Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Student loans

I’m age 64 so I’ve seen a few things in my life. When I was in my early 20s, never heard of student loans. I have a cousin who when she was 18, got a minimum wage job and put herself through school. She had a high paying job in accounting when she finished school. I was talking to a friend who just retired from the education dept . She had something to do with the accounting / budget. The subject of student loans came up and I told her I was not in favor of them, since you don’t have to pay them back. What she said was not fair is people that applied for loans and was denied them. So why have student loans?

Well, they've been around since the 50s, but they used to only be for smart kids. The purpose? To afford to go to school. The problems started when they let the dumb kids get them.

Average is $20k….some folks don’t make stupid loans.

40% of total (1.2T$) is folks with advanced degrees or in graduate school.
The ones who make the most money benefit most!!
2/3 of Bidens plan go to the top 1/2 of wage earners.

The postponement of loan payments during COVID didn’t go well
“I moved into a better apartment and bought a car …….how can I start making loan payments again???”

And 1/4 of loan forgiveness applications are rejected because they couldn’t fill out the forms properly.

The numbers were eye opening……..wish I could remember the source

I’ll try to find the article. Probably a Mike Rowe interview………

We will be hearing alot of chatter about forgivness,now that an election is coming.

Yessir - gotta pay for those votes, somehow!

I worked for a junior college for 2 years…

Got to see behind the curtain.

It’s a racket.

Don’t get me wrong.
There are some quality educators that are passionate about what they do.

Then there is the rest.. the make 25 yrs for the retirement type.

It’s a business. People in seats=$$$

Ever been to a college THAT IS NOT building a new building / facility ??

College loans are pushed to fund the machine.

The main issue is your generation (boomers) brainwashed every kid graduating high-school. They had to go to college or they'd be digging ditches or working at Walmart collecting shopping carts their entire life.


I guess I didn't know I didn't have to pay back my student loans, or I wouldn't have done so for 10yrs.

I graduated in 2010. I have no idea how people are paying for college now, some universities are charging 1k per college hour credit. A far cry from what boomers paid in the 60s/70s, even considering inflation.


Ps there's always a way to earn student loan forgiveness, public service.

Student Loans are already being forgiven on the sly. A young lady I know told me if you have paid for a certain amount of years, Yippeee, your loan disappears. She had $25,000 forgiven. The Biden administration is doing it on the sly and I don't think many people know about it. And of course, the "News" is certainly not reporting it.

Based off of what program?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Service_Loan_Forgiveness

If it's that, what's the big deal?

Graduated in 73, with a loan.
It was not a govt loan.
Paid it off in about two years.
Wasn’t easy, but it was my obligation.

As usual this is complicated. When I graduated from college in 1980 and started working 4 months of my income equaled the total cost of 4 years of college. I didn't have loans because it was possible to come up with that much money for tuition and even if I had it would have been easy to pay off.

Today someone graduating from the same college and choosing the same career would need the 1st 4 years of their income to equal 4 years tuition. The actual cost is 40X higher. $1000 per year 1976-1980 vs $40,000 per year now.

There was a time when I was dead set against forgiving loans, but I've changed my mind. I don't agree with a blanket forgiveness for everyone but there are a lot of cases that if looked at individually should apply. There are a LOT of people who started school, got loans and were unable to finish. There are LOT of people who paid for years, long ago repaying the principal, but still owe interest.

The government finds ways to give our money away to everyone else, why not these people too.

During the 90's banks loaned billions government backed loans to farmers/ranchers who they knew didn't qualify and couldn't pay back the loans. Their loans were forgiven. We can't let farmers/ranchers go bankrupt even if they make bad choices.

During Covid there were billions of PPP loans approved, almost all to millionaires who didn't need the money. Their loans were forgiven. These are the people who donate to both parties, can't let them lose any money.

During his last year in office Trump gave away $6 Trillion trying to buy votes and during his 1st year his tax cuts to millionaires cost us another $2 Trillion in lost income. That is 1/4 of our total national debt.

But a 35 year old who quit college after 3 years to become an electrician, works 50-60 hours a week and makes good money. Who borrowed $20K and has paid back all but $5K can't get a little break.

I don't know the name of the program but it is happening all over. As much as I hated it, our Daughter had about $17,000 "forgiven" last month because she had been paying over 10 years. It sucks because in my mind, you borrow, you pay it back.

I used student loans to get my teaching degree in History. At the time I started teaching there were programs that if you taught in low income schools or schools with a high "free or reduced lunch" rate if you taught there for a given time 5-7 years I believe, AND you were paying your student loans on time every month, a given per-centage would be forgiven. I chose to work in a decent district and just pay the note. I didn't get into teaching to get in a gun fight or get shanked.

So you have no idea, you're just talking out yer azz?

If it's the public service loan forgiveness program, I see no issue with it. It's basically a civilian version of the gi bill in reverse. Instead of 4yrs of up front service, you do 10yrs of public service after college all while making all of your payments during the 10yrs of service.

I’m not for forgiving student loans. What about the dumb ones who never got a loan and worked a full time job and went to school. I did. My Dad was a trucker and we were not wealthy. I worked for everything I have. Wound up with 2 Masters and never borrowed a dime. On the other hand,our government gives our tax dollars away to non citizens and countries who hate our guts. Why not give it’s citizens, including seniors and vets, benefits to aid them. The public servants seen to line their pockets pretty well. If Obama Care is so great, why aren’t they on it instead of having their own deluxe plan? Easy to spend other folks money and our tax dollars. Middle class Americans pay for everyone else and are penalized for being responsible citizens.

In what decade did you graduate and how many years did it take?

There's more to it than just taking a loan and paying it back. The students are getting screwed by the banks and there's no way out. I have an acquaintance who's a retired Marine. He went back to school and got caught in the loan game. He says that he can't possibly ever pay it off. I don't know how it works but he says that they manipulate the interest so that it builds up faster than you can pay it off. He's current on the scheduled payments but the loan just keeps getting bigger. He and his wife separated their finances and she owns everything. If they ever come after him, he won't have anything for them to take. The worst thing a borrower can do is to delay starting the payments. They allow them to delay payment and that's where the interest scam kicks in. They get hooked into a never ending cycle. He's made every payment for 5 years but his loan is bigger now than when he started, all from escalating interest.
He says that the government doesn't need to cancel the loans. They need to solve the never ending interest situation to give the students a chance to pay it off before it balloons. As it is, students see that they're forever indebted so they just quit paying at all.

Here's a guy who put in 20 years serving our country. Now the country is allowing him to be royally screwed by the big money interests. It's a sad situation.

Pick a few in your community and pay them off for them.

It should be simple: you can have your loan forgiven if you agree to have your degree expunged. Kinda like a reverse mortgage.

You traded the loan to get the degree; you should be allowed to reverse that. If you actually learned something, that's your bonus.

College loans have a place now just as they did over 40 years ago. I needed them, and a lot of student employment and summer jobs, to go to college since I had $0 help from parents who couldn't afford it. I paid them off over 10 years, but the interest rates were 2 to 5% - well below the profit-driving market rates at the time. That was due to the federal involvement at that time, and 10 years was plenty of time to pay them off. I used that education to establish my career, from which I've now retired.

My children completed college about 10 years ago and used college loans and jobs to supplement our financial help. We wanted them to understand the proper use of debt and the obligations that go with it, along with gaining an appreciation that you have to work for what you get.

The problem was, and is, that the interest rates are now at market and young folks starting out are having more difficulty with that. The profit has helped to expand the program well beyond its original legitimate purpose. Payment plans go well beyond 10 years as a result. Both children have been meeting their obligation, though our oldest, a teacher, just had hers forgiven after paying on them for about 10 years. That's good for her, but I'm still against Biden's plan, since others now have to pay for her education.

If they'd kept with the old plan of keeping banks, etc., from making big money off the loans, and kept from funding so much beyond 4 years, we wouldn't be in this place, and we wouldn't see these folks being told by Biden, et al, that everything should be given to them.