This guy just moved to a jungle to escape his student loan debt?

**Thrif-t** · 10-28-2018, 10:25 AM

Are you kidding me $20k and he runs off to India, is he nuts? I guess the answer is yes! That is the last country I'd move to, but to each their own.

He was making $1700/mo living at home and he couldn't pay $300/mo towards his loan without ruining his life! How about living at home and paying $1k/mo towards your loans for a few years and wipe them out. Then start your life! Geez

No one wants to work for anything anymore or sacrifice. We sure aren't breeding any better people now a days are we? To bad we can't turn back the clock, to a time where people had pride and paid their own keep. Now everyone wants a free handout, no one wants to work for what they have...sad times indeed

**james.hendrickson** · 10-28-2018, 10:54 AM

Student loan laws tend to favor lenders, so if this story gets traction someone with enough leverage may decide to make an example of Haag.

**disneysteve** · 10-28-2018, 11:27 AM

This is insane and the fact that the media is giving him this kind of exposure is even more troubling.

He can't manage 20K in debt with a college degree and a $20,000 income? He could do income-based repayment. For that matter, he's living at home so his expenses are probably pretty low. He could make the regular payments. With a 10-year repayment and 6% interest, that's only $222/month. There's no reason why he couldn't afford that. Of course, he could also keep looking for a better job and/or a second job to boost his income. My daughter graduated in May and got a job last month making $14/hour. That would be $29,000/year working full time (which she isn't but that's partially by choice). Her loans are almost gone. She's been paying $350/month on them.

**amastewa93** · 10-28-2018, 12:48 PM

Right? I've been out on my own since my sophomore year of college with a brief period of being back home (and I paid rent while I was there)... I still manage my $279 payment each month. This really made me angry. And to think... there are probably thousands of people avoiding their loans this way.

**kork13** · 10-28-2018, 02:05 PM

The problem is readily apparent:

After majoring in philosophy in college, he held a student loan balance of about $20,000. ... Haag pointed out that not being able to a land a college-level job made his $300 monthly loan payment devastating to his finances.

What does he expect to do with a philosophy degree? Philosophy degrees (if not paired with a more applicable degree field) are meaningful for 2 types of people: writers & academics. If he's not going to do either of those, or leverage it for getting into a background-agnostic career field, then he's doing it wrong. He should have selected a more applicable degree program, or had a plan for actually doing something with the program that he pursued.

His student loans are on their way to being in default and they only thing Haag has to say is, �It�s kind of like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?�

Clearly, that philosophy degree is in good hands....

Bottom line: This guy was ill-prepared for adult life.

**corn18** · 10-28-2018, 02:07 PM

I just looked up the national student loan default rate and it was at 11.5% as of Sep 2017. That's really high. Like $173B high. Yikes!

**disneysteve** · 10-28-2018, 02:27 PM

Originally posted by amastewa93 View Post

And to think... there are probably thousands of people avoiding their loans this way.

Somehow I doubt that. I don't know how many people are willing to leave the country for good just to escape their debt. That seems like a pretty extreme step, especially for such a modest amount of debt. Heck, if he couldn't handle 20K in student loans, buying a late model car would be impossible too.

**disneysteve** · 10-28-2018, 02:29 PM

Originally posted by kork13 View Post

What does he expect to do with a philosophy degree?

I would disagree here. With few exceptions (engineering, sciences) what your degree is in matters very little. What matters is that you have a degree. I think the stat is that only 27% of college grads work in the field of their undergrad degree. The vast majority don't. There's no reason why a bright dedicated guy with a college degree can't get a job earning more than 20K/year.

**mo0n** · 10-28-2018, 02:35 PM

The vast majority don't. There's no reason why a bright dedicated guy with a college degree can't get a job earning more than 20K/year.

.

Maybe that's why he's only earning 20k a year (which, go work for Amazon or something). Maybe he's not one of the "bright" ones. His actions certainly don't seem to say he is.

**disneysteve** · 10-28-2018, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by mo0n View Post

.

Maybe that's why he's only earning 20k a year (which, go work for Amazon or something). Maybe he's not one of the "bright" ones. His actions certainly don't seem to say he is.

Or he's not one of the dedicated ones. This is likely more a work ethic problem than an intelligence problem.

**kork13** · 10-28-2018, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by disneysteve View Post

I would disagree here. With few exceptions (engineering, sciences) what your degree is in matters very little. What matters is that you have a degree. I think the stat is that only 27% of college grads work in the field of their undergrad degree. The vast majority don't. There's no reason why a bright dedicated guy with a college degree can't get a job earning more than 20K/year.

I agree with you 100%. I only meant that a philosophy degree provides an added benefit to a very, very narrow set of occupations. As I said, if he were to have gone & sought out a degree-agnostic career field (which yes, are plentiful), he could do just fine. But he clearly didn't do that.

You said it well -- "There's no reason why a bright dedicated guy with a college degree can't get a job earning more than 20K/year." I won't argue his intelligence... but dedication? He clearly possesses very little. Frankly, there's no reason an average but dedicated person WITHOUT a college degree can't get a job earning more than $20k/yr. For this guy, he should be able to easily get a job paying upwards of $30k-$40k -- and that'd only be an entry-level job, with room to grow.

**disneysteve** · 10-28-2018, 03:31 PM

On the flip side, forgetting the debt evasion issue for a moment, think of the adventure this guy has embarked on. Maybe that was his plan all along. I doubt that he only came up with this idea to skip out on a 20K loan as it's a very extreme solution to a very small problem. Moving to the jungles of India isn't something the average person wants to do for any reason, but some people are drawn to those sorts of adventures. Defaulting on his student loan debt is probably just a side benefit to his doing this but likely not the only reason he did it. As we said, even making 20K, that debt was easily manageable, and it's not hard at all to make 30K or more, even without a college degree and certainly with one. I know people who make more than him buying and selling things on ebay, no degree required. So I think to at least some degree, the headline of him doing this to avoid repaying his debt is probably a ruse.

**amastewa93** · 10-29-2018, 06:40 AM

While they may not be the majority... there are definitely quite a few people dodging their debt by moving out of the country. I agree, DS, that he has probably had an AMAZING adventure through all of this. Some of my most memorable moments in life were when I lived abroad. But it is really surprising how many folks do this (check out the article below).

All in all, he probably made a number of poor choices that led him to his feeling like this may have been his only option. As far as his degree choice, I agree there as well. He could have done just about anything. I am one of the lucky few who does something within their field of study but most of my fellow college grads do not. In fact, someone who graduated with the same degree as I did works at a phone center (I'd tear my hair out at that kind of job while she absolutely loves it). She didn't need a degree for it but she has one to fall back on, just in case.

Neither of us is dodging our student loan debt though... I guess this is always a back up plan though LOL

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 10-29-2018, 12:37 PM

How is $20k a lot to pay back? Most jobs even paying $8/hr you should be clearing at last $1200/month since you don't pay pretty much any income tax. Just SS and Medicare.

This guy just moved to a jungle to escape his student loan debt?