20-year HS reunion. I'd think (and this may still be the case, I'm not sure) that proof that you're no longer able to work in your chosen field due to circumstances beyond your control should still be grounds for discharging student loans in BK. Not, perhaps, for getting your law license yanked for malfeasance, but certainly for traumatic head injuries or something similar. Even if you couldn't get rid of default fees or any capitalized principal, why not make it possible for student loans to be refinanced like mortgages? If you've got fixed-rate loans, at least allow the students to take advantage of lower rates as they come along. That and maybe extended repayment terms (I know, lower payments, higher total paid) could allow students to have a bit more flexibility in choosing their careers once they finish borrowing the money.

12 Yes, I have read similar stories earlier also and completely agree with this, You really did a good job by sharing it with us. Payday loans canada

13 That's true that people do not realize that student loans are the one debt that does not go away. There is no discharge in bankruptcy.

14 Government makes rules and policies affecting private industry. They are answerable and accountable to the public.

15 I am shocked to hear such information about student loans.No bargaining, no negotiation ,now I understand why stuident loan is becoming an issue in the country.
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16 Yes, Student loans are a good thing to resolve the financial issues and thus having the studies without any major or minor problems.  Goa Escorts Services

17 Student loan is really a burning issue nowadays. Now students are not only with degrees but also with debts. I think a better plan is required to be out of this debt by gov.

18 There is certain people who would be financially responsible without being aware of the irrisponsibilities,If fixed rate loan is provided the extended repayment term could allow the students to have more flexibility in choosing career.

19 It is true that student loan is obvious option for getting education in good universities .However, I personally think that such loan should be the last option and it will be quite better if education will be not so costly.

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20 Actually this time taking the loan can cost us very much because we have to apy the high interest rate and even the job is not secure in these conditions.Students are facing very much trouble because of this and there are very less job in the market so the student loan is mounting up very high.

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