The Human Face of Student Debt

[sanantone]

Not that it matters too much, but loan forgiveness can't be sought when all else fails.

Why not? If you can't find a good-paying job and think it will take you 20-30 years to pay off your loan, then get a public service or some other approved occupation in order to have your loans forgiven after 120 payments.

In order to qualify, you have a perfect payment history for those 10 years and continued employment in an approved job before you can apply.

I don't see how this contradicts what I said. You need to have 120 payments while working for an approved organization or in an approved occupation. The payments while in an approved job do not have to be consecutive, so you can take longer than 10 years to make the 120 qualifying payments. Also, you have to be on an income-driven repayment plan. If you are late or don't pay the full required amount for one billing cycle, then that one payment will not count as a qualifying payment. However, your other on time and full payments will still count.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans...ic-service

[sanantone]

I have compassion and pity because it's not 1 or 2 people, it's TRILLIONS of dollars worth of people. Trillions. Whether or not you feel sorry for someone in this video isn't really the macro-point, it's kinda the micro-point, which is easy to dismiss as stupidity. I used to have an attitude of "well you should have known better sucka" which would be true if there were EVER a point in secondary education that someone taught people about obtaining a postsecondary education responsibly. Fact is, that it's learn as you go. Who sat you down and taught you, at age 17, to choose a career with good ROI, how to borrow responsibly, to evaluate the quality of colleges you were considering (using some random criteria made up by some expert) and then how to apply that in the workplace. Maybe your parent did, maybe a teacher did, maybe a counselor did - and if that's true, you were one of the lucky ones.
The fact is that there is an enormous hole surrounding this topic, and most people fall into it.

No one taught me anything. I accept full responsibility for being sucked in by Western International University (owned by the same company as University of Phoenix). Yes, they do take advantage of low-income individuals, but the blame ultimately falls on me, and I'm not looking for anyone to bail me out. I'm not going to cry on TV for sympathy or ask Congress to forgive my loans. I didn't search around for the cheapest options, and I used my refund checks to pay for living expenses knowing that I would eventually have to pay that money back. A lot of people make the same types of mistakes, but the mistakes are still their own.

The average debt per person, I believe, is under $30k. The median debt is likely to be much lower since the average is skewed by outliers on the high end. Really, a minority of college students graduate with crippling amounts of debt. There is a trillion dollars worth of student loan debt because more people are going to college than in the past and because a minority of people are responsible for a disproportionate amount.

These data are for households with student loan debt.

The average balance of outstanding student loan debt for households with some debt was $25,700. The median debt was $13,000, and seventy-five percent of borrowers had less than $29,000.

The Typical Household with Student Loan Debt | Brookings Institution

[cookderosa]

Why not? If you can't find a good-paying job and think it will take you 20-30 years to pay off your loan, then get a public service or some other approved occupation in order to have your loans forgiven after 120 payments.



I don't see how this contradicts what I said. You need to have 120 payments while working for an approved organization or in an approved occupation. The payments while in an approved job do not have to be consecutive, so you can take longer than 10 years to make the 120 qualifying payments. Also, you have to be on an income-driven repayment plan. If you are late or don't pay the full required amount for one billing cycle, then that one payment will not count as a qualifying payment. However, your other on time and full payments will still count.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans...ic-service

the phrase "when all else fails" implies a person has tried everything else- it failed- and so they're going to try a last-ditch solution. I simply pointed out that loan forgiveness programs are not all else fails options, they require careful planning and discipline. Perhaps you meant something different than what you said, nevertheless....carry on.

[LaterBloomer]

I didn't watch the video as I'd be joining sanatone at the brick wall. What is it with people and debt? I have antenna TV, and the strongest reception is those for the shopping channels! It would be SO easy to be drawn in to buying stuff that you don't need for "X number of easy payments."

Folks do NOT need a house. Skip the American dream. If you local economy goes south, then it's MUCH easier to pick up and go where the jobs are when you have a lease and not a mortgage. Folks need to be just a clear-minded about education. It used to be said that investing in yourself (education) was the best investment. Well, I'm not saying it isn't (I'm here, aren't I?), but make sure you're investing in blue-chip and not penny stocks. Rather than feel sorry for these folks, I hope that they pay their debts and learn from their mistakes.

[rebel100]

If by moved you mean shouting at the screen then you got me. Life has a learning curve, some are quicker on the uptake than others. Taking on significant debt for the hope of a better future is a suckers bet. Due diligence is in order, parents need to parent, adults need to act like adults. Chines Medicine for $300K ???? What the heck is "motion graphics"? Did we do even a cursory search on employ-ability as a lawyer these days? $30K for medical assisting????

Sorry, stupid oughta hurt just a little. It is sad, but the 1st generation kid sorta summed it all up for me, people can teach themselves with a little time on the internet. A google search and a receptive mind and any of them might have found their way here and been saved from life crushing slavery to student debt. But some people don't even want to hear it. We had a visitor to these very pages not so long ago that also wanted to study holistic medicine for a small fortune, then she switched to Liberty and refused to be dissuaded from her course...you just can't help some people and i think the video was pretty much full of those type of people.

[smrt]

I used to have an attitude of "well you should have known better sucka" which would be true if there were EVER a point in secondary education that someone taught people about obtaining a postsecondary education responsibly. Fact is, that it's learn as you go. Who sat you down and taught you, at age 17, to choose a career with good ROI, how to borrow responsibly, to evaluate the quality of colleges you were considering (using some random criteria made up by some expert) and then how to apply that in the workplace. Maybe your parent did, maybe a teacher did, maybe a counselor did - and if that's true, you were one of the lucky ones.
The fact is that there is an enormous hole surrounding this topic, and most people fall into it.

All of this is so true. When I started out 15 years ago, my parents didn't have the knowledge to guide me, and my high school wouldn't let me take vo-tech classes and College Prep classes at the same time, so I was pushed into a corner in which I had to choose between having a Plan A of going to college or having a Plan B where I fall back on doing hair if college doesn't pay off like it should. People are expected to know how to navigate these things, and there's only help if you know how to look for it, have time to look for it, and have the knowledge to understand it, and the savviness to know when they're being sold a bill of goods by a charismatic admissions counselor, or a misguided guidance counselor, or a parent who's living in an economy that hasn't existed in 10 years.

[rebel100]

All of this is so true. When I started out 15 years ago, my parents didn't have the knowledge to guide me, and my high school wouldn't let me take vo-tech classes and College Prep classes at the same time, so I was pushed into a corner in which I had to choose between having a Plan A of going to college or having a Plan B where I fall back on doing hair if college doesn't pay off like it should. People are expected to know how to navigate these things, and there's only help if you know how to look for it, have time to look for it, and have the knowledge to understand it, and the savviness to know when they're being sold a bill of goods by a charismatic admissions counselor, or a misguided guidance counselor, or a parent who's living in an economy that hasn't existed in 10 years.

I can understand this, but I would still argue that someone going into college today should be armed with a lot more information. People don't seem able to think for themselves, that's a shame...and I suppose timeless.

[clep3705]

I choose my career path long before the internet. The plan was to find the right graduate program to prepare me to make a comfortable and secure living. I went to the library and read everything I could about job forecasts, salaries, and cost of graduate school. But I went further. I paid close attention to people who were successful in the fields I was considering.

I was very honest with myself. How motivated was I to study those different fields? How smart were the successful people? What kind of work and life balance could be expected? For certain fields, I realized I wasn't smart enough. I decided the work and life balance for CPAs wasn't for me. There were a few fields that interested me but offered no hope of a comfortable living. I also considered if the particular field had a solid scientific basis supporting it. I made a good career choice where I ended up actually succeeding instead of dreaming of succeeding. I worked during graduate school and never took on any debt by going to an affordable state university and really applying myself.

I also have gone back to school several times to keep myself employable and interested in what I do.

[sanantone]

The most basic thing I think anyone with common sense would research is salary. If you research nothing else, it should be salary. Wouldn't you want to know how much you're going to make? If you see that medical assistants are making $13 an hour, wouldn't that make you debate whether or not you should spend a lot of money to become one? When I was 19 and wanted to become a history teacher, I went to local school district websites to see how much they were paying. This is something I did on my own without any guidance. There were no college graduates in my family when I graduated from high school.

[sanantone]

the phrase "when all else fails" implies a person has tried everything else- it failed- and so they're going to try a last-ditch solution. I simply pointed out that loan forgiveness programs are not all else fails options, they require careful planning and discipline. Perhaps you meant something different than what you said, nevertheless....carry on.

I meant what I said. "When all else fails" means that every other idea or option has not worked, so you are going to try the last one. It doesn't matter if the last option requires planning (the planning in this situation is neither complicated nor extensive) or discipline.