Student Loan Thread

[TheHammer24]

Yeah, my payments (total federal + private) are around 15% of my GROSS income.. not net, not discretionary.....and that's for the 15 year plan

Yeah mine are about 12% OF MY GROSS INCOME.

My girlfriend were way higher.

[TheHammer24]

I'm talking 40%. Now she's on grad school and accruing more debt and more interest. Hopefully a higher paying job!

[Idoit40fans]

Yeah, my payments (total federal + private) are around 15% of my GROSS income.. not net, not discretionary.....and that's for the 15 year plan

Yeah mine are about 12% OF MY GROSS INCOME.

My girlfriend were way higher.

I have no idea why i hit caps lock instead of shift. I also don't care about her personal habits.

[mac5155]

I must say.. if I didn't have such high payments, Id spend a lot more money on stupid **** to stimulate the economy

[Kraftster]

I'm talking 40%. Now she's on grad school and accruing more debt and more interest. Hopefully a higher paying job!

That's masochism. If they are stafford/Fed Direct loans you can get the payment reduced to 20% of your net income.

[Idoit40fans]

Haha I would too.

[pensfan1989]

I think a lot of the issue with student loans is the push for everyone to go to college. A lot of it goes back to the elementary and secondary education system of the country. One can still make a good living without a college education, but at least where I went to high school, people who pursued the trades were generally looked down on by their peers and the administration to an extent.

The increase in college costs is a direct result of programs like this that make money easily available to students. The increase in supply of students and their accompanying money allows colleges to raise tuition.

[Shyster]

Why would colleges not drastically increase their tuition under this scheme (at least while there is no overall cap). If no matter what, a graduate is going to repay no more than 10% of their “discretionary” (whatever that means) income for 10 years, then if I’m setting the tuition rates, I’m immediately raising it to $10 million a year. The student won’t pay any more than the “10-10” amount, and I can collect the balance from Uncle Sam. Heck, why limit it to $10 million? Why not make it a trillion? That should bulk up the ol’ endowment fund.

[shafnutz05]

That's actually a really good point and possible unforeseen consequence of all of this.

[TheHammer24]

It also incentivizes people to choose careers that the economy doesn't necessarily need! Higher paying jobs are higher paying because they are in higher demand. That's just Econ 101 -- the high salary incentivizes people to those jobs. That's why people choose nursing, medicine, finance, analsysts. Now you have no incentive to pick anything based on the economy's actual demand; instead, you just borrow as much as you want knowing you'll only have to pay 10% of chosen career.

[mac5155]

Is this even for "future" loan amounts? Cause I don't think it is.

[shafnutz05]

Is this even for "future" loan amounts? Cause I don't think it is.

Yup. Up to a whopping cap of $46,000. All future students can enroll in this program. There is no incentive NOT to enroll.

[TheHammer24]

This seems like something Greece would do.

[mac5155]

Is this even for "future" loan amounts? Cause I don't think it is.

Yup. Up to a whopping cap of $46,000. All future students can enroll in this program. There is no incentive NOT to enroll.

Well that makes no sense then at all. The system needs reformed, I agree. But this is not the way to do it.

[shafnutz05]

I mean, think about it. What standards are going to have to be met to apply for this program? My guess is, hardly any.

[Pavel Bure]

What if schools I dunno make education affordable instead of the ridiculous price it is. It seems like one day colleges sat down and said, "We're gonna charge outrageous prices that barely anyone can afford, and the load companies said, great we'll give them that amount of money and make a ton more off them." Then schools said, "But most of the jobs these kids (lets not kid ourselves right out of high school and early 20's are still kids) won't pay them enough to pay off these loans anymore than slightly over the minimum payments." and the loan companies said, "Yeah that's the plan."

This isn't even mentioning that most financial aid is barely enough to cover tuition and housing let alone food, books, and supplies. The system is broken and the load companies got bailed out so they could continue being crooks. This doesn't fix the system but it does create some fairness between those that have to get loans, high tuition costs, and big companies that got a handout so they could continue giving bad loans.

[mac5155]

I don't know how anyone can complain about "greedy loan companies" loaning out UNSECURED loans at sub 6% interest.

Go to a financial institution and ask them to borrow $40k unsecured. See what your interest rate is (if they dont laugh in your face).

[Troy Loney]

I don't know how anyone can complain about "greedy loan companies" loaning out UNSECURED loans at sub 6% interest.

Go to a financial institution and ask them to borrow $40k unsecured. See what your interest rate is (if they dont laugh in your face).

They're government backed loans, same thing with the mortgages. So yeah, they are greedy loan companies.

[mac5155]

I don't know how anyone can complain about "greedy loan companies" loaning out UNSECURED loans at sub 6% interest.

Go to a financial institution and ask them to borrow $40k unsecured. See what your interest rate is (if they dont laugh in your face).

They're government backed loans, same thing with the mortgages. So yeah, they are greedy loan companies.

When you default on your home loan the bank gets your house.

[Troy Loney]

I don't know how anyone can complain about "greedy loan companies" loaning out UNSECURED loans at sub 6% interest.

Go to a financial institution and ask them to borrow $40k unsecured. See what your interest rate is (if they dont laugh in your face).

They're government backed loans, same thing with the mortgages. So yeah, they are greedy loan companies.

When you default on your home loan the bank gets your house.

The loan companies sell the notes to a government agency, when you default on the student loan they take your tax return.

[AlexPKeaton]

Only 10% of your discretionary income for 10 years? Whelp I'm going to go get an expense History of Art degree from a private out of state school!

[Troy Loney]

Only 10% of your discretionary income for 10 years? Whelp I'm going to go get an expense History of Art degree from a private out of state school!

This probably only applies to the PHEA loans (or whatever they're called). Those max out around maybe $20K a year. I doubt this applies to the private loans that people get.

[AlexPKeaton]

Only 10% of your discretionary income for 10 years? Whelp I'm going to go get an expense History of Art degree from a private out of state school!

This probably only applies to the PHEA loans (or whatever they're called). Those max out around maybe $20K a year. I doubt this applies to the private loans that people get.

Whatever, plan B is dentistry school so I can golf for like 4-5 hours a day.

[tifosi77]

The only debt I left school with was an accounting error by the University in which they disbursed a loan to my account that I neither applied for nor had any use for (as I was not actually enrolled in that semester) and somehow got 'lost' in their system which made it look like I just absconded with like $5,000. Nearly fifteen years later, it still shows on my credit report as a default, and no amount of letter writing or waiting on hold has been able to convince anyone of their misdeed.

I obtained a degree in political science, and quickly realized that it was going to be very difficult for me to get into any kind of political career that could support me.

Same here; mine was with the intention of going to law school (Poli-Sci was the pre-law track as Penn State) with an eye towards becoming a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Then one morning, when I was getting ready for a day full of 400-level constitutional law classes, I had an epiphany: this sucks, and there is no way in Jehovah's great blue orb that I can stand three years of law school plus the joy of $100k in additional debt. So I withdrew and decided to pursue my creative dream of being an audio engineer in the movie business. All of which does not address that the real reason I went to college in the first place, which was to get a commission in the Navy to fly jets off big boats.

Which is how one ends up a paralegal at a video game publisher.

I just use the degree for arguing

Poorly, I might add.

go to a community college for 2 years then a state school for 2 and you can get out with sub 50k debt.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple anymore. There have been large cuts to community college funding (here in Cali, anyway) which means that there are many courses that are no longer offered on the scale that is truly reflective of demand. So that 'go to community college for 2 years' idea is now more commonly 'go to community college part time over parts of 3, 4 or even 5 years and still leave with only perhaps 2/3 of the credits you wanted to get at the lower cost school'.

What I would give to have my income now with the cost of living in central PA

Spoiler:

[columbia]

Poorly, I might add.

#burn