Death is the only answer to crushing student loan debt

Your pic tells us you could prostitute yourself successfully, OP.

Have you considered becoming a self-made lifestyle blogger. It pays very well. Namaste.

Interesting that my personal distress is so amusing.

Concider the sourse, OP.

Bankruptcy?

You probably have better odds of winning the lottery

How much is your debt?

What is the repayment plan and its terms — monthly payment/interest rate?

What are your monthly expenses/income by category? Income? Debt (including car payment)? Expenses (rent/mortgage, utilities, food, phone/internet, entertainment, etc.)

Without that info, we can't help you. I wish I could refer you to the Suze Orman Show, where she would go through this with people all the time, but she quit to lez out in the Caribbean. So we are all you have. But we need specifics if you truly want help.

You could always find a relatively high paying job in a cheap country and pay off your loans that way.

After reading this and the other crushing college loan debt thread—which I have none of, though I did at one time—I feel like killing myself. How did America walk itself into the shitter this way? It doesn't seem as if we will ever get out of it.

I have had enough of life, I often think.

Kiss OP

We have no problem with debt taken on voluntarily by private parties, which includes student debt. You make the decisia, you live with it. The truly vile debt is the "national debt" taken on by politicians (acting as overpaid stooges for the usury banks who hold the 'debt') in the name of tax-slavers - most of whom never consented to it. The only solutia for that debt is for all nations to default on/cancel all 'national debts' to the usury banking criminals!

This reminds me of the interview that Yul Brynner did before he died in which he said he wanted to make a commercial to warn people not to smoke, ever. It would be nice if people who made the terrible decision to borrow so much money just for a degree could make PSAs to warn students not to borrow excessive amounts no matter how tempting or how necessary it may seem. Young people don't have an appreciation for the consequences of their actions and they desperately need to hear about the effects of student loan debt.

Yes, but how does one succeed in today's world without the student loan debt? Scholarships can't cover all the cost. The world still needs people with college degrees and beyond.

Killing yourself is not the answer to any trivial, financial problem. Call and set up a payment plan. Even when it's just five bucks a month for the rest of your long life the debtor will be satisfied and gets off your back and you'll have not just air to breathe but move and make something of your life beyond being scared and depressed.

Don't be so defeatist. Start your own business. For example, make wood furniture - if you can do it and you have talent and taste, you could make a decent amount of money doing that. Or become an electrician, or a plumber, or a general contractor. If you're good at computer stuff, set up websites, or create software, or create a phone game or a cool app.

What are your skills? What are you passionate about?

This is a fucked-up country.

I grew up working/lower middle class. My parents did not go to college. My sister and I opted to go to a community college and transfer to a state university for financial reasons.

My instructors and my bosses (I worked FT during college.) encouraged me to write, and then to become a writer. I graduated with honors after doing an honors semester abroad ($6k) at Cambridge University and declining to do a year abroad at Oxford that I could not afford ($60k). I went on to get an MFA in creative writing.

I opted *not* to go the route of an elite education because I was worried about money. Part of me is glad I did that.

At the same time, I am honestly very bitter and feel fucked over by life, now more than ever at age 41. I have written extensively about a health issue that affected my life significantly—my personal story, science and policy, and more—for a blog. I would have written for legitimate publications, but all my pitches are continually turned down because they are “not right for us.” A major national magazine—of almost New Yorker quality—just published a very long (and no doubt highly compensated) article by a woman who tells her story, which is practically identical to what I have written about my health for years, in a context that is almost exactly the context in which I have written about this issue for years and to my knowledge no one else has. I know the author has read my writing because she embedded a link to one of my blogs midway through her article, which reads like a compendium of everything I have ever pitched to the magazine that published her and for which I am “not right.” The only major difference is that her byline shows she’s got an Ivy-league pedigree and she works for an Ivy university. I, on the other hand, am nobody. As it turns out, it is not my ideas or my writing that are “not right for” this elite publication, but my identity.

So what’s the better choice? Taking on a couple hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt, or opting not to do that and denying yourself opportunities for the rest of your life?

I have come to the maddening conclusion that Donald Trump is actually right. He says he is a winner and everyone else is a loser. He’s correct. Not because of his intelligence or his work ethic, but because he was born wealthy and networked, and he has been set up to win from day one. Life is rigged to give him everything he wants, and rigged against most of the rest of us.

I got sick while in school and have never been able to hold down a decent job that allows me to pay my full loan amount, which thanks to interest is triple what it was, but I'm currently doing the REPAYE plan and have been for years, which will at least let me finish my 20 years of repayment prior to retirement.

If you're with Navient/Sallie Mae, try everything to get the loan transferred elsewhere. An ombudsman helped me with that a few years ago and it was a huge life saver. Navient is all about defrauding loan holders.

R16, I was a writer online for years, and several popular articles on big websites are my own from mid-level websites, slightly reworded. Other small websites copied and pasted my entire articles for themselves.

It's not just overlooked, it's expected.

I've seen a few beginning writers play the game by letting bigger names plagiarize them, then say "OMG I'm so flattered you read my blog!" to the plagiarists. The big name plagiarists see that those folks are "team players" and mentor them, and they get ahead.

The big names also shill and hire PR firms to do small things like mention them on big forums or get their articles linked in other articles.

I once had an article I was really proud of stolen by one of those big clickbait websites and they even tried to make it look like I'd plagiarized them. Threats of lawyers getting involved made them change a few things, but not much. At the time, I was in a ton of writing orgs including GALECA, but one day I saw the cunt who plagiarized me had also joined GALECA. She wasn't even LGBT but an "ally." That's when I decided to find other work. Life's too short.

R18 I’m not interested in accusing anyone of plagiarism. I am frustrated and, yes, angry that all my pitches to this magazine have always been dismissed immediately as “not for us,” and then an article that is essentially a synthesis of many of those pitches, plus a story thisclose to identical to mine and told in a very similar was, is “right for” them. I’m not a litigious person. I am, it seems, naive to my own detriment.

Anyway, the point in the context of this thread is that it’s a double-edged sword: you can choose to purchase elite credentials and live in squalor as doors open to you, or else you can make wise financial decisions but walk a straight and narrow corridor of life lines with hallways of doors that will never open because of who you are and where you came from.

Or else, of course, you can be born to parents who are wealthy and who have corrupt friends perched atop all important industries—politics, the courts, Wall Street, Hollywood, the media, medicine—and then the world truly will be your oyster. The only price you’ll ever have to pay in such an instance is that your parents inevitably will be monsters who don’t really love you.

Yeah, R17/R19, it's an exaggeration that "college is what you make of it." If you can't afford/aren't willing to go into crushing debt for an Ivy or similar, you just have to accept that no matter how hard you work, your life will always be circumscribed and your opportunities/earning potential limited to an extent by where you went to school.

If you aren't wealthy, you can not attempt to build a career in the arts and humanities. Period. Why did you ever think you could? Your life will be a misery as you try to make a living at something that, at best, can only be a hobby. More than anything, you need connections. People born to wealth are heavily networked. It's something they take for granted. There will always be someone to give them a hand up at every turn. If you don't have those connections, good luck, because every door with be closed to you.

Read Carli Simon's autobiography if you want to see how it all works. She got so many breaks because of her parents' connections to the publishing world and music industry that she couldn't NOT be successful. She doesn't acknowledge it either, LOL. She thinks her success is due to her undeniable talent. Yes, Carly, you are talented, but you never would have seen the light of day without your parents' "who's who" roster of friends, acquaintances and colleagues, .

Here's my idea, OP. People with student loan debt should have the option to join the military or the peace corps for a few years to "pay off" their student loans. When they come out, debt free, to start a career, they will also have acquired, hopefully, some real world skills to add to their resume.

I’m sure R10 feels the same way but I’m glad to be a Kiwi. I paid my 11k student loan off in one hit when the govt offered a 10% rebate. Also glad that our education system is heavily subsidised. This is the best country in the world.

As long as we are talking about writers etc and choosing writing as a career -- one way to succeed is the path I took -- but I took it by accident. I always wanted to be a writer but I didn't have enough confidence in my skill so I ended up taking a job as an assistant in book publishing. There I toiled for about ten years, doing well, getting promoted, but making little money and frankly, hating the industry -- at least in other industries when they screw you over, they admit it. In book publishing, everyone pretends they are working for a Great Ideal and everyone is Doing the Right Thing because, you know, books are the epitome of Importance and Good Taste (they can say all this with a straight face even as they publish one crappy chick lit novel after another, followed by one pretentious Brooklyn writer named Jonathan after another).

However, in those ten years I made excellent connections, the kind I wasn't born with, and used them to establish a career that has been very successful for the last two decades. So sometimes you can actually make those connections if you're willing to put up with a great deal of crap.

I never understand why people think Ivy League League degrees cost a lot of money, at least at the graduate level. I went to a state school for my undergrad for free because I was bright. And then I did a master's and PhD at ivies for free because PhD students do not pay tuition at good schools. If you're paying for graduate education, you aren't graduate school material.

Hey I have an amazing idea. Don’t borrow a billion dollars and then become a barista. Borrow what you’re likely to be able to pay back.

Oh wait I’m sorry we are talking to a millennial: it’s all a baby boomers fault! Wah wah wah! There, better?

I can't cry for people who make stupid-ass, piss-poor decisions and then expect sympathy for their dilemma.

You went into debt. What type of work did you think was going to materialize to assist in the repayment of this debt?

CEO of Microsoft? Apple? Google?

R23 Nonprofits are the same. It’s a bizarre mindfuck that decent people only come to understand with time: for-profit companies are motivated by money alone, and so they can be sort of a meritocracy, with people who perform best in necessary ways being rewarded. Nonprofits all exist, ostensibly, because they are “doing good in the world.” Their staffs know that they will never be handsomely rewarded, and they slave away, often under abusive conditions. Nonprofit CEOs by and large, in my experience, are in it for the ego and as such, they also tend to rake in cash and benefits. They don’t profit to the extent corporate CEOs do, but they typically will make at least several hundred thousand and often upwards of a half million to several million. Unlike corporations that are beholden to stockholders, they usually have few to no articulated goals and instead report to daft board members who join the board for a token board member resume slot, but who are generally checked out and don’t give a shit. The board members see the nonprofit as a “community service” and not as a productivity-focused organization. So the CEOs blow hot air for a living and are paid well and get kudos, and their employees come in naive and happy to be “making a difference” with their work and slowly over time they realize that their only work is looking busy, taking abuse from narcissistic executives, and serving their insane CEOs’ egos. It’s disillusioning. Some people hold onto their values and bounce from nonprofit to nonprofit, holding onto the belief that they’ve only worked for bad, dysfunctional ones and not realizing that dysfunction and ego service are the rules. Some accept the sad reality and ascend to executive level by playing a Devil Wears Prada sort of game, which fully applies to nonprofits as well as to publishing.

I am just now reaching the fully disillusioned point and have decided that I really hate humanity and so why the hell am I holding onto this notion of “making a difference”?

One thing Trump has revealed is that most influential, powerful and wealthy people are professional con artists and scammers, narcissists and sociopaths. At his level of society, Trump is the rule, not the exception. He just doesn’t hide behind a veil of diplomacy and social graces that have been the tradition.

A lot of 17- and 18-year-old kids were talked into student loans without being told the honest expectations of finding a job, and without knowing of the two recessions that have happened that have caused problems with both GenX and Millennial graduates. And more than one person on this thread has mentioned health problems which obviously no one expects.

You can tell who the Republicans are, because they're the ones saying those teenagers who got sick unexpectedly are lazy grifters. Typical Republicanism.

[quote]you can choose to purchase elite credentials and live in squalor as doors open to you

No one who gets the elite credentials will live in squalor, though. Or very few will, at least.

OP, feel better at least about this: you're smarter than R1, whose comprehension... well, hourly wage at best.

Does an Ivy league college actually give you any better an education? Or is it all expensive smoke and mirrors? And no, I'm not including Jesus schools in the mix.

r30 It was an r1, dumbass. And did you see the guy in the pic?

The US is a shithole country

At least we know what pudding means, r33.

Someone in these student loan threads always suggests bankruptcy. It is near impossible to discharge federal student loan debt in bankruptcy.

I believe just pay the minimum amount for i think 15 to 20 years and if you owe anything it's forgiven.. my payments are suppose to be 300 to 400 dollars a month, but all i pay is the minimum of 125 dollars because that's all i can afford each month... granted, interest builds, but no way could i pay it off in those 15 to 20 years... luckily, i do not have any other debt! no credit card, no mortgage, no car payments and so on....

hopefully though someday soon, will get a president and a senate that will forgive student loan debt... i personally believe that all debt should be forgiven let's say 10 years after you graduate, no matter how little or how much you still owe or even if you never paid anything and used deferments and so on because you COULDN"T pay anything...

OP, go to Reddit’s r/personalfinance. There are people with good advice there.

And life is not a meritocracy. It’s about who you know and who you fuck and who likes you and how willing you are to do what’s needed to get ahead.

It’s like that in the rarefied arts and humanities worlds and it’s like that in the city sanitation department.

Look how far Meghan Markle got.

What's your degree in, OP? Are you currently employed? Can you get a roommate, to help save a little? Move to another state, for a better job?

r37 lives in the fucktocracy.

[quote] The only major difference is that her byline shows she’s got an Ivy-league pedigree and she works for an Ivy university. I, on the other hand, am nobody. As it turns out, it is not my ideas or my writing that are “not right for” this elite publication, but my identity.

This is an unfortunately true observation across the professional spectrum. I have watched Ivy League-educated peers vault past me just because they went to Harvard/Princeton/Yale and I went to a second-tier private university.

Your analysis of non-profit organizations is spot on R27.

The non-profit structure we have in the US is dysfunctional. The stock market doesn't supervise the CEO. Investors don't supervise the CEO. Disinterested board members don't supervise the CEO. They can't even if they wanted to because the CEO ensures that the only information they ever see comes from a few highly placed executives within the organization. No one supervises the CEO. A smart CEO will turn the board into a rubber stamp in just a few years. The Development Director exists mostly to be a sacrificial lamb when fund raising goals are not met. The CEO is certainly not going to stand quietly and take that heat, so s/he points to the Development Director as the problem and it's off with that person's head. (No matter that donations are down because the CEO is misguided and unpopular and donors are withholding for that reason. The board members will never learn that fact.)

But you knew all of that. The only significant thing I would add to your analysis is that so many non-profits rely on government grants. Social work agencies. Health care providers. Art museums. Theaters. Educational institutions. They have all yoked themselves to government grants and have made themselves government functionaries. They can claim to be independent, but the grants dictate what can be done with the money, how it shall be done, how it must be reported, what must NOT be done, and strict time tables for all of it. Not entirely unreasonable, from the point of view of the government/grantor. But the non-profit becomes an indentured servant. And, by conducting its business this way, the government actively cuts citizens out of important benefits they would have received as public employees; public employee union representation, government retirement programs, health insurance programs, and often a living wage. All of the services provided by many non-profits could just as easily be provided by government agencies. The employees delivering these services would, at least generally, be much better for it and the public receiving the services would be no worse.

In essence, government uses non-profit to union bust.

R27 is my experience exactly and could've been written by me. I'm was in the non-profit industry (yes, 'industry) too, until I quit abruptly, out of frustration and disillusionment, several weeks ago. I'm 47 and have no idea what to do with my life. I'm considering graduate school but can't figure out how to fund it. And yes, the people that I met in the non-profit world have turned me into a full blown misanthropist.

The title of this thread should be [italic]Death is the only answer to crushing student loan debt, or Waking Up and Smelling the Coffee[/italic]. I don't mean to be cruel or condescending, but when you were borrowing the money to go to school, did it occur to you that you were ever going to have to pay it back, with interest? Did you sit down with a calculator and add up what you were going to have to clear on a monthly basis to cover rent, food, utilities, transportation, clothes and entertainment and have enough left over to pay your student loans?

I've been called every name in the book both here and elsewhere when I bring these questions up because that's not what student loans are supposed to be about; at least, that's what the people who took them out tell me. And right here in this thread we have rationalization after excuse as to why student loan debt is unrealistic and unpayable and should be forgiven by a loving president and congress, to which I ask what you're smoking because I want some... it must be good.

If you want to know why I feel this way, just look at this thread. People do not understand that there is the way we want things to be and the way things are. You can make these two seemingly contrarian principles more closely resemble each other, but you're going to have to think and act in a way that makes them coalesce. For example, you can't vote for anti-union politicians and expect them to strengthen and build unions. They may tell you they're for unions and the working man, but if they consistently vote to weaken employment law, fight union organization, and enact right-to-work legislation, they're lying to you. Behold the Trump doctrine. We point and laugh at the stupidity of the rubes that voted for Trump somehow believing a Manhattan real estate developer-cum-sui generis bankrupt businessman was somehow for the working man, and only when he and his policies (if you can call them that) screw them personally do they finally admit their error (and then march right back to the polling booth and vote for the same ideology as presented by a new snake oil salesman because somehow doing the same thing again and again is going to yield different results... one day).

If I sound angry, it's because I am. I'm angry that just enough people to tip the scale either stayed home in 2016 or voted against their self interests in blissful ignorance of basic truths, and we're all paying for their stupidity, selfishness and bigotry.

So I'm sorry for your pain, OP, but as Americans, we only do the right thing as a last resort and we have a lot of bad decisions to make before we finally arrive at doing what's best, and the only way to hasten this journey is to disqualify and eliminate those that continually make the wrong choices.

Your future is in your hands and the sooner you embrace this reality the sooner you can achieve your goals. It is not easy. It is not quick. And so long as you continue to live your life not believing in reality, the more you are doing the bidding of the 1%.

PBS is a perfect example of what everyone's talking about re non-profits. Failing, poorly run, totally dependent on British mysteries and historical series for any ratings, the station asks executives to get together several times a year so they can congratulate each other for working for the Most Important TV Station in the Universe. The entire place is run by people who couldn't last a week in a real business, who are terrified of change, who haven't any interest in anything other than keeping their job, and who only hire employees who they feel are dumber than they are so they won't feel threatened.

PBS recently spent a fortune trying to rebrand itself and of course, hired people with whom they were already friendly and who had nothing to offer. Their new slogan: television for the digital age. In other words, 30 years after the rest of us entered the digital age, PBS has finally come to realize there's something else out there besides standard tv.

The reality, R43, is that Congress created a student loan system that has made an entire generation of Americans indentured servants to the banks. As soon as it made all that debt possible, the cost of education predictably sky-rocketed. Congress noted the rising amount of debt and acted. It did nothing to control the cost of tuition, it just made the student loan debt non-dischargeable in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Put the blame for this mess where it belongs. On Congress. It created the mess. It did so at the behest of the banking lobbyists. It compounded the mess, again at the behest of banking lobbyists. Blaming 18 year olds for making unwise financial decisions accomplishes nothing.

Elizabeth Warren is right. Congress made the mess. Congress must fix it. Cancel all federally-guaranteed student loans.

[quote]Did you sit down with a calculator and add up what you were going to have to clear on a monthly basis to cover rent, food, utilities, transportation, clothes and entertainment and have enough left over to pay your student loans?

r43, I'm not the person at whom you are shrieking, but I am someone who can answer "no" to your question. When I was 18, all I knew about money was what my mother told me, that I would get a great job when I got out of college and "Don't worry about the loans." Well, it wasn't as easy as she assured me it was going to be, but eventually the loans got paid.

I'm old—ancient, really—so the amount I had to pay back was trivial in comparison to today's graduates' loan totals, but I imagine today's students also have mothers who protected them from the reality of debt the way my mother did. I wish I had been strong enough to resist my mother's entreaties.

I actually regret having gone to college. I wish I'd gone to chef school instead, back when that would have meant something. But my mother wouldn't hear of anything but my going to college. I tried to fight her on it and she was relentless. Made my life absolutely miserable. I kind of hate her for not letting me stay dropped out after my junior year. But that's more than I want to get into.

R43, have you ever criticized the universities and student loan companies who never even SUGGEST that these teens still in high school sit down and calculate their payback rates? Or never counsel families on the realities of student loans? Instead, these companies and schools encourage loans so they can get the money, with blithe "when you get out of school you'll get a job and start paying it back" explanations.

Do you ever take into consideration the people who failed to secure a job through no fault of their own, i.e. illness?

That's why you get yelled at. You're screaming at 40-somethings who know a lot more now than they did at 17 or 18, who are dealing with the fallout of serious problems beyond their control, and you just sound like some know-it-all snot who thinks everyone else is dumber than they are.

hold on OP it won't always be like this for you. Things are going to change

Life isn't fair.

R31 The point is not a better education. People who work in academic circles say that Ivies are “hard to get into, easy to get out of,” meaning that admissions is the difficult part, and once you’re in, you’ve overcome the only challenge. Consider seriously that George W. Bush holds degrees from Harvard and Yale, and Donald Trump and several of his children all have Penn degrees and the ones who don’t have Georgetown degrees. They all purchased their credentials.

But those credentials are all important in Washington. Bush would not have become president without that pedigree, even with his father having been president. Trump would not have conned himself to such a high level without the Penn/Wharton name to throw around, and access to alum networks.

What it’s about is the brand name and the social and professional networks. Look at Brett Kavanaugh. He went from Georgetown Prep to Yale to Yale Law to the Supreme Court. Before being voted into SCOTUS, he was interrogated and he blubbered like a fool over his good old working out and parting days with rich douchebag friends Squi and Dinky or whatever the fuck bullshit prep school friends he had. He cried about calendars. This is a supreme court justice and a Yale law grad—and an accused rapist—who clearly has the emotional intelligence of a child because he has never been denied anything he wants. That’s Trump, that’s Bush, that’s Clinton—that’s what an elite education network gets you. You get to drink beers, rape girls, cry about calendars, and become president, CEO or a supreme court justice. You can’t accomplish any of this without an elite degree and the personal networks it affords you.

Most people die in debt. No big deal.

All these college graduates surprised that they have to actually pay back the loans they took out. The ones who try to hide from the loans by going back to school and accumulating even more debt are especially delusional. I knew I didn’t want to be saddled with huge student loan debts in the 90s. This isn’t new,

Well, the OP is the Corny Visual AIDS Case, so he should kill himself, anyway.

[quote]the Corny Visual AIDS Case

The WHAT???

One could always go to a state school and pay as you go while working to save up for each semester!

For-profit colleges and universities are the biggest scam ever! Young people should simply STOP GOING and the entire system would collapse overnight including the football programs. Just stop borrowing and stop going!

R47 is right - that's exactly what I find myself in. I took out some loans while they were still able to be included in bankruptcy in the 90s. That changed in the late 90s which is when I suffered a series of severe sudden health issues and then had to step in to be a family caregiver for a very ill relative who had no one else for nearly a decade, all of which torpedoed my career ambitions and earnings. I don't regret that, but those loans are now 7x more than they were when I took them out. I went to a state school, but I'm of an age where everyone told you that you HAD to go to college to make a decent living, so at 17, I thought that's what you had to do. Of course, I was a teenager with no financial literacy when my financial aid officer suggested I apply for all of these loans and no one including my parents ever sat me down and explained what it meant for the long term, but I had no other way of paying for college. I think if I'd seen the big picture, I may have done things differently. I've also thought about going into the nonprofit sector to qualify for loan forgiveness, but I did the math and the hit to my income just isn't worth it.

Nearly 30 years later and I now owe in the low six figures thanks to interest and deferments, and I've accepted that I'll never pay my student loan debt back, but it doesn't hurt my credit score or affect me in any other way and I don't carry much debt other than a car payment and a couple of small credit cards so... I don't care. There are certainly other options than death. The government just keeps increasing the principle and interest amount and I just keep applying for income contingent payments and paying that every month and not a penny more and I've accepted that unless I hit the lottery that's always going to be the case. I will probably owe them half a million dollars by the time I die, on loans that were barely 5 figures to start. I think it's kind of morbidly funny, the government telling me I owe this huge and ever ballooning amount. I imagine at some point the government is going to realize that millions of people are like me and they're never getting any of that money back. You can't squeeze blood from a stone.

One of my friends from college claims that he was misguided into entitlement, and I am inclined to believe him. But I also don’t understand his lack of critical thinking.

He is bitter because he says he was told throughout high school that if he gets a college degree, he will make a lot of money and that taking on debt is the way to get a college degree. So he went on loans, and he graduated with a lot of debt. He expected to make a certain dollar amount and says he was told not to allow anyone to make him too low an offer—so he held out for $60k. Right out of college with only retail experience and a BA. He didn’t get that offer and so he went to grad school out of state and took on a lot more debt.

Like me, he’s a first-gen college student who went to a regional state university. I chose to commute from my family’s house, and he chose to live on campus. We made a lot of different life choices. I am bitter about many things, but I think I made a lot of wise financial decisions, at least comparatively.

He never made the money he expected to make and ended up getting his real estate license.

My parents should never have had children. Cut the problem off at the source.

Fuck all of you wailing that the financial literacy of an 18 year old should be greater than it is. The very existence of this problem underscores the level of financial literacy we can reasonably expect from an18year old. Not a lot.

And if one thinks about it, honestly thinks about, not just smugly glosses over the matter, one really cannot conclude that 18 year olds who have never had a bank loan can be expected to appreciate the inherent danger of interest, penalties and fees compounded on outstanding principal. Of course, these young people know for certain that they will have to repay money borrowed. But receiving payments on principal is not how banks make money. And that profit making mechanisms a bank attaches to a loan cannot be understood and appreciated in any real terms by an inexperienced 18 year old.

They are preyed upon by banks. It must stop. Do not come here and scream about pedophiles preying on 16 year olds and then in the next breath excuse banks preying on 18 year olds. If you do that, you are lower than filth. Do no handover our young people to be shaken down by bankers.

R59, right on. Unfortunately, financial literacy also tends to be a class issue. Poorer, working class parents tend to not give their kids the best financial advice or examples, and it sure as hell isn't taught in public high schools -- although it absolutely should be instead of, oh I don't know, Algebra II?

[quote]One could always go to a state school and pay as you go while working to save up for each semester!

That’s next to impossible to do. Did you graduate from college in 1975? Do you have any idea how much it costs to go to a “state school”?

Assuming R55 isn’t joking...

Tuition and living expenses for one year at the University of Texas (a state school), is over $25,000. That’s probably fairly typical of state universities across the country. It might even be on the low end. Show me a job where a college student can earn $25,000 over the course of a summer. Or on a part-time basis while going to school. ’ll wait.

My heart goes out to you OP. I'm poor now, but I just get by. I don't owe anyone. Then again I'm old. I've had people coming after me when I was younger. I had to stop working fairly young due to health problems too.

Keep in mind OP is not in good health, so many kinds of work are probably out of the question.

Can student loans be written off in bankruptcy? If so that might be the best suggestion here. I declared bankruptcy when things got bad and it was the best thing I could have done. In about 7 years I had good credit again. However I only buy on cards what I can pay for at the end of the month. I never spend money I don't have. I didn't back then either, but I had to stop working and had huge medical bills.

I never had student loans. When I went to Brooklyn College in the early 1970s and it was totally free except for the, then, small price of books. My lunches for the year at the cafeteria cost more than my education. That's how it should be. I could have still had a future without eating lunch but not much of one without an education.

Keep people like OP in mind when you vote in 2020, not just for president, but also Senate and Congress. We need state and city colleges to be free. I think it's Warren and Sanders who are for that and hopefully many Democrats running for other offices.

I disagree that there is a moral obligation to pay back student loans. Think of it as a completed transaction and let the loan companies jump through hoops to get it back. Higher education should be free, and the people who say that "they paid it back so everyone else should as well" are just sour grapes. The idea that Navient charges usurious interest rates on loans taken out by children is absurd.

Fuck the man and hold onto whatever you can get OP. And if the cunts on here cluck otherwise, fuck them too.

"Things sucked for me, so they should suck for everyone else!!!!"

You really fuck yourself by only making the minimum payments.

2008 was 10 years ago. You haven’t pulled yourself together yet, dear?

Once a person falls down that financial hole and can't work or is limited to what kind of work they can do it can be near impossible to climb out, in 11 years, it is 2019, not 2018, or ever. You can't really imagine if it's never happened to you. The stress can be unbearable and make health problems even worse.

Forgiveness of student loan debt through bankruptcy is difficult and rare. You can thank Joe Biden for the newest iteration of the Bankruptcy Law that makes it so. The law also favors business entities and business debts which is why Trump has been able to use it to his advantage. That he has stiffed so many "little guys" who fulfilled their end of their contracts with him, demonstrates the fundamental corruption of our credit and debt system. I foresee a reestablishment of debtors' prisons given the rapid escalation of defaults, and there will be no systemic relief unless the establishment engages in mass loan forgiveness. (Not very bloody likely.) Some people I know who have fallen into this hole have developed a life in the underground economy. They have their own service businesses, receive compensation by cash, and pay cash for everything. While the transition to a no cash economy is designed to thwart people living this way, it is not yet complete. One very good cash economy on the West Coast is marijuana. Consider a move to Humboldt County, or Mendocino, and go from there. Also if you have any "hard skills" like plumbing or electrical work, you can do very well indeed.

I taught at the post-bacc level and people in my classes ran the gamut from brilliant and engaged to drooling upright. There is no integrity in the educational system and the degrees are worthless. That having been said, anyone who lectures someone who, at age 18 decided to take student loans out to finish college and now regrets it, is a cunt.

I graduated from university in 1988. My brother graduated BA from Harvard and PhD in English in 1994. In 1994, he had a hell of a time finding a tenure track position. 1994! Harvard/Stanford grad! Back then, it was heavily discussed how the number of tenure track positions for English PhDs was shrinking.

Who are these people who aren't independently wealthy who pursued PhD's in the Humanities after 1994?? By 1994, it was well known that Humanities PhDs were in deep doo-doo and not finding tenure track jobs.

I majored in art history and thought about grad school but was scared off by the grim prospects for Humanities PhDs. So I joined Peace Corps, went to Africa for 2 1/2 years and decided medicine seemed a good choice - great job marked. I went back to school (mostly night/weekend extension courses at UCLA, studied like a dog, and did well (all A's) . I knew I needed to get into a UC medical school to save $25,000/year. And I did, and got some financial aid. I took out student loans as well, knowing that I would always be employed with a good salary.

I do feel sorry for those entrapped in the vicious student loan cycle, but when it comes to MA's or PhDs in Humanities...I don't understand how these people did not google search "humanities PhD and tenure track jobs".

To be honest, I have never really liked practicing medicine. I would have loved to be studying Medieval art objects...on a nice college campus. But oh well, I made a good practical choice.

SERIOUS QUESTION: my loans are thru navient... used to be sally mae before that.. but it seems like navient is bad bad and more bad? so who should i transfer my consolidated loans to instead? low to non existent almost interest rates? totally 100% legit company!..

People keep blaming Ivies and elite universities for student loan debt. The top 20 schools are the only ones who can afford to give free tuition and scholarships. State schools/lower tier schools are the ones causing the problem. A university needs an active and wealthy alumni community to afford strong financial aid programs.

[quote] A university needs an active and wealthy alumni community to afford strong financial aid programs.

Or maybe not spending so damn much on Division I sports like football and athletics?

Do striving kids who manage an Ivy really make it further? I mean, if you’re some Poor/scholarship kid, are the elites really going to help you out because you went to the same school? YOUR dad isn’t helpful to THEM. Their mother isn’t a legacy member at the right club. I suppose if they wind up owing you a favor it might be worth recommending them on.

Maybe it helps. Who knows?

#74.. BUT supposedly SPORTS BRINGS IN THE MONEY to the university! i guess this is true, in that the money made from having a great athletic team (i.e. alabama football) is then put into the school to improve it in various ways.. (course it's only football and basketball that brings in the big bucks).. however, i always think 1) does anyone whose not a athlete choose to go to alabama because they have a great football team? is the education equal to the football team success? and 2) how embarrassing and shameful that the coach for alabama makes way more then the actual professors and educators! regardless if his teams are successful and bring attention and money to the school, i would personally be embarrassed that as a coach i was making more 10 times more then the actual people that the school besides the students is there for!!.. ego and greed have no bounds i guess..

Have you tried gambling? All you need is to hit it big once and you'll be set. A lot of casinos give you cheap buffets so you don't have to spend a lot of money on lunch.

[quote] Do striving kids who manage an Ivy really make it further? I mean, if you’re some Poor/scholarship kid, are the elites really going to help you out because you went to the same school?

I think it helps. I went to an ultra-elite grad school. The difference isn't that the dads help the kids out, it's that companies prefer to recruit from certain schools.

[quote] The difference isn't that the dads help the kids out, it's that companies prefer to recruit from certain schools.

This. Certain universities have almost cult-like alumni who give each other a helping hand. An example would be USC on the west coast.

And Michigan in the ed sector in DC. Way more prevalent than Harvard, Yale, even Georgetown. People who hire definitely favor Michigan graduates.

[quote]Who are these people who aren't independently wealthy who pursued PhD's in the Humanities after 1994?? By 1994, it was well known that Humanities PhDs were in deep doo-doo and not finding tenure track jobs.

It was well known to people from families/communities who were college-educated. People like me, first-generation Americans whose parents didn't graduate middle school in the home country, had no clue and no way of finding out. The colleges themselves certainly weren't forthcoming and the online infrastructure wasn't there to tell you independently.

R76, no, sports do not bring in money to a school. They claim it helps marketing, but ad buys would be much cheaper.

R36, no. Student loan debt is not forgiven after 15 or 20 years. And you cannot collect social security until the student loan is paid off.

Even the limited student loan forgiveness program for people working for the government or nonprofits has proven to be a bust. Many who signed on a learning that the agreement is not being honored.

#83.. you can't get social security until school loans are paid off?! i never heard of that before.. okay, i'm officially screwed now!...

Did you refinance to a 30 year repayment? I did that fresh out of graduation since my monthly payments on the standard 10 year were $900 (el-oh-fucking-el).

Now that I make way more my payoff is probably going to be by the end of this year... 13 years ahead of schedule.

There are options. Really the (most) institutions of higher ed need to be sued for fraud, IMO. A bailout won’t fix anything.

i know how u feel op, brother......fuk it tho, do the best u can, or move to mexico ….many are....mex city is becoming an oasis of expats from the usa….

You are not screwed, R84. Not totally. R83 is spreading misinformation, a Data Lounge specialty.

Social Security payments are generally exempt from collection for outstanding debt. The main exceptions are domestic support obligations, taxes and federally guaranteed student loans.

For domestic support obligations (child support, etc.) the amount that can be garnished is 65%. For student loans, the amount that can be garnished is 15%. It is possible to speak to the IRS and argue that the 15% garnishment is causing an undue hardship and seek that it be reduced. It is not unusual for it to be reduced to 5%.

It is always good to send some payment EVERY MONTH on your student loan. If $10 is all you can afford, then send it. A record that shows an ongoing to attempt to pay your debt is very persuasive when looking for assistance with government entities. It is essential to have a record of an attempt to pay your student loan debt in order to request discharge in a bankruptcy. It is difficult to discharge a student loan in bankruptcy, even if you are permanently and totally disabled, but the discharge is not available if there is no record of payment. Send something every month!!!

Not quite, R87, about Social Security payments being exempt from collections. I just found this article.

You didn't even read what I posted, R88. Your article restates what I wrote. The garnishment is limited to 15% of your monthly Social Security payment. That's what the AARP wrote. That's what I wrote.

[quote]The colleges themselves certainly weren't forthcoming

No, you will not find colleges and universities in the US counseling undergrads that certain fields of study are worthless. They should start telling the truth. They need to state emphatically that unless you have a wealthy benefactor (parents or a sugar daddy), you will not be able to support yourself by selling macaroni art on Etsy.

I hear ya OP. I'm 44 with around $45K still (I was in school for a very long time).

My only comment is death is NOT the only answer to crushing student loan debt.

FAKING your death is.

WTF is wrong with America? Here in Norway all our student loan debt gets cancelled if we get sick and can't work.

At least with Repaye student loan debt is forgiven after 20 or 25 years, I don't know why R83 says otherwise

[quote]Death is NOT the answer to crushing student loan debt. FAKING your death is.

Now there's a very interesting story premise, r91. Limited TV series?

Why don't you just move to another country? Lots of people just come over to America. So just move.

You don't know why, R93? You got no Google on your computer?

Do your homework, R93.

[quote] Some people I know who have fallen into this hole have developed a life in the underground economy. They have their own service businesses, receive compensation by cash, and pay cash for everything. While the transition to a no cash economy is designed to thwart people living this way, it is not yet complete. One very good cash economy on the West Coast is marijuana. Consider a move to Humboldt County, or Mendocino, and go from there. Also if you have any "hard skills" like plumbing or electrical work, you can do very well indeed.

I recently encountered a contractor who would only accept cash payment, no credit cards, for an $8,000 job. It made me think he was disreputable. But perhaps he was just doing it to avoid tax implications of to be on the hook for debts or judgments. Anyway I found someone else for the job.

^Same. Although it wasn't that much. It was for a junk out on one of our flips. The job would have been about $2000.

Contractors and cab drivers have long been doing that work to escape child support payments. Those pile up murderously fast.

That's public service loan forgiveness R96, not Repaye. I linked to an article on Repaye already. Here's another. Why are you arguing with me about this? The remainder is forgiven after 20 years for undergrad loans and after 25 years for grad loans.

Is it, R100? Do you know that for sure?

A lot of people RELIED on the government's promise about the Public Service forgiveness program. And they got fucked.

Do you know the success rate with REPAYE?

It's only been around for four years R101.

Guess it's impossible for a troll like you to just state plainly from the beginning that you think the government will reneg on their promises in 2035 when the RePAYE loans start hitting their 20th year. Instead you had to scream at people for being wrong and post weird links and hope someone finally pieced together whatever it was you were trying to say.

Wait what the fuck R101, you were the guy who said R83 was wrong, now that Im agreeing with you, you're defending R83? What the fuck with you, asshole?

Seems people roll the dice a bit, and aren’t realistic about their abilities. If you need to work for a living, get a degree in accounting or get a nursing degree or learn how to put up drywall. If you have a trust fund, go for that PhD in Maori dance.

There’s only so many spots for artists and musicians and writers. I was chatting with my kids about these YouTubers and influencers they watch. Asking them about formerly popular ones, talking about their rise and fall and whether they still had any money, etc. Pointing out the successes and failures of the careers of people in our family. How they think they’ll support themselves. You can’t really lecture them, but sometimes you can guide them to make some observations for themselves.

The REPAYE agreement I have with Nelnet is a contract that specifically states a 20-year term. I've also idly wondered from time to time if the government will go back on their promise, and I can see a Republican president 15 years down the road say that not getting those monthly payments will "bankrupt the country" or some such nonsense. However, these are contracts that millions have signed, because Obama's administration allowed anyone to get on one of the various repayment plans regardless of their income. It seems like it would be electoral suicide to yank that promise away from an enormous number of potential voters.

And for the guy who asked earlier in the thread: I have had a pretty good time with Nelnet, which I transferred my loan to from Sallie Mae, but I don't have a great interest rate. As far as maintenance of the loan, customer service, being able to get forms and all that, they have been very good. They couldn't lower my interest rate, though.

[quote] And you cannot collect social security until the student loan is paid off.

What??!!!!! I've never heard that. You pay into SS your entire working life!

Whoever dies owing the most money wins.

That isn't true R106. You can and will collect Social Security if you still owe on student loans.

SS can however be garnished for student loans which is unusual for debt.

Let our good friends at the AARP tell you all you need to know about potential Social Security garnishment for defaulted student loans:

So the government reneged on one debt forgiveness program, but we are going to trust that they will not on another. I guess it could happen.

OP R7 gave really the only good response to you on this thread. We simply do not know enough, how much debt, what your illness was or is (if you have been chronically ill for more than 2 years you are Medicare eligible) and disability eligible. But we simply don't know

"One thing Trump has revealed is that most influential, powerful and wealthy people are professional con artists and scammers, narcissists and sociopaths. At his level of society, Trump is the rule, not the exception. He just doesn’t hide behind a veil of diplomacy and social graces that have been the tradition."

Yes the above describes Trump, but not most of us. I am the son of a very successful banker and financier (father retired in 1985 and is still alive- ran a major NYC-based bank and 30 years ago would not let the bank he ran touch the Trumps- said they were crooks). I have been around people of great success my entire life including much of my family. Most of them, and certainly those I call friends, are honest, hard working and philanthropic. They are NOT con artists, they do not cheat on their taxes, and certainly are not sociopaths. I know many more people who are like the Obamas than the Trumps. That cynical quotation is a perfect example of what Trump and his pathetic party have wrought on the US.

So OP- provide some specifics. Then perhaps someone like R7 or a good career coach will actually help you out.

A "good career coach"?

Those of us without family money are not likely to have heard of such a service...much less afford it.

You do not need family money for a career coach or a life coach. If you had ever looked into it R112 you would know. In some cases a life coach is a pastor or mentor in some other capacity. College debt is not so different from a mortgage which can be much larger than any college debt. Difference is that the prospect of repayment is better known to the lender. One of the big problems with the financial crisis of 2008 was the bundled mortgages where not just securitized debt, but made up of mortgages that never should have been approved.

Because higher ed is so expensive, the "loan sharks" have come out of the woodwork. Kids do not know what they are getting into- neither do their parents it seems. But then college should not be so expensive. We have big time problems with education in our country. The whole thing from public education to higher education needs to be reworked. That is why we need to get rid of the modern GOP.

That said, there are ways to get out of debt. The OP may have a more serious problem due to health- he (she?) cannot work perhaps.? He could declare bankruptcy for one thing. There are legitimate reasons to do so and it can be a good option. Time is the great healer of bankruptcy proceedings. You DO get another chance.

But this is all spitting in the wind without knowing more as R7 stated.

It seems unfair to me that people in student loan debt can't declare bankruptcy, but people with credit card, mortgage, and other forms of debt can.

It's almost as if the powers that be want to specifically and especially punish people for trying to educate themselves.

I used to teach for Columbia U. School of Social Work. We would make our accepted students feel SOOOO special. They were going to save the world AND get an Ivy League graduate degree. Unfortunately, more than half of our students were functionally illiterate (yes, 50%+). It didn't matter, though, because you can be stupid and be a social worker. We would send them to the Financial Aid office and they'd sign on the dotted lines. Most would be saddled with 6-figure debt by the end of the program. The CUSSW was a cash cow for Columbia so we were loved by administration (probably still true). But our students made social work salaries when they graduated, assuming they got jobs. And they were taught almost exclusively by poorly paid adjuncts.

Higher ed sucks.

I dropped out of college after my freshman year. Though I went on to have a lucrative career in advertising, I always felt “less than” for never finishing.

Which is to say that this thread is making me feel a WHOLE lot better. Jees.

[quote]So the government reneged on one debt forgiveness program, but we are going to trust that they will not on another.

Not really. The qualifications for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan were always strict and the government took years to inform people that they weren't meeting the requirements. Back in 2007 when the plan was introduced, people at the time said it was so complicated people wouldn't fulfill the requirements, and they were right.

A temporary version of the PSLF was introduced last year to help fix the problem, because so many were denied at the 10-year mark in 2017. We'll see how that pans out.

The PAYE, REPAYE and other income-based repayment loans have far fewer requirements and a contractual promise, and instead of 29,000 people in the plans, there are millions -- 12% of all borrowers in have an income-based repayment, so about 4.5 million people.

I can see people finding out that a late payment 18 years ago meant their loan repayment timeline was reset, but that's how the requirements work, and that's not the government reneging on anything. A wholesale cancellation of the plans would be far different than the denial of the people who applied for PSLF, and I don't see at this point any reason to assume the worst.

Not sure what the weird hysteria about this is, but it's patently false to say that loans will absolutely not be forgiven at the 20-year or 25-year mark. As far as we know, for those who qualify, they will.

[quote] College debt is not so different from a mortgage which can be much larger than any college debt.

R113, you really don't understand this problem at all. That sentence proves it.

R113, not looking into it was the point. People not from a privileged background have not heard of "career coaches" so they would not look into it. And "life coach" is mostly known as a sitcom punchline.

You are suggesting solutions that make sense from your privileged background. But the problem is not one privileged people have. Hiring someone to help them deal with a lack of money is not going to make much sense to someone who lacks money (and family money to fall back on).

And the idea that there are free life coaches floating around out there is a bit ridiculous.

Most people work to make an income. Even life coaches and career coaches.

The question is would a person who sold a cow for a handful of magic beans or who borrowed a lifetime of debt could be trusted not to do something similar again.

The OP still has not provided any information that would help someone provide constructive advice.

I guess he just wanted to whine, R122.

OP, it sounds like you need to form a non-profit and rake in the grant money. Just don't overpay yourself - pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

OP, I knew a guy who was afraid to turn in his last essay, because then he was to graduate, with more than $100,000 in debt. This went on for years. Finally, he spoke with an attorney, I think it was. Maybe it was social services? Anyway, he agreed to pay 10% of his salary towards the debt, with past-due debt forgiven after 10 years.

Well, he’s 12 years older, now, and his student loan debt is zero. So, I think that means the school wrote-off any of his remaining debt. So, OP, look into that. If you don’t know how, call the library and ask them to tell you

I remember fantasizing about suicide before I filed for bankruptcy 15 years ago. I just wanted to not exist anymore, and my debt ($40,000) would be *poof* gone.

You can do what a friend of mine did. He had a lot of student loan debt but nothing compared to what folks have today. He moved to Bangkok where he taught. A collection agency kept calling his parents and his father gave them his locating in Thailand. he had a few calls there every year but finally received a letter saying his debt was forgiven. If no payment is received in 20 years the feds do right it off. he was informed it was sent to the IRS where he has a tax liability on it now. He travels back to the USA from time to time and also has had several passports reissued. So, moving to another country is a great option. Much better than suicide.

R127 makes a good point. I sympathize for people in this situation, but if debt is making you feel so hopeless that suicide is your next option, move somewhere else. Get a job, save up some money, start all over, create a new beginning.

R125, how could a school write off the debt? Only the lender can do that.

R129, well, I don’t recall who held the debt. However, I can imagine Yale writing off the debt, but not a for-profit collection agency. In any event, whomever it was, the remaining debt is gone now.

Yes moving to some other country could be a solution.

The unlimited number of things you can imagine, R130, are entirely irrelevant and useless in the real world. Please don't make up things and then try to pass them off as facts.

I had a for-profit school debt written off in bankruptcy because the school itself went bankrupt and supposedly held the loan, even though Sallie Mae serviced it, but I doubt that's what Yale does.

The school I went to was a trade school but the trade almost completely disappeared thanks to automation and the school went from accredited and thriving to bankrupt within 2 years.

[quote] R132: The unlimited number of things you can imagine, [R130], are entirely irrelevant and useless in the real world. Please don't make up things and then try to pass them off as facts.

Must you be such a judgmental dick? Seriously? Is it some kind of compulsion? I wrote that I was speculating about who wrote off the debt, but that, “In any event, whomever it was, the remaining debt is gone now.”. Maybe you shouldn’t be posting at all if you’re too stupid to understand plain English. Besides, DataLounge really isn’t the “real world”, pea brain.

And your speculation was entirely wrong, so why are you doing anything but apologizing?

Ok, so it is a compulsion. There are probably meds for that.

Thanks to both of you for ruining the thread. Assholes.

In all seriousness, moving to another country really is a viable option. It's not anywhere near as expensive as you might think, the lenders can't really come after you, your American FICO score doesn't mean shit in a lot of foreign economies, and some places make it very easy for Americans with any kind of professional skill to get a visa.