<p>some kids have to take out loans to go to community college. think about that.</p>
<p>I think it is so interesting that the only people we do not want to assist are the kids. we want to assist the car companies and we want to keep taxes low for investment income and we simply fail to see that there is nothing more important than an educated workforce, and for this educated workforce to have actual disposable income.</p>
<p>We can give the money to the banks and the colleges on the frontside, or we can circulate the money through the economy through expenditures after graduation, but we cannot believe that we will have both. </p>
<p>These loans were no risk loans and that is why they were given so darn indiscriminately. Kids graduating with a degree in music and 140000 worth of debt. If the banks had had to think it through, the lending would have been responsible. Responsible lending would keep school costs down. Just like responsible lending would have kept housing prices down.</p>
<p>Thanks poetgrl. It is interesting to read the responses.</p>
<p>I don’t find it immoral to fail to pay back loans that were unethical to begin with and I feel that way about a lot of mortgage loans,too, even though I don’t have a mortgage any longer.</p>
<p>I remember a really good thread on this a while back, and people had some statistics about how default rates were higher for students with lower incomes (more likely also to not finish school, go to lower ranked schools, etc) as well as students at for-profit universities such as University of Phoenix.</p>
<p>Also, if you don’t pay back your student loans you’re not stealing from the bank, you’re stealing from the American taxpayer. Those loans are guaranteed by the government, so even if you don’t cough up the money, Uncle Sam will.</p>
<p>It bugs me. I stayed at a lower ranked university (which I love, don’t get me wrong) just because I knew that it would leave me in less debt. If I couldn’t have done that, I would have gone to a cc. </p>
<p>No parents should cosign loans for their children. Ever. Stick to the amount of debt that you can take with stafford loans and make your college fit that. Even if that means going to a cc, commuting, going to a lower ranked school, taking a gap year for work- whatever you have to do! There is no reason that anyone should have to take out private loans.</p>
You’re not referring to ‘assistance’, you’re asking for the taxpayer to pay for the wants of these people who don’t feel like paying back what they borrowed. ‘We’ already do provide assistance to the students in the form of government (i.e. taxpayer) guaranteed student loans so they can actually get some loans in the first place. That’s assistance. What you’re referring to is a giveaway, not assistance.</p>
<p>Imagine the consequences of instituting a program whereby all students can get free access to taxpayer money for whatever college and housing they decide to choose. Do you really think that taxpayers should be on the hook for all of the students who decide to spend 7 or 8 years in college, or go to some expensive college to the tune of $200K-$300K and then grad/law/med school after that?</p>
<p>This idea that people shouldn’t be responsible for their own decisions makes no sense to me.</p>
<p>As someone who does not use credit and only pays with cash, or I do have an amex I pay off at the end of each month, I do not consider offering “loans” to be offering assistance.</p>
<p>I consider that at one time we believed that a college education should be affordable and now we believe it should be payed off over the course of 25 or so years, in ADDITION to the 18 years or so of savings we expect the parents to have done in advance. </p>
<p>One of the things that made this country great was that people could get an affordable education and move up to the middle or upper middle class. At one point, the pell grant actually PAID for a state education. Take a look at the rate of inflation for educations in this country. For the past five years the cost of public universities has gone up more than that of privates.</p>
<p>Either we believe in equality of opportunity or we do not. I do</p>
<p>in answer to your question? No I do not believe we should be on the hook for those loans. I do believe those loans should never be made and would not be made if they were not gauranteed. Your assumption is different than mine. I believe the banks should have leant responsibly, not taken advantage of the 18 and 19 year olds who didnt’t understand what undischargable meant. I believe the schools should have never acted as if a loan was “student” aid. Both have behaved irresponsibly.</p>
<p>I have never understood how these kids are getting these huge loans. Federal loans are capped and while they did increase a couple years ago they are realistically the cost of a new car or slightly more. Kids can forgo a new car during their twenties. I can also see something that would put them in on hold for one year (rather than 6 months or 9 months or whatever it is now) until kids get on their feet. I do not understand how kids amass loans in their names in excess of federal loans. If parents are co-signing and then calling them “kid” loans then I can’t see taxpayers subsidizing those loans in any way, shape or form, those are on the backs of the co-signers. If banks made these loans then they need to suck it up and modify them or figure out a way to recoup their mistakes. Most taxpayers don’t have the stomach for another bailout of banks for bad lending practices. </p>
<p>I also don’t consider “loans” to be aid…they are loans. </p>
<p>Families and kids need to get a grip and realize they go where they can afford. Parents need to get honest with kids, whatever happened to telling kids what the budget is? This entitlement mentality that seems to permeate the culture is getting tiresome.</p>
<p>I could be swayed to consider a program that extends the pay off period for kids who took out the max $4000-5000 per year in subsidized loans (for 4 years). I simply cannot come to terms with having taxpayers on the hook for loans co signed by parents/credit savvy adults or grad school loans.</p>
A loan is certainly assistance because it assists the student in being able to attend the particular college and a taxpayer guaranteed loan is certainly assistance in that it enables the lending institution to make the loan in the first place when they otherwise might not.</p>
<p>What I don’t like is when colleges imply they meet ‘full need’ yet it’s in the form of loans. This isn’t the college meeting the needs of the students, it’s the student/parents meeting the needs of the student in the form of loans. I think they should be more up front about this because I think some students and parents are confused by this.</p>
<p>
I agree with your wording. I do think they’re a form of assistance to the student but not what most people think of when they think of the term ‘aid’. It’s semantics but confusion about it could be readily avoided so it should be avoided.</p>
<p>However, at the end of the day, the student/parents know whether it’s really a handout (full grant) or loan since they have to sign all of the docs so they always have a choice to not sign those docs and go elsewhere.</p>
<p>
Can you say when that time was? When did access to any college for anyone for negligible cost exist? You’re generalizing ‘college education’ as if it’s a single commodity item when in fact there’s a broad selection of college choices with costs ranging from generally very inexpensive to very expensive with additional choice points along the way adding to that (law school at a high priced bottom tier law school? should taxpayers fund that?). There are lower cost choices and higher cost choices and the student should consider affordability in their choice. There are plenty of people who started in a CC, transferred to a state school, while commuting to both from a low cost housing (including living with parents) and have done fine and have gone on to do big things. There are also HYPS… grads who have gone on to dismal failure. And there’s everything in between.</p>
<p>I put myself through college at a state flagship.</p>
<p>In the state of illinois, no kid could do that without borrowing. The cost of s state education has increased exponentially in the past 25=30 years. Acting as if kids today are being offered the same opportunities we were offered is willfully not paying attention.</p>
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<p>Right. So why do we gaurantee these loans? Free money for the banks, who charge interest rates as if they were making verrrry risky investments. It’s usury</p>
<p>So let me get this straight. Are you really telling everyone on CC that a kid that is smart enough to get into Columbia University somehow doesn’t understand that borrowing $200,000 is a lot of money??? And that it is not dischargeable?</p>
<p>Also, you might note that a student loan is basically a capital investment. You go to school, and graduate at about age 22, and then you work for 43 years. Why should paying back the loan be forgiven?. And why limit the pay back to 25 years?. That is right about the time that the “kid”, who is now 47, is now likely to be at his highest earnings peak in the workforce. If he doesn’t pay back the loan, you might note that this money is then not available to give someone else a new student loan.</p>
<p>I am saying, florida dad, that if these are “good” loans, the banks should make them without a government gaurantee, and if they are not loans to be made without a garauntee, they should not be made.</p>
<p>I am saying, that kids at 18 and 19, as they recently discussed in the national geographic, value reward over risk so highly that they are incapable of assessing risk in the same way as you and I. I am saying that this is financial aid for the colleges and not for the students. And, I am also saying that if these “kids” are still paying off their loans at 47, I wonder who will pay for their kids education, when the time comes.</p>
<p>I’m saying, basically, that this business, and it is a highly profitable business model, is unethical. I’m not saying it’s illegal. I’m saying it’s unethical. Its yet one more form of taking from our kids up front (like the deficit we are running) before they have even had a chance to make a living or find their way. It’s a creepy way to run a society, letting our children borrow money to keep OUR salaries high.</p>
<p>Amen FloridaDad!! I get so tired of people who try to claim students (and their parents) are “tricked” into taking out huge, unaffordable loans. Unless people are required to take responsbility for the decisions they VOLUNTARILY make, the system will remain broken. I’ve seen several others in this thread state the common sense truth…if you can’t afford to attend a “live away from home” brand name university…DON’T!! Commute to a local CC, directional U, state U or whatever is a workable alternative for you. Stay within your budget, and don’t expect anyone else to feel sorry for you or pay for your poor financial decisions.</p>
<p>Unless a bank knew that a kid was a 4.0 high school student with high SATs, who was destined to become a doctor or an engineer, NO loan would be a “good” loan, as you call it, unless the kid was from a rich family. Who would loan money to an 18 year old kid to major in psychology??? That is the reason why the government had to guarantee those loans.</p>
<p>You can’t have it both ways. For years now, people have been demanding that they should be able to get loans for school, and now that they got what they wanted, they are now saying, you should not have made that loan to me, or I don’t feel like paying it back, because it is a burden to me. How many of these kids who don’t want to pay it back are driving around in nice cars, have top of the line computer equipment, drink bottled water, and buy $150 tennis shoes??? Why should the loans be forgiven when a person is 25, just because he is having a hard time now, when he will be working until age 65. The loan should be deferred, but not forgiven. </p>
<p>Also, you say the loans had a usurious interest rate, because they were guaranteed, but I guess the interest rate was not so crazy, was it, now that people down at the Wall Street protests are simply declaring that they don’t want to pay. No doubt part of the interest rate charged is based on the fact that the banks and the government know that many people will default. </p>
<p>Also, the government is less likely to make new loans if the old loans are defaulted on.</p>
<p>So the Wall Street protestors are basically saying, “I got my loan, and it should be free, so screw the kids coming up behind me who want to go to college”</p>
<p>Actually, the loans are made at a usurious rate, not becuase they are guaranteed, but in spite of the fact that they were. No bank should have charged much abover prime for that kind of undischargable loan.</p>
<p>I dont use credit or loans. I was never saying people should be able to borrow anything for college. It has created a bubble and driven the cost of education up in much the exact same way that the bad mortgages did in the housing industry.</p>
<p>We just have a fundamental disagreement. I won’t change my mind. I am opposed to debt, just in general. And, I don’t think banks should be “garaunteed” payback on something they can charge interest for and don’t even have to research or think about, at all.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with the federal loans, I have a problem with a forgiveness factor. Heck extend them out til the borrowers are 70 if need be. I don’t have any problem with making $25,000 over 4 years worth of loans available to every kid that wants to go to college. Some will pay it back quickly and others will drag it out as long as they can (my husband was paying his back $50 a month after I married him at 30)…but pay it back they should (he did)…and baring some extreme circumstance all should be able to pay that back over their lifetime.</p>
<p>Forgiving loans for advanced degrees and professional degrees…I say no way! Forgiving private loans…I say no way!</p>
<p>poetgrl—I totally get what you’re saying. Once the government (i.e. We, the taxpayers) got involved, tuition costs started to skyrocket. The banks and the colleges have nothing to lose!!! I don’t excuse the students, but I also think the institutions have some culpability here. It’s just like the housing bubble. Housing prices went through the roof when credit became easy. When we bought our current house 10 years ago the bank was trying to tell us we qualified for $100k more! We said they were insane! I’m SO glad we didn’t fall for it. WE knew what level of debt was comfortable for us. With our first home we needed a huge down payment, collateral, and PMI. What we have now is a gigantic tuition bubble. Someone (and I don’t think they’ll reside in D.C.) will have to bring some sanity to this situation. I think it will be up to the consumers of higher education.</p>
<p>It is frustrating that the message these days seems to be “behave irresponsibly by borrowing more than you can possibly pay back, and you will have your debts forgiven”</p>
<p>Here in California, they are even applying this to those that got traffic tickets and haven’t repaid them. They are offering an amnesty, where they only have to pay back half of the ticket if they have had it for several years! So those of us that might have gotten a ticket and paid it in full within the designated time are penalized for being responsible!</p>
<p>Our son has had to take out some student loans, and our daughter will also. But we plan to keep it in the manageable range. It has already limited their choice of schools, but they completely understand that they can’t attend a school that offered them 0 financial aid.</p>
<p>Yes, college is expensive, and keeps getting more so. Higher education is a mess, granted. But, with money from parents saving, a child working, and some small loans, most people can pay for into a perfectly good college. To say that all student debt should be forgiven is simply sad. If higher education is so important to us as a society, then let’s subsidize it and make it free.</p>