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Comment by mdorazio | Hacker News Reader

I feel like it might actually be somewhat socially related as well. If people see that their friends/coworkers with large student loans are simply deciding not to pay and nothing horrible is happening to them while at the same time they are living more extravagant lifestyles with the student loan money they're not paying, that's an encouragement to not pay yourself as well. Pair this with the last administration taking steps to limit student loan repayment responsibilities (William D. Ford Direct Loan program), and it starts looking like maybe not paying your loans off is a pretty decent option.

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I don't know man?

Social pressures are more complicated than that, and they come from many different directions. I mean, in the hip-hop world, "I Finished Paying Sally Mae Off!" is one of the top rated songs right now. And listening to that song, it's clear that the rapper had fallen behind on his loans from time to time.

So if that "pay it off" attitude has made it down to the hip-hop world, it must be prevalent in the larger society as well. And that's just one "for instance" when you're talking about social pressures around student loans other than the desire to walk away from them.

Alternatively, perhaps fully paying off your loans has become such an unusual thing that it has joined the ranks of "things rappers brag about in their lyrics"

Having read the lyrics for the song, I'm not sure that the song is encouraging at all, on the payback perspective. Talking about having two jobs and destroyed credit seems to me more like having the loans paid off is more like getting out of some kind of imprisonment (I do not want to disparage how terrible imprisonment is in the US, but I couldn't think of something better).

I would argue that this song is more an anthem for those who understand how hard it is to live under the weight of these loans, and perhaps if you are fortunate enough to pay them off, it is a time of celebration, as you might be able to quit that second job.

Thought this was a joke, but it's not.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JqbXQa05Z6c

I hate to be pedantic, but think calling "I finished paying Sallie Mae Back" a top rated songs in Hip Hop right now(or ever) is a big stretch. It's over a year old, and its mainly just a good goof of a song that people shared around on Facebook last year. I don't think I ever knew anyone who listened to it outside of that context.

> Pair this with the last administration taking steps to limit student loan repayment responsibilities

Are you referring to the efforts to correct down on Navient actively and often deceptively steering people into higher-cost paths when better existing legal options were availablel, or it's crackdown on predatory loans by fraudulent institutions? Or something else?

Extravagant? Is this related to avocados?

I repaid, but the Equifax information is wrong.....

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