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Comment by Shared404 | Hacker News Reader

The predatory part is the pushing kids who don't understand finances into taking massive loans with high interest rates.

I've passed on a traditional uni for this because I want to avoid debt, and still get "why don't you go to uni?"'d every so often by family and acquaintance's.

And if the argument is "well, if you don't make enough to pay it, just don't!", as GP appears to be, I don't like spending other people's tax dollars dishonestly - especially not on textbook companies [0] and an expanding administrative staff.

[0] Which bribe and cut-throat their way into forcing $100+ payments per student per class per semester. Pirating or buying second hand doesn't even work half the time now - you need the "online access", aka DRM.

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>The predatory part is the pushing kids who don't understand finances into taking massive loans with high interest rates.

There's literally lectures and a quiz you have to pass before you can take the loans that explains how repayment and interest rates work.

For public loans the actual amount doesn't really matter because payment is income based. And the cap on lending is around $60k for 4 years, so I'd hardly use the word massive.

>"why don't you go to uni?"'

Of course all this only applies assuming you're American, which I'd guess your not since your friends call it uni.

> There's literally lectures and a quiz you have to pass before you can take the loans that explains how repayment and interest rates work.

Yes, but they are told their whole life "after college, you'll make enough to pay it off easy, no problem!"

> For public loans the actual amount doesn't really matter because payment is income based. And the cap on lending is around $60k for 4 years, so I'd hardly say it's predatory.

60k, with an extremely high interest is most definitely a problem.

> Of course all this only applies assuming your American, which I'd guess your not since your friends call it uni.

Nope, I live in Texas. Anecdotally, my group of friends all flip between "school name"/School/Uni in conversation. In this case, I picked uni because I'm on mobile and typing is hard.

>Yes, but they are told their whole life "after college, you'll make enough to pay it off easy, no problem!"

If anything, the predominant messaging today is the exact opposite of that. It also doesn't matter because public loans qualify for income based repayment, so it doesn't matter. If you end up stuck working at McDonalds for the rest of your life, you'll never pay back a dime.

>60k, with an extremely high interest is most definitely a problem.

Current undergrad rates are fixed at 3.73%.

>Anecdotally, my group of friends all flip between "school name"/School/Uni in conversation.

Interesting, (as an American myself) I've never heard an American use uni outside of conversation with Europeans.

> If anything, the predominant messaging today is the exact opposite of that. It also doesn't matter because public loans qualify for income based repayment, so it doesn't matter. If you end up stuck working at McDonalds for the rest of your life, you'll never pay back a dime.

Unless you do get a job in your field, with enough income that you're supposed to pay it back, but can't. This probably will be less common with the current rates, but as recently as 2012 the interest rates were at 6.8% .

> Current undergrad rates are fixed at 3.73%.

Indeed. I was operating off of the rates from those who took loans in 2012 or before, the current rate is much more reasonable.

> Interesting, (as an American myself) I've never heard an American use uni outside of conversation with Europeans.

I probably picked it up from the internet and spread it to the group, I like saying less syllables :P

>Unless you do get a job in your field, with enough income that you're supposed to pay it back, but can't. This probably will be less common with the current rates, but as recently as 2012 the interest rates were at 6.8% .

There's also the fact that now (even for someone who took out loans before 2012) you'll never pay more than 10% of your disposable income, for more than 20 years. Up to a max of about $500 a month (which is the 20 year payoff rate for a $60k loan at 6.8%).

There are ways you could end up paying more. Say if you spent 10 years unemployed running up interest and suddenly got a job paying $100k, but even then you're talking $700 a month for 10 years before it gets cancelled.

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