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Comment by siculars | Hacker News Reader

I'm the biggest America lover out there but I hate to say the answer may simply be to leave the US. Simply start over somewhere else. There are plenty of nice places that would love to have you.

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Perhaps the answer is not to take the debt on in the first place.

In most fields, you're at a real disadvantage without a good degree on your resume. In fields like law, consulting, or finance, people who love you after an interview still won't hire you if you don't have one of the dozen or so acceptable schools on your resume. Other fields are less credential driven, but a name-brand degree still matters. My dad does a lot of hiring as part of his job, and he has told me that it's not so much that he is prejudiced against people with good schools on their resume, but rather that those people don't stand out in a stack with resumes that have Harvard, Yale, etc, on them.

Where's the informed consent in regards to any type of student loans?

It would be simple to have bullet points that say things like:

  1. You cannot get rid of student debt by bankrupcy.
  2. The Govt can garnish wages, social security, and other monies if you dont make regular payments.
  3. etc....

But yet, we are sold a bill of goods called "Public University" that has routinely jacked up rates much higher than inflation. Where's the public funding making costs cheap? Or, why are private, for-profit colleges protected from bankruptcy as well?

My mom (in her late 50's), tells me when she was going to university, she would only have to work during summer a job or 2 to pay for schooling for fall and spring. If she picked up a job on campus, she'd have spending money for luxuries and such. That's what public funding did for her. Not so much for this day and age.

> Where's the public funding making costs cheap?

Why would more dollars competing for the same exclusive good (enrollment in a particular college) drive the price down?

Hint: government money can come with strings attached. Also, public schools are written with public assistance (local, state, national) as part of the core fund.

All it takes are a dedicated group of politicians to give a collective shit.

You go to a room and are given a two page contract, written in fifth grade English.

Which, in my case, allowed for bankruptcy. Until I hit financial hard times a few years later. By that time, they had (in 2005) retroactively removed my ability to declare bankruptcy on private student loan dept.

(And for the record, I don't expect you to debate every point or be an expert on the matter. I'm just saying that it's not a cut and dry issue, in my mind.)

> Where's the informed consent...?

Actually, it exists nowadays. Students (in the US) receiving loans are required to complete a loan counseling session, which covers the pros, cons and responsibilities of student debt.

However, this is a relatively recent development that probably wasn't around for the people in the article.

In my case, my loan "counseling session" was an online form I had to complete to unlock access to certain features of my online college account software. You do not get a sit down with someone to tell you about what you are getting into before you start. Even if you can get a person to talk to, we are seeing that lots of hand waiving and outright dishonesty is being used to propagate loan profits.

I was in school from 2004 - 2009 and took out modest student loans, about $11k total, and never experienced any of this.

Sounds like an answer from an affluent, white male college student to me!

I dropped out.

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