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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 14, 2010 - 03:44am PT
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Just heard that the other day and now just saw this tonight:
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2010 - 03:51am PT
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Oh, and a link to one of Bill Gate's favorite teachers website:
http://www.khanacademy.org/
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Sep 14, 2010 - 05:41am PT
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hey there, say, healyje... on night near a year ago, i saw a program at my nieghbor's on student loan debt... if it is true, this is how it went:
schools (working with loan companies???) were recruiting student with person to person speakers, spouting of high promises and using their cleverest sales folks to get the students to sign up for loans and get into their schools.... later, many of the students came to find that many such things were not true, that they were told, as to the needs of what they were learning, or undertaking, and that there was also many other things wrong with the programs, as they progressed:
some classes were missing or minus proper required training and students graduated underprepared to have acceptable merits, as to certain requirments, once job seeking times came...
very sad,they could not get jobs but then had these huge loans to pay back...
it seemed it was just big business to the folks that set it all up... sales folks befriending "innocent, lost, or high-hoping 'lambs'"...
wow---someone that one's parents never knew to warn one of, as they loving do take time to state how training and shcool are important... there is just the "wolves" getting involved in all that, too much these days, it seems... :(
thanks for the share... students must be very careful these days... perhaps we need to warn the new generation????
***ooops, i did not fully note exactly what the show was that you saw, but it DID REMIND me of this one, that i did see...
:)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2010 - 06:10am PT
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Neebee, yeah, it's well-known the for-profit schools in particular are all basically just federal loan mills with incredibly high default rates and training in careers in trades that are either saturated or which won't pay enough for new graduates to make loan payments. All they care about is signing up students for federal loans and that's about it.
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Roughster
Sport climber
Vacaville, CA
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Sep 14, 2010 - 11:07am PT
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As crappy as the student loan program is, it is what allowed me to work my way through school. For those of us who had no parental financial backing it is pretty much the only way to get through college unless you go into the military. I worked full time graveyard shift the entire time I was in school as well.
If you only take out what you need, it isn't too hard to pay off. Mine was completely paid off by the end of 4 years after graduation. Now my wife on the other hand took out pretty much the maximum every year and we are still working on paying her student loans off. However, it also allowed her to get through school, so money well spent in my mind.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Sep 14, 2010 - 11:59am PT
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Most enlightening.
I remember when the program first came out and the student financial aid office at San Francisco State tried to coerce me into taking out a loan by cutting down on my work-study hours. When I said "no thanks", the financial counselor asked me, "don't you want free money?".
I then asked her whether I had to pay it back or it was just a gift, and then the truth came out about only having to pay it off after graduation. At that point I told her that it wasn't free then and she should be ashamed of herself. She relented and I was able in 1973 still, to finance myself from a part time student job and to graduate with a master's degree debt free.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:11pm PT
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The biggest issue, IMO, is that you can NEVER discharge the student debt in bankruptcy.
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pc
climber
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:13pm PT
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Nice graphic Healyje. Brutal statement about our "society".
With three kids all headed to college, there's no frickin' way I'd let them get loans for school. They'll work for some and I'll pay the rest.
When you graduate from college you should be breathing fresh are from a clean start. Not some toxic loan exhaust.
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:15pm PT
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When do kids learn that just because you can borrow money doesn't mean that you should borrow money?
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Fluoride
Trad climber
Hollywood, CA
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:55pm PT
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It's a wonder that anyone wants to be a doctor in this day and age. The student loans to get through medical school coupled with the minimal earnings of a resident make it a tough career choice. You're paying off the loans years into your practice.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:55pm PT
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When do kids learn that just because you can borrow money doesn't mean that you should borrow money?
They don't. Unless their parents teach them. Which, in my experience they don't.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Sep 14, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
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That's a real well layed out post. Looks like student loans really should be the lender of last resort. Like many, I got the GI bill which is still available to our kids today. It's much like this loan thing as you know, but the vig and interest can be much, much higher and non-payment (AWOL) much more serious and painful.
Jan, it use to be much easier to just shrug it off and walk away. I knew a few who's attitude was "Screw them, what are they gonna do?" as there were minimal collection provisions, one of the reasons that they made it the way it is now no doubt.
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Gal
Trad climber
a semi lucid consciousness
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Sep 14, 2010 - 01:44pm PT
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Thanks for this post. Disturbing.
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
Oakland
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Sep 14, 2010 - 01:51pm PT
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I paid off my student loans last month, ahead of schedule.
Not everyone is re-re.
Honestly, the interest rates were incredibly low (~2.5%?). I really don't see what the problem is/was?? I got FEDERAL loans, not loans from radschoolloanz.com or whatever. the re-payment terms were in general pretty reasonable. Many of my friends are in the same boat, saying goodbye to those loans right about now while others who thought those credit cards would never have to be paid back have been swimming in 18% interest for 10 years now.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2010 - 01:59pm PT
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In the end, the 'student loan crisis' is just another leg of the overall financial / mortgage crisis. These student loans are packaged up, sliced and diced, and resold no differently than mortgages and part of an overall move to roll the most common forms of consumer debt (mortgages, student loans, auto and credit card) into asset backed security instruments and highly profitable markets / businesses. Mortgages are the most visible part of the hydra, but student loans are another.
Basically a bunch of already rich c*#ks@ckers decided every man, women, and child is simply a walking debt / ABS instrument and the faster you can load them up from birth the better and by any means.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Sep 14, 2010 - 02:02pm PT
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couchmaster-
For the record: I didn't walk out on a student loan. I never took one out in the first place.
I went back and read what I posted and could see the source of your confusion so I changed the wording.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 14, 2010 - 02:11pm PT
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I was a trustee of a private, non-profit university, and the chair of its Budget and Finance Commission. We set the tuition rate for the university, and were able to increase it almost annually because so many students received federal and state student financial assistance.
That scenario was hardly restricted to private schools. My tuition at UCLA law school for 1978-79 was $750 for the year. It is now in excess of $30,000 per year. I guarantee that the costs of operating that school have not increased over 30-fold.
Healyje's poster demonizes the wrong beneficiary: universities have reaped the greatest benefits from the student loan system, not lenders. Tuition increases have far outstripped the rate of inflation.
I also practiced law, and limited that practice to debtor-creditor relations, bankruptcy reorganization and commercial law from 1979 - 2006. I had one case -- out of thousands in which I was involved -- that had a discharged student loan. The amendments to the Bankruptcy Code regarding discharge of student loans (and governmental weapons to collect them) are extraordinarily harsh and, in my opinion, unwarranted, but, as others have noted, the interest rates are generally low, and the repayment terms gentle.
The real problem is the size of the principal. Graduates of professional schools now emerge with such heavy debt loads that they can only afford to practice in the most lucrative markets in the largest cities.
If anything, government financial aid shows the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. Those who don't get aid get soaked for more tuition, and smaller cities and rural areas find themselves underserved as graduates restrict themselve to markets that provide a sufficient salary to repay their loans.
John
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Sep 14, 2010 - 02:17pm PT
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It's considered beneficiary for the country to have highly educated people, and the politics are designed to ensure this.
Commies!
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Sep 14, 2010 - 02:37pm PT
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A quality education is a hell of a lot more solid investment than almost anything you will charge on a credit card.
A good education will pay for itself many times over. It's worth whatever you have to pay for it, even if you have to run up a debt to do it.
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