I went to a cheap state university and got a degree in CS. I had no debt after 3 years and my income is higher than average.
If I had gone to an expensive private liberal arts college, I wouldn't have the same outcome and could be a victim of the process.
Students must recognize they are also reaponsible for their debt.
At one point in my career, I worked for a bankruptcy trustee. During that time, I learned some very valuable lessons about creditors and the importance of bankruptcy/default on lending practices. If a lender knows that a debt cannot be defaulted upon and absolved through bankruptcy, their risks are substantially mitigated. They're not eliminated, but again, this about understanding the scales of risk and fault as it relates to credit.
Outside of student loans, most credit is obtained through a process that involves the lending institution weighing the risk that the debtor will be unable to pay. The ultimate risk being that the debtor will file bankruptcy, and the creditor will take a serious haircut on their principal.
With student loans, our policy is guided by the principal that higher education is of monumental importance. Rather than simply make universities part of our public education system -- because government = bad, amirite? -- a set of policies and law making resulted in a system of federally sanctioned/backed lending institutions which were granted special status within the context of the creditor/debtor relationship. Over time, these special affordances have been extended to private lenders who adhere to regulations.
And here we are today. Capital has identified this loophole and is leveraging student debtors' future in ways that is clearly predatory. With no risk of bankruptcy, student loan creditors are empowered to garnish wages at rates up to 25%. What lender wouldn't take that deal? How much would you loan someone if you knew you could take a quarter of their paycheck every week for the rest of their life?
Clearly the debtor holds responsibility to use credit responsibly, but you can't create circumstances like the ones we have today and fall back to "Well, everyone really should just be more responsible." No, we all hold responsibility for the system that we've created, and until it changes, things will only get worse.
Yes, there is some individual reliability, but acting like it's peoples fault if they are good at something that doesn't pay well and don't have a hang for CS & math is dishonest IMHO. Not everyone can just study the subject that currently pays well and be good at it if they don't have a basic talent for it. I would definitely be fucked and miserable if I had to do something artsy if that would be what pays...
You'd be surprised at how well an analytical mind can approach the problem of getting good at an artsy field. But if you go in with the assumption that you'd be fucked, well, it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So if those were the main areas where there's decent money to be made, best I could hope for is get a mediocre position to earn some money to hopefully pay back my student loans while definitely being unhappy doing something I don't enjoy. The alternative would be to go into some field that pays shit, let's say CS in this scenario, where I might be excellent at but even earn less than being a mediocre painter, and hope to still make it there and at least be happy. Now the choice is much tougher IMHO that what was initially suggested.
This is the same issue with housing. Just because the bank pre-qualified you for a $500k loan, doesn't mean you should go out and buy a $500k house. You need to look ahead and think about your current financial situation, what you can honestly afford, how much can you put away into savings, will you be able to afford maintenance and repairs?
Author could of had a lesser burden had they went to a local or state university instead of starting off at private.
Yelling "personal responsibility!" while having been relatively lucky in life (if you're active on HN, you're one of the lucky few among your 8 billion peers) feels like ostrich syndrome to me.
Edit: I'm also a bit sad that you want the author or young people like him to accept that the social situation they're born in to dictates what level of education they can afford and pursue. To me that's akin to saying "well, your parents are poor and on welfare, so you should probably just accept that your high school in your poor neighborhood has decades old text books that need to be shared." It's not entirely analogous I suppose - you'd say something about personal responsibility again - but looking at the photo negative of your statement looks to me like "only rich kids can go to rich college, you have to accept your position in cheap college."
Financial sense, however, is very important for the majority of the population. Even more so for those not-so-fortunate to win the oh-so-often-complained-about "genetic" or "parental lottery".
The inner conspiracy theorist in me would have me convinced that not-teaching such important topics is the only way to keep the economy-engine churning. Efficiency and money-sense in the general populace are not things that will drive "growth" and "GDP". But I could be wrong.
I am borrowing 200k. I will need to pay back 200k plus interest, as documented in my paperwork. I am expected to have this all paid in X years.
What is intricate about that? Don't sign something if you don't understand it, ask questions, they're free.
Does this not also apply to the banks making the loans? In other words, a bank that is willing to lend me much more than what I can honestly afford is either negligent or rapacious, but not responsible or sensible. The bank is not properly valuing the risk that I represent. If they were, I would have been denied such an oversized loan.
Perhaps the same is true of CS: we don't need everyone to be Hemingway here: plenty of jobs just need programming. I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Even if CS turns out to be above the capabilities of most people, that certainly shouldn't mean that it's a reasonable choice to spend an equivalent amount of money getting a degree that well known ahead of time to not get you a return.
Now thats of course far from the current discussion, where people are forced to get into certain debts just to study for a profession they hopefully enjoy and will be ok enough in to earn back the money they invested to learn it in the first place.
You cannot (reasonably) file bankruptcy. The only escape is total disability. You are on the hook for the full amount even with a partial disability which keeps you from earning enough to pay it.
From the horses mouth:
Discharge in Bankruptcy This is not an automatic process—you must prove to the bankruptcy court that repaying your student loan would cause undue hardship.
If you file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you may have your loan discharged in bankruptcy only if the bankruptcy court finds that repayment would impose undue hardship on you and your dependents. This must be decided in an adversary proceeding in bankruptcy court. Your creditors may be present to challenge the request. The court uses this three-part test to determine hardship:
If you are forced to repay the loan, you would not be able to maintain a minimal standard of living. There is evidence that this hardship will continue for a significant portion of the loan repayment period. You made good-faith efforts to repay the loan before filing bankruptcy (usually this means you have been in repayment for a minimum of five years). Your loan will not be discharged if you are unable to satisfy any one of the three requirements. If your loan is discharged, you will not have to repay any portion of your loan, and all collection activity will stop. You also will regain eligibility for federal student aid if you had previously lost it.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancell...
Why should there be an escape? You took the debt, and the terms are you pay it back as you earn money. It was never forced on you, you accepted it. But the dice didn't roll your way so now you want to flip the board?
The best thing we can do is teach kids/teens personal responsibility. Start with a negligable debt in their school years so they know the feeling of a repayment weight hanging over their head.
Education, not regulation.
Because there is for every other type of debt?
With other secured loans they can take your house, car, etc.
Student loans? Get a 4 year ride at a liberal arts school, end up bartending and the default. There is nothing to take away.
You can file for bankruptcy but ultimately unless disabled you will be able to resume your profession.
So what have we learnt? Nothing, apart from dataker is lucky to be interested in one of the few fields left that pays well and is feeling pretty smug about it.
Who says dataker's interested? Maybe dataker just wanted to make more money and so chose CS. Or became interested after getting into the field. Why does your choice of major have to be something you're really interested in?
I think part of the issue is we keep selling high schoolers on the idea of "choose what you love", but in high school your breadth of experience is laughably small. Picking a major that would pay well and then approaching it with a good attitude would probably get one farther.
Isn't this statement the exact opposite of the "follow your dreams!" mentality usually espoused on HN?
We canonize those few that are lucky and successful and hold them up as examples, but if you follow their example and fail, well, "personal responsibility" and all.
After all, your life would have been easier if you had just gotten in line.
Coming from an impoverished family, I took CS as a way out of it. Eventually, I became interested, but not the other way around.
Nope.
Sometimes we’re expecting not-yet-adults to make adult decisions and live with the adult consequences. And sometimes they don’t have enough information/support to make those decisions.
Shouldn't the lion's share of the influence belong to them, and not some 3rd party dealing with the student via infomercial and pamphlet?
> Nope.
But could you have researched the decision? Yep, assuming you had access to the Internet or a library.
Many students who take loans don't even need them, but could easily pay their tuition by just getting a job.
There really should be a cap to how much debt one can take on student loans.
Loaning many tens of thousands to 18 year olds is predatory, plain and simple. To pass laws making those debts non-dischargable makes it 10 times more predatory.
We all consider title pawns sleazy, but in the case of student loans, our government and our society is the predator, and our children are the prey.
What would it look like if our government wanted to be a protector instead of a predator in this case? A law limiting student loans to a small, managable amount.
If you don't want a loan you have to pay back, then don't get a student loan get a personal loan which you can default on. Sure it won't be as much, but that's all you can get when you have a low likelihood of paying it back. Or enlist in the military and earn the money to pay for school. Or get a job and pay your way through school. Or go to a cheaper school, and get a more practical degree.
There are other options.
This is not the case, the non-dischargability in bankruptcy only came about in 2005 and there were plenty of student loans before then
Chicken or the egg.
I don't think most people making this decision understand the full weight of the choice when making it, not at that age. I certainly didn't - especially when EVERYONE around you is saying that ones NOT taking the loans and getting the degree are the silly ones.
## I'm using many in the sense of personal experience and the experience friends and family. So if you want do to a [citation needed] argument here - sure, whatever.
It was strongly implied that jobs like plumbers and electricians were for stupid people who would end up poor.
That was what I was told, my entire childhood. At what point do we start talking about indoctrination during this conversation? Because I think we should.
Meanwhile kids aren't told about other options or what the reality is about degrees. Trades pay very well, different degrees have a much higher likelihood of getting you a job or a better paying job, and of course only having a degree is no guarantee of even getting a job at all.
We need to reset expectations so kids don't get sucked in by the marketing machine that is today's higher education. Your masters degree in foreign languages does not guarantee you a job. Do your research and understand, really brutally understand the field you are trying to get work in. Don't listen to the hype, ask normal people in that field how they got that job and be skeptical. Find out how many people get degrees in that field annually, and how many new hits exist in that field. You might be surprised to find out it's a small field that simply doesn't support all the graduates produced, or that a degree alone won't get you that dream job.
Watch that to the end (or at least the end of the veteran benefits bit), and then get back to us.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/8/obama-free-co...
#Edit. Linked article was just the first I found that looked semi-related to a big politician and college-romanticizing.
We do need to address the ways in which government supports lenders' predatory behaviors, while educational institutions at all levels push unprepared barely-adults into the trap. Education prior to college must include education about student loans and the dangers thereof. After all, there are minimum educational requirements for all other subjects. Why not this one?
If you fuck up, that's on you. Not anyone else.
But I also recognize that I'm responsible for putting food on my table, paying for a roof over our heads, paying for health insurance (that we should all get for being citizens of this country), paying, paying, paying.
This isn't about not being responsible. It's about the absurdity of garnering a ludicrous amount of debt in the pursuit of an education.
I applaud you for making your life work out right out of college. What makes you think anyone else could do the same thing? Why does your situation apply to me?