52% of Americans want all student-loan borrowers to have their debt forgiven, new survey finds

52% of Americans are unrealistic.

If you can't pay back what you plan to borrow - don't borrow it.

Life-long Democrat here and completely against student loan forgiveness at all. Like all borrowers they knew what they were getting into when they signed the agreement for the money.

R1, R2 all people ages 25-35 expected to be making enough money with college degrees to pay back the student loans. It’s hard to with $14 an hour with a bachelors or masters degree.

What jobs did they think they were going to get and how much did they think they were going to be paid, R3? Is it okay for them to buy a $500,000 house that they can't pay for either because they "expected to be making enough money?"

I think colleges and universities should refund part of the tuition. These institutions scammed these people. The money was loaned in good faith, there is no reason why the US taxpayer should foot the bill.

I don't believe that 52% of Americans are for this.

Why is college so expensive in the first place? Why isn't education free like in other countries? Why do we push college on people and then demonize them when it leaves them in debt with no job that can provide an income to pay off the debt??

Biden's the one that caused this damn problem in the first place by making student loans non-dischargable in bankruptcy. Should everyone be forgiven no. Should the truly bankrupt be able to go through the legal process? Yes.

You sound like a loser, R7, who blames everyone else for their problems. No one has to go to a private university. No one is "demonizing" anyone any more than anyone who borrows money and then refuses to pay it back AS THEY AGREED TO DO UP FRONT. I don't care WHAT they borrowed the money for: college, car, house, meth, hookers, it doesn't matter.

Oh it's been...a few days since we had a student loan thread

It was a website poll, not a controlled survey, so there’s not an ounce of validity to it.

There's something very wrong when people flaunt how much they owe without feeling the shame they should have for choosing to borrow more than they could pay back.

Cute guy in OP

I don’t really care what dlers think about student loan cancellation.

I want to know what that dude studied to rack up $184,361 in student loan debt?

R14 easy to do with interest. Before I got a good enough job to pay extra on my loans, I paid over 10K a year in interest, per my tax form. And of course, only 2500 is a tax writeoff. So fair.

Gotta protect the banks

I can’t believe that the idea of student loan forgiveness causes some people to be outraged, but billionaires paying zero taxes does not. Our society has become so brainwashed and indoctrinated that some of us willingly eat their own.

Partial forgiveness and regulate all colleges. They are raping the public without lube!

[quote] all people ages 25-35 expected to be making enough money with college degrees to pay back the student loans. It’s hard to with $14 an hour with a bachelors or masters degree.

If only they had been smart enough to google how much they would earn after they graduated with a crap degree

So what about next year when every eighteen year-old graduates from high school and needs loans. Are they SOL?

Outlaw student loan borrowing!

There! Done!

The price of college will crumble overnight!

[quote] I can’t believe that the idea of student loan forgiveness causes some people to be outraged, but billionaires paying zero taxes does not

You must know a lot of idiots. The people I know dislike both things

I'm all for it! I'll take anything they want to offer.

I wish that people who are against debt forgiveness would understand that you’re paying part of the cost of this debt one way or another. The debt is a drag on the economy. A 2018 study estimated that forgiving all student debt would add an average $84-$108 billion per year to GDP growth. The Federal Reserve did a study that found that student debt was hampering new small business creation and was therefore a significant drag on new job creation. Something like 20% of people on SNAP and 25% of people on Medicaid have college degrees. You’re paying for those economic headwinds and social safety net expenses right now. It’s like the people who are opposed to paying Walmart employees better wages and benefits. You can either pay a few more cents for every bit of cheap Chinese crap you buy at Walmart, or you can pay for food stamps and Medicaid coverage for Walmart employees. But either way, you’re paying.

If the guy in the green t-shirt at OP's picture owes 184 grand for student loans, well then I am Dolly Madison.

R25 heard of interest rates?

YOU signed the paperwork....YOU got the education.....WHAT is the PROBLEM?.....I understand predatory lending needs to be corrected---but FREE SCHOOL after YOU promised to pay for it?....WTF is that?....That's like going to a car dealership---buying a new car---THEN wanting it FREE in 3 years because you don't like the price anymore.....

The interest rates are absolute insanity. That's a huge part of the problem.

All for student loan forgiveness. If subprime debt could be canceled and forgiven post 2008 economic crisis, I think we can forgive the same for student borrowers.

The problem, cuntress of R27, is the predatory lending and the insane interest rates. Basically, unless you have a GREAT job right out of college, you are FUCKED

Maybe the US should do what we do in Australia. People pay back the cost higher education through the tax system and only start to pay it back if they earn more than a certain income. Student debt is different to other types of debt and should be treated differently.

We should not bail people out for their poor choices.

The responses are so different from the thread about rent bailout during covid.

[quote]The responses are so different from the thread about rent bailout during covid.

Probably because the situations are fundamentally different.

Forgive all student loans say I. Enough already.

If their debt will be forgiven can I get the college debt I paid back in the day repaid to me?

Then, cuntress of R30, maybe you should have majored in management instead of acting.

Do people who PAID their Student Loans get a special refund?.....Or are they just being called SUCKERS by the deadbeats who want a free education?....When is MORTGAGE DEBT forgiven?....AUTO DEBT?.....I have a MasterCard that I really think needs to be forgiven.....Where do we draw the line?

You Yanks sure fight on each other like crabs in a bucket. No wonder you ended up with Trump

University needs to be free, not run like a private corporation. Education is not a luxury, it is an investment, if people aren't educated then the country at large will suffer.

"[R1], [R2] all people ages 25-35 expected to be making enough money with college degrees to pay back the student loans. It’s hard to with $14 an hour with a bachelors or masters degree."

So life doesn't meet expectations and that justifies student loan relief? Part of knowing what they took on is knowing that it's all a gamble.

Allow student loan debt back into bankruptcy filings - that's the better solution.

[quote]I wish that people who are against debt forgiveness would understand that you’re paying part of the cost of this debt one way or another. The debt is a drag on the economy.

Americans owe a lot more on mortgages than they do on student loans, aren't mortgages a "drag on the economy," as well? Why don't we forgive them, too, and really supercharge the economy?

There are a lot of cruel people in this thread. We allow debt forgiveness either through bankruptcy or otherwise for failed business endeavors, medical debt, mortgage foreclosures, credit card debt - or almost any reason whatsoever. As a global society, we decided after the mid 19th century to have leniency against failed endeavors so that people would not have to suffer in debtor's prison for the rest of their lives. But for students? No relief for them!

But people aren't asking for the ability to discharge their student loans through bankruptcy relief, R43, they're asking for blanket forgiveness. I don't know why we jumped past that as a solution.

R13 *IS* Datalounge!

Love ya!

😂

100% of posters on this comment think student debt posts are worse than alounge.

Oh sure. As long as college tuition is free for all future students, too.

Dear Student:

Eat the corn out of our collective shit, and pay the fuck up, you delusional twits. YOUR obligation to pay for YOUR god dammed debt is no different than anyone else’s.

I had to get a student loan for my son, when my spouse went through all of my savings. I had no other source of income to cover it. This was back in 2009. The monthly payment was appx $350, OF WHICH ABOUT 27 CENTS WENT TO PRINCIPAL AND THE REST TO INTEREST. Imagine my joy when 10 years later I got a congratulatory email praising me for having paid off TEN PERCENT of my debt.

This is usurious. This should be illegal. This is outrageous.

Did you not know the terms before you signed?

The hot gay in OP's post can get it. Is $52k his rate??

I have nothing to gain personally from student loan forgiveness but I support it. Young people are getting screwed. When I went to University fees were manageable and there was the guarantee of a good job afterwards. Not so now. Plus housing costs now are obscene as well.

Those who have repaid student debt good for you. Let it go.

The young have many decades to live. That’s an asset far more valuable than any amount of debt. I’m not going to add to their considerable bounty.

Funny how other poor people getting a hand up makes people foam at the mouth with rage, but the Bezoses and Musks and Zuckerbergs of the world raping the economy without lube gets a shrug. Humanity is fucked

R54, see R21.

[Quote] The problem, cuntress of [R27], is the predatory lending and the insane interest rates. Basically, unless you have a GREAT job right out of college, you are FUCKED

"I never promised you a rose garden."

R55 look at the RAGE on this thread about struggling people getting a hand up. And that report last week(?) about the 1% avoiding taxes, shrug.

[quote][R54], see [R21].

You can't hate on billionaires while also hating on legitimate wealth redistribution. You're just a doofus.

I'm sure it is very difficult for students to pay, and I agree that basic university should be low-to-zero $$. But for Masters and PhD'S, it's on them.

My student loans were around thirty grand in the 80's, but home mortgage rates were sometimes 20% or more, compared to 3 or 4% now. Trust us when we say living through the Reagan administration was fucking tough.

R54, your "whataboutism" is just as bad when you do it as when the orange menace and his idiots do it. None of us here who believes that people who willingly signed up for borrowing money should also pay it back also think it is okay that billionaires don't pay their fair share. You're as bad as any little kid trying to get out of getting in trouble by pointing his finger at someone else and saying, "But HE...!" Grow up and be willing to discuss a situation as an adult.

They get Starbucks every morning. They’re have iPhones and Netflix. They don’t need loan forgiveness.

R60, that's not whataboutism. You have a serious disconnect with why people struggle to pay off debt in the first place, if you can't see the connection between low and stagnant wages and the very existence of billionaires in the first place.

Take it up with Bezos and Zuckerberg, R62, not with the rest of us who have problems and debts of our own but aren't expecting the government to clean up after us so we can start over from scratch.

R63 you mean every other kind of debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy?

Forgive the debt? No! Eliminate all interest? Hell yes!

While I think community colleges should be free and state colleges and universities should be reasonably priced for state residents. I don't give a shit about somebody who went to an Ivy to network and has a shitload of debt. If Biden excuses private college debt, he's going to make a lot of enemies: all the people who paid off their debt to begin with.

[quote]Eliminate all interest? Hell yes!

Without that interest, most people who have student loans would have paid them off in full a long time ago.

R66 or you could blame everyone that held up the reform for so long when this has been a problem for a good 20 years.

During the Dem primary, Beto O'Rourke had an idea I thought was viable. People go to work in public service for x number of years in notoriously low-paid jobs and get their debt cancelled: teachers, nurses, social workers, etc. Some lawyer asked him the question at a TownHall saying it wasn't applicable to him, he'd had to take on enormous debt going to Harvard Law (brag, brag). Beto told him to go work as a public defender.

And in addition, they should apply all interest already paid toward the debt.

R67 I know I would've! Plus it compounds.

Well R64, I work my ass off to pay my debts, sis, so I wouldn't know if what I owe is: "...every other kind of debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy". I'll be damned if I don't pay my own shit off, even if it takes me until I'm 80 years old.

Have fun screaming into the void about Uncle Sam paying off your shit, though. Good luck with that.

Sucks to be you R72 because I'll have my loans paid off by 35. If Uncle Sam wants to give me a boost, I won't say no. I also am aware that I'm in a very fortunate position and a lot of people are not making as much as I am and the interest rates are killer.

I'm all for them paying back the original loans, without the interest. It's a complete ripoff and I'm sure most people would feel that is fair. The interest on these loans are insane.

If you go to a dealership to buy a new car and the dealer says he can get you financing for 18%, you don’t take the deal.

You don’t take it and then hope the government steps in and says, “My, your interest rate is high. Hey, finance company, you’re not getting that money!” while you’re still driving around in the new car.

As does my very Republican family member who would never vote for a Democrat.

R75, the difference is that you're rationalizing with an adult brain and years of life/financial experience. Some of these people are kids, barely legal, with undeveloped brains and families with no history of financial literacy, and yes, these predatory loans do take advantage of them.

R77 this. "Hey you 17 and 18 year olds? Wanna go to college like you've been told to ever since kindergarten? Sign here!"

Um.....why didn't they know better? Bad boomers!

That works for freshman. What's the excuse for the people who continue to take out more and more student loans after age 20? 22? 24? 30?

The Bureau of Labor statistics reports which jobs will be in demand. You can cross reference salaries, region in which you live and cost of living.

Being realistic and practical are important in life. I know some of you guys don't like the idea of trades or anything that reeks of STEM but realistically those jobs have paid well and have been in high demand.

You can keep repeating how much you value liberal arts and how everyone should value liberal arts but it's not reality. I'm truly sorry but it's not that way anymore. But, if you are honest with yourself, you KNEW that too at age 18, at age 20, at age 22, at age 24, etc.

That's not my fault or the government's fault or your parent's fault. That's on you.

The fastest-growing chunk of the U.S.’s $1.7 trillion student-loan pile is the one held by the oldest borrowers. There are now about 8.7 million Americans aged over 50 who are still paying off college loans, and their debt has increased by about half since 2017.

I love idiots like R80 who assume all the debt must be from "useless art degrees"

[quote] all people ages 25-35 expected to be making enough money with college degrees to pay back the student loans. It’s hard to with $14 an hour with a bachelors or masters degree."

This is the least of their problems. They were too stupid to even pick a proper major that would allow them to get decent jobs

Only an idiot would get themselves in debt for a job that pays $14/hour. These types of people will always have financial problems

The whole system needs to be reformed.

I have some issues with 100 percent forgiveness just because I think some responsibility is important.

Going forward, I think public service should be tied to free college classes, or student loan forgiveness.

[quote] Only an idiot would get themselves in debt for a job that pays $14/hour. These types of people will always have financial problems

Someone talking completely out of their fucking ass, of course.

People with degrees were expected to make more like $20-25 an hour - over 50K a year. But some of the availability of jobs in the last 10-15 years have changed, especially with automation. No one expected that $14 would be top pay, but if you're having to Uber, Instacart or work at Whole Foods to make ends meet, it might be at the moment.

I'm a fat cunt that's really mad people aren't psychic and couldn't tell what would be a success when they were 17! We should throw all the poors into a pit for their bad choices!

Luckily I never spent more than I had, so I still live in Mother's house and still use her dishes!

Yeah...about public service...

Let's get to the real problem here, and that's the fact that "higher education" like college/university no longer means a good job, or even any job, when you graduate in the United States.

Students were sold this hook, line and sinker and also told that they could be whatever they wanted to be; if you can dream it, you can achieve it, and all other sorts of crap.

Before the now (seeming) aftermath of COVID workers are in need and it's somewhat of a workers market, but prior to that it was an employers market. They were asking for, and getting, receptionists and office assistants with bachelors and masters degrees and for other "entry level" jobs like production assistant, marketing assistant, social media consultant, etc. These jobs often pay $20-$22 an hour here in LA. Who's going to pay off student debt with that, and a car and apartment?

The education system is broken. The end goal should not just be higher education. It should be a well rounded education to make young people able able to relate to others broadly in most topics- not just their hand picked favorites - and to set realistic future goals. Not a great student? Learn a trade. Learn people skills. Do something with your hands. There are other sectors of society that need workers and not necessarily a college graduate.

On top of that, housing and high ticket consumer goods like cars need to come down in price.

I don't see how anyone young affords anything, honestly.

R87 hard work and a fair amount of luck

I went to school...I PAID for my school.....Where is MY refund....?

My alma mater was 35K/year when I graduated in 09 (and I received a lot of aid). This year its 68K.

U Texas at Austin is tuition-free for in-state students whose parents earn less than $100k/year. All state universities should do that.

R86 I don't mean the dumb ass way the US tried to do public service.

My BF is German. He was in the military for 2 years, and then attended university for nearly 7 years. He only ever had to pay less than $500 a year for various fees and books.

R92 the US is committed to doing things in dumbass ways -gestures at EVERYTHING-

It's so cute that you guys think this is ever going to happen.

Biden: “We’re proposing free community college.” Gen Z; “We have to live at home ewwwww!” Kamala: “HAHAHAHAHA!”

I PAID $88 a semester back in 1971 and no one helped me! I don't care that your school.charged you $300k and the feds gave you student loans without regard for suitability or your ability to pay. Good luck with your 8% compounding interest in a 0% interest world and your $10 an hour job! Forgive student debt? Where's MY refund!?

[quote] My alma mater was 35K/year when I graduated in 09 (and I received a lot of aid). This year its 68K.

Damn.

The skyrocketing cost of a college education has to be addressed every bit as much as the loan issue or we'll be right back in the same place in 10 years.

Fuck Forgiveness!

Just make it interest and fee free.

R92 don't know about Germany, but I went to college in France and Switzerland and tuition is low but certainly not free and housing is the issue. Dormitories, student housing don't exist in anything like a sufficient number and housing costs are exorbitant.

Plus, you can't just go to university because you want to: places are very limited, you need to have very high grades, there aren't hundreds of colleges and you can't just sit in college for years to avoid getting a job. And you can't even get part-time jobs to try to self-fund your education. The jobs students traditionally get here - waiter, sales clerk - are rigidly controlled by unions and students can go fuck themselves as far as they are concerned.

Also being a high-school graduate here qualifies you for college - not there as the level of schooling is much higher. And only about 35% of Europeans ever even go to university; the vast majority of students leave school at 15 to apprentice to trades.

Average age of the posters in this thread: 82

Average cost of yearly tuition when the average poster graduated from college: $500

R100 I'm sure it's not perfect, but it sounds like several pieces of it are more practical and make more sense than here.

Including the piece about apprenticeships and trades.

Mike Rowe is a little too Trumpy for me overall, but one area I can support with him is how he talks about how two year schools, technical schools and certificate programs should be valued, too. We have all been told "4 year college" for 50+ years now is the answer, and it isn't, not for everyone. Too many people went into debt for jobs they will never have.

If you paid for you schooling and paid off your loans GOOD FOR YOU. This isn't about YOU.

We know it’s not about us who did the right thing.

It’s about whiny little brats who want the government to pay off their obligations they signed up for while they sat their asses in a classroom for four or more years learning to scream “cultural appropriation!” or “cancel him!” because they’re finding life is difficult and has twists and turns.

Well smell Miss R104

I'm in Texas- I have never seen a qualified tradesman (plumber, carpenter, electrician, construction worker, etc.) who was white or black. It's always Mexicans here as whites and blacks think trades and manual labor are beneath them. Whereas electricians probably earn twice what a sociology major ever will.

^^ those Mexicans are shit tradesmen, too. The trades have gone to hell in the US.

R107 - the hell they are. I bought a house that was built entirely by Mexicans - beautiful craftsmanship. Then we commissioned a pool, hired a white guy who owned a pool company and he did nothing. A couple of Mexican guys actually built the pool-which is gorgeous and they even corrected the white guy's design error; we wanted a table and bench in the pool. The supposed architect had designed them so that in fact you would be sittting below the water line.

Last week we decided to replace carpetting in the bedrooms with hardwood floors. 3 Mexican guys moved all our heavy Restoration Hardware furniture out of the way, ripped out carpetting, put in the hardwood floors, put our heavy furniture back in the space of 8 hours. Amazing. And they were hot,too.

[quote] If you paid for you schooling and paid off your loans GOOD FOR YOU. This isn't about YOU.

If you paid off your student loan because it was the right thing to do, but you don’t get a refund equal to the benefit that current debtors get since you are responsible person, then yes, it about you.

I paid all of my loans back in full with interest and I am totally for debt-forgivenesss. However, instead of just forgiving the debt, maybe the government should have borrowers volunteer in underprivileged communities or do some other type of community service in exchange for debt waiver.

Let's talk about trades and trades education in the US.

As an Xer, this is something I remember well. Trades were one of the many ladders the Boomers pulled up behind them in the 80s and 90s. In many cities there were no private (overpriced, mediocre) trade schools the way there are now. Apprenticeship was all there was. If you didn't know somebody, you didn't get in. Vocational education was gutted in the 80s and 90s too. Vocational education is more expensive to provide than classroom education.

What little vocational education was left was mostly girl stuff that paid poorly, like cosmetology, medical assisting, clerical.

The argument wasn't "college is better than vocational education;" it was "college is better than no college," which is true. Most people didn't even talk about trades.

Trades weren't shunned because people thought they were beneath them; they were not available unless you had inside connections.

As the Boomers aged, people started noticing shortages of workers in the trades, and crappy schools swooped in to provide HVAC certificates for $50,000 - and the school grad still has to complete an apprenticeship and licensing track. Trades didn't have a bad reputation so much as they had no reputation. Many of the modern programs were re-created from scratch.

If you live in a few places in the US, you may have had public vocational education available. But in much of the US, unless it was for a niche local industry, voc-ed disappeared by the late 1980s, and still hasn't fully come back.

Instead of forgiving it outright, allow them to convert it into a flat ~10% surtax on income and investment returns for a number of years (say, 20 to 30) based upon the amount of debt. Many will come out ahead vs today. Some will hit the jackpot, become CEOs of a startup, and pay much more (winning in one way, losing in another).

Let's suppose they'd been offered this as an option in 2010. They would have graduated into a shit job market, worked 10 years as a barista with a Master's degree, then gotten a real job post-covid now that Boomers are mass-retiring and spent the NEXT 10-20 years paying roughly double what they would have had to pay otherwise. In the end, it would have mostly balanced out, but in the meantime, they would have had 10 years WITHOUT crushing student loan payments.

Or, alternatively, set the interest rate to prime+1%, cap the monthly payment for low-income graduates (rolling unpaid interest above that amount into the balance), and treat any balance due at death like a tax lien.

However, going forward, something needs to be done to control future tuition costs, or schools like Harvard will raise tuition to a million dollars per year. Basically, a circuit breaker like the "jumbo loan" rule for mortgages that served to make ~$460k the unofficial limit builders could charge for "normal" houses & was the only thing keeping prices halfway-sane in the early 2000s. Maybe set an annual borrowing limit based upon the taxes paid by the school's grads (which the IRS could figure out for the relevant agency pretty easily after a year or two of software development... identifying those grads based upon student loan interest tax deductions). So, a school whose grads DO make a lot more could charge more, but a school whose grads do poorly would have to charge less.

[quote]But people aren't asking for the ability to discharge their student loans through bankruptcy relief, [R43], they're asking for blanket forgiveness. I don't know why we jumped past that as a solution.

Because it got taken away and no one is naive enough to think the government will just say "Oops, our bad" and give it back to us.

R110, there was a public service repayment program that many applied for (I was one of them). But crooked and idiotic loan servicers rejected everybody's applications. About 1% of applicants got their loans repaid.

In Europe apprenticeships work this way: non-academic students get funnelled into more 'practical' studies at age 12 - no Latin, no Greek, no advanced math or science, etc. Then they leave school at 15 for a maximum 4 year apprenticeship programs (most like sales clerk, waiter, painter, etc. are much shorter) where they do continue with some academic subjects part-time but concentrate on learning their trade. Apprenticeships are joint programs between government and private industry. Apprentices earn token salaries during their apprenticeship and if they pass their exams and get their diploma, they invariably are hired by the private company they apprenticed to.

[quote] Instead of forgiving it outright, allow them to convert it into a flat ~10% surtax on income and investment returns for a number of years (say, 20 to 30) based upon the amount of debt.

Garnishment of wages and other income would definitely be good to use.

[quote]People with degrees were expected to make more like $20-25 an hour - over 50K a year. But some of the availability of jobs in the last 10-15 years have changed, especially with automation.

It wasn't just 10-15 years ago, it happened in the 1990s, too, both early in the 1990s when I was in college, and early 2000s when I'd only worked for a few years and got ousted from my job during an economic downturn because it was last-hired-first-fired. Not only that, by the time I had graduated, no one was hiring for anything except computer or tech jobs, which no one was really predicting would happen. The economy had allegedly recovered in the mid 1990s, but mostly in the tech industry.

[quote] Not only that, by the time I had graduated, no one was hiring for anything except computer or tech jobs, [bold]which no one was really predicting would happen.[/bold]

Are you drunk? That’s practically ALL that was predicted in the 90s-00s.

God the bitches complaining about entitled young people are boring. Did you not read that the majority of student loan debt is owed by over-50s? Or do you consider that young?

And the idea that an iPhone or any smartphone is a luxury item in 2021 is moronic.

R118, he said early 1990s, not 90s-00s. In the early 1990s, things were mostly a continuation of the 1980s. Home computing was still very new and not interesting to the masses; there was no WWW; internet was the domain of university geeks. The education industry was lagging behind and things looked a lot like they had for the previous 25 years. The average citizen had no exposure to computers or computing; and it's easy to understand that IT education was not on many people's minds.

In the 1990s, many people working in modern IT jobs like networking - I had a friend who did this for Cox Cable - were self-taught. In undergrad, we had a couple computer labs, but they weren't popular, and you couldn't do much on them except word processing, databases, and a few had Gopher terminals. If you wanted laser printing, you had to pay 10¢ a page. Even in 1997, very few people knew what a PDF was.

I went to a top-20 grad school in the mid-1990s, and the library catalogue system was a morass of CDs to be loaded into readers, a small number of specialized computerized databases, and old fashioned card catalogues.

I was in college then too. IT was still small. What yanked my chain back then was how many students were majoring in "business," which seemed more like cult indoctrination than an education.

[quote][R118], he said early 1990s, not 90s-00s.

Thank you, yes, that's exactly what I meant. When we were applying for colleges in the late 1980s and early 1990s, people were saying tech and computer jobs would be big, but not that they would be almost the ONLY job you could get just a few years down the line.

R120- how old are you? IT was already everything people were aiming for from the early 1980s on. That's 40 years ago. My ex who is 70 wanted to be an architect and everybody told him it was a dead field with few jobs and he should study math and computer science in college. He did and worked at highly paid jobs his whole career.

No it wasn't R122. IT was not everything and many people barely knew it existed, because there were few computers within reach of ordinary people in the early to mid 1990s. I graduated undergrad in the mid-1990s. There were computer science courses, but many people were still in traditional fields, like natural sciences, humanities, communications. Then there was the dreaded business undergrad.

And I didn't say it was a bad field to get into; I said it was a field that few people were aware of, along with the lack of awareness of computing among the general population. Things changed rapidly in the 1990s.

My younger brother by 6 years went to RIT and majored in electrical engineering rather than computer science because he wasn't convinced it would be a robust sector. A friend quit his school-district programming job in 1990 and went to architecture school because he was concerned that IT would become oversaturated. His prediction came true, but took longer than he expected.

[quote] IT was already everything people were aiming for from the early 1980s on.

Yes, that’s correct. The early 80s were when I got into into it. I had researched the forecast for how many jobs there would be and what the pay would be and it seemed like a good field to get into. The field took off with the availability of Apple’s computers and the IBM PC in the early 80s, the TRS-80 and the Commodore stuff. The latter got people into pursuing programming for a living.

I’m not a republican but:

Borrow money you can afford to repay Halve kids you can afford to support

Enough handouts.

[quote]IT was not everything and many people barely knew it existed, because there were few computers within reach of ordinary people in the early to mid 1990s.

It's possible some of this could be location-dependent.

I was always friends with people quite a bit older than me and in the mid-90s, in our city, IT was going to be "it" and many of the people I knew (including yours truly) were in those Computer Science courses. Some of us even started going to college for it early since systems were in place so that we could both study it in high school and get college credit for it. I had a home computer in the mid-90s and I even had one in the early 90s because my parents knew it was going to be "a thing" and started me off early. I was on usenet with quite a lot of other people.

However, my friends didn't start sending "emails" until the late 90s but we were all still forced to learn how to use computers, how to type properly with your home row keys, how to use MS Office and even earlier than that WordPerfect, etc. Finally, we were all told that anything involving computers was "the future" and that's why they had been forcing it down our throats since 2nd grade.

Even in the late 80s, all of us little kids were learning how to use computers and write LOGO programming.

However, I always went to schools that had enough money to have giant computer labs and I grew up in a major city (which I guess is a tech capital now) so it was pretty standard all around.

It's lovely R115, but the US has no educational, technical or industrial policy. We do what we used to do unless somebody comes along with enough money to start something new. Then we do that, or we don't. We don't qualify people for university education. If you have the inflated grades, you're in. There are remedial classes, and if you flunk out, you can try again, or not.

In most of the US, there aren't options for a young person to obtain vocational education, except for a private school after graduating from high school. There's no testing or tracking for voc vs non-voc education. There are often complaints from industry that there aren't sufficient people trained for their industry. Heaven forbid that these corporations should train their own workers.

My dad was a math teacher taking computer courses as early as 1979, on RCA machines. We had our own home computer by 1983. We subscribed to computer magazines and I took a computer class at night at the local university when I was in high school in 1988, and the university didn't even have a CS degree track available at that time. I went to summer computer camps. And I am telling you no one, absolutely no one, was predicting that computers would be nearly the ONLY job you could get by the mid 1990s.

They all said it was a growing field and there would be lots of jobs, but when I was being advised on career tracks in high school, there was no internet and emails were still using bang paths. The advice was that it was a growing field but you should get a degree in something traditional, while making sure to learn computers and take a few courses, too.

By the time I was out of college we had the internet, Amazon was selling books online, and Google already existed as "PageRank." Things changed so much in those six years that the advice I got and choices I made in 1989 and 1990 were useless.

Fuck this analog life! I'm going to CDI!

I agree that there should be no debt forgiveness. What about all those who were responsible for paying off their debts? If they could do it, why can’t these dumb fucks? Why should I have to pay off other people’s debts? We did it for the dumb fucks who bought houses they couldn’t afford. Stupidity is on them!

"I only want my tax money to bail out megacorporations and pay for our absurdly sized military!"

Jesus Christ, R131! GIVE IT UP. How many times do you have to be told that expecting people to repay the money they agreed to has NOTHING to do with other policies such as increasing taxes on corporations and the mega-wealthy and downsizing the expenditures on the military. I'm all for those things, too. Stop playing the idiotic whataboutism. You aren't even DOING it right, for the love of god.

Colleges are stupidly overpriced these days. Most of the faculty are working there as dead end jobs because they never succeeded in their own lives for what they were teaching.

In the 1990s, I went to a bank in Le Havre France to exchange some money, and they were still keeping written ledgers.

Oh, well, then that settles that.

Some bank on the other side of the world didn’t have computers, so….

[quote] Halve kids you can afford to support

How very Solomon-like. And if you do that, you won’t have to worry about college for them.

[quote] were still using bang paths.

Where would one find these paths? A cruisy woods, or…?

TIA!

All y'all cruel people yelling at a bunch of now 50yos who took out money when they were too young to know better. You don't realize that the student loan crisis is the same as the subprime housing crisis back in 2008. No credit checks or ability to pay or suitability - just sign here. You want these people to be trapped for life, but it was okay for every subprime house flipper to walk away from their home when they got underwater? It's okay for people to discharge their other debts in bankruptcy but not former students? It's okay for the wealthy to offset their capital gains with capital losses and tax lost harvest so they don't pay cap gains tax? It's okay to bail out the financial system or the auto industry or whoever else, but not students? You can't even deduct interest off student loans if you make $75k a year - which isn't even going to begin to pay down grad school/law school/medical school debt. Someone has to do something.

R135, I provided the extreme example as a humorous but true anecdote about how computer technology wasn't ubiquitous yet in 1995.

My sincerest apologies then, r139. I didn’t read it that way.

No harm, no foul.

Belly up to the bar, I’m buying.

Like anything in life, don't live above your means. You don't go to a school you can't afford.

School loans are predatory and the government should step up. Fair lending practices have to be applied.

Jesus, now you're doing it too, R138. Tiresome. You can just "whatabout" yourself right into oblivion. No one is too young to both go to college and not understand that when you borrow money you have to pay it back. I am all for having those loans be able to be refinanced and potentially included in bankruptcy filings.

Meanwhile it's their generation driving the over-heated and over-priced housing market. Just how broke and hard-pressed can they be?

R142 You're so annoying, lol. You're doing the same "what aboutism" you claim to hate. "What about me? I paid all my bills. What about me? Who is helping me? Why aren't people interviewing Meryl Streep and asking her what it's like to work with me?"

R142, the whataboutism in R138 is justified. Why do you care so much about student debt but are not concerned about all the money thrown at investors, homeowners, and wealthy people?

OP- I would do the good looking guy on the left.

Okay, R145, we'll try this in baby steps so that you understand: first, what makes you think that I am not concerned about all the money thrown at investors, homeowners, and wealthy people? You don't have a clue what my thoughts are on those topics, only what my thoughts are on forgiving reneging on voluntary debt. Second, explain exactly what money you are referencing being thrown at investors and homeowners.

Stop asking the Government to solve YOUR financial mistakes.....YOU went to school---there is a COST to that. I already have to pay taxes for SCHOOLS for BRATS I never had...I sure as hell am not paying for YOUR education because YOU want a freebie......

FREE EDUCATION!!....You think it's bad now wait until President DeSantis makes our lives hell for 8 years starting in 2024. All because DEMOCRATS are too wimpy to get rid of the Philibuster Rule. That means NO voting rights..NO Insurrection Investigation....Half-Assed Infrastructure that the GOP wants...And of course TRUMP is walking around without a care in the world---probably the next GOP Florida Senator...

There’s a huge difference with mortgages. If a deadbeat doesn’t pay his mortgage, the lender can take the house, so the borrower doesn’t get away with it. With a student loan, there’s no collateral to seize. So the borrower would get away with not paying and still keep the education he had obtained. Obviously, that’s unacceptable.

R147, you're deflecting. The point is, the powers that be seem to be able to make wealthy people, subprime mortgage creators and holders, and subprime mortgaged home owners whole. Investment losses are voluntary too. There's plenty of money for broke student loan holders to get some too. Obviously you're a socialist so long as the socialism benefits only the 1%. Bailing out the automotive industry helped the economy; and it has been shown that bailing out student loan debt will also help the economy. Why do you want the USA to be a nation of debt slaves?

Student loans are more like unsecured loans, R150. Most educations don't have a lot of tangible value. And the problem many students have experienced is that their educations aren't worth much money in the workplace. Not enough to pay off their loans anyway. There is clearly a mismatch between the cost of education and its value. This wasn't true 30-40 years ago but it is now.

There is a lot wrong with the US economy. Too much venture capital, too little production, too much speculation, and too little human development.

I don’t have student debt…..because college was practically free back in the day when I attended…..getting an education shouldn’t strap you with massive debt for the rest of your natural life here on planet Earth.. Education is paramount in a civilized society …….else you get people who believe just about anything because they are to ignorant to discern the truth from fiction…think Q-Anon

[quote]college was practically free back in the day when I attended…..

Based solely on your writing skills, you obviously got your money’s worth.

[quote] Student loans are more like unsecured loans, R150.

Which is precisely why they come with a higher interest rate, as do most unsecured loans.

[quote] FREE EDUCATION!!....You think it's bad now wait until President DeSantis makes our lives hell for 8 years starting in 2024. All because DEMOCRATS are too wimpy to get rid of the Philibuster Rule.

Oh, dear. Maybe free education would've helped you learn how to spell filibuster?

R153

And based on your snarky responses you obviously have nothing to add to the conversation ..so just fuck off

The best way forward would be to tackle how we pay for college going forward. Put caps in place for state schools. For private schools, reform how loans are given; maybe create an organization with oversight that stops predatory lending (and interest rates) and works with students to have a pay off plan, even if they don't get their dream job right away. Then, using that yard stick, pay off (or down) the loans that remain for people that have not paid off their loans under the old way loans were given and what schools charged. I may be overly optimistic, but I think even people who have paid off their loans still want to see college become more affordable going forward. This accomplishes that while helping some students retroactively.

* people "who" (not that)

R157, you're overly optimistic about the payment plan thing, because usually, the problem isn't that student borrowers are irresponsible with their money. They simply don't have any/enough money and they have no way of obtaining more. We need to stop harping about personal responsibility, and start talking about social, economic, structural issues that keep people broke.

R158 and the loan system is rigged to squeeze every dollar out of borrowers. I graduated in 09, right after the economy collapsed. Students get a 6 month grace period from graduation when the fuckers start calling for money. I did not have a lot of money 6 months out of college. And if you defer, it still compounds the interest.

A grace period of 18 months to 3 years makes more sense to me. Those with the means right out of college can start paying down and those looking for a good job have room to breathe.

[quote] usually, the problem isn't that student borrowers are irresponsible with their money. They simply don't have any/enough money and they have no way of obtaining more.

That’s when prioritization is needed, to pay on debt first, and then use remaining income for other expenses.

Yeah, food and shelter can wait!

[quote][R158] and the loan system is rigged to squeeze every dollar out of borrowers. I graduated in 09, right after the economy collapsed. Students get a 6 month grace period from graduation when the fuckers start calling for money. I did not have a lot of money 6 months out of college. And if you defer, it still compounds the interest.

And yet, so many of us easily paid off our student loans without whining or crying about how expensive college was or how unfair and predatory the lending practices were...hmmmm.

School was a lot cheaper in 1970 R163

[quote] Yeah, food and shelter can wait!

That’s what the borrower agreed to do, of their own free will, when they signed the loan agreement. If that’s a problem for someone, they shouldn’t have borrowed money they can’t pay back.

[quote]School was a lot cheaper in 1970 [R163]

LOL - touche.

...although not remotely accurate, I do applaud the DL wit.

Why don't they just wipe away all income tax debt while they are it.

[quote]How many times do you have to be told that expecting people to repay the money they agreed to has NOTHING to do with other policies such as increasing taxes on corporations and the mega-wealthy and downsizing the expenditures on the military.

How many times do you need it explained to you that the massive wealth inequality that the policies you list caused in the first place is the root cause of crushing debt in the first place.

You really are quite stupid, do you know that?

[quote]Why don't they just wipe away all income tax debt while they are it.

What the hell is income tax debt????

Sounds like someone's on a bender at the Heritage Foundation.

[quote]What the hell is income tax debt????

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Americans owed over $131 billion in back taxes, penalties, and interest in 2018.

That compares to the $1.57 trillion Americans owe in student debt.

R168, you're one to be calling anyone else stupid. Are you trying to state that if corporations and the wealthy had been taxed more all along, your parents wouldn't have been taxed as much and would have had more money to apply towards your college education? What makes you think they would have spent the extra money on that? Apparently any resources they DID spend on your education was a waste of money.

R170, taxes aren't debt. They're taxes. And income taxes are (wait for it) derived from your income. Clearly one would have a larger net income than the taxes that they owe on that income.

Are you...okay? "Debt" isn't synonymous with "expenditures" or "bills" or even "payment due."

[quote]Are you trying to state that if corporations and the wealthy had been taxed more all along, your parents wouldn't have been taxed as much and would have had more money to apply towards your college education?

WOW! You ALMOST get it!

Yes, that, and also COLLEGE COULD BE FREE. It could be paid for from (get this) TAXING THE WEALTHY.

DO HEALTHCARE NEXT!

[quote]Apparently any resources they DID spend on your education was a waste of money.

Oh, dear!

We need these crushing interest rates to send our employees to Hawaii!

Sallie Mae flew more than 100 employees to Hawaii to celebrate $5 billion in student loans issued.

R172, you should share your enlightenment with all the lawyers and credit counselors that aim to help Americans with their "tax debt."

R173, if you think that the Republicans would have ever gone along with free college, even if tax proceeds were higher, you are kidding yourself. They depend on an uneducated populace. It would all have just gone to defense spending.

Here's the problem with debt forgiveness - it doesn't eliminate what started all the debt in the first place: nonstop tuition increases & interest rates. In fact, debt forgiveness without dealing with interest & tuition costs will make them worst because now the colleges & the banks will charge anything and the Feds will pay for it.

My solution has always been this: (1)limit student borrowing to $15K per year (2)interest rates should be capped at 3% (3)debt reduction based on income qualifications and (4)debt forgiveness for those that have been involved in public service.

[quote] if you think that the Republicans would have ever gone along with free college

WTF do Republicans have to do with it? Is this a one party state? You do realize there are other parties, and the Democratic Party has a robust caucus fighting for exactly that plus universal healthcare?

This mindset is exactly why Democrats lose and why when they win they always capitulate. Because some handwringing moron like you is somewhere crying "Republicans would never approve! We can't do it!!"

Then again, you're most like a Republican yourself.

R176, those people didn't pay their taxes. That's quite a bit different than student loan debt and you know it.

And students don't want to pay their loans.

I'd be interested to know what degrees the people who have so much student debt and have been unable to earn their way to paying off their debt have.

R179, accusing me of being a Republican is just desperate. Are you going to start screaming "Democrat In Name Only" now? Pathetic. WTF Republicans have to do with it is that they have controlled the Senate (either by majority or the pseudo-filibuster) and/or House for many years. Don't ignore facts; that makes you no better than the idiot Trumpublicans. How is that fight for free college and universal healthcare going?

Of course it is idiotic we spend what we spend on defense; there are far more productive things to do for society. That stated, how much money do you think could be raised from those extra taxes? Do you really think it is enough to pay for just EVERYTHING you have in mind? Do you really think forgiving student debt and allowing for free college is more important for society than universal healthcare? It isn't.

Bitch in the yellow scarf in OP's pic only has $14K in debt! If you can't pay that off then you got bigger problems.

R141, The classic "don't live above your means" argument is tired. What's the other option for young people these days seeking out higher education? Even local, once affordable universities have skyrocketed in costs. Meanwhile the cost of the degree they are providing hasn't improved at all.

I worked my ass off at multiple line cook jobs to pay off my tuition back in the 90's. The tuition costs quadrupled during the 4 years I went there. I graduated with no student debt, aside from some credit card debt for school supplies. That would be impossible these days for a young person. Tuition was $1500 per semester by the time I was done, that was 25 years ago. There's no fucking way someone working a minimum wage job, or multiple minimum wage jobs could afford that right now and show up to their classes.

[quote]If you can't pay back what you plan to borrow - don't borrow it.

And yet you feel it's OK when we as taxpayers must subsidize the failures of wall st/banks?

They should forgive everything but .5% of the interest. That way, the horrible banks can still make a little money but the ridiculous levels of interest over decades gets controlled. It's the interest that's killing most people financially.

I don't think it should be dischargeable in bankruptcy unless there are some much higher standards to meet in order to discharge it because otherwise everyone will graduate and then declare bankruptcy. Until you can suck their education back out of their brains, there would be no disincentive to doing that because if they can't pay back their loans, they would already be on the financial shitlist. At least if they declare bankruptcy, it will not be a lifelong shitlist.

I would've paid mine off years ago if not for the compounding interest. If I did the math between what I borrowed and what I've paid so far, I'd probably walk into traffic

We need student loan debtors to do PSAs like Yul Brynner wanted to do for smoking. There’s nothing to be done for people who already borrowed money, but they could at least do something to help prevent people from making the same mistake they did.

All student loans should be through the goverment. Get banks out of the equation. The government can charge a very low interest rate and charge zero interest if your income is below a certain amount. I think the government would actually make money on this because even a low interest rate on all the student loans across the country would bring in tons of money.

State schools should be fully subsidized and selective. Give students a real incentive to work their asses off to get into them. In fact, right now, if they want to forgive any student loans, it should only be for people who attended state schools. If you went to a $90,000 a year private school without a scholarship or super rich parents, you're an idiot anyway and deserve what you got.

r188. I borrowed $25000 in the mid 90s. When I got out of school, Sallie Mae convinced me that the best way to repay those loans was to consolidate through them and just have one payment. The interest rate at the time was 9% which was ok for those days. In the end, after 18 years I had paid back approximately $75000. So Sallie Mae made a 50 grand off of my stupidity. AND when the rates fell, Sallie Mae wouldn't lower mine.

r191, why didn’t you just payoff the loan early?

R191 Jesus Christ that's awful.

Or as everyone on this thread would say, "You should've known better! Fuck you!"

Wtf R23? You took something I wrote in another thread and pasted it here word for word without attribution?!?

I'd like my car loan forgiven. Thanks is advance.

Mortgage for me, please!

[quote]I would've paid mine off years ago if not for the compounding interest. If I did the math between what I borrowed and what I've paid so far, I'd probably walk into traffic

I suggest you never buy a house.

R197 A house you can sell and make money on

An education you can leverage and make money on.

You're cute, r192. I had no money to "pay off the loan early." In actuality, I did pay it off 2 years before since I had a 20 year repayment plan and paid it off in 18. I eventually had a car I had paid off that I was paying $400 per month on and then my student loans were also $400 per month. I took the car, sold it at Carmax for $15,000, took out a $5000 loan from my 401k, then paid off the student loan. I then went and purchased a new car with no down payment at 2.9% interest rate and my payments were $600 per month so I was saving $200 per month and have now paid that car off. So the trick was to fold the loan into a different loan at far less interest. In the end, I overpaid Sallie Mae by 34 cents which they then sent me a check for and I laughed my ass off. I hate Sallie Mae.

But, I never asked for my loans to be forgiven since I was the one who signed the papers. I just believed the lie that I would find a great paying job out of college when I graduated in 1995 and it took me until 6 years ago to actually find that job. I'm now 100% debt free. I do think about buying a house some day but I don't think it's in the cards for me since I spent so long trying to get out from under that loan for college.

[quote]An education you can leverage and make money on.

Not anymore. That's kind of the point. A bachelors today has less weight than a high school diploma used to have. It's the bare minimum to get the lowliest job now. If they charged tuition based on absolute value, all college would be free just like all high school was free back in the day when a diploma meant you could be guaranteed at least a good factory job. So, an almost no value degree has become standard for crap jobs while the price of that degree has gone up 1000%. But, hey, if you just tack on another $60-100 in debt, you can get a vaunted Masters!

[quote] I took the car, sold it at Carmax for $15,000, took out a $5000 loan from my 401k, then paid off the student loan.

My next question was going to be about borrowing from your 401k to pay your student loan, so you did that right.

[quote] But, hey, if you just tack on another $60-100 in debt, you can get a vaunted Masters!

It’s better to get a job first and go to night school (or online) and have your employer pay for it through tuition reimbursement. Same is true for undergraduate degree.

R201, if that were true, why would anyone go to college now?

[quote]A bachelors today has less weight than a high school diploma used to have.

"Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with graduate degrees earn $1.1 million more."

R204 have you seen recently job listings for college grads? It's true in many areas.

R205 you missed the phrase "use to have". a diploma is basically a 6th grade dropout these days.

[quote] if that were true, why would anyone go to college now?

The same reason Lori Loughlin’s daughter wanted to go to USC: for the social life. They don’t need to go, but they want to go.

Olivia Jade had no interest in college. Lori wanted the bragging rights of being a USC parents.

R203, you live in a bubble if you think that's how things work for the majority of this country.

R204, because a bachelors is the minimum requirement now for even shitty jobs.

R205, what part of "used to have" didn't you understand? And, 50 years ago, people with high school diplomas made a lot more money over their lifetimes than people who hadn't graduated high school. Like I said, today's bachelors is the equivalent of what a high school diploma used to be, the big difference being that high school was free whereas a bachelors, even at a state school, now runs over $100,000.

Some of you are being purposefully obtuse.

r205, like with many statistics, there is an inherent, erroneous assumption built in that all people are equal and the only relevant difference between the sets of people, in this case, is their education level. The truth is, the kind of people who get a college degree is different from the kind of people who have only a high school diploma. People like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are the kind of people who get a college degree, but they succeeded without getting one. So what the statistic is really showing is a difference in capability for two sets of people and it would be true whether the people got a degree or not.

[quote] Olivia Jade had no interest in college.

That’s what I said, that she was only interested in experiencing the social life.

I grew up poor, and was the first one in my family to graduate from college. My friends used student loans to go to Mexico on spring break, while I worked. I chose to be a Pharmacist, not because it was my dream, but because I wanted to be able to pay back my ($60k) in student loans and wanted to be employable. I don’t understand people who attend fancy private colleges, accumulate six figures in debt, then complain that they can’t pay it back because they can’t get a job with a communications degree. Why don’t people plan ahead? I assume because they grew up in middle to upper middle class households and assume that everything will work itself out. Guess what….it generally doesn’t.

Yeah, comparing an idiot rich brat who only went to college because her mother wanted her to go to middle class Americans trying to better their lives.

[quote]I chose to be a Pharmacist, not because it was my dream, but because I wanted to be able to pay back my ($60k) in student loans and wanted to be employable.

When did you get a bachelors through a pharmacy degree for $60,000? Even if you were paying some of it by working, there's no way you got that much schooling for only that amount without family help or scholarships in the last 30 years.

yes, these cunts all have huge loans but they also have the latest iphone, limited edition sneakers, motorized scooters, all the latest and fancy gadets, electronics...

[quote] I don’t understand people who attend fancy private colleges, accumulate six figures in debt, then complain that they can’t pay it back because they can’t get a job with a communications degree.

You are aware that the price of attending college has risen dramatically for even state schools, right?

R217 they prefer to be obtuse. See also 216

Yes, everyone knows that even the price of an education at an in-state state school has risen dramatically since many here were in college. That stated, those who do choose to attend college out-of-state or to a private university have no one to blame for the extra costs but themselves. Where you get your degree has always been highly overrated.

R215, I graduated in 2002. I had pell grants, academic scholarships, and work study. I didn’t get a penny from my family. I’m not trying to be an asshole, but not everyone needs to go to college. My neighbor’s daughter got a full ride academic scholarship to Notre Dame last year. She is pre med. They aren’t paying a penny. It makes sense for her and her family. It just doesn’t make sense for a kid with a 2.8 GPA and no ambition or goals to go into debt to get a useless degree. They would be better off going to a trade school and becoming a plumber, electrician, or something else.

[quote] I’m not trying to be an asshole, but not everyone needs to go to college.

You are being an asshole because what you're saying is that not everyone [italic]deserves[/italic] to go to college because their GPA was 2.8 in high school.

The beautiful thing about a 4 year university is, that if there is something you want to do, you'll eventually get to try your hand at doing it if you hang in there the first two years. For all you know, and I've seen it myself, that person could thrive in their major. I actually have a friend who is a "rocket scientist" but he was always terrible at English. He didn't do well in college until he started taking math and engineering courses. He's very successful now and great at his job.

If the job market in general requires you to have a 4 year degree then you should have the chance to do it affordably.

You can't shove off everyone you don't think is intelligent enough based upon their GPA in high school off into a trade field. There's a reason why colleges consider more than just a person's GPA when they accept people since even they know that there are sometimes extenuating circumstances or unusual cases relating to a student's GPA when applying.

[quote]Where you get your degree has always been highly overrated.

I say this as someone who graduated after you and decided not to shell out 35K a year for NYU (after I got in) opting instead to attend another school where I got a free ride for 4 years. My family didn't give me a dime but I did well enough in high school with a 4.0 that I had my pick. Yes, going to that school hurt me in my field and it took me years to build up contacts to get the job I wanted because it wasn't known for what I wanted to do. I had to run around NYC for two years meeting people, taking them to dinner, having "info sessions" with them, flirting, and in one case FUCKING A GUY to get where I wanted to go. I know where you go to school is "overrated" but it still does matter.

going to NYU ain't all that...I know someone who went there, got a degree in psychology and was driving uber and lyft for a while, she's now doing some office job in FL. She got priced out of NY, her folks retired to FL and she followed them there, they paid her rent in FL. They also paid for her college degree (useless).

R222, That's psychology. I went to school for film and I got in there for film. The school I went to wasn't really known for its film program and that's very much a "who you know" field. Everyone that was in my class in my major all ended up working in film and television but we didn't get ahead as quickly since we didn't have that many connections. It took a few of us making it then hiring other people for us to climb up there. The people that had the easiest time, of course, were the two girls who had dads who worked for TV networks. They went from college to working at NBC and the NFL without missing a beat. One of us has an Emmy, another one of us has an Oscar nom and two more actually do have Oscars.

I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE (outside of porn). I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS (which us impiriled by exorbitant student debt). I CARE ABOUT THE BANKS!!!! RELIEF IS NOT WHAT THEY SIGNED UP FOR WHEN THEY GENEROUSLY MADE THEIR LOANS AT 100% INTEREST!!!! WHY DON'T NOBODY EXCEPT 100% OF REPUBLICANS AND 80% OF DEMOCRATS THINK ABOUT THE BANKS'S FEELINGS, MMMM?

Big corps don't pay taxes, many industries get bailouts. The farmers, for example, maybe they need a better business model if they want to stay on business. Yea, we should forgive student debt. Do something for working class for once.

R225 THIS

We need to have a free to low cost university system. We have to forgive these loans. Tuition and fees have increased dramatically over the decades, while salaries have not. Of course, living expenses have increased dramatically too. We need national public policy to address this. Student loan forgiveness is a start.

It makes NO SENSE to have banks prey on our university system, or students. This system is not a Democratic. It's not even a Free Market; it is a predatory market based on predatory US Government Policies.

It makes better sense to tax banks/financial institutions to fund a free to low cost University System.

R225. the working class? the biden is already handing out 300 bucks per kid- no strings attached. families can get up to 3600 bucks a month.

There are already many states offering FREE community college! I think it's around 20 states, they could go to these for the first 2 years for free and then transfer...

Starbucks also pay for some college...

R229 It’s up to $300/mo tax CREDIT for children up to age 5 ($250/mo for children age 6+) for lower income earners with phase outs. F you and the Q Anon Marjorie Taylor Green Critical Race Theory “Biden is handing out money!!!” horse that you rode in on.

R231, yes, I said the working class, they are the poor folks, they are getting money for having kids. What is qanon about that?

It is a fact the poor folks are getting money for kids. Credit means money. The checks are being sent out next month. Did you graduate college? Maybe you should get a refund.

R231, you're just massaging the fact there. But you knew that. These people will be getting actual money sent to them every month. They are calling them advances on future tax credits. And, I do not consider $150,000 a year for a couple to be lower income earners.

And, remember, this is all on top of the thousands of dollars in tax credits they get every year per child. Then, more than half of them will still turn around and vote Repug "cuz morals".

[quote] you missed the phrase "use to have". a diploma is basically a 6th grade dropout these days.

Looks like you know a lot about dropping out in the sixth grade.

The fact that y’all think $300 to children is some luxury or that $150k income per couple isn’t low income in 2021 is insane to me. It’s even more egregious you think it’s okay the fed just prints money and makes loans to students they know will never have the ability to pay and then charges compound interest metastasizing that debt following the student for life. Man, I need to move to Denmark.

We have open borders. Everyone is free to emigrate.

R236, you really don't have a grasp on financial reality, do you? You're going to have a tough life.

Discover is now in the business of student loans as well. That company is the worst for taking advantage of college kids. They sent letters to every person in my dorm freshman year, offering credit cards. Many of us were stupid enough to go into debt with them, with no way of paying them back. I charged up about $2k, which ended up being charged of by the company. My credit was terrible until I graduated.

It’s their fault they offered you a lifeline and you hunt yourself with it?

*hung yourself

"I overpaid and now I regret it! Fix it!"

"Society is SICK for not valuing my degree and refusing to reward my dreams with money! It's not fair!"

"I didn't read the fine print, even though they told me to every year I signed the paperwork! Those bastards!"

"I saw my balance go up and knew what my interest rate was on the credit card but kept charging stuff because I never thought I'd have to actually pay back everything! What a scam!"

"If you payoff my student debt I'll finally be free to be financially stable because I have the financial savvy and critical thinking skills needed to do it...this time!"

Definitely for loan forgiveness as long as the borrower obtained the degree. I know a few borrowers who used the money for stuff no way connected to education but if they got a degree then I’m ok with forgiveness

Dataloungers are so retarded, they're willing to see the economy and the middle class crash and burn to defend petty bourgeois values such as "personal responsibility" and the sacrosanctity of debt, by which banks are the last ones to abide. And this is a "liberal" gay forum; but people here have somehow become more hysterically conservative on this issue than society at large even though nobody here has any stake on this issue and nobody here would be harmed by the decision to wipe off student debt.

I propose the following explanation for this bizarre phenomenon: certain people who don't live actual lives but online lives, start having strong opinions about issues that are beyond their comprehension. These include opinions that are hysterically negative even if these online people, or society at large, would not be harmed by the solutions that are being proposed to permanently eliminate the issue.

This happens when, for whatever reason, people in this online bubble see themselves having to fight proponents of the solution, usually for a reason unrelated to the merit of their cause. This happened on Datalounge during a long period, between 2015 and 2020, when Dataloungers infatuated by right-wing Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden had, for the first time, to defend their conservative track record on economic and financial issues, not against people further right, but people on their left, threatening not only their victory in the Democratic Party primaries, but their supporters' identity as liberals, as humanitarians, as the most caring people in the country.

Dataloungers did not react to the challenge well! They dealt with it by refusing to concede legitimacy to the cause of debt forgiveness, instead hiding behind petty bourgeois slogans about personal responsibility which seem to have come out of some Trump-voting Karen's mouth, and calling the people behind the cause BORIS or RUSSIA in order to not have to think about the issues at hand. That's how Datalounge managed to find itself where it is at, siding with Republicans on the issue of financial justice against even centrist Democrats.

[quote] to defend petty bourgeois values such as "personal responsibility"

Glad to see you consider personal responsibility petty.

There's also a middle ground for student loans vs bankruptcy... give bankruptcy courts additional leeway for relief. For example...

* Allow anyone who declares bankruptcy to get the past due payments forgiven, without altering the balance due. This would be a reasonable accommodation for someone who went through a rough patch, but whose future isn't economically hopeless.

* Allow past-due interest above the prime rate discharged by bankruptcy, while adding the remaining unpaid past-due payments to be be added to the balance due with commensurate extension of the repayment period. Once again, a reasonable accommodation for people who've had a rough spell, but whose future isn't hopeless.

* Allow student loan debt to be discharged for students whose futures have become economically hopeless (say, after a major accident that leaves them handicapped and needing years of rehab before they can even contemplate making serious money again, if ever), with clawback provision that if they DO ever "strike it rich" (enforced by monitoring their annual tax returns), some or all of that debt might be reinstated. But set the bar high enough that it would really only kick in for someone who graduated with debt that became crushing after they were in a horrific car wreck that left them paralyzed or something... then, 10 years later, wrote a game involving cats and/or poop that turned them into a dotcom billionaire, and NOT someone who eventually manages to go from 'destitute' to 'mostly middle class'. Basically, once it's discharged, you'd be in no danger of it returning unless you metaphorically won the lottery and joined the 1% or 0.1%.

[quote]nobody here would be harmed by the decision to wipe off student debt.

Oh, yeah. In fact, why stop there? Let’s pay off everyone’s car note, credit cards, and, hell, let’s do mortgages too. In fact, no need to borrow at all! Just agree to (tee hee) “pay it back” when or if you want, the government got your back.

R245 Here, read this so you can become better educated:

R247 Nobody is putting a gun to your head and demanding that every single type of debt be wiped off, you retard. You just committed the something called the slippery slope fallacy with that dumbass of yours.

The supposed Democrats on here going on about personal responsibility sound a lot like Republicans whining about funding for HIV research in the nineties

I think another reason people are against debt forgiveness is because they already paid off their loans and don't want to see other people get "handouts": "If I had to pay it back, you should too" type of mentality. They don't take into consideration that kids today are facing a much more challenging economy than graduates 20 or 30 years ago.

[quote]Dataloungers are so retarded

[quote]right-wing Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden

[quote]Nobody is putting a gun to your head and demanding that every single type of debt be wiped off, you retard.

Most of what you wrote was way off the mark, but that's probably because you're dumb and also a troll. I do like how you don't know the difference between "dumbass" and "dumb ass" at r249. That was good for a chuckle.

[quote]calling the people behind the cause BORIS or RUSSIA

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that someone who supports eliminating student loan debt is a "Boris" or a Russian troll. Why would they? There's no logic to that.

[quote]nobody here has any stake on this issue

Patently untrue and a bizarre thing to say.

Many Dataloungers graduated at a time education was significantly more socialized than it is now.

People here don't want student debt forgiveness for the same reason people over 70 don't wish that Medicare be expanded to younger people. It's good when they benefit from something, but communism when others do.

T hose of you who don't support loan forgiveness are in support of The Banks and their predatory practices. Give that a thought.

Part of the problem with college tuition is that GenX raised the expectations. We inherited paid-for college infrastructure built for a Vietnam-era generation literally four times our size. Letting us have single rooms and small classes increased operating costs, but capital costs for universities fell to almost zero for more than a decade, so a lot of universities could just absorb them into the existing tuition rates. Then, Millennials hit starting in the late 90s like a tsunami, and suddenly colleges had to double or quadruple EVERYTHING on campus to maintain the amenity level and expectations established by GenX.

When I went to a state university in Florida during the early 90s, my tuition was literally pocket change, and most of my loans went to covering the REALLY expensive things, like food, housing, and books. Today, tuition at a school like the University of Florida or FSU is almost as much as tuition at the University of Miami was at the peak of its football reign in the late 1980s, and UM's annual tuition is now more than my parents paid for their house... in Florida... a few blocks from the beach... in the 1970s.

The bright side is, tuition isn't going to go down, but GenZ is likely to enter college on the same terms GenX did, with huge amounts of capital infrastructure already built & paid for, so at least tuition is likely to somewhat stabilize again for a decade or so (until MILLENNIALS' kids start graduating from high school, and the NEXT student-tsunami hits).

R254 But BERNIE!! And [bold] RUSSIA!!!!! [/bold]

[quote]T hose of you who don't support loan forgiveness are in support of The Banks and their predatory practices. Give that a thought.

By that reasoning, anyone who doesn't support loan forgiveness of home mortgages and credit card debt is also in support of The Banks and their predatory practices. Why aren't you also advocating on behalf of the much larger number of Americans who are suffering from the crushing weight of those debts?

Just to add to r257's point... credit card companies are literally borrowing money from the Fed at rates approaching 1% or less, then turning around and charging 20% (or 30%, OR MORE). We seriously need the Biden Administration to tighten its definition of "usury".

[quote]People here don't want student debt forgiveness for the same reason people over 70 don't wish that Medicare be expanded to younger people. It's good when they benefit from something, but communism when others do.

What you have stated is clearly incorrect, since people who don't want the giveaway to student loan debtors actually do want the debtors to to have the same thing they had, which is the requirement to pay back what they borrowed. Having current debtors be required to pay back their loans, just as the previous borrowers had to, would obviously be the most fair thing to do.

If this goes through, I'm going to start demanding reparations from these children who took advantage of it while I lived frugally (but comfortably) for 15 years and paid all mine off like a responsible adult.

And by comfortably I mean I could afford all the necessities, not luxuries, but my roof didn't leak and I didn't have to eat ramen every day.

[R260]

R244, seek help. Your projection and delusion must be debilitating on a daily basis.

R260 or you could be pissed that it took so long for reform that you didn't benefit. But sure, blame the struggling "middle class"

[quote] T hose of you who don't support loan forgiveness are in support of The Banks and their predatory practices. Give that a thought.

It’s not that cut and dry. No one is in here advocating for the banks. Loan forgiveness, however, is also not the solution.

You can’t borrow tens of thousands of dollars, spend that money by getting an education which is not tangible and cannot be repossessed, then want the government to step in because you didn’t realize when you borrowed the money what the terms were or how difficult it would be to pay it back.

I’d be fully behind the government refinancing these loans at a less usurious interest rate so the borrowers can pay them off. Both sides feel a little pain, but ultimately the obligations are met.

Totally serious here - I'm glad that people like R200 remember how fucking impossible it was to find a decent job in the 1990s if you weren't a boomer or had connections with one.

Fair to whom?

[quote]You can’t borrow tens of thousands of dollars, spend that money by getting an education which is not tangible and cannot be repossessed, then want the government to step in because you didn’t realize when you borrowed the money what the terms were or how difficult it would be to pay it back.

Why not? You don't really give a reason.

If you’re serious, that’s part of the problem.

For the same reason people can’t borrow money to buy a house they can’t afford with no intention of paying. The difference there is the house can be foreclosed on and repossessed. An education cannot.

Just erase the interest and most people would be okay.