Obama's student loan debt-relief plan

[robbie380]

Originally Posted by SamFisher You've gone back and forth about it but I don't think anybody has mentioned that this explosion seems to correlate very highly with the rise of the for-profit education sector, which, btw, happens to be responsible for half of all defaults....

We will see what happens to that since the govt has started cracking down on them. And I didn't know their students were involved in half the defaults. I think the for profit college students only make up like 20% of the total college students in the US too. What percentage of the outstanding student loan debt do their students have?

For profit colleges are such a ****ty deal. They provide inadequate training and try to take advantage of lower income/less educated people.

[Major]

Originally Posted by JuanValdez However, I don't think it is a good idea for me. My biggest loan is also the most recent, taken out for an MBA, and I have 7 more years on it. I can make it hurt somewhat less, but given that the interest would accumulate more as a result, I would in effect extend the term over which I pay and ultimately pay out more money in interest. If I were to actually avail myself of debt forgiveness* 22 years from now, that would mean paying 15% of my 'discretionary income' for over 2 decades, which seems far worse than living frugally for 7 years. So, I'll probably stick with what I've got.

Really, the only reason NOT to do it is if your interest rate is lower with your current loans than it would be with the consolidated, and if there are any fees involved in consolidating. The payment thing is irrelevant - you can always pay more each month (or the same as now) and pay it off faster than you would now simply because the interest rate would be lower.

Overall, I agree that these changes don't do much - but then, executive orders shouldn't really be able to do that much. If they could have made a huge difference at "no cost to the taxpayer" as the claim, I'd be disappointed that no one did that earlier.

[Rashmon]

Originally Posted by Deckard No kidding. I'm paying for my son to go to an out of state public university and it's as expensive as a good private one. If you aren't from that state, you are **** out of luck. If he were paying his own way, he could easily rack up 3 figures in debt just getting his engineering degree, much less a graduate degree. Hell, I can remember when I could have purchased a brick house in the Montrose for what one year is costing us.

pssst, have him establish residency

[thadeus]

Yeah ... upon more reading, this is bull****.

[tallanvor]

Originally Posted by thadeus Yeah ... upon more reading, this is bull****.

Krauthammer agrees

[greenhippos]

Juan is thinking exactly what I was thinking after reading into it. I will literally stop paying my student loans if at any point i'll be paying them for anywhere close to 20 years. Unless you're going to an expensive school getting a degree that warrants a high salary, you shouldn't rack up enough in loans to take 20 years to pay back. Again, that is something that benefits the wealthy, and the soon to be wealthy. It doesn't help the guy who wants to go to an in-state school to study restaurant and hotel management or what have you. I had it in my head beforehand that whatever the plan was wouldn't benefit me unless it was something crazy like letting me pay back 80% of what I borrowed. But this doesn't seem to be do much of anything.

[Classic]

Originally Posted by Sweet Lou 4 2 I borrowed 80k to go to an ivy league school. Had no idea what I was going to do with my life and graduated with a bachelors of arts. Loan money went right to tuition room and fees...wasn't enough to food or books. Cheap work study gig for 5 bucks an hour was so pathetic I eventually quit and worked in catering on weekends to pay for food. Living it up? Hardly. Luxury? Insane. How many doors did having an ivy league degree open up? A ton. Am glad I did it. No trade school could have matched the warming potential from a college degree. Anyone who doesn't value higher education doesn't understand that it takes more than a hard days labor to make it in today's America.

You obviously had the drive to make it work for you. Not everyone college student does. I am glad you made it work for you to go on and be a productive tax paying individual. Student loans are a great thing but not everyone can handle them and there are some unrealistic expectations about what a college degree can get you.

When I say I speak from experience, I do refer to myself at a more nieve age. I milked an extra 2 semesters in college just because I knew in the back of my head that I had student loan money at a really great interest rate to keep me in school and the attitude that when it came time to pay back i'd have a great job to do it so i allowed myself to take on the extra debt. It did in the end work out for me like it has for you and many others on here but again, the people on this board don't represent everyone out there. I have a friend I graduated with that were in college to get the degree but had no ambition to do anything with it themselves and ended up waiting tables paying back 25k in tuition. I stand by my statement that cheap money whether it be for housing (0% financing on avail on arms in 2004) or student loans is a double edge sword.

What I was refering to when I dogged the current system was the beaurocrats involved and a particular thread posted in the hangout about 6 months ago about the default/cronies truth of the current student loan program.

[JuanValdez]

I suppose the one thing it does do is if you are a hard-luck college grad you can at least save your credit score from getting destroyed by crushing student loan payments that force you to default on them or other loans. Given the excessive importance of the credit score, that's a pretty signficant benefit.