<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s him, but I’m guessing it is:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I understood it as, “Keep taking that debt. That $650,000 you’ll make over your lifetime will be more than enough to cover you!”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Miami, I agree one hundred percent. It is a personal choice. As such, I don’t see why groups like OWS are asking others to take responsibility for their personal (bad) decisions. I don’t feel sorry for them at all.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Kantrowitz is quoted by name here.</p>
<p>[“I don’t think it’s a bubble,” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Finaid.org, a financial aid website. “Most students who graduate college are able to repay their loans.”]</p>
<p>There’s another named quote here:</p>
<p>[“It’s an economic investment,” said Sarah Turner, professor of economic and education at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. “It’s not going to work for everyone, but on average, it has a high return.”]</p>
<p>The expert isn’t named; convention would have it that his name would be repeated if it were his quote.</p>
<p>I think that what Kantrowitz is quoted on is correct.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Do you disagree with the concept of bankruptcy completely?</p>
<p>[98</a> Harvard Law Review 1984-1985 Fresh-Start Policy in Bankruptcy Law, The](<a href=“Book Notes 98 Harvard Law Review 1984-1985”>Book Notes 98 Harvard Law Review 1984-1985)</p>
<p>BCEagle, I’m not arguing whether someone ‘needs’ it or not, OR whether it’s a good deal for the government, which my alternative definitely is NOT…for them. The owners of all that IRA or 401K money have never had to pay any capital gains tax, etc., and the money inside has been able to compound tax-free, especially in the ‘good years’. 'Course, in years like 1989, 2001, 2008, the losses weren’t been able to be offset either.</p>
<p>I’m just saying that if the Government wanted to free up that money & make some of the debt go away, making their overall figures appear better, this would be one way to do it. Because…it’s all about perception anyway, isn’t it? :)</p>
<p>Perhaps the answer is to refuse student loans to people who want to major in “fluff”. Once these people graduate, they won’t have jobs unless its working in fast food. That means they may be on welfare. Colleges are almost like poverty factories, when they keep churning out graduates with useless degrees, heavy debt and no job prospects. And college students are not blameless in this, either; many of them knew before hand.</p>
<p>I currently know someone who is living off her student loan money, using it to make car payments, and even letting her relatives borrow money from the student loans. I think they are private loans, but still its an outrageous irresponsibility with money. And she isn’t young and naive, she is older. She should know better. She also keeps taking one class every semester so she can defer payment on her student loans.</p>
<p>People who did not pay off student loans choose to do so, they can do it w/o 401k. I know one guy with only $8k in student loans. he is not paying it off just because. He is fine, wife does not work, have a baby, house, went to Hawaii on vacation…he could have easily paid it off. It is just a matter of personal choice…</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Perception matters and this would be a giveaway to the well-off which
would be a hard sell in the current environment.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do. It’s an easy way out, but bailouts are even worse.</p>
<p>However, bankruptcy might be hard to implement as far as higher ed is concerned. When you declare bankruptcy on a mortgage, you give up your house. When you declare bankruptcy on student loans you… give up your diploma? I know the link you gave me also used “future earnings” as an alternative, but if you’re getting yourself into debt to maximize future earnings, having them taken away from you to pay for your education is counterproductive.</p>
<p>BTW, where do you get research articles from? I’ve been meaning to find a good database for a while.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’d get too subjective. My fluff is someone else’s nightmare and vice versa. There are out of work engineers, just as there are out of work Japanese Lit majors. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was going to make that same point. People get loans, and then drop the money on night clubs, new clothes, and expensive vacations. Then, they take out more to finance their schooling.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Okay, that’s a philosophical point where we differ.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Banks issue unsecured loans in the form of credit cards and these loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. Banks charge very high interest rates for loans because of the risk.</p>
<p>Lenders, however, really do not examine what you’re using the loan for or whether or not it makes sense long-term. Credit card companies do typically require the demonstration of regular income.</p>
<p>My often-repeated point is that putting in a forgiveness route for borrowers would force the lenders to better scrutinize their loans. This could mean that the student has to go in to see a loan officer and show them their high-school transcripts, where they plan to go, expected salary ranges for their major and school and demonstrate some idea of what their repayment schedule will look like. The loan officer could then have a frank discussion on whether the plan was realistic or not and could say no.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Google is good for stuff that is publicly available. You just have to be good with keywords. For stuff that isn’t publicly available, I can just ask my kids - they have access to research databases at their schools. I can’t re-post the paid articles though.</p>
<p>“My often-repeated point is that putting in a forgiveness route for borrowers would force the lenders to better scrutinize their loans. This could mean that the student has to go in to see a loan officer and show them their high-school transcripts, where they plan to go, expected salary ranges for their major and school and demonstrate some idea of what their repayment schedule will look like. The loan officer could then have a frank discussion on whether the plan was realistic or not and could say no.”</p>
<hr>
<p>I think that’s a heck of an idea, and if it were a savings & loan bank of the 1960’s/1970’s, that’s pretty much what would’ve happened, IF people needed to borrow money in those days to attend college. I don’t imagine it happened much then–higher ed cost less then, even in 2012 dollars, and folks did not for all intents & purposes borrow beyond their means, period. Now it’s commonplace.</p>
<p>I STILL think that if the government is going to implement some type of loan forgiveness plan, partial or fully, it has to be for all, not just those on the brink of default. More likely will be a loan forgiveness in return for public service of some type. My D is in med school and those programs are being bandied about as we speak, more to come in the next few years.</p>
<p>“More likely will be a loan forgiveness in return for public service of some type”</p>
<p>Considering that there are not enough jobs to go around for all graduates, I don’t think foregiveness for people with jobs is right.</p>
<p>kayf, I think you misunderstood what jnm123 was saying.</p>
<p>“Loan forgiveness for public service of some type” in my understanding would mean that loans would be forgiven or lessened after the graduate worked a number of years in a job or a place that is hard to find workers to fill. Teachers in sparsely populated western states, or inner cities. Physicians or dentists or nurses in the same places. I could make a quick list of quite a few “public service” jobs that could be created or filled. </p>
<p>Minimum wage labor teaching inner city kids to read, or play music, or paint for a few years in return for loan forgiveness would do wonders for the kids, the young graduates and our society.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That sounds like a good idea in theory, but it could spiral out of control very fast in reality. For example, I could come in with average grades in math/science classes and lackluster marks in humanities courses, tell my loan officer I want to go to Texas Tech to become an engineer, and explain how I’m lazy, but I’ll shape up once I’m in college. I walk out with my money, promptly call TTU, and tell them how I’ve changed my mind and I want to major in general studies (this was my plan all along; I just want a loan). I coast through school, and then tell my loan advisor my plan needs to be changed, since I’m “finding myself.” Rinse and repeat. In cases like this, does the lender pull a plug on my loan and force me to pay it back?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, those databases are too widely underused. Thanks for the idea!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If that were the case, then everyone with a loan would need to be funneled into the public sector to keep up. The private industry would be cut severely in favor of big government and loan forgiveness.</p>
<p>I’m referring to something like the Federal Student Loan Repayment Program ([FinAid</a> | Loans | Loan Forgiveness](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml)). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would this be on the graduates’ own time, or as overtime for their full-time job?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Part of the idea of seeing a loan officer is that the student gets exposed to some ideas:</p>
<ul>
<li>College costs a lot of money and paying it off can be hard</li>
<li>The idea of expected salaries for a major at a particular school</li>
<li>The student has a responsibility to pay off their loans</li>
</ul>
<p>I don’t recall any of these being explained to me when I took out my undergraduate loans (a whopping $1,000).</p>
<p>Can you lie or deceive a loan officer? Of course you can. Can you fool a loan officer for four years in a row? That might be a little harder.</p>
<p>Given the above, I think that outcomes would improve as the lender and borrower would both be better informed on the products that they are buying and selling and that the borrower would get the lecture on responsibility before the loan and not after the loan and that they would have the opportunity to pull out of the loan once it was properly explained.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it so happens that just below this thread in the thread list, there was this other thread:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1316808-should-i-worried-about-paying-back-around-70k-loans-after-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1316808-should-i-worried-about-paying-back-around-70k-loans-after-college.html</a></p>
<p>Eastcoast, the present debt foregiveness plans include “all public servants”, so yes I oppose them. I have no reason to believe that our govt would limit the forgiveness to people in jobs which can otherwise be filled.</p>
<p>I understand exactly what was being suggested, and I resent it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That more or less exists now, with the entry/exit interviews for government loans on the FAFSA website. I doubt any of the students read it, though. </p>
<p>I also never understood why loans are considered financial aid. They’re anything but.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I thought the exit interviews were done in person.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>They make it possible to attend.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nope; those are online, too: [Exit</a> Counseling Welcome](<a href=“http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/SaEcWelcome.do]Exit”>http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/SaEcWelcome.do)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So do grants. :)</p>
<p>I do think that there should be more grants for certain metrics.</p>
<p>I think that I’d prefer in-person entrance and exit interviews on the loans. I have to do lots of online corporate training courses and I try to get through those with minimal pain. I have a multimonitor system with the training courses in one monitor and real work in the others.</p>
<p>kayf, unless I am misinterpreting your resentment, WHY would you be against some type of partial loan forgiveness in return for working in public service for a set period of time? This would be specifically for jobs/service in underrepresented, low-income areas? It’s already being done in the medical profession, and no doubt will be expanded to other fields as the specter of potential default on these loans comes more to the forefront.</p>
<p>Believe me, my D and her 2nd year med school friends are already discussing the possibilities, even though they still have 5 years of rotations & residencies ahead of them. But they are ALL on Grad PLUS loans to the tune of over $50K/year, and are waiting to see what is offered down the line. I think it’s all good.</p>