Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Student loans

I had around 30k "forgiven". I made every payment on time for 10yrs straight (including covid..didn't trick me) and worked all those 10yrs in public service.

I kept my end of the deal, the feds kept theirs. From bagging up decomp dead bodies, arresting drunks, to even dealing with aging baby boomers complaining about how their neighbor puts their trash out too early. I earned it.

I’m not for forgiving student loans. I believe if you borrow it, you pay it back. Most of those loans are on a lower percentage than an average loan to begin with. I saw an interview this past week where a woman was so excited she had her $263,000 loan forgiven. Yes, that’s correct. She said “she thought she needed all of those degrees to have a good job.” She currently works in public service at the local courthouse. Now, since she has loan forgiveness she can go buy her dream home. This is the insanity! I’d rather give free classes on money management and personal finance than loan forgiveness.

Some of these people get the loans for more than full tuition price and live on the extra money. I know because a few of them have worked for me. They think “ I only need $5,000 but they’ll give me $7,000 at a low interest rate so I’ll make money doing it. Then fuss because they can’t pay it back. Yes they probably have part time jobs while in school but they only live in the moment instead of planning for the future.

I currently have two kids in college and one entering in a year. None of them want a loan because they don’t want to pay interest. They have taken on jobs while in school, saved and paid for their own college. They did receive some scholarships that helped but it’s not 100% by any means. My eldest is graduating this May with an engineering degree. He currently has three jobs while attending school.
My other son is a junior and works 20 hours a week while attending school. It’s called discipline and determination.

Make a better life for yourself but please don’t make me pay for it!

Student loans are cheap compared to what you get when you sit down and actually think about it.

Problem is they give them to people who are basically financially illiterate.

If student loans are so bad that they need to be forgiven……..why are we still making them?

As far as the 40% to students working towards advanced degrees: that involves people with masters degrees in social work that have $80K in debt and work for the state and make under $40K. Or chiropractors that owe $250K and make $60k.

And that’s the ones that actually FINISHED their degrees. An unconscionably high percentage of borrowers never get their piece of paper. Of, course, the school still gets their money!

If we’re going to make student loans, they should only go to the top 50% of the students, only for the last two years of their degree plan, and only up to 50% of the average annual starting wage in their field.

I graduated with a 4 year degree in History and English Literature in 1976. I worked construction in the summertime, and during school worked part time as a bartender and a waiter, and I worked my way through school. Didn't borrow a dime. I am fresh out of sympathy for those who don't want to repay student loans.

Lol in the 70s....how much were you paying per credit hour? Ten bucks?

And the thing is college cost should be going down not up. There’s no reason that a lecture couldn’t be recorded and uploaded to the net for students to watch from home without the need for all of the campus buildings, security, or paying a full time professor. If schools wanted to do it. It could be done dirt cheap compared to what it currently cost.

Universities that offer “online degrees” should be the norm for most classes. The schools that do offer web based degrees are usually as much or more money.

The other thing that has never made sense to me other than it’s mostly a money racket for the government with the gov controlling the occupational licensing and degree requirements along with the gov owning most of the schools and most of the loans. Is that a K-12 student can be educated/indoctrinated for a few thousand per year per student. Despite needing far more schools, smaller classes, hands on help, and bussing. Somehow 4 years of college teaching adults gets exponentially more expensive.

This so true! The problem is some of those people have no desire to make a better life for themselves. I went to school with a couple of people that were truly “dirt poor”. They attended college on Pell grants and received their degrees. Today they are still “dirt poor” and can’t figure out how people are so wealthy. Just because you get a degree doesn’t mean you know how to apply it.

For all the out of touch boomies, this is the going rate for a 15hr semester at Tarleton State University, which is pretty dam cheap.

The PER SEMESTER cost is more than your 4yr undergraduate degree.

Dude, kids today get $20 an hour to freaking babysit. $60 a yard per week to scoop dog poop. $300 to detail a car. Crap, I remember bartending till 2, cleaning up, driving to campus for an hour and being in class at 8 am. We sure as heck weren’t making $20 an hour stocking shelves at Walmart. Had guys in the dorms working for pennies, and glad they had some income.

I can’t remember it EVER being this easy to make GOOD money.

Student loan forgiveness is a terrible idea

The taxpayers are getting stuck with the bill for those who took out loans they can’t afford to repay

It’s a slap in the face to anyone who worked to repay a student loan. And it’s a bigger slap in the face to the millions of tradesmen who didn’t go to college but are productive tax paying citizens and yet are going to get stuck with the bill to pay for someone else’s failed attempt at an education.

PS - my wife had student loans unbeknownst to us when we got married. Her dad had taken them out. I stroked a check to pay them off at age 27. It hurt at the time but was the right thing to do

Not pay them back?

Government backed student loans are about the only loan that you will most certainly payback. There’s no bankruptcy and no way out. The gov will garnish your check or SS if they need to in order to get that money back.

The government backs the loans insuring plenty of students with access to money and in return the government schools can charge through the nose.

Student loan forgiveness is a bad idea that would have no end in sight.

The whole educational system is screwed up and broken. The loan forgiveness idea is just a byproduct of it.

That doesn’t even touch on work visas that cut into the value of a college degree or illegal aliens and outsourcing to China that has destroyed our manufacturing industry jobs forcing 18 years old to believe that they need to go to college to get a 1/2 way decent paying job. In most cases a B.A doesn’t pay all that well unless it’s used as a stepping stone to a Grad degree and even more debt. When adjusted for inflation a lot of careers requiring an advanced degree only pay about what factory work paid back in the 50’s and without the years in college or the cost of a home in college debt.

Absolutely no forgiveness. Period. End of story.

All the “free” money drives the increased cost in education. “They have the money, we can jack up the prices”

Then the “government” sees the increased cost of education, “we need to do something about it, let’s give out more “free” money”.

It’s a self licking lollipop.

Yes and gas was .25 a gal, a burger was 2 bucks, etc.

One year at a cheap public university is 20k a year, in tuition alone. No books.

You are out if touch with reality if you believe going to college currently without loans is possible for the avg. person.

Personally I would argue against anyone going to school unless their profession of choice requires it. It's a rip off. I listened to all the boomers.....I shouldn't have.

But if you must, go into public service and do your time.

People are just dumb in general.

I have one kid who graduated from a state school, and another one who has one year left. After scholarships, he’s getting a $2000+ check each semester.


The older one is a civil engineer and making way more already than I ever made.

Tuition at junior colleges here are free!

It really doesn’t have to be that expensive.

One can go to Harvard or Yale or USC and get a degree in gender studies or some such nonsense and screw themselves for life, but it isn’t necessary.

Graduated in 87 with $12,500 in student loans.

Got a military deferment for 3years (no payments and no interest accumulation) when I went on active duty as a 2LT. At the end of the 3rd year the payment coupon book arrived and I started making payments. Just watching how little went to the principal each month convinced me to get it paid off. Luckily I was in the 11th ACR forced savings program that summer (Field FTXs, 2 gunnery's), then 1st ID for DS at the conclusion I wrote them a check and paid it off.

My boy started college in 21 with a full scholarship, we still took out one $5K student loan which we then banked. It was just to help his credit rating as we started a KS 529 plan when he was born so we didn't need the loan. When the Covid Student loan deferment ended and the interest started to accrue, we paid it off.

I don't believe in forgiveness. When it comes to student loans IMHO, choose the right major and it pays off. Choose the wrong major, blow it on spring break and it's going to suck to be you..

About the same time student loans became so prevalent, college tuition’s skyrocketed.

Coincidence?


If you gave your word and signed the papers you should pay it back. Period!

If not, you’re just another part of the problem.

Might be an unpopular opinion. But I’d much rather my tax dollars be used to pay off an American Student’s college loans,(especially one working in public service) than be used to pay the bloated salary of a Ukrainian Bureaucrat.