<p>Thought this was interesting...hopefully will prevent some of us from making the same mistakes.</p>
<p>9</a> Unbelievable Student Loan Horror Stories - Yahoo! Finance</p>
<p>Really? Nine individuals who think that bad planning or bad luck should earn them loan forgiveness?</p>
<p>My favorite is the guy who “self-financed” a B.A., M.A., and PhD . . . all of which qualified him to teach public school! He now insists that financial irresponsibility had nothing to do with the fact that he incurred a $90,000 student loan debt that he can’t pay back. Yeah, sure. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I read this article too, and thought the same as dodgersmom about the guy with the PhD. Why is he only teaching if he has a PhD? Why did he spend money on a PhD if he only wants to teach? Each story basically was about someone who did not do their research or know enough about the type of loans they were getting. And people who were duped by for-profit schools really didn’t think carefully at all; there have been stories about the tactics and practices of for-profits for years warning consumers. I would rather read stories about all of the students who are paying back their loans, because those are the stories of wise borrowing and wise planning.</p>
<p>What about the Mom who’s complaining because her daughter “unfortunately picked a very expensive private school” so *she *is drowning in her daughter’s debt. But it’s ok because the worse case scenario for her is that she has to pay the loan for 2 years after her daughter graduates before she is taken off the loan.</p>
<p>Does she realizes that her daughter will be drowning in debt that Mom allowed her to take or that the worse case scenario is actually that she (Mom) may be on the hook permanently if the daughter is unable to make the $1,000+ monthly payments.</p>
<p>Apparently financial idiocy knows no age bounds. Doesn’t anyone read what they are signing, or ask questions if they don’t understand it??</p>
<p>I am pleased to share the fact that there are many, many, many MORE students who borrow responsibly than there are students who borrow with no understanding of the ramifications of their actions. I know this for a fact, because I work with them every day.</p>
<p>^^^yes, I know several students with reasonable debt who absolutely do understand the ramifications of debt and that they have to pay it. The 2 that are my own kids do not even like having the debt they have (<$10k for one and he is paying extra where he can to get it paid down, and <$20k for the other who is just started repayment and earns a lot less than the one with the lower debt). </p>
<p>I only know one (fiance of a friend’s daughter) that has very high debt. He chose to go to an expensive private school and has $100k+ in debt that has just gone into repayment and takes the majority of his paycheck. He was not very responsible - I remember my friend and I’s joint horror when he spent $3500 on the engagement ring while he was still in college. Reality is biting right now.</p>
<p>I also know of one who is not paying their federal loans. The only reason I know is because my son used to date her and he keeps getting phone calls from debt collectors looking for her even though he keeps telling them he has not seen or heard from her in over 4 years. (he asked what they were calling for as he was worried she was still giving his name out all these years later).</p>
<p>An uneducated subset of the population and for profit schools is a very bad combination for all of us. The number of these “horror stories” associated with for profit schools is both sad and unsurprising; their economic nightmare will continue to ripple through the economy as growing numbers of dreamy eyed students put themselves into situations that leave them unable to fully participate in the economy. Foolish borrowers won’t be buying houses, or new cars, eventually they won’t have money for electonic gadgets and big screen TV’s, many will die with huge unpaid debt that will be redistributed to the rest of us in higher interest rates and the effects of a sluggish economy.</p>
<p>I too would like to hear more stories about good planning and responsible borrowing - we need to promote a new model of ‘dream school’ - it’s whatever school you can afford.</p>