Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Student Loan Debt Forgiveness......

My son graduated at the beginning of June.
Honors student, just outside the top 10 in his class, great test scores, etc.
He absolutely wrote off college as an option and, for the same reasons as your son, wrote off the military.
He had several options he was considering and opted to start working for a local electrician this past week. He seems to be liking the work, and his supervisor reached out today to comment on his work ethic and attitude.
I can't think of a single reason to criticize his plan.

There are lots of ways to end up in a good place. I suspect a young man like him would find success with any of them. He’ll do fine.

College is still very doable but I’d advise a student to be cost conscious. Most of the first year can often be done before graduating HS. By combining community college with scholarships and part time work, a 4 yr degree can be had with limited borrowing. Just be sure to pick one that pays.

I don't disagree.
I'm not anti-college, I'm anti useless college. If one is pursuing a career which necessitates a degree, so be it. As you pointed out, in those cases there are cost effective ways to get that degree responsibly.
A lot of my friends' graduates are going to college, and most of them have plans which involve the need for those degrees. The couple that don't (liberal arts) I just shake my head and keep my mouth shut.

I and my youngest son disagree.

Keep in mind, SCOTUS didn’t say it couldn’t be done. They just said the way Bidet did it was unconstitutional.




P

Precisely this!!!

Yep I agree

Times have changed. My college ed was pretty good and cheap enough to pay off by working part time and summers. Things are different today. Forgive the understatement. The scam would make the scum bankers whole for their greed and stupidity at taxpayer expense, as always is the case. They also want to make new loans to these fools for houses, etc. The symbiosis with greedy colleges who took advantage of new loan programs to raise prices while lowering quality in favor of leftish indoctrination left, what millions?, in the lurch. A pretty strong class action case could be mounted against the colleges for fraud seems to me. Force them to pay off the banks to clear up student credit history. The case could be made for moral hazard for luring these naive kids into useless education. There are plenty of cases of irresponsible borrowing however to doom that brilliant idea perhaps. Glad it's quashed.

Biden knew this was going down the drain it was all about buying votes and it worked.

I think I put this in another post but wifey and I went the 529 route. We opened accounts for each one of the grandkids when they were born. So much a month deposited for each kid. The oldest will start college this fall with a 30k head start.

Why didn't they just make it legal to default on student debt? It would get the borrowers who could never pay them get out of debt and it will force the lenders to scrutinize who they lend money to. This is how banking is supposed to work...

Yep on the 529. A thousand a month for our grandson and another grand a month when our granddaughter arrives later this year.

+1

Make it like any other loan. Let the shylocks decide who they loan to based on risk same as it is (or should be) for a mortgage or car loan.

Wow EdM. Each one of them will be able to own their own school by then! I think Iowa's 529 is only rated a c- or something overall but it was still about 1 third my money 2 thirds earnings. It was a blessing to Gma and Gpa as neither one of us went past high school

No doubt student loans are a problem and something needs to be done in putting a stop to the non sense of easy borrowing for out of hand tuitions. I am glad however that forgiveness wasn't accomplished. There would be no learning from that.

With a PharmD degree I am one who owes a bunch of student loans. I got through my undergrad/bachelor's with zero debt. There was simply no way to do so in pursuit of the graduate degree. Anyway, I could go on in my ramblings.

Large student loans with high interest rates (8%) are demoralizing in trying to pay off. In the first 5 years of repayment, we had paid exactly what we had borrowed. But do to capitalization we still owed the same amount that we had borrowed. However, it's been motivating to do so when seeing the needle move at 0%.

If I were king for a day the first thing I would do is place incentives for getting them paid off quickly. For example, let's say the incentive is the interest rate remains/starts at 0% for x amount of time. Payments are required, otherwise the interest rate increases. If you pay off the principal in that time frame you're done. If not, the remaining balance than receives a teared interest rate based on time frame.

Student loans were designed to help people increase their wages and hence put them in higher tax brackets. Therefore increase government revenue. As is, it's been a cash grab for univserties and (for lack of a better word) enslave people to the system.

I'm 73 and was blessed in that my parents told me they would cover my college. This was in 1968. Got a good degree and have been in construction since then. Divorced from my first wife and had to pay for those two kids. Or, part of it. The first one did 3 1/2 years of college and had less than one years worth of credits. The other ended up paying the last three years with grants and scholarships. Son with second wife got his degree in two spurts. Is not a registered professional engineer. I had about $10K in debt for them I paid off.

Tuition has gotten too far out of control. The colleges/universities see they can get lots of easy money. I work with a guy whose son is going to dental school. Just finished his first year. His son expects to have $400K in student loans when he graduates. That is insane.

Yes that is insane. But he made the decision. Im glad the taxpayer is not having to pay for his decision.

Agreed Ed! I graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering in the mid-90’s and started at $44,400 a year. We pay a starting salary of about $100k a year now for new grads. If I would have gotten any other degree (including one of those 8yr degrees) I probably wouldn’t make as much as I do today.

I had about $20k in student loans when I graduated, plus another $5k or so in credit card debt - not because I was stupid with money, but because I was poor, got very little student aid, and my parents paid very little (<10%) of my costs. I also worked part time. Paying it back was like having another car note every month, but it was all paid back in less than 10years.

All that to say I would do it all over again! But you have to get a degree that pays a good salary and provides good career opportunities!

I got a 4 year degree in History. I worked my way through school and never borrowed a dime.

I wound up a Blue Collar man, and worked as a paramedic, and as a log home builder, and 8 years as an over the road truck driver.

I know what these kids are doing on these student loans today, running up $55 grand in debt for a Psychology degree. They are partying! Lots of girls in college, very friendly girls, and lots of pot and booze.

And now, they can't get a job with their degree, and they want blue collar guys like me to pay off their loans. It is unfair.

Interesting facts:

The number of borrowers aged 60 and over grew six-fold since 2004, while their outstanding debt
increased 19-fold. Today, 3.5 million Americans 60 and older hold over $125 billion in student loans.
If you are on social security and default on your student loan 15% of your social security can be garnished.