<p>There was a clip posted yesterday on Yahoo about a guy who did just what Blossom said. He graduated, thought he owed about $50k in loans but really it was closer to $75 because of interest and miscalculations. He got a JOB, lives near Milwaukee, and works. He lived on the cheap, paid one loan off at a time (while paying on all of them) and it took him about 3 years. Not realistic for most people because he had a good paying job, but you have to decide you are going to pay the loans and then do it.</p>
<p>Student loan disclosures are just the same as any other loan. Truth in lending require the interest rate, APR, payments and terms to be in bold, black boxes at the top of the loan. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the amount in the box needs to be repaid. No one told this girl to major in creative writing or art history. Do we want loans to only be available to engineers or accountants and not to dance majors? I have two daughters headed to college, and I am hoping they don’t have to take loans, but if they do, I’ll be a lot more careful with the theater major than the engineer. The borrowers have to take some responsibility too.</p>
<p>Twoinanddone- I am not anti-arts. I know theater majors who are making a living as voice-actors, teaching improv at a community center, and going on auditions for their big break. But they are making a living. I know a ceramics major who got a job as a bridal consultant at a big department store (she gets commissions, full benefits, and a store discount, not that she’s shopping) and still working her craft on the side.</p>
<p>A degree in the arts is a wonderful thing, but even if you have no debt- the number of people earning a living as a poet, a Shakespearean actor, or a set designer is very small. So even if you’ve got no debt, it seems to me there needs to be Plan B and C out there.</p>
<p>And there are unemployed engineers out there as well who ALSO need a reality check. Every hiccup in the economy sends thousands of engineers to the unemployment line (who remembers the tech bust in 2001?) Plan B as well. Take a finance class in addition to your engineering degree, so that you can self-study for the CFA if your industry contracts and you need to re-tool yourself. Find out ahead of time if you can get hired as a middle school science teacher without a Master’s in teaching (most private schools will) so that you’ve got a back up plan identified. Nobody remembers all the unemployed software engineers; the aerospace contraction in the 1990’s, the move to off-shore the good engineering jobs in the oil and gas industry a few decades ago.</p>
<p>No career is immune. Anyone who has debt needs a plan for paying it off. And piling another degree and more debt on top of it is not a plan. Heck- go work at that insurance company and THEY’ll pay for your MBA.</p>
<p>Really? People feel the slightest bit of pressure from what an anonymous, unknown poster says on a website?
Maybe they need to think about taking a gap year before they go to college. </p>
<p>Well, I am a French model, so besides Bonjour. people should go to the Sorbonne. </p>
<p>Sorry if that put any sort of peer pressure on someone, I am just kidding. (about the Sorbonne, not the French model part).</p>
<p>The problem is that admission to a selective school is considered an academic prize – in fact, THE academic prize – for our high school kids. But this is the only academic prize that you have to pay for. What would our kids do if they were told that they won first place in the math olympics, or that they won the state championship in their sport – but that they would have to pay thousands of dollars to get that prize? However, if they’re willing to accept fourth place instead, that will only cost them a couple of hundred dollars. Hey kids, we know you’ll make the right choice!</p>
<p>I think the question is not whether going into $100,000 of debt for a college education that doesn’t come with at least a very good shot at a lucrative job after graduation, is stupid or not. It’s also not whether students who let themselves in for that debt deserve their misery. It’s whether we, as a society, think this is a good thing – for so many of our best and brightest young people to be put in a position where they will always be in this kind of debt. They’ll probably never buy a home, go on expensive vacations, or otherwise invest in many aspects of our consumer economy. And our country, by all accounts, really relies on consumer spending to boost growth. So condoning the astronomical tuition increases of recent years, and the massive student loan debt that’s being taken on to pay for that tuition, is effectively torpedoing that growth. Maybe our society shouldn’t lift a finger to help out those too stupid to know not to take on that debt – but should we stand by and watch our future professional class be driven into the ground by debt?</p>
<p>Personal Responsibility. Its your life own up to it. For all the people on here who complaining about all the CC posters who would have told the writer to go to an expensive reach school there would have been just as many encouraging to pursue her dream major of comparative literature because their Aunt Sally knows someone who majored in it and is doing well. Can anyone stop whining? </p>
<p>The description about "queueing for the “God’s place” is interesting, and the company that makes cars for some of us hires a huge number of temp employees. Wonder whether all the competitive companies that offer “good” jobs are like that car company over there. This “two tiers of workers” society somehow reminds me of the old society many centuries ago when one tier of workers were slaves, and hopefully we will not go back to that dark age.</p>
<p>Of course it is not a good thing that students graduate with a lot of debt. (although remember that the average debt of a graduate that has any debt is about $30k, so this person clearly is an outlier).</p>
<p>However, I don’t understand why people feeling that the students were put in that position.</p>
<p>They put themselves in that position. </p>
<p>And I don’t think it is our “best and brightest” who do that to themselves.
The “best and brightest” use the tools they have to determine how much debt they would have, the payments they would make, the starting salaries of specific jobs, the likelihood of getting a job in today’s job market, etc. and then make better decisions.</p>
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<p>Well, we could make it illegal to take on that much debt. That would stop it.</p>
<p>People make bad decisions that society may think is not a good thing - doing drugs, not taking school seriously, etc.</p>
<p>Man you all are brutal. I think her degree in comparative literature has paid off, and rather handsomely. As editor in chief of Elite daily ( the internet’s most popular news site for the hot advertiser’s demog of 18-25 year old generation Y’s and 40 Million unique visitors a month) I think she has made her mark.Obviously she was writing a voice of college kids everywhere with too much in loans to control but she herself I am sure is capable of paying</p>
<p>So old school of you all to think that what was e"back in the day" that odd degrees don;t matter need ot get out more. </p>
<p>Personally, I think parents are the ones who should bear the responsibility for these bad decisions. I’ve seen a lot of bright kids who can solve complex calculus problem, but have little financial knowledge. Do parents no longer teach their children the basics of loans, interest, taxes, savings, etc? Most 17-20 year olds with little real life experience don’t fully understand the impact of 100k in loans. Plus, they tend to be naively idealistic about job prospects. So why do parents co-sign these loans and doom their children to a future of debt? Maybe mom should get that call at 8 am! </p>
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