US student loans grotesquely high

[Toni]

Unfortunately, some are not seeing their loan balances shrinking even after paying for 10 years or more.

That's what happens if you pay just the interest, or even less.

Money used to pay off student debt is money that cannot be used to invest in homes or to help fund future retirement.

Same goes for credit card debt. Should the federal government pay people's Visas and MasterCards too?

A LOT of students graduated during a period of economic downturn and struggled to find jobs that would allow them to pay their loans and rent.

Sure. And income based repayment has existed for a while. I think it's too generous (and Biden is making it even more so). Too many people qualify to make no payments whatsoever, which is how balances keep increasing.

It’s the fact that there aren’t enough people having children to grow up to become doctors and nurses and other foundational careers that support society.

Do you really think these entitled millennials will have more children if you pay their student loans for their Medieval French Poetry degrees?

If conservatives are upset about immigration now, wait until they find there are no doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, etc. who are Anglo Americans.

That's a bit dramatic. Although, I do foresee greater automation even in the healthcare industry in the future.

Fun fact: At one point in time, interest on credit card debt was tax deductible.

I really do not get the contempt that a lot of posters have for anyone who graduates with a degree in anything other than engineering. Engineers should be grateful more people don't pursue engineering because if everyone did, an engineering degree would not be worth very much.

Some professions never pay much but are vital: teaching and social work leap to mind but there certainly are others, such as forestry and wildlife management.

Student loans remain in effect even for students who are forced to drop out because of life circumstances: illness in the family or loss of job requiring the student to become responsible for helping support the family, etc. These are more likely to be lower income students who need the loans in the first place.

I think that Georgia has a wonderful program for tuition assistance for students attending public universities. However, if it only reimburses costs, students still have to come up with the money in the first place. Students who are lower income tend to already be working at least part time, and must continue to do so in order to pay for housing, etc.

Posting again, for the cheap seats:
Gifting article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/...VYRcxfqC2ILd8Zurl_zde6d7nk1Ihs&smid=share-url

Programs like English or history represent better preparation, the two authors argue, for the demands of the newly emerging “rapport sector” than vocationally oriented disciplines like engineering or finance. Though it does not automatically land one in a particular career, training in the humanities, when pitched correctly, will ultimately lead to gainful and fulfilling employment. Indeed, by the time they reach what Stross terms the “peak earning ages,” 56-60, liberal arts majors earn on average $2,000 more per year than those with pre-professional degrees (if advanced degrees in both categories are included).

 

[Toni]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

Really? What kind of loans can an 18 year old sign for, except student loans? Not mortgages, not car loans. Lots of places require a co-signer for an 18 year old to sign a lease. Why is that? Because most 18 year olds lack the maturity and experience to think long term and to understand the terms of a loan and how they will impact their future earnings.

That said, I don't completely disagree with you regarding private colleges. Harvard has sufficient endowment to offer a whole lot of free rides.

 

[Swammerdami]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

If 15,000 people were oppressed by student debt, you can say they were foolish people who got bamboozled. But if 15 million borrowers are oppressed, it behooves to look for systemic problems other than just "Americans are stupid. Ha ha."

I think there's plenty of blame to go around. Government and politics are big culprits. Rather than just spending money to subsidize education, politicians directed the money to yet another "Heads the financiers win, tails the taxpayers lose" program.

 

[Jarhyn]

So while everyone is concentrating on whether or not people are ghouls to the borrowers, the fact is under this arrangement you are either choosing to be a ghoul to borrowers or choosing to be a ghoul to non-borrowers. The question isn't if you are going to be a ghoul, it is who you are going to be a ghoul towards.

I was planning to report this as a derail, and ask the moderators to split it to it's own thread. But then I realised that would just be moving the ghoul posts.

I would rather think that the world where 0 people have to suffer for a decision that is already clearly bad, wherein the result is "more money exists now" can be fairly safely ignored because "government debt" is literally just "the money supply".

Zero "government debt" is equivalent to "zero money exists".

As if it isn't rather ghoulish to want to hurt two parties instead of do something that we already do, but to do it for the sake of borrowers this time instead of lenders!

 

[bilby]

How many students now have good jobs and are on track to pay back their student loan debt like a responsible adult would for any debt. Yet they are eligible to get $10,000 payoff, as far as I can see.

No kidding. If you are making six figures (Biden's giveaway applies to anyone making <$125k if single and <$250k if married), you definitely should be paying off your own student loans.

<$125k ≠ $125k

$20k is <$125k

There's no reason whatsoever to imagine that most of the beneficiaries of this initiative are "making six figures".

I am not a fan of having a hard cut-off for eligibility, but given that one exists, $125k doesn't appear to be particularly unreasonable.

 

[Oleg]

If student loans were dischargeable they would cease to exist because most people would complete their education and then declare bankruptcy. People who take student loans almost certainly exit college with negative net worth.

Make them dischargeable x years later, maybe 10 or 15.

The problem is with public / federal loans. There’s little incentive for the government to limit loans to responsible borrowers (the government is incredibly incompetent with taxpayer money). Abuse would be rife. Better to just end federal loans and leave it to the private lenders. Then make the those loans dischargable in bankruptcy. The private lenders would need to actually assess the risk of the borrower. Universities would be forced to charge a market rate for tuition. Many useless university administrators and DEI commissars might have to be let go. Winning all around.

 

[bilby]

If student loans were dischargeable they would cease to exist because most people would complete their education and then declare bankruptcy. People who take student loans almost certainly exit college with negative net worth.

Make them dischargeable x years later, maybe 10 or 15.

The problem is with public / federal loans. There’s little incentive for the government to limit loans to responsible borrowers (the government is incredibly incompetent with taxpayer money). Abuse would be rife. Better to just end federal loans and leave it to the private lenders. Then make the those loans dischargable in bankruptcy. The private lenders would need to actually assess the risk of the borrower. Universities would be forced to charge a market rate for tuition. Many useless university administrators and DEI commissars might have to be let go. Winning all around.

There is no taxpayer money.

The money spent by the US federal government is created ex-nihilo at the time it is spent.

Money supply is balanced against the growth of the economy by removing some of it and destroying it. This process is called 'taxation'. The money you (and everyone else) pays in federal taxes disappears instantly and forever.

But even were that not the case - for example in the case of state government spending, which is much the same as spending by a corporation - the idea that governments spend 'taxpayers money' is absurd. When you go to the store to buy groceries, you spend your money. Your boss doesn't get to complain about your choices on the grounds that you are "incompetent with employer money", despite your money coming from the pay-checks he gives you.

You pay taxes in return for the benefits of living in a society, just as a person with a rented apartment pays rent for the benefit of living in that apartment.

You don't get to tell your landlord that he's incompetently wasting your rent money on booze; Once you pay it to him, it's his money and you no longer have any say in how he spends it.

You have the right to control government via the ballot box. Your entitlement to control the government starts and ends there. You have no claim on the money they spend, other than as a voter; Certainly any claim to control of government spending founded on the idea that, as a taxpayer, that money is partly "your money" is batshit crazy.

If you saw your landlord at the liquor store and berated him for being incompetent with your money, everyone would recognise that you were a loon.

It's not notably different to berate government for being 'incompetent with taxpayer money'.

 

[Politesse]

People without an education truly believe that the source of government money is, like, a big vault somewhere to which all of their tax checks are mailed.

 

[Politesse]

You know, Jesus was once asked who owned money. If they knew how to read, Republicans would not like his answer...

 

[laughing dog]

If you give an eighteen year old a sheaf of papers and say "if you don't sign these, you get no money to pay for college", do you genuinely think many of them would bother to read the small print, or would fully comprehend its implications even if they did read it?

18 year olds are adults, fully legally able to sign contracts and enter into agreements.

So? 70 million adults who were legally able to sign contract and enter into agreements voted for Donald Trump for President.

 

[Oleg]

There is no taxpayer money.

The money spent by the US federal government is created ex-nihilo at the time it is spent.

OK. So we can stop paying taxes? The “pay your fair share” bullshit can be put to rest?

 

[bilby]

There is no taxpayer money.

The money spent by the US federal government is created ex-nihilo at the time it is spent.

OK. So we can stop paying taxes?

Not according to the IRS, no. Balancing the money supply is an important government duty, necessary for a functioning economy.

The “pay your fair share” bullshit can be put to rest?

I am not familiar with the details of the bullshit to which you refer, so I really couldn't say.

 

[laughing dog]

The federal budget for this year is around 6 trillion dollars. The estimated cost of the bailout is 32 billion dollars which is about 0.5% of the budget. Just thought I'd inject a little perspective into the discussion.

 

[atrib]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

In reality, an 18-year old with zero income would need a cosigner just to get a lease on a shitty $400/month apartment, pay the first and last month's rent up front, and pay a substantial deposit for cleaning/damages. This is because realty companies understand that 18-year olds with little or no income come with a high risk for default. Yet when it comes to student loans they can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans just with the stoke of a pen?

 

[Oleg]

The federal budget for this year is around 6 trillion dollars. The estimated cost of the bailout is 32 billion dollars which is about 0.5% of the budget. Just thought I'd inject a little perspective into the discussion.

Where is that number coming from?

Biden's student debt forgiveness plan may cost taxpayers an average of $2,000, some policy experts say

Student loan forgiveness will cost taxpayers and does nothing to solve the tough unaffordability issues that plague higher education, some policy experts say.

www.cnbc.com

The average burden per U.S. taxpayer will be $2,503.22, according to new estimates from the National Taxpayers Union that are based on the plan released this week.

That’s up from the group’s previous analysis, which estimated Biden’s plan could cost the average taxpayer $2,085.59 based on the $10,000 in forgiveness per federal student loan borrower that had been anticipated.

The plan unveiled this week would be even more costly, largely due to an additional $10,000 in debt cancellation for up to 27 million Pell Grant borrowers. It also puts a 5% cap on repayment of undergraduate loans in relation to monthly incomes.

Meanwhile, the Penn Wharton Budget Model now estimates debt cancellation alone will cost up to $519 billion. Loan forbearance will cost another $16 billion, the research found, while the new income-driven repayment could cost $70 billion.

It's like were in the late-stage empire where people are raiding the treasury.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Eh, if the $10,000 loan forgiveness was a great thing to do, why not take it step further and make it $100,00 or more? Or full loan forgiveness? At what point do we say, "No, that's too much to expect of the taxpayers who have to pay for this" or "No, this will increase an already high inflation rate". And then are going to do this same thing in ten years (or less) for the next group of college students? Aren't they gonna say, "Hey, what about us? We want our 10k too! This isn't fair!" When does it end?

It ends with common sense - something absent in your response.

No need to be a dick here. So, what is the common sense answer to my questions?

I don't know. It's arbitrary. Round 1 of PPP was suppose to be close to 2 months of operating expenses. I don't know why they picked 2 months rather than 3 or more.

Well, that's one of the problems I have with these government handouts. There doesn't seem to be too much logic to them...too arbitrary. Back at the beginning of the pandemic the government was sending out checks to everyone who had filed taxes in the previous year, regardless of whether they had a real need for it or not. I wonder about the student loan forgiveness too. How many students now have good jobs and are on track to pay back their student loan debt like a responsible adult would for any debt. Yet they are eligible to get $10,000 payoff, as far as I can see.

Well, we didn’t get one of those checks and we definitely filed taxes. But no complaints: and didn’t need the extra( not that it would not have been great but others needed it more). I understand you are being a bit hyperbolic here but the was criteria for receiving one of those checks.

As for why should not students who now have good jobs be paying back their loans? Many/most have been paying. Unfortunately, some are not seeing their loan balances shrinking even after paying for 10 years or more. Some of the loans were simply unfair in their terms and not all or even most students have sufficient experience to be able to evaluate the terms or to recognize how long the payments will last and what effect that will have on their ability to buy a home or start a family ( for those who want to do that). Money used to pay off student debt is money that cannot be used to invest in homes or to help fund future retirement. A LOT of students graduated during a period of economic downturn and struggled to find jobs that would allow them to pay their loans and rent.instead of being able to move into the same hallmarks of adulthood as their parents did, they were stuck. Even kids like mine who had no or very low student loans were hampered by the economy that did not allow them to pursue careers they had prepared for.

Looking s of young people are foregoing marriage and children altogether. So, who will be around to perform the necessary jobs as they age? Think that is t a problem? Look at how many places of business have limited their hours because they cannot staff positions. When people talk about who will help the younger generations as they age, it’s not about them not having children who may or may not be around to help. It’s the fact that there aren’t enough people having children to grow up to become doctors and nurses and other foundational careers that support society.

If conservatives are upset about immigration now, wait until they find there are no doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, etc. who are Anglo Americans.

Well, you're going off into the weeds about stuff I didn't ask about. I was specifically asking about students with good jobs who were on track to pay off their loans responsibly AND also getting the $10K and you started talking about those who are having problems. One could make an argument about those with problems needing and getting the $10k. I'm having a problem with those not needing the $10k and getting it anyway while other taxpayers (some who are not so well off) are paying for it. As far as why you didn't get your free pandemic money, I don't know. I thought it was an automatic thing for all taxpayers on file.

It's the entirety of your problem. Every time the left comes up with a solution that benefits the most people without dramatically increasing the cost to taxpayers, the right comes in and says 'wait, wait, wait -we need to complicate that shit and add some governmental red tape.' What about a department of income regulation that can determine whether or not a student is able to pay back their loans? Otherwise, someone besides a billionaire might get a modest amount of money!!!.

You only think you are paying off loans for others. The reality is you are paying to be a part of society that focuses mostly on capitalism and free checks to the military industrial complex and benefits for the wealthy. Actual benefits to the elderly and needy are probably about $0.37 of your tax bill #THEFT!!!

aa

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

Complete Red Herring BS. Kids are prepping for college by taking AP classes as early as 8th grade. They decide probably by 10th grade that they can handle that academic stress or not and have to actually apply and be accepted to a college by the time they are 16 or 17. But by the time they sign the loan (with parents a lot of the time because very many college freshmen are under 18), they are just supposed to decide at the loan signing that it's too expensive and they'll be an electrician? GTFO with that weak argument 'they're responsible adults'.

aa

 

[Toni]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

Complete Red Herring BS. Kids are prepping for college by taking AP classes as early as 8th grade. They decide probably by 10th grade that they can handle that academic stress or not and have to actually apply and be accepted to a college by the time they are 16 or 17. But by the time they sign the loan (with parents a lot of the time because very many college freshmen are under 18), they are just supposed to decide at the loan signing that it's too expensive and they'll be an electrician? GTFO with that weak argument 'they're responsible adults'.

aa

Depending on the state, even electricians need education beyond high school. For states that do not require additional coursework, one has to feed oneself during the apprenticeship as well.

 

[James Brown]

We drill into the heads of kids that they HAVE to get a college degree or else they'll be poor their whole lives. Then when it comes time to sign the paperwork, they feel like they have no choice, and that the promised higher earnings will rescue them.

And where is this university that offers a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving?

I still wonder if the major issue is being ignored. Why is higher education so expensive? If it wasn't, then kids wouldn't need to borrow six figures just to get a degree, and they wouldn't clamor for loan relief.

 

[Jarhyn]

That fact is completely irrelevant to my question.

I disagree completely. If they are competent adults, then you cannot assume they were somehow bamboozled and that we the taxpayer have to pay for their private college adventures.

Complete Red Herring BS. Kids are prepping for college by taking AP classes as early as 8th grade. They decide probably by 10th grade that they can handle that academic stress or not and have to actually apply and be accepted to a college by the time they are 16 or 17. But by the time they sign the loan (with parents a lot of the time because very many college freshmen are under 18), they are just supposed to decide at the loan signing that it's too expensive and they'll be an electrician? GTFO with that weak argument 'they're responsible adults'.

aa

Indeed, any student that  can hack it ought get the chance.

Sometimes it's about other things where students get out in front of loans they would discharge in bankruptcy if they could have.

I ended up getting student loans at an art institute because I was dragged in with a relationship, and was dumb and young, and the fucking shithead who was supposed to be paying my student loans from my military pay didn't and things just kind of snowballed from there.

I managed AFTER the military on the Wisconsin GI bill, which is actually pretty cool: it's just exactly the Montgomery GI Bill, except offered by the state for in-state universities and it starts as soon as the Montgomery GI Bill benefits are no longer available to the student.

And a Pell Grant.

And I still had student loans even after the military paid 20k to them.

The interest built while I was in school, and it was like all the financial results of three years of abject suck were for nothing.

It's kind of funny insofar as my student loans will be paid off soon anyway.

3 years of 21/12B bullshit, 7 years of experience in software doing some of the hardest shit the field has to offer in terms of abstract thought, and only now have I managed to unfuck two semesters of student loans.[/I][/I]