<p>cpt…A bailout is “essential”??? How is that possibly true? If no bailout occurs, only those that made poor decisions (the thiefs in your analogy) get punished. They and their families suffer for their bad choices, and while that’s tragic it doesn’t impact you or me or any other folks who made better decisions.</p>
<p>If a bailout happens, every taxpayer (with or without college kids) is going to have to kick in their tax dollars to cover another government bailout. In addition, rewarding the bad behavior of these families by bailing them out does NOTHING to change the cost structure of the university system. Exactly where is the necessity or the benefit to your “essential” bailout?</p>
<p>kayf…I’ll ask again…although it’s hard to type being so “blind”. What is essential about bailing out people who made bad choices? There is NO benefit to anyone other than them. Give me a concrete example of a benefit to someone else? Does the cost system come down from a bailout? NO. Do the tax dollars of everyone in the country go to cover the foolishness of a few? YES. In a situation where every state government and the federal government are finally figuring out that we can’t spend more than we have (a fact these families overlooked) do we have the money to bail them out? NO.</p>
<p>Again, don’t give be bleeding heart BS!! Give me a concrete benefit to anyone besides these foolish families.</p>
<p>^ The only votes they’d get are from the people they bail out. Every other person whose tax dollars go to bail out the irresponsible will vote against any politician that votes for a bailout. Strike one. Try again.</p>
<p>Whoa, there. I did not say a bailout IS essential. It “becomes essential” UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES or many people, including many who had nothing to do with causing the problem suffer more. That is what happened in part with the housing situations. Too many people were losing their homes which is why we are having this bailout. Also credit dried up and the market pretty much stopped moving. This sort of constipation can severely hurt too many people who had nothing to do with the causing the problem. </p>
<p>I hope it does not come to this with the school loans situation. Government did not bail out or forgive loans as a matter of course for my generation who borrowed, many of whom defaulted. But the figures were not of the magnitude they are these days. I know some kids with very general, typical ug degrees that are $50-100K in debt with families that are in financial distress. Some of those parents lost their homes rather than being able to pay what they owed. How the heck are they going to be able to pay back college loans for their kids? Can’t squeeze water out of stone. </p>
<p>A lot of people I know are bitter about the housing bailout too. But it’s happening, so if that is how it is decided to deal with the school loan situation, a lot more people have to do more about preventing this sort of bailout than in the housing scene. Otherwise, it certainly can happen whether you or any minority without the clout wants it to happen or not.</p>
<p>By the way, I qualified for a $43K PLUS last year and I am a stay at home older mom who couldn’t get a car loan because I make zip. That’s how easy it is to get PLUS money. DH isn’t on the loan–if I default, it would be slim pickings wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>^^Besides, there is no relief built in to a bailout other than those families. If the cost structure came down I’d maybe buy into it, but it doesn’t.</p>
<p>cpt…Exactly my point. You qualified for a $43K PLUS loan, but you didn’t take it did you? Why…because you couldn’t afford it!! I admit it’s easy to get these loans, but that doesn’t mean they have to take it and it doesn’t excuse them when they do.</p>
<p>I’ll ask you the same thing I asked kayf. Give me a concrete example of a benefit to everyone that comes from a bailout? I’m not talking changes to bankruptcy laws or anything else…we’ve covered that ground. How does a bailout help everyone?</p>
<p>If there are multiple INDIVIDUAL bankruptcies that in no way, shape, or form hurts the overall market, etc. People declare bankruptcy every day and it has no impact on the market like a major corporation does. And I agree, everyone is bitter about the housing market bailout and the bank bailout. Why on God’s green earth would you be in favor of yet another one?</p>
<p>The problem with people going down due to debt is that it does effect others adversely too, especially when it happens on a widespread basis. One house in a town going into foreclose, and no one is worried. Too bad, so sad, and the family should have planned better. When whole neighborhoods are hit, it gets to be a problem Then those who have to move can’t sell their homes. Then it’s a huge problem. There is a tendency for widespread problems to suck in those who had nothing to do with the issues and it then becomes everybody’s problem.</p>
<p>kayf…True, and how does everyone who borrowed within their means, pays their bills every month on time, and didn’t get any break in their interest rates or loan amount feel about it? They’re ****ed off…and they should be. That’s still not a benefit to anyone but the irresponsible few. Strike two.</p>
<p>cpt…Since the “neighborhood” in your analogy is the entire United States, even if every one of the individual bankruptcies goes through, the impact will not cause a hiccup in the overall market. If they all lived in the same city or state the impact might be noticeable, but they don’t. You’re trying to cite how bankruptcies might have a “tendency” to hurt others, while a bailout will DEFINITELY hurt everyone in their pocketbook by either increased taxes or poor usage of the current tax dollars.</p>
<p>I didn’t take it because I didn’t need it. I wanted to see if I could get one. We have more loans than we should as it is, so my kids now have a cap on what we will spend on college. But we made our mistake with our first. We stopped right there, and yes, we’ll manage, and if we can’t, the figure is not so catastrophic, but according to the government, I can take out another $40K which was approved in minutes. I can’t get Target to approve me that quickly for $100 in credit. Something is wrong here. There are a lot of folks out there taking out that kind of loan. Heck, I could have found a lot of things to do with that $40K last year. Instead, we scraped up my son’s costs, but that loan was sitting there as available as can be for us to take. Very tempting.</p>
<p>cpt…No, we don’t have a bailout yet…and I hope we don’t. The only thing I’m aware of that’s happened so far is “allowances” have been made for those with loans who work in public service areas to have their government loans forgiven after 10 years working in public service providing they’re making qualifying payments during those 10 years. It only went into effect last summer (I believe) so we havent’ really had a chance yet to see whether this program will be effective. </p>
<p>At least if these folks do get forgiveness of their government loans (our tax dollars) they’re paying back by doing public service. That’s at least a reasonable compromise on paper…we’ll see how it actually plays out.</p>
<p>kayf…Ok, simple question then. Are you for or against a potential bailout? You think it will happen, and I think (hope) that it won’t. We can agree to disagree on that. But since you avoided temptation and stayed within your means, can you tell me honestly it wouldn’t tick you off to have to pay for someone else who didn’t? Why should you pay for their mistakes? I give to any number of charities that help the poor and less fortunate, but I sure won’t willingly give to a charity that only benefits the foolish and irresponsible. Would you?</p>
<p>I am not for a bailout at this time and I am not for the present situation continuing because I believe it has a good chance of leading to a bail out. How the government and banks are going to squeeze that kind of money from folks that couldn’t qualify for a mortgage of that amount and will not likely to make enough to qualify for a mortgage of that amount is beyond me. And unlike with a mortgage, there is no house to seize and offset the costs. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why these parents are getting these loans anyways. I’m pushing 60 and not in good health, and they are discharged at death. I guess anyone on his deathbed with a kid going to school should load up on these. They truly take all of 5 minutes to get on line.</p>
<p>The banks have shown that they can be incredibly short sighted about their lending practices - and they’ve been bullet proof only because the government will bail them out as the housing debacle demonstrates. So they are now living in a protected sanctuary of profit seeking, not unlike an educational ponzi scheme. </p>
<p>We will all lose out if the current trend continues because one way or another we will be keeping the banks afloat while our kids have an increasingly difficult time becoming financially independent and the American middle class goes the way of the passenger pigeon.</p>
<p>The best solution (only solution in my opinion) is to stop the flow of silly loans by making the banks evaluate the risk the same way they do for every other loan - secured or not.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, nice tactic: i think i’ll tell that to my grandfather—just load all the debt on him:)</p>
<p>But in reality, NO BAILOUT!!!
That would just be band-aid and not directly solve the problems which are too much government intervention,misinformation and malinvestment.</p>