Comment by Meph504 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Meph504 | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry I take issue with these articles written from the perspective of they are a victim. They took $78k in loans to get a degree whose prospective returns were abysmal.

They made the choice to defer resolving their debts, and let the interest be added to principal while not making payments.

I'm not saying that the system doesn't do everything it should to help people understand. But the contracts they sign for the money spell it out.

I went through the same, it took me several more years to complete my education than it could have, but living on borrowed money, at the rates that were offered were foolish.

I know my view on this is likely different from most, but reading this article most of what I see is a person, making bad choice after bad choice and then somehow surprised when they are worse off than before.

I feel for the person, as I do for so many that took that route, but it wasn't like they didn't have everything they needed to realize this was a series bad choices.

It seems heartless to agree but also level-headed. A bachelor’s in biology can only be obtained if you have quantitative reasoning, and understand compound growth and the fundamental insecurity of the natural world, so this seems especially egregious. If they were reporting on their own life as a journalist, what agency do they give themselves in making their own choices?

Why borrow at least 1.5 years’ gross salary and start their adult life with such debt? I as a taxpayer helped loan them that money, I’d like it back at some point.

A Bachelor's in biology doesn't earn you much either!

It’s all what you make of it. I never got my bachelor’s, because I ran out of my parent’s limited funds and we weren’t going to borrow.

My family is lucky in some way because I’ve paid for my wife’s and one kid’s college so far. But saving so my kids could complete their education was a major life goal, achieved due in part to a lack of bad luck.

I have a feeling this is the dilemma the article's author found as well. There really aren't many decently paying jobs for someone with an undergraduate biology degree - at least not compared to the number of people with said degrees. So, do you double down and get a graduate degree in hopes of increasing your earning potential?

I found myself in that same situation, with the same degree, and decided it wasnt worth taking on debt for a graduate degree (nor spending the 2-3 years it would have taken). Problem is, while the potential jobs for someone with an advanced degree are better, there are even less of them, and the competition is tough.

But sometimes that’s life when you are young. Making bad choices after bad choices. This is a predatory system. My soft European brain can’t even compute how such villainy is not only allowed but also the status quo

Agreed. The take you're replying to is logical and true but with sympathy and not empathy. In practice, the kids making these decisions have no business making them, full information or not. The numbers are so foreign and the outcome so distant, while they haven't even ever left home.

Further, not all kids making these decisions have strong families or networks that can help set them straight. Instead, all they hear is "college is critical" and accept on faith there's an ROI.

What villainy?

The terms are clear, the real issue is how many people take on such massive debt without reading the terms or having a plan other than "it will work out."

From an economic opportunities perspective I'd much rather be a young American than a young European from any country but Germany.

The true villainy is the impossible situations a young Spanish or Italian adult is thrown into knowing there is no career prospects for them in their society and that they'll end up living in their parents house till their mid 30s

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