Student Loan Hell

Ain't America great!

I feel for you op. My student loan debt is 200K plus.

Slightly of off topic, but I found it interesting

Did you vote for Clinton despite her vote, OP?

Come to terms with the fact that you are condemned to poverty. Student loans are a life sentence. I am where you are and I have basically accepted I will never retire and will die in debt. At this point I am just focused on making sure my burial plot and headstone are paid for.

And people still complain. Go to any developing countries’ banks and tell them you want a student loan. The first thing they would do is call security.

R6 - Or go to many DEVELOPED countries, and get your secondary education, almost without cost.

Community colleges are full of immigrants getting free college.

Are you a white male? If so, we don’t care about your problems.

R2 are you in med school?

[quote]I was able to find employment after this ordeal with a government agency where I now have top quality health care and am on the 10 year public service plan for the student loan.

Better hurry.

I'm very sorry to hear it, OP. This shouldn't happen to anyone, but politicians in the US are beholden to anyone who can pay their bills, hence people like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton joining forces with Republicans in condemning people like you to poverty through their bankruptcy law changes. You shouldn't have had to deal with medical bills for cancer either. It's a big club and we ain't in it.

R11. Hoping Nancy Pelosi won't allow this to happen.

If you went to a for-profit university we might as well just start laughing. You really didn’t know what you were getting into and that people were going to cheat you and give you an education that wasn’t worth the cost

I think it was Bill Clinton who pushed the bankruptcy bill.

Yeah, it was the Higher Education Amendment of 1998, OP, and some previous laws back to the 1970s that prevent student loans from being discharged in bankruptcy.

The "Hillary is responsible" thing is a lie. Is that the only reason you posted?

Oh really?

[quote]Since Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, both federal and private student loans are more difficult to discharge in bankruptcy than other types of debt.

Whenever I see one of those yappy, ""You don't get to tell me..." triggly-puff college SJW YouTube videos I secretly hope they are eventually met with crippling student loan debt that will never be quashed by all the feels they feel.

Are you a socialist OP?

OP, I just want to say that of you were out of work for years due to melanoma, you must have had Stage 3 or Stage 4, and it is a MIRACLE that you are here 16 years later.

I am impressed and so glad- That in and of itself is amazing.

I am happy you are here!

R17 proving that this waa just a clumsy anti-Dem thread.

Here's the whole story behind student loans and bankruptcy. R17 won't like it.

Did you get melanoma etc. from going to a tanning salon? If so, no pity.

I hope things work out for you op. Sounds like you deserve some relief.

How the fuck is this a nightmare?

Have you ever experienced anything negative?

Oh they've been snatching my federal and state refunds for years now. Fortunately I withheld enough that it knocked $20K off my $45K loans.

They have given up trying to collect any other way.

My friend and I attended college together and graduated in 1991, he with honors. We both met in our competitive humanities program where the assumption (back then) was moving on to graduate study at a prestigious university, of course, unless you were a complete idiot. Or a fuck up. We never worried about income, job security, etc: we were going to become profs just like our profs did. It seemed like the most engaging yet coziest life possible.

I, however, grew bored and frustrated with my major and with college life and couldn't wait to get out and do something, anything to find an adult life. To make my own money. My friend continued: MA, PhD, all strenuously achieved with single mind and at great expense.

We're both 50 now. I have paid off my mortgage early (last year!), saved, and invested and plan on retiring before age 60 (or starting my own business unrelated to my current career.)

My friend is in poor health, in recovery, and carrying about $250K in debt, most of it from student loans. He no longer owns his own home and drives a very old car.

After a couple of early false-start, tenure-track opportunities went awry and hideous drama with various colleagues, he has circled down to a handful of low-paying, exploitative adjunct teaching jobs at a handful of crap schools with aggressively unmotivated students, who he hates and fears. He has expressed an interest in changing careers but feels it's too late for him to reinvent himself. (He may be correct.) He can't really balance a checkbook, let alone negotiate a salary or create his own website. He is crippled with own inadequacy and fear.

His bright academic future has turned into a brutal, killing joke, and it's killing him.

[quote]competitive humanities program

How is that possible?

Does he have a drinking problem? A partner?

Were you on dacarbazine in 2003? There was nothing reliable back then - at least not like keytruda is. I am shocked you're still alive if you a 3 year fight with metastatic melanoma.

Wow, OP. Have you considered hiring a lawyer?

OP here. I filed for bankruptcy with the help of an attorney.

Fuck you hating on Hilary, OP.

Thanks Joe Biden

Hillary is a smelly cunt, thank god she is out of politics. She is the real Swillery.

r35's lunch break must be over.

Back to trolling!

R33 = the gay Rush Limbaugh

Last year I was able to defer my student loans, checking off the box for medical reasons. I ran up a lot of medical debt and I have huge CareCredit bills to pay.

This year there's no fucking medical option. I make too much money for a deferment or forbearance. So I'm going to have to refinance, which will add about another fucking $15K to the bill over time.

I am telling everyone this is the Republicans fault. Those motherfuckers are going down.

r38, you said you make too much for deferment, is that amount too low to allow you to make payments?

Betsy DeVos (such a wonderful woman of character) wants to eliminate the 10 year public service program so if you qualify please get yourself into the program before it is closed out to new applicants.

R27 is a great summary of the Gen X experience. Academia and post-graduate degrees became a waste of money and a guarantee to a life of poverty as an adjunct instructor.

The real crime is the cost of education - when the teachers /adjunct instructors are getting paid effectively minimum wage. The for -profit college industry is the worst and should be outlawed. One of the sleaziest industries in America - selling poor kids with horrible educations from uneducated families a dream of upward mobility all funded by huge amounts of debt encouraged and facilitated by the government backed student loan program. Criminal.

Sorry, OP, your chance of having your loans forgiven by the public service loan forgiveness is slim and none.

OP here, I am not worried, but thanks for your negativity, you seem like a great human to know

For profit prisons, for profit health care, for profit secondary education, massive debt and bankruptcy - and this is the greatest country in the world?

R7, people in developing countries also treat education differently. They don't have "the college experience" that many go into debt for -- no fraternity parties, no sports leagues, no real campus life. People tend to live at home and go to a school nearby.

Good point R45. Community colleges need to become the norm. The whole $50,000/year luxury vacation for 4 years needs to end. And the for profit scam needs to be killed completely.

Sorry, new number, who dis?

R46, I'd rather see the for profit colleges regulated than done away with. Too many people have gone into debt for degrees from these institutions that will be invalidated.

I’m sorry, OP. It’s a real problem.

I have kids inching toward college and unless they are superlative in one discipline (so far, no) and can get full scholarships, we are going to send them to SUNY or CUNY schools. A bigger advantage than a “name school”, as I see it, is being debt-free at graduation.

Something has to change, but it probably won’t.

[quote]I have kids inching toward college and unless they are superlative in one discipline (so far, no) and can get full scholarships, we are going to send them to SUNY or CUNY schools. A bigger advantage than a “name school”, as I see it, is being debt-free at graduation.

My sister has just begun to talk about colleges with my straight-A-student nephew, who's 14. They live in California, and I've advised her to steer him to state schools or even a good community college first and a UC/CSU school later.

R49, I don't know if it applies to SUNY, CUNY or both, but college is now free for NYS residents. There are some reasonable restrictions, but it's free.

It's a shame kids can't even think about going to their dream school but like it's been posted, there are good state schools.

What's stoodent lones?

I pay 5 bucks a month to the Dept of Education. It keeps them student loans(28k) from haunting my credit score.

I would like to see the Democrats organize a "Millions in Student Loan Debt" march, with concrete objectives:

Get Democratic candidates to promise they will declare the Student Loan Crisis a National Emergency if elected.

Get Democratic candidates to promise that they will take $1B away from funding the Wall and use that money for a cash bailout of those holding student loans.

Fix whatever the hell Trump did to deferments, forbearance and forgiveness programs.

Fix the Student Loan Rehabilitation program to eliminate the collection agencies from the negotiations and to provide better disclosures about how they are waiting to sucker punch you if you are late with a payment.

Cap the amount of interest that can be added back to a loan if the loan goes into default. Once the cap is reached, the loan becomes frozen.

Put bankruptcy back on the table - force the lenders to put some skin in the game. This will help correct the market.

Force the IRS to create a program that allows millionaires (or whoever) to voluntarily over-pay their taxes; instead of having the overpayment returned, that overpayment would go into a locked box that provides student loan debt relief. It's voluntary so millionaires don't have to flee the country to tax havens, and they can compete on social media to see who is so rich, they can afford to overpay the big bucks.

I have contemplated suicide many times over my student loan debt. There is no way out, no hope.

OP, I feel for you. I had a lot of friends struggling in the same situation.

This is one area where being a mediocre student in high school inadvertently helped me. Forced me to go to community college to take my general eds, then transferred from there to a UC. Yeah, I missed out on the classic dorm-life experience, but it cut my college debt by over 2/3rds. I am strongly suggesting this route to my nieces and nephews.

[quote]It's a shame kids can't even think about going to their dream school but like it's been posted, there are good state schools.

I wish parents and high-achieving kids could let go of the idea that you're a failure doomed to a life of trailer-park living if you can't get into/afford the Ivies, Stanford, etc. They're great, of course, but you get out of your college experience what you put into it, and you can get a high-quality education at any number of schools if you actively seek it out.

Not to be a bitch but as someone who has paid his student loans in full ($15k college -$100k grad school) - why do you think you (or anyone) should be special treatment? For profit schools should not be able to get government backed student loans. And student loans should have a bare minimum interest rate - since it’s almost important to “write off” but beyond that - you took the money - you owe it.

I'm in a similar boat, undergrad, grad, law school, then a stroke at 28. I would've been okay financially if not for my health problems.

I understand the fairness argument - I paid off my undergrad loans before moving on to law school, and I paid for law school with a combination of federal loans, private loans, scholarship, work study and a job working every weekend... but the system doesn't work right now. If millions of people feel the same way - that the system isn't working for them - fuck the system.

Yes I would love to pay my loans off and feel a duty to do something. But for the same reason people like Trump don’t get saddled with all their outstanding business debt and file for bankruptcy so they can start over multiple times,, why should someone who can’t get out from under be piled under?

The truth is, back 20-30 years ago, college loans were treated like no big deal, and they were promoted as such with the promise of big salaries and wage increases, which would make it a reasonable trade off.

Well, as we know, wages compared to inflation have been stagnant since the 80s. Plus, hiring salaries, especially since The Great Recession and rising housing costs, are essentially on par with basic subsistence. I worked 3 jobs for a number of years just to survive after I lost my job in 2008 and it gave me nothing but chronic illnesses that make every day a fight now. You can’t win.

This new documentary is basically my life.

Education should not cost an arm and a leg.

This is probably an unpopular opinion and I don't intend to start arguments.

A student loan is still a loan. You still need to do the same cost-benefit analysis that you would do with any other type of loan you are considering.

Agreed R66! Jumping in my time machine now to go back and tell my 18 year old self all the things will happen to him so he can make different decisions! Ill make sure to also tell him where we are as a country and that Trump is President—that way he can make a correct and accurate analysis. I’m sure he’ll believe me.

The problem is allowing 18 year olds access to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. The idea was good - help kids access funding for college. Then capitalism twisted it as always and turned education into a commodity that hedge funds can make millions from with no repercussions when the kid drops out after a year or two.

Stop allowing kids to borrow huge sums of money for dubious degrees. Fund the community colleges and state universities - and allow students to take small loans for them. But don’t let University of Phoenix - aka, Apollo Capital Management, one of the richest hedge funds in the world - take those tens of thousands of loan money from the kid and provide a thousand dollar education. Plus the new computer they use to con the kid into agreeing to sign the paperwork to get the loan money sent to them. It’s criminal.

I don't know if it's been mentioned but the government should also look into loan forgiveness for students who work in public service.

The problem with all these forgiveness programs is that in order to qualify you have to meet a ton of prerequisites and there is virtually zero room for error for a 10-25 year period. So even if you do qualify, the likelihood you won’t have a financial hiccup once in that time period lowers the chances of you making it to elegible status significantly.

I swear student loan debt is like selling your soul to the devil.

We need to make this an issue in the election.

I got into Stanford, which was quite the feat for a poor, white trash kid with no resources. I did receive a few scholarships, but my debt would still have been insane (I had no parental support). I chose to attend a community college instead. Then transferred to a state school to finish my Bachelor's. I still ended up with about 15k in debt. But not the hundreds of thousands I would have had if I'd gone to Stanford.

I'm now 40, have published a couple novels, had a few movies made and sold numerous TV shows. Paid off my debt a decade ago.

Going to a name brand school isn't all that. Unless you want to be doctor or lawyer. Know you field. I knew I wanted to write. Having a Stanford diploma would have been nice, but it would NOT have made it Random House beg for my work! And it's certainly would not have been worth the crippling debt.

My law school $125k loan has increased to $255k, even though I paid down $50k! I’m in default, because the lowest amount I was required to pay was $2,500 a month.

Wow some really eye opening information here. Graduated in 1992 - before the insanity began. Paid about 20% of my expensive school with loans (70% need-based grants, 10% parents/parental loans) and paid off about 10 years later working in a hellish 24/7 finance job. Given current costs, I am encouraging my nephews to go with community and state schools if they can’t get a ton of money from a good school.

R70 - I’m surprised Stanford made you take out such big loans. Most high endowment schools now offer pretty good deals to poor kids. Maybe it was after your time. But many rich schools now provide for a no loan education for families making under $100,000. I think if you can get into those schools now, it’s worth it and a good deal economically. (Though I’m still shocked that 2/3 of the kids going to my college are not eligible for any aid because parents make/have so much money - which means their parents are paying $250k+ for them to get a degree!)

R66 Making it impossible for for-profit schools get loans would help. Something like 40% of loan defaults are from for profit schools.

R67 It's impossible to qualify. I'm a public defender and I thought I would be able to get my loans discharged, but I can't.

A lot of people here are like "You took out those loans, you should pay them." You can't predict the future. I didn't expect to have a stroke in my 20s. I have a blood clotting issue that I didn't even know about until I had that stroke. It took me over 2 years to recover. I couldn't work. When I was healthy enough to work, I still couldn't work full time. I ended up volunteering as a child advocate and being an adjunct at a community college, and my mom had to help me with the latter job because I was in such poor health.

Lots of talk on the campaign trail about free college. Not enough conversation about wiping out existing debt.

R72, I don't believe they had any such programs a couple of decades ago. But, to be honest, I knew embarking on a writing career was fraught to begin with. Being saddled with a six figure debt was never really an option for me. It all worked out in the end.

That said, I don't think college is for everybody. My nephew is a smart kid - very hard working - but a terrible student. After trying and failing in college for a few too many years, he finally got a union gig as a location scout for tv shows. He makes about 5k a month, loves his job, and, at 27, can support himself and his wife and son. Most of his friends who went the college route are waiters (not that there's anything wrong with that - was for years too) with no plan for the future.

I think we need to be honest about the potential of a given person. For many, a sustainable trade is light years better than a middling degree that leaves one with debt AND no real career trajectory. But I digress...

I am still obsessed with the OP who survived a Stage 3+ (I am assuming) Melanoma.

I feel horribly sorry for younger people trying to get a college education today. I graduated with a 4 year degree back in the 90's at a local community college, and at the time, was able to pay my own tuition for the most part by working two part time line cook jobs. Initially they were quarterly at around $500 per quarter, then they switched to semesters, which were about $1500-2000 per semester by the time I graduated. My folks helped out with stuff like books, parking, etc... but I lived at home the whole time, so I really didn't have any other expenses.

I know people now, in their 40's that are still paying on their student loans and aren't even working in the fields they sought their degree in. In my experience, employers just want to see you completed a degree of some sort. I majored in studio art in college, then self taught myself web development and subsequently wound up in marketing, and ultimately working for myself. I've also worked with people who for example, majored in geology, but wound up being IT Directors. The degree is useless long after the loans get paid off. It's just something to keep HR folks busy verifying.

Sorry not sorry lol lol

Reallo good testimonial

*Really

R70 Have you been to the “have you had anything published thread?” Would love to get your input if you haven’t.

I also turned down a top 20 school to stay local. I wanted to work in publishing, television or theatre so there was no way I was going to acquire 6 figures of debt going into those sort of jobs. My friends who did are all underemployed. I feel for them, I cannot imagine the stress of 6 figure debt on a 50K salary. Some of them are stuck in contract jobs and in the gig economy so there’s no security. One guy gets 6 month contracts and lives on his wits hoping it will be renewed.

R82, I did check out that thread!

Don't have much input other than keep going. I did nothing of note in my 20s. Total failure, but I worked and worked regardless. I didn't give up and didn't let myself get financially strapped (no house, expensive car payment, etc.) and honed my craft as much as humanly possible. Finally, a novel sold. Went no where, but I was published.

Met up with a great writing partner for TV and film. We worked for hours every day. Built up quite a stockpile of pilots and films. Got a lucky break 15 years after I first started writing and then it all just happened pretty quickly after that.

R60/74, you do valuable work for children and for your community, and I'm so sorry that the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was unable to offer you any relief. Do you know the reasons why you didn't qualify? Is it because your loans are private? (Only federal loans are eligible.) Or was/is the issue that you're unable to work full-time for health reasons?

Student loan debt in the US is a systemic debtors’ prison.

I would like to see the politicians at least acknowledge that "Student Loan Crisis" is an umbrella term describing three distinct problems: 1) those already in default; 2) those making their payments but unable to save anything or participate meaningfully in the economy; 3) what do we do in the future. I see Democrats paying lots of attention to problem #3 but not to #1 or #2. Until they acknowledge the scope of the issue, they can't fix it.

Elizabeth Warren just got my vote. Every other candidate can go fuck themselves.

R80 great article. Although I feel guilty for thinking, while reading it, why on earth would someone get into $200,000 student loan debt for a WRITING degree (and worse, an MA)???

Having been underemployed for a number of years I stopped paying my student loans. Here's an interesting thing - if you then become more successful they'll start snatching any money you had for tax refunds. Anyhow the original debt was $25K, it ballooned to $45K and now sits at $30K. I'll keep paying it that way. Because in ten years it'll be paid off.

R89 but your credit must be fucked, no?

College loans are a scam!

The government should completely END all grants and loans and the price of going to college will plummet! The government assures schools a free flow of guaranteed money and students to carry the loan burden! Cut off the money supply and the demand will shrivel, followed by slashing of prices.

This sound like a good start.

OP I am in somewhat of a similar situation. I went to law school later in life as a second career and took out about 100k in loans. I passed the bar ten years ago and have hardly made any payments. I won't get into the details here but there are a small handful of attorneys in the country who specializes in student loan law. There are some very narrow circumstances under which you can settle with the government for as low as 50 cents on the dollar. I'm meeting with the attorney next week.

I'm so happy the major I'm taking is completely free. Mexico for the win!

OP, I'm thinking that your habit of trolling DL with posts about "Swillary Clinton" is a bigger indicator of your real problems than any of the so-called explanations you've posted. If you're on the emotional level of a 12 year old, your employment prospects will be limited.

It takes work to be a productive person with employable skills, and your past illness is long gone. It hasn't held you back for years, buy you're immature, you didn't have the ability to realize that you needed to adapt.

But since you're one of those "I wanna cast one vote and it'll solve all my problems and I won't do anything else about it" folks, maybe you just didn't want to adapt to your new reality.

[quote]I'm in a similar boat, undergrad, grad, law school, then a stroke at 28. I would've been okay financially if not for my health problems.

I would think (hope) that you can discharge your student loan debt under these circumstances.

did many people in the late eighties or early nineties even get student loans?

That is when I went to college. I don't remember much discussion about loans. Most people just went where their parents could afford. Some people had work study jobs and some of my high school friends only applied to state schools because they were from lower income families.

But most people at my private school just seemed to pay as far as I knew. (of course tuition was like 10K--manageable if you had parents who planned a head. )

I have sympathy for OP and others. But I absolutely agree that student loans should NOT be dischargeable in Bankruptcy. If student loans were dischargeable there would be no lenders willing to make them. It is a necessary evil to ensure that student loans continue to be made available to students who need them.

R97, I have student loans in the six figures, and I agree with you that a too-easy discharge process would lead to abuse of the system by borrowers.

Right now, though, the abuse is flowing in the other direction. Using Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) as an example, all that borrowers are requesting is that the government 1) keep accurate records of our PSLF-eligible monthly payments (rather than "losing" that information), and 2) honor the forgiveness clause in our Master Promissory Notes after we have completed our 10 years of service.

R97 and R98 have excellent points

Perhaps discharge up to 25% or something..

I owe over $100,000k in student loans. Well, that was the amount 12 years ago. I’m sure with interest and penalties it’s in the $150k range now.

I married a Brit (civil union) and moved to London, and didn’t care if I went into default. It did, of course, and ruined my credit in the US, but had no effect on my credit in UK (nor would I have expected it to).

Here’s the kicker: a couple years ago, after about the 10 year mark, I checked my credit in the US, AND THE LOANS WERE GONE! All of them. I know other unpaid/uncollected debts “fall off” your credit after 7 years, but I never expected the Stafford loans would. I was gobsmacked.

So now I’m thinking what would happen if I move back to the US, would they suddenly reappear once my SSN starts being “active” again?

Interesting R100. All loans except for student do have a statute of limitations and will fall off your credit report after a certain period of time unless the agency sued you for the money. If they did and you did not show up to court, you will owe forever.

My husband defaulted on his student loans in his twenties, and I don’t think they appeared on his credit report. When we finally contacted FedLoan about them, the guy we spoke to was casual. He said that they will catch up to you sooner or later. The gov has you to rights and, at that time, was not in any hurry to report to credit agencies or even aggressively track down defaulted loanees. They jist confiscated his tax returns.

R101 my dad would get phone calls about once a year from a loan services asking if they could put them in touch with me. Good old dad knew better and told them he hasn’t talked to me in years and has no idea where I was, then he’d start fake crying just to freak them out LOL

Surprise, surprise... Warren's plan to cancel student loan debt is popular with voters.

The new thing is faking your own death in a developing country. You can pay a (relatively) small fee to have death records falsified.

[quote] The new thing is faking your own death in a developing country. You can pay a (relatively) small fee to have death records falsified.

And forfeit health insurance and international travel for the rest of your life as well as Social Security/Disability?

Count your lucky stars you are on the 10 year PSLF tracks.

If taxpayers knew how many advanced degree grads were using PSLF to pay off hundreds of thousands of debt while making minimum monthly payments (covering interest basically only) they’d have a fit! Even the most progressive free education for all types.

I’m a law school graduate. Went private in a big city. Lots of my classmates happily signed off on $200,000+ loans (many of whom also had expensive undergrad school loans). We graduated in 2011 after law firms imploded thanks to the recession.

Fucked for life.

Oh yeah, I am in SF, and many of my peers ended up working in tech for start ups doing crap unrelated jobs for which a law degree.

A few lucky ones are able to save face and work for the big guns like Google, Apple, Uber doing licensing shit, but they are making $100k to live in a city where the average monthly rent is $3k a month. They are literally living paycheck to paycheck.

Others have turned to sucking gross tech nerd cock to get Sandeep or Billy the Dork to put a ring on it and their loans.

R106, you'd be surprised at how few borrowers have actually had their loan balances paid by PSLF. It only began paying out last fall and the requirements of the program sharply limit eligibility. As of June 30, 2018, "of the roughly 29,000 applications processed so far, 96 borrowers have had about $5.52 million in debt discharged under the program."

The student loan interest rate is a huge problem - not sure what it is now but when i was dealing with it it was around 8%. Totally outrageous. Again - I guess all due to whatever legislation was passed to "fix" the problem. IMO, the rate should be the fed funds rate or lower. OP, the only way I got out of it was to make extra payments each month. Slowly, but surely the loans went away. College tuition/loans/repayment is the biggest scam going - and no reason for it except colleges keep jacking up the fees and getting away with it. College inflation runs around 8% a year - more than 4 times the average inflation.

God Bless Elizabeth Warren.

What I find interesting is that plenty of people get student loans and pay them off without a problem.

I know plenty of people who had huge student debt from college, law school, and business school and no one defaulted on any of it.

An update on Elizabeth Warren's plan.

She's got my vote. Nobody else is even close.

[quote]An update on Elizabeth Warren's plan.

She'll never get elected with this plan. The student loan racket is too big to fail.

And we all know "the rich" won't end up paying for jack shit. They keep telling us that and it never happens.

The problem as I see it is that 18-year-olds are allowed to take out crazy amounts of debt. What other industry loans $100,000 to people under the age of 21?

There are two kinds of debt you REALLY don't want - IRS and student loans.

It isn't the best option OP, but if you can move the student loan debt to private (home equity, etc.) then you can walk away. Credit will of course take a hit, but if you are talking $100K .... it is only seven years.

I'd also say this is a long term (2-4 years) plan. If you take out home equity, pay off your student loans, and then walk away a month later, they will want to know where the money went. Even my 2-4 year plan borders on bankruptcy fraud.

I seriously considered it, and talked with a bankruptcy attorney (a friend, not someone I hired) and he thought I'd get away with it. Never did it though, and am paying on my $40K in student loans (IRS is payed off though).

I'm confused about Warren's plan. It sounds like if you have multiple student loans that were never consolidated but total under $50K, her plan would only pay off the highest loan and leave you stuck with the others. So maybe pay off one $12K loan, but you would still carry other loans totaling up to $38K. To get the full benefit of the $50K write-off, it sounds like you would have to consolidate your loans.

You bumped an old trollbait thread about Hillary to ask about Warren's plan? Start a new thread, you lazy son of a bitch.

These days, do kids still want to go to those small but expensive liberal arts schools like Swarthmore and Vassar?