student loan forgiveness

[Singuy]

I'm totally fine with them having a payment plan. That's a must. But the payments shouldn't end until the debt is repaid. Make it a 25-year repayment. That's what my med school loans were. I paid them off early but I'm sure there are plenty who don't and take the full 25 years. There's no forgiveness. At the end of 25 years, you're debt-free. Just like a mortgage.

So if you earn 10 dollars/hr, or 1500/month after payroll taxes..these people will have 600/month taken away @ 25years of 100k loan. These people will be dumpster diving for 25 years.

[disneysteve]

So if you earn 10 dollars/hr, or 1500/month after payroll taxes..these people will have 600/month taken away @ 25years of 100k loan. These people will be dumpster diving for 25 years.

Somebody with a college education and no major physical or mental disability shouldn't be earning $10/hour, and certainly not for 25 years. A simple retail job will pay more than that to start. Target pays $12 minimum. Aldi pays $12.35 with a guaranteed increase after 6 months and management starts at $16.60.

Those aren't fantastic jobs, but it's somewhere to start until you find something even better.

[Singuy]

Somebody with a college education and no major physical or mental disability shouldn't be earning $10/hour, and certainly not for 25 years. A simple retail job will pay more than that to start. Target pays $12 minimum. Aldi pays $12.35 with a guaranteed increase after 6 months and management starts at $16.60.

Those aren't fantastic jobs, but it's somewhere to start until you find something even better.

Except they don't have a college education. They failed a lot of their classes and couldn't earn their degree as I pointed out that almost half of them don't have a degree.

Also 100k worth of student loans is super easy to rack up.

Example student.

Goes to private university with a lot of scholarship and aid, school charges 40k/year but 30k is paid for by scholarships and aid. Borrows 25k first year for tuition, books, room and board. Ends up doing poorly and looses scholarship for year 2. Student decides to give it another chance and really focus. Takes out 60k this year without working because of hardcore focusing. Finds out he's not college material. Lingers around for another half a year after that with another 30k worth of loans and decide to call it quits.

Yeah, a high percentage of people ends up in this situation.

[Gailete]

So if you earn 10 dollars/hr, or 1500/month after payroll taxes..these people will have 600/month taken away @ 25years of 100k loan. These people will be dumpster diving for 25 years.

The choice to take out those loans were theirs. It is possible to live frugally without dumpster diving. But I think the desire for loan forgiveness comes from the same generation where everyone got participation trophies. No one had to work hard for what they have or get. Nor do many seem to think that they must be responsible for their finances. It is everybody else's fault, certainly not theirs. I see this kind of thinking on many of the forums that I go to. You can almost tell how old they are by how much blame or responsibility they will take for their problems.

[Singuy]

The choice to take out those loans were theirs. It is possible to live frugally without dumpster diving. But I think the desire for loan forgiveness comes from the same generation where everyone got participation trophies. No one had to work hard for what they have or get. Nor do many seem to think that they must be responsible for their finances. It is everybody else's fault, certainly not theirs. I see this kind of thinking on many of the forums that I go to. You can almost tell how old they are by how much blame or responsibility they will take for their problems.

It's the result of crazy tuition cost and lack of focus, using college wisely that you end up with so many people who can't find any ways to pay off their crazy amount of loans. Can you name me one school that charges 15k/year(inflation adjusted) 30 years ago? TOo many parents just tell their kids "you must go to college" but doesn't give them any directions. They make it seem like money borrowed for education is the best investment one can make so you don't have to borrow cautiously.

It's crazy that life altering decisions are in the hands of a 18 year old. It's okay to find you're not college material in the past. Now this mistake will cost you your entire life.

[moneybags]

It's the result of crazy tuition cost and lack of focus, using college wisely that you end up with so many people who can't find any ways to pay off their crazy amount of loans. Can you name me one school that charges 15k/year(inflation adjusted) 30 years ago? TOo many parents just tell their kids "you must go to college" but doesn't give them any directions. They make it seem like money borrowed for education is the best investment one can make so you don't have to borrow cautiously.

It's crazy that life altering decisions are in the hands of a 18 year old. It's okay to find you're not college material in the past. Now this mistake will cost you your entire life.

It shouldn't be put in the hands of an 18 year old. Parents need to help their kids figure out what is affordable. To me this is just common sense, which seems to be lacking these days.

There are ways get a college education that don't involve 4 years of massive loans. First of all, if parents think it's a priority that junior goes to college at a university for 4 years, then they need to save some money to make it happen. If they can't save anything, then start out at the junior college for 2 years, then find a reasonably affordable college to finish up at.

[Singuy]

It shouldn't be put in the hands of an 18 year old. Parents need to help their kids figure out what is affordable. To me this is just common sense, which seems to be lacking these days.

There are ways get a college education that don't involve 4 years of massive loans. First of all, if parents think it's a priority that junior goes to college at a university for 4 years, then they need to save some money to make it happen. If they can't save anything, then start out at the junior college for 2 years, then find a reasonably affordable college to finish up at.

If the majority of Americans are irresponsible with their money, how do you expect them to pass on great wisdom down to their 18 year old before sending them out to college?

Most of these kids are kicked out of their house with nothing but some hopes and dreams.

[disneysteve]

Goes to private university with a lot of scholarship and aid, school charges 40k/year but 30k is paid for by scholarships and aid. Borrows 25k first year for tuition, books, room and board. Ends up doing poorly and looses scholarship for year 2. Student decides to give it another chance and really focus. Takes out 60k this year without working because of hardcore focusing. Finds out he's not college material. Lingers around for another half a year after that with another 30k worth of loans and decide to call it quits.

I don't doubt that there are stories like this out there, but where the heck were the parents in this scenario? My daughter knew damn well that if she lost her scholarship at any point, her time at that school was over. She was coming home and finishing somewhere local and cheaper. No way would we have let her borrow that kind of money. Either she was attending with her scholarship or she wasn't going there.

[Singuy]

I don't doubt that there are stories like this out there, but where the heck were the parents in this scenario? My daughter knew damn well that if she lost her scholarship at any point, her time at that school was over. She was coming home and finishing somewhere local and cheaper. No way would we have let her borrow that kind of money. Either she was attending with her scholarship or she wasn't going there.

Their parents are divorced living their own lives.

This is why you can't ever judge why certain lives are lived a certain way. You may have saved all your life for your daughters education and provided her with guidance and a stable household but unfortunately there are very few families that can meet all those criteria.

[disneysteve]

Their parents are divorced living their own lives.

This is why you can't ever judge why certain lives are lived a certain way. You may have saved all your life for your daughters education and provided her with guidance and a stable household but unfortunately there are very few families that can meet all those criteria.

Sad but true. Even when I went to school back in the 80s, I had a couple of friends who were on their own. Parents weren't really in the picture at all. In fact, it was often a struggle because the financial aid forms all required parental input and in some cases, the kids didn't even have contact with one parent. It was a battle each term to get the school to accept the paperwork without complete parental data.

That said, the people I knew in that situation were the hardest workers and most motivated of all to get things done. Yes they worked full time and went to school full time but they did what it took to get through. They knew that if they screwed up, it was totally on them. My daughter has one friend she just graduated with who was like that. She worked constantly because her parents didn't really give much support financially speaking. So she busted her butt and graduated on time and with honors.

[Singuy]

Can't say the same with my gang of friends. The only person who failed out of college was the one with divorced parents who were no where to be found.

[Gailete]

Sad but true. Even when I went to school back in the 80s, I had a couple of friends who were on their own. Parents weren't really in the picture at all. In fact, it was often a struggle because the financial aid forms all required parental input and in some cases, the kids didn't even have contact with one parent. It was a battle each term to get the school to accept the paperwork without complete parental data.

That said, the people I knew in that situation were the hardest workers and most motivated of all to get things done. Yes they worked full time and went to school full time but they did what it took to get through. They knew that if they screwed up, it was totally on them. My daughter has one friend she just graduated with who was like that. She worked constantly because her parents didn't really give much support financially speaking. So she busted her butt and graduated on time and with honors.

I was one of those with divorced parents. My father had promised to pay for my college including textbooks, etc. for 4 years. He did - for the first semester freshman year. I came back to second semester 1600 miles from home to find less than $2 in my account. I worked my fool tail feathers off for the next 3 1/2 years and the week before I graduated, my dad sent the college $100 which they gave me and that provided my bus titcket home and some pocket money for job hunting two days after I got home. Before I had been home from college a week, I had a job and a place to stay and out of my parents need to feed me. I started college at 17, but having grown up poor, I had a much better work ethic all round than many of the kids there, plus I was in a much more desperate situation. Many people that knew what I was going through, gave gifts of money, but the whole thing was on my own back. Never once did my mom suggest coming home that I recall.

I wish I had had some counseling from concerned parents. But my father was absent- literally. He is still alive and I haven't seen him since June 1973. My mother had remarried to a man that was a hard working carpenter. We have a photo of him clmbing a tree with me on his back two months before the wedding - I was 14 and probably 120# 5' 6". He came down with RA right after the wedding due to the Hong Kong flu, well distributed by the lady that made the wedding cake. His best man almost died from it. Somehow I repeated the scenario. I was a hard working RN, got horribly sick 3 weeks after getting married to hubby, went on disability which is not in any way equivilant to nurse's pay!

When I knew I had to get myself and my boys away from my first husband, is when I when to nursing school. I did take out a ~$2K loan I think it was as quitting wasn't an option. I had to get a good enough job to support myself. I paid off my loan early. I can't even remember filling out paperwork for it, as I think it came directly from my nursing school. I was at my wits end and under a huge amount of pressure both from going to school and keeping my grades and learning as high as possible and dealing with my husband at the time and a witch of a MIL, my youngest had just started going to school for his problems with autism and I was still trying to potty train him, and of course all the housework was still mine. And just for a glimpse of understanding what I was going through, in the entire two years of nursing school, never once did the husband ever ask how I was doing, what kind of grades I was making, how did I do on the test my study group had been over the night before as we studied, or even what my final grades and school rank was, but then he was so uninterested in what I was doing my study group could have been a knitting group for all he cared. The school gave me a loan so I could have some spending money, be able to get a breather between school and home life. Go shopping for some retail therapy. I guess they felt I was worth it It was my life-rope and the last thing I would have ever wanted to not pay back. I got it paid back early.

So many kids have been raised so differently than many of us. It is like we are aliens or they are. We had a teen age guy doing our mowing for awhile and at one point he mowed down our newly planted peach tree just being careless. We told him he would have to reimburse us for the tree. The next thing you know his dad is over and doesn't think his precious teen should have to pay for something like that and in the end dad pulled the money out of pocket and paid us for the tree. Never once in the conversation did he indicate in any way that his son should take any responsiblity and he wasn't a 13 year-old teen, he was in HS 11th or 12th grade. Not how everyone would have handled it but how we chose to. Why should we have to buy another tree when the kid mows one down that was almost as big as him. 10 inches tall, yep I could have understood it getting mowed down, but not a 5 foot tall tree.

My only point here, is how little kids are made to take responsiblity for themselves and their behavior and actions. If I had mowed down the tree, I would have fully expected to pay for it and no parent would have interferred either. I see really bad things in the future of our country and it has nothing whatsoever to do with who is president, it is we have a huge amount of kids becoming adults that have no work ethics, take no responsibility for their own actions, and everything is someone else's fault, never theirs.

[disneysteve]

we have a huge amount of kids becoming adults that have no work ethics, take no responsibility for their own actions, and everything is someone else's fault, never theirs.

To be fair, we have a country full of ADULTS who fit this description. It isn't just kids or teens or millennials or any other younger demographic. People of all ages are like this today. Nobody wants to take responsibility for anything and as soon as anything goes wrong, they play the victim even when they were clearly the ones who caused the problem.

[disneysteve]

And how exactly did someone "mow down" a 5-foot tall tree? What the heck was he mowing with? If I hit a tree that size with my mower, it would stop me. Even if I really worked at it, I don't think I could mow down that large of a tree. A little sapling maybe but not a full tree.

[Gailete]

And how exactly did someone "mow down" a 5-foot tall tree? What the heck was he mowing with? If I hit a tree that size with my mower, it would stop me. Even if I really worked at it, I don't think I could mow down that large of a tree. A little sapling maybe but not a full tree.

It was a 4-5 foot sapling and he did realize it when he ran into it. We had just planted it and no leaves or anything yet. But he just wasn't paying attention. It wasn't the first time he had mowed.

I realize that not any one generation is completely irresponsible, but it seems like each generation/decade the problem is getting worse. Not sure why other than many parents have no clue how to parent so theat then their kids don''t know how to parent either and the cycle goes on.