<p>$24K is the average total loan debt for students who take out loans. For that amount, your payment will be $276.19 per month. [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Loan Calculator](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Loan Payment Calculator - Finaid)</p>
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<p>Not disagreeing with you – only pointing out that over multiple generations one usually cannot responsibly expect to be able to repay own’s own large loans while also saving similar amounts for the future for another generation. Thus the past, present, future income construct is ridiculous – regardless of who made it up. (And frankly that Congress would come up with an unsustainable financial model shouldn’t surprise anyone.) By choosing large debt a student is choosing to limit his or her children – unless the insanity continues from generation to generation – and economic history shows us that bubbles never can sustain themselves.</p>
<p>Who has the money to lend? Not the borrowers. Who can set the rules for borrowing? Not the borrowers. Who is more sophisticated about financial dealings, financial institutions (lenders) or low income borrowers? Not the borrowers. Yet, people here absolve the financial institutions of any responsibility for their conduct and talk about the lack of “personal responsibility” from the borrowers - many of whom are college freshmen. As someone above pointed out, corporations are comprised of people, so where was their “personal responsibility” in making ridiculous loans (housing or educational). Personal responsibility works both ways and financial institutions make money off of uneducated people making bad deals (especially when financial institutions securitize the bad loans, exert financial pressure on rating companies for fraudulent ratings, and sell the junk securities to some other sucker who holds the bag when the default occurs). </p>
<p>If everybody went to school for an education pointed toward the “hot” jobs du jour, then most of the graduates would end up unemployed anyway when that field was flooded with applicants. If there are no art history majors, the society will be worse off from the loss of cultural literacy. Those who choose that path need to understand that their skills may not be needed outside academia and museums absent a clever blend with more utilitarian skills.</p>
<p>The government has enacted laws and rules favoring the financial sector, and bailed out the financial sector for its reckless speculation. The financial sector is probably the most socialized aspect of our economy if socialized means supported by the government and not personally responsible for outcomes. The financial sector hardly operates in a free market facing the moral hazard of its own risky behavior, but we get upset a college kids who miscalculate the costs of their aspirations. </p>
<p>Society as a whole benefits from an educated population - especially a democracy. Society as a whole should subsidize education even if taxes need to go up.</p>
<p>paying4college,</p>
<p>^It works if it is just the parents carrying the financial burden in each generation.</p>
<p>Bay – but remember the past, present, future formula as advocated so often on CC doesn’t just presume that the parents in each generation are contributing to college – it is parent’s savings plus parent’s current income plus student and parent loans = the amount that families are expected to contribute. </p>
<p>That can work fairly well for students who choose in-state universities, borrow the roughly $25,000 permitted on the student signature alone under federal law, and who opt not to go to professional school, but factor in a prestige undergraduate degree followed by professional school and you are setting up a situation that all but guarantees that the young professional (and possibly even young professional spouse) will still be paying off his or her own loans at the time the young professional baby arrives and needs a $500 - 1000 per month contribution to the college fund that needs to be made every month for the next twenty -two years to ensure that young professional baby has the same opportunity at a prestige college degree that his parents did. (Note this analysis doesn’t factor in any inflation of educational costs or any return on the sums invested to simplify computations and to take into account the fact that historical college costs have increased at a faster rate than the return on savings for the generation currently headed to college.)</p>
<p>The answer as Kelsmom points out is personally responsibility – choosing only those colleges the family can reasonable afford based on past savings and current income without significant debt.</p>
<p>sewhappy: personal responsibility? Not everyone is blessed with the ability to attain an education and a good job. And people preach “personal responsibility” yet act arrogant and judgemental toward those “irresponsible” students and families who are trying to better their lives by getting an education but needing student loans to get that education. How absurd. And how can someone honestly survive on minimum wage? There are thousands and thousands on wic/food stamps - and many have jobs.</p>
<p>Corporations are funding election campaigns - and it is condoned by our supreme court. This is not scapegoating. I am sure there are some that have been foolish but so many have not. </p>
<p>Not everyone is made to major in “practical/vocational” type majors. English is not a wasted major, nor is art, dance etc… I am not encouraging anyone to take on enormous debt but on the other hand, when college costs $20,000/year at a state school what is a middle class family to do? Sure, one can start out at a community college but that still costs $ and most need to transfer eventually to finish their major. And where I am from, most people that can only afford community college still have to get loans for it.</p>
<p>I will never accept the greed and mean spiritedness of those who “have” toward the “have nots” and unfortunately, it seems to know no bounds.</p>
<p>One of the expenses of college or any form of higher ed is that it makes it tough for the person attending school to also bring in significant income because it takes a lot of time & energy to study. I know several who had dropped out from their higher education because their families needed the paychecks (even tho they were barely above minimum wage) too much!</p>
<p>I agree that there are many who are on WIC, subsidized services, etc. who are working at whatever jobs they can get, often for minimal wages and shift work. They often can’t get enough hours to get benefits, including health insurance. It is tough to make a living on minimum wage anywhere but especially for those in high cost of living areas. The homeless & housing insecure population in our state has been steadily and sadly growing.</p>
<p>There are no unanimous answers as the gap between the 20% who hold the majority of our country’s wealth has grown and continues to grow.</p>
<p>I agree that the cost of college is insanely inflated and that easy loan money has served to drive up the cost – very much like what went on with housing. I also agree with a post on here that we are doing a very poor job of k-12 education. The numbers of really clueless kids taking on huge debt for dubiously marketable educations is testament of that. </p>
<p>My kids haven’t and are unlikely to need to take out loans for college. They are both strong enough students that they have substantial merit offered to them. And their parents have paid close attention to rising college costs since they were toddlers. We looked at the numbers and decided high quality college education was very important to us to provide to our kids and so we started saving early and aggressively. We also made career shifts to increase our earnings mostly in order to be able to help our kids with their educations.</p>
<p>If we had not been able to save the necessary funds for a high quality private college education for our kids, our plan was to rely on a very acceptable in state public education option and, if necessary, require that our kids live at home to conserve funds. This is what my DH and I did as students and it was perfectly fine. </p>
<p>I have so many parent friends who have intelligent kids who went off to private expensive colleges. The parents were too affluent for there to be much in the way of FA. There was no money saved for college. The kids took out loans. I have a number friends who used to regale me with tales of their prowess in filling out loan application for their kids. Now some of these kids are gainfully employed today and no doubt discharging their debt. Quite a few in my sphere are not. They tended to major in things like Art History or Literature and there was alway the assumption that their classy alma mater and well rounded liberal arts education would get them some sort of good job. Many seemed to think they were destined for publishing or journalism, that kind of thing. For most it has not appeared to work out. </p>
<p>Now these kids and their parents have latched on to some sort of inchoate anger against corporations. </p>
<p>My guess is that taxpayers, those actually working and earning enough to actually pay federal tax will have to bail out these kids, and by extension their foolish parents.</p>
<p>What else is new? I hope they understand that the majority of those who will be bailing them out happen to work for corporations.</p>
<p>I am not sure how the anger against large publicly traded corporations in “inchoate.” They are treated as “persons” under the law, but have far more influence and power than individuals. They have one motive which is to maximize profits to their shareholders, and so are unconcerned with the general welfare of their community except as that may effect profit. The people who run them are no more apt to be truthful with the public about misconduct than any other powerful persons in the public eye. They are not responsive to the public, only their shareholders. They have a great deal of control and influence over the government through their lobbying, and revolving doors between government officials, regulators and the corporate sinecure. The most successful and powerful corporations in the financial sector have become “too big to fail” so they can take obscene risks for maximum profits while paying those who run them ridiculous sums of money, and then be bailed out by taxpayers when their schemes go sideways. Corporations are used to pool resources and then remove personal responsibility for ventures that fail or cause harm; a big difference between corporations and partnerships has to do with the absence of personal responsibility in the former. Certainly, corporations have done many beneficial things for society as well, but they are hardly an unalloyed good.</p>
<p>Studying the liberal arts is about development of thought and character more than specific training for specific jobs. One hopes that developing thought and character is not a luxury in our society. Facility with numbers is impressive and very useful, but does not necessarily impart wisdom or judgment, which is often gained through experience. Personal experience and the vicarious experience of studying great authors and thinkers helps move people toward greater wisdom. There are benefits to being well-read for the individual and society.</p>
<p>Oh, I see. We should just outlaw the corporations. Like Apple. People like Jobs. They’re bad. Those people in corporations clearly didn’t “develop thought and character” in college.</p>
<p>CC is ceaselessly entertaining. Most go to work now. Must.</p>
<p>Um, it’s a little silly to dismiss OWS on the basis of its manifestly silly obsession with “corporations”. They don’t mean actual corporations, as opposed to limited partnerships, business trusts, limited liability companies, or even proprietorships or any other specific form of business organization. They mean The System, The Man. Man.</p>
<p>As I said above, the lyrics are ridiculous, but people seem to be hearing the music and finding it catchy.</p>
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<p>This can also be re-written: “UNIONS are funding election campaigns – and it is condoned by our supreme court.” Why do you think there is such controversy about the union “check-off” campaigns (where everyone is forced to join a union and pay union dues). Unions such as the SEIU are vast and substantial contributors to Democratic party campaigns. Why is it everyone yells about the “evil” corporations and the unions – think bankrupting GM – get a pass?</p>
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The government isn’t the culprit - any issues lie squarely on the shoulders of the people who took on the debt to begin with which generally boils down to the student and the student’s parents or other cosigners. If people don’t want large loans then they shouldn’t go out of their way to apply for the loans and then spend the money.</p>
<p>The very idea of taking out a loan, spending the money, reaping the benefits of what the money was spent on, and then not wanting to pay back the money, or to ‘discharge’ the money (i.e. get the money for free as some kind of entitlement), is ridiculous and disgusts me.</p>
<p>People have choices. No one needs to attend a college that costs $200K for undergrad. Many of these people with large debt purposely chose to attend the costly college over the less expensive options. Let them pay for their choice. If no one was willing to pay the high rates then the colleges couldn’t possibly charge those rates. Some people are willing to pay the high rates and I think that’s fine. Others who aren’t willing to can choose something different. We do this every day in life anyway in our choices of cars, groceries, consumer goods, etc.</p>
<p>The issue isn’t with the government, the lending institutions, or even the colleges. The issue of taking on unreasonable debt for college is with the borrowers and people willing to continue to feed the high prices to the colleges that set those fees.</p>
<p>What we need is more personal responsibility and less of the entitlement mentality. We also need to drive the market (of college costs) with our pocketbooks if that’s what we want, or need, to do.</p>
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<p>How is this even possible? In the article, she informs us that she went to a State U and has an MS. </p>
<p>Full pay at the UCs is about $25K today - are there state u’s that cost more than this? Also, don’t most Master’s degree candidates go essentially for free?</p>
<p>If she paid full price for a state u education, then her parents must have had a pretty high income but refused to help her pay. How was she able to get that much in loans when she had no job and only a high school diploma? </p>
<p>It is hard not to be skeptical about some of these claims. They don’t make sense or else must be very unusual cases.</p>
<p>You have to wonder about the intelligence level of someone who would make this kind of financial decision. Maybe that is why she cannot find a job.</p>
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I can see it - 25K/yr COA x 4 years UG = $100K, plus grad school, including living costs, could easily end to be $135K. And if the student decided to take longer than 4 yrs UG, which some do, then it’s adding additional years of costs. The costs will also vary on other personal choices, like living solo in an expensive apartment vs sharing a lower cost one with roomies, etc.</p>
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<p>Wrong. Masters, and many professional, programs are often profit centers for colleges. Doctoral students are money makers too, as they are cheap labor in teaching and grading in the humanities and in the sciences they do the same and support the research of the principal investigators.</p>
<p>^Ok, but it still doesn’t answer the question of how this student was able to obtain $135K in loans. And her parents must have contributed -0- to her education, while earning a relatively high income. There must be more to her story that is out of the ordinary.</p>
<p>I think a lot of times the kids taking these loans are not just getting loans for tuition but also for living expenses, sometimes off campus, food,utilities,etc. Then there are many kids who take more than four years to graduate. If they got a loan for a year of college but dropped a couple of the classes, they still have to pay back the loan for a whole year of college. A lot of kids take five or six years to finish. It adds up. Some never get the degree but that doesn’t mean they don’t still owe the money to pay off the loan.</p>
<p>I wish I didn’t know kids in this situation but I do. And I really fault the parents more than anyone. Certainly not the government or “Corporations”.</p>
<p>But there will almost certainly be a bail out. And certain politicians will pander to these “victims.”</p>
<p>College as any other product/service, you buy it if you can affod it, you do not, if you cannot. There are other routes to get an education. There are many employers (as one example) who are paying for college education. Both my H. and I recieved our education all thru MBA this way. There are still other ways. But again, there are cars that cost several hundreds of thousands. Do we all buying them? I do not own such car. All 4 in our family have at least 4 year degree, 2 of us have MBA and D. is in Grad. School. Never had a student loan, all car loans were paid within 1st year, no mortgage either. We are not rish by no measure, we just always stick to what we could afford, not what others were saying that we could afford. We are close to retirement, we have never bought a brand new car, for one example. Everybody went to in-state state public schools, as another.</p>
<p>Ok how about a little sympathy for the first generation college student. The family has heard that a degree is the ticket to middle class and beyond. The kid is a good student but not good enough to get a full ride. The family is barely making ends meet, and is not saavy about the different costs of education. Even with personal responsibilty that we are preaching, that kid is a lamb being sent to slaughter at the finacial aid office. They are willing to lend the money, and if everything works out he will be getting that great job and payhing it back.</p>
<p>If it doesn’t work out, well that 18 yo holder of the family dreams should have known better. Sorry that the parents lost the house when they cosigned, they should have known better too. </p>
<p>Let’s not get started on the for profit schools who will enroll anyone that can sign up for a loan…</p>
<p>All I’m saying is make the banks have a lttle skin in the game, let the loans become bankruptable, and then all of a sudden the banks are talking to that kid about the down sides, and limiting their exposure to dumb decisions.</p>