The inescapable weight of my student debt | Hacker News Reader

The inescapable weight of my student debt

theguardian.com

32 pointsDomreiRoam42 comments

There are books published by the US Government in almost every public library in the United States that have detailed earning stats and employment forecasts on every career. There are an enormous number of web sites (including sites maintained by the government) that offer the same information with a few seconds of searching. At some point people need to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions.

"At some point people need to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions." Are you talking about the people that lent the money? Debt is a two way street this is why some people are credit worthy and others are not.

This is a good point. Obama got rid of defaulting on student loans, so there's really not much of an excuse for banks not to give people a loan they won't be able to pay off. If there were, the bank might take more of an interest in what you were studying and what your career goals were.

It was Bush, not Obama.

There's the loan forgiveness program if you work at a non-profit or in education for 10 years. That seems like one pathway out at least for the Federal loans.

There are some people who don't pay the loans at all and take the credit hit and find their tax refunds taken. The interesting thing is that the refund directly reduces the principal and is not applied to the interest. For some people that seems to be a reasonable mitigation. I could be misremembering the details here though.

The other thing is that people need to vote. Vote for politicians who will reform student loans.

“I have spent a great deal of time during the last decade shifting the blame for my debt. Whose fault was it?”

After all that he has been through, he still doesn’t seem to give consideration to his choice of major as the root source of the problem.

He does consider it. "Or was it my fault for not having the foresight to realise it was a mistake to spend roughly $200,000 on a school where, in order to get my degree, I kept a journal about reading Virginia Woolf?"

Oh, I thought he was calling into question the quality of his school or department in that statement.

He's doing both. He's saying the price he paid for his education was not worth the 200k sticker.

Great read. Looking back I’m so glad I chose to go with the in-state public school in my home town for a CS degree. I am looking at graduating in a year with zero debt and some good career prospects.

Makes me shutter now to think I was considering out of state $40-50k per year universities. I was 17 years old and in my undeveloped head I was really thinking it would be worth it..

>> “I have spent a great deal of time during the last decade shifting the blame for my debt. Whose fault was it?”

There is no one single person to point to, but I'll take a whack at it:

1. The father, who should know better, for agreeing to co-sign a loan for a worthless degree. A 5 minute conversation with ANYONE related to the degree would have told him the facts.

I wanted to be a video game designer and my parents would not sign for a loan for a degree in that area. We compromised on Computer Science. BULLET. DODGED.

I'm a bit sorrowful I'm not working at my passion, but I'm pretty young and for all I know being a game designer would have made me miserable. Traveling the world, living comfortably, and putting away a lot of money as a computer programmer is not something I'm about to complain about.

2. The people giving these people toxic loans for degrees that have no chance of every paying off.

They have essentially created a servant class that has to pay a large % of their monthly take-home to a parasitic student loan company. Instead of taking risks, buying houses and cars, and getting more useful education, they are doing data entry.

The best minds of my generation are doing data entry and working at call centers.

3. The Universities themselves. How is it at all ethical to allow students to go through a 4 year program, charge them 100k for the effort, and then turn them out on the streets to suffer for years and years?

I remember in my non-major classes in college, the attitude of other students with worthless degrees and professors who teach them was: Don't talk about it. Don't think about it, just keep going. Which is bullshit. Talk about it. Tell the students what they are getting into.

You missed one.

4. The government for passing legislation making the discharge of student debt in bankruptcy nearly impossible.

When people talk about the inflation of the cost of a university degree I never see as the number one cause for it being the no risk loans to people who have no money sense (17 year olds) that pour money into the system.

Bankruptcy is a vital check valve on financial systems as well as an essential safety net to allow risk taking, even if that risk taking is pursuing a worthless degree.

I was lucky, in that I knew I could only afford in state tuition at a university where I could live at home. I used to laugh at some of my high school peers who were going off to really expensive liberal arts colleges. I still think it was foolish for most of them, but now that I'm older I really hope the decisions didn't cripple them financially.

>The best minds of my generation are doing data entry and working at call centers.

Alternatively, the best minds of your generation are doing none of those things because they didn't fall into the trap. Don't assume the loudest people speak for everyone.

>.> bad parenting letting their kid rack up 100k in debt.

It’s a bit more complex than that. Yes it’s some really horrible advice they gave, but they gave it founded on the weird idea that had been hammered into their heads—that if they sent their child to a good school they would be successful in life.

The author acknowledges this. It’s akin to the American dream. I think getting the word out with pieces like this is a good step in the right direction.

As soon as I read that he graduated with a degree in "English Literature" I knew what the problem was - what did he expect? Where does he think the demand for that is? How did he justify 100k$ for such a degree ( or any degree for that part )?

There are so many jobs like welding, plumbing, etc that need to be done, pay very good money and require no ( or very small ) loans, and he studied something like English Literature ( for 100k$ !! ) complaining...

Hell, even studying something "elite" as he calls it like CS in his own time, on his own, doing projects to get some starting job in any CS-related industry would be preferrable.

People who study these bullshit degrees are in a mess of their own doing.

Seems like you're victim-blaming. Do you really think a 17-year-old has the capacity to sort through the wrong career guidance?

This problem is emphatically not of the students' own making. It's on the teachers and guidance counselors who insist on a college degree at any cost and brook no disagreement.

If you don't believe a 17 year old has the capacity, then perhaps the federal government shouldn't be giving him a subsidized student loan of that size. Private institutions would decide and charge the appropriate rate based on risk. Private organizations often do this and loans from Sofi or others are often below the federal rate, which creates a perverse selection bias where federal loans are the most likely to have issues.

I do actually since when I was 17 I got advice by all my teachers, parents, etc to go into something that pays. Also it's just common sense that you need money to pay your bills, therefore you need a job that is in demand.

The part of the brain responsible for critical reasoning about consequences isn't fully developed until 25 (see: car rental company age limits). Also, congrats on your strong support system! A lot of people don't have that, and you can't form public policy based on your sole experience.

Ok, so he can now study something that pays and then pay off his debt. Nobody forced him to take loans.

I paid for my own education in the US, and I worked while studying. It wasn't easy, but I recognized the value of money.

I'm not even sure what your argument is for. Do you want us to pitch in for his bad financial decisions? Why don't you pay him from your checking account, show us how it's done?

> I paid for my own education in the US, and I worked while studying. It wasn't easy, but I recognized the value of money.

A single anecdote holds no value for broad policy decisions.

> I'm not even sure what your argument is for. Do you want us to pitch in for his bad financial decisions? Why don't you pay him from your checking account, show us how it's done?

I financially support candidates who support discharging student loan debt. It's a drag on the US economy, and would provide more financial stimulus than tax cuts for the wealthy.

I assume "discharging student loan debt" is the euphemism for "let the taxpayer pay for that undesirable pile of shit that he chose to study".

That will only worsen the situation - more young people will study shit that's not in demand.

What qualifies a degree as an "undesirable pile of shit?" Studying English is not at all useless. It definitely provides value to our society and produces people with useful skills applicable across disciplines. Being burdened with student loans pigeon holes great minds into safe jobs that don't make use of their skills.

It's quite simple - if you can't pay off your student debt with the skills you paid for, it's generally undesirable by outside world.

Whether English or history is somewhat useful is irrelevant - pretty much any area of knowledge is. They clearly are not in high demand.

The recently approved $717 billion in defense spending increased military spending by $80 billion dollars, far in excess of what would've been necessary to provide free college to everyone. Hard to argue the moral hazard on education spending when you're firehosing billions of dollars of taxpayer money into a dumpster fire already.

"Those concerns were brushed aside Monday night, as the Senate overwhelmingly approved an $80 billion annual increase in military spending, enough to have fully satisfied Sanders’s campaign promise. Instead, the Senate handed President Donald Trump far more than the $54 billion he asked for. The lavish spending package gives Trump a major legislative victory, allowing him to boast about fulfilling his promise of a “great rebuilding of the armed services.

Or with $80 billion a year, you could make public colleges and universities in the U.S. tuition-free. In fact, Sanders’s proposal was only estimated to cost the federal government $47 billion per year."

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/18/the-senates-military-spe...

Or with $80 billion a year, you could do lots of stuff like have a lower deficit.

Reducing defense spending being good does not mean that using it to discharge bad student loans is the best use.

You can argue all day about the 'best' thing to spend $80bn on, but there's no way the 'defense' budget will be reduced by any meaningful amount for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, and if we redirect $500 of your paycheck to me, I can eat for free. I find it extremely useful. Let's do it!

And yeah, I get what you're saying about the ridiculous military budget, I don't like it either. But can you change it is the real question. If you can't, it's all just a beautiful fantasy.

Just because the brain isn't done developing, that doesn't mean you can't start using it when you're a teenager. However, getting an English literature degree is crazy and the only reason a kid would think that was a good idea is if everybody around him lied to him about it.

Not a single person gave me that advice.

From the article, he had a BS and a MA. I guess he decided to double down on "English literature" at age ~21 and take on even more debt.

>I enrolled for an evening class in French at New York's Cooper Union, as that deferred my having to start paying off the debt, and the cost of the new class was cheaper than the monthly repayments I would have to make.

He did, and I'm not sure the best way to educate people that, while actions like this will defer their payments, interest does still accrue (afaik).

I concur and would expect the number of people studying stuff like this to be higher in countries where student debts do not exist, since they hopefully work as a deterrent. In continental Europe there‘s a shortage of qualified workers and there are plenty of useless academics.

This comes off as peering from an ivory tower - essentially "stop studying literature and fix my pipes." Considering we are probably collectively in the wealthiest period humanity has ever experienced we could try not leaving the arts completely out to dry.

Two things can be right at once. People who took out 100k loans to study a useless degree are stupid. And, undischargable loans probably shouldn't be a thing even if that means that some people will miss out studying their passion. In order to not leave arts out to die, people who want to learn arts should apply for grants from people who value arts. I don't value arts that much so I wouldn't pay. but if you value arts enough, feel free to support an artist with your money.

Unfortunately I think that's a little idealistic. Compulsory support and funding by the state for the arts and sciences is necessary for a host of reasons. You could say similar things about about climate change - if you care about it, you pay for it. But we know that the individual cannot solve climate change and that it requires some form of top down movement. Maybe it's not fair comparison, but I'm arguing that continual and consistent support for arts and sciences is basically a requirement for the same reasons and that in practice only governments are able to maintain.

Now on the individual level it might be a dumb decision, though it's a hard argument to make to someone in that position. What an enormous opportunity cost it is to not take the loan if you think you'll succeed. It's a bad situation for everyone involved and there isn't a good answer to the individuals in or about to be in that situation.

Climate change is a big issue that in order to fix (if it is even possible) involves many people working together. No matter how much C02 you conserve, if a tanker ship exists, it will pollute more than you can ever do in your life. With the case of arts, if you buy a painting you will directly encourage the creation of a new painting.

> What an enormous opportunity cost it is to not take the loan if you think you'll succeed. It's a bad situation for everyone involved and there isn't a good answer to the individuals in or about to be in that situation.

As for a solution for people in that situation, I can't think of any. But then again, people with prison records, facial disfigurements, born in a 3rd world country also struggle to live. Yet if we want to make life easier for them it will make life much more difficult for us. You may call that selfish, but that's just what humans are.

Yet he has a job, it seems he's had steady jobs. In the same group there is Sid, the software developer, Mira, the defence attorney, and Ian, the recent debt-free Google employee. All three are in the same 'mess' and pay very good money.

Is it a bullshit degree just because it doesn't lead to a high-paying job? Or is there some other criterion at work?

It's not bullshit, but, as you said, it's not high-paying, and that's known ahead if time. He chose his direction, and now he complains about the results.

You're not entitled to high pay, just because you chose something fun instead of something in demand.

It’s a bullshit degree only because the ratio of debt to projected income.

Literature is a really rewarding path of study, if you can pay for it. Sadly, this requires independent wealth or scholarships or a state school.

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