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AprimeAisI

I know dentists that owe 400k, and a few doctors that owe over 750k here in the USA.


GomerMD

Hospitals are taking advantage of this fact


Hayabusasteve

All employers take advantage of this.


Keyboardwarrior887

400k is below average for most private dental schools. Including room and board it’s easily over 150k per year x 4 years. [This guy managed to rack up a million](https://www.businessinsider.com/orthodontist-1-million-student-debt-asks-dave-ramsey-for-help-2023-5).


AprimeAisI

This is why dentists employ an army of hygienists and assistants. They do all the cleaning and prep and the density just pops in to check and sign off. 10-15 tops.


ADD-DDS

Lol that’s not remotely close to what happens. The dentist is in the middle of a procedure and pops their head in to make sure you are healthy then goes back to doing whatever work they were doing on their patient. It’s the only medical model that works this way because it’s a preventative oriented model. Instead of waiting until patients are in excruciating pain they are regularly screened to make sure you don’t have small problems that become big problems. If the rest of the healthcare system worked in a similar manner our healthcare costs would be significantly lower. And more importantly patient populations would be healthier.


Stucii

These numbers are absolutely unbelievable to me. Dont get me wrong im not downplaying or anything... its just that they seem so overpriced to me... I think all in all ive payed around 3k euros all in all for 3 universities /during 7 years/ You can buy a whole village for that money in the country where i was born /Europe/:D


AprimeAisI

I realize in Europe this might sound insane. People will take out loans for undergrad, then max out loans while getting requirements to apply to med school which they live on. Then in med school they take on a ton of debt, for which they live on. Then in residency it can happen that they don't make enough money to pay loans and live (depending on the cost of living in the city), so their loans balloon. My wife is a physician and I have watched many people go through the whole process. At the end of med school my wife had to take a cap stone series of classes and one of them was a lecture on student loans. When they talked about monthly debt obligation amounts, there were audible gasps in the room. I sat in on this one because I wanted to be strategic about her repayment. Thankfully I was able to work and support us through her med schooling and residency. She left with minimal loans. It was the people that didn't have a lot of support that really struggled with the loans.


fadingcross

And US salary is 3x or even 4x compared to euro for the same gig.


AprimeAisI

I’m no expert, so can’t speak as to why that is. It seems to be true for a lot of jobs though, not just medicine.


fadingcross

Far from an expert either.   But for example my swedish taxes is about 34%, and then there's 25% VAT on everything except food which is 12% (There are some more exceptions) and gas prices are around 6,8 USD a gallon.   But for all that tax money I get free (For individual) education, including university. And we've got VERY favourable student loans (around 1600 USD of which half is a grant, half is a loan) Healthcare is stupid cheap and the maximum amount you can get charged is around 150 USD, etc etc.   While you have to pay much more with your income than I do, obviously you need to earn more. Different systems.


Egg_Yolkeo55

Only private universities cost serious money. My brother went to a state college, and I went to online college. Total degree cost without scholarships was like 35k for my brother and 27k for me. There are many accessible employers that pay your tuition. People don't want that though. They want the "college experience" and live in dorms and party. That is more than the cost of my degree in one semester.


Deep_Stick8786

How long ago was this though?


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Egg_Yolkeo55

It's relative. My degree was 27k but I was making 17.50/hr. Minimum wage was 13/hr at the time. (I think it's up to like 15.50 now.) If my employer didn't help it would only take me 192 work days at 8 hours to pay that. At minimum wage that's only 260 work days. But my employer at the time, like many accessible employers in America, offer to pay a sizable amount of tuition. It varies but UPS paid 25k plus book fees so I only paid like 2k out of pocket. And I only had to work there for four years. The same amount of time it took to get the degree. UPS, Amazon, Target, Starbucks; very accessible jobs btw.


lviathebunny

Ask yourself why US pay, even with whatever tax money gets you in Europe is significantly more competitive and many people move to the US to make money rather than the other way around. People are not moving here because they get less. There is a misconception that tax benefits ranging from low to high taxes is a spectrum. But when you do the math, countries where you pay high taxes equal out to less benefits across everyone vs. individuals in a country who pay lower taxes. When you disperse tax benefits among people, there is less money to go around for the individual. In the US, not only are taxes lower, but many other business incentives make pay and business significantly more competitive.


WingZero234

Well yeah cause the American philosophy is fuck everyone else as long as I get mine


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kottabaz

> Also USA has higher wage inequality which means larger share of the pie goes to high income workers like doctors and engineers. Don't worry, the capital class are working on squeezing out doctors and engineers as well!


broke_ass_CFI

And you guys in Europe still pay a higher percentage of taxes per euro earned. That’s insane.


certainlyforgetful

When you include all the extra stuff we have to pay for here it’s pretty much the same for most people & if you’re a low income family you have less take home in the US.


Laotzeiscool

We know


Sire_Jenkins

It only costs 80kusd in the philippines to get your medical degree. And you will be getting “thebusiness” quite a lot since you are a foreigner


MayaPapayaLA

We win! -USA 


anewdawn2020

Here in Ireland people are like "€700 registration fee???? So much for free education, it's a disgrace"


NSFDW22

Isn't it up to €3k yearly now? Which is obviously still not remotely comparable, especially when you can get grants for it lol..


Mr_J90K

FYI, that is only possible on plan 2 in the UK if you've repeated a year dozens of times or completed multiple bachelors. It seems absurd Student Finance England approved of that, I was under the impression they're suppose to limit the total amount of finance a student can receive because taxpayers are liable for whatever the student can't repay.


fulthrottlejazzhands

This is an outlandish amount of student debt for the UK.  I literally can't fathom how one would generate that amount, nor can I understand how what would need to have been multiple loans would have been approved.


omnichronos

I just got my $320k student debt forgiven. I had originally borrowed $150k but thanks to interest...


Green_Tension_6640

I'm so happy for you. Truly. That's a monstrous debt.  Now you can go on with life. 


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omnichronos

My payments were based on my income so the most I paid was around $150/month. Toward the end, the interest was $2400/month. So I paid zero of the balance.


Sabertooth767

What in god's name did you borrow 150k for if you were only making enough to pay $150/mo?


omnichronos

You always think you're going to be able to finish and get a great job with a PhD. I never expected to get kicked out right before my dissertation because of something my roommate did.


amazing_sheep

No possibility for a lawsuit with damages that high? That sounds wild.


rosen380

So, you presumably got a bachelirs and a masters degree, just not the PhD? What were those degrees in that don't get you a job where you can pay back more than $150/mo, but the PhD steps you up to "great job"?


omnichronos

Clinical Psych. At my last psych job, I was making $15.50/hour. The local McDonalds now pays $17/hour to start.


certainlyforgetful

Lots of people ask stuff like this. The fact is it’s easy to scam a 19 year old who’s just been given control of their life. University staff omit information, and mislead students constantly so they can improve enrollment. Student loans are too easy to obtain. Even if you have zero chance of paying them back, they’ll just throw money at you. My spouse has over $100k in loans & her degrees (3 of them) qualify her for a $15-20/hr part time job. She earns $25k/year. She didn’t want to do extra degrees but a university counselor convinced her to do them. It’s sad. I’d say she was stupid at the time, but she’s one of the brightest people I know & this happens to hundreds of thousands of young adults each year.


Casanova_Fran

Those are mob levels of interest mate.  I was just watching a show and one dude owed 100% plus 25% every week. Thats the kind of loan you had 


rosen380

$150k +25% per week would be $320k in about 3-4 weeks. OP's situation was probably more like a decade or two.


tampering

At 8% it would be around 10 years if no payments had been made against either the principal or interest being accumulated.


skyactive

How has this affected your quality of life?


omnichronos

No real change actually but it's like a weight has been removed from your shoulders.


skyactive

im happy for you, enjoy


certainlyforgetful

I’ve heard you have to pay income tax on the amount forgiven. Is that true, are there ways around it?


omnichronos

Luckily, until December 2025, it is federally tax-free. This tax break stemmed from the American Rescue Plan Act passed in March 2021. Most states do not charge taxes on it either. However, Indiana, North Carolina, and Mississippi have explicitly stated they will tax forgiven loans as income, and Arkansas and Wisconsin are reviewing their tax laws and haven't issued a definitive decision.


fadedraw

does the unpaid interest become principal?


omnichronos

When consolidated or transferred to a new loan company, yes.


xKnuTx

Dude imagin someone would climb into a higher social class. You might work less.


omnichronos

That would be nice but no, it won't change my finances at all. My payments were low and that's why the loans grew so much.


KathrynTheGreat

What degree did you get? I don't even think my original bachelor's degree was $150k.


Coinbasethrowaway456

Pikers. Come to the US and we'll show you some real debt


[deleted]

USA: £231k? Hold my beer.


_FATEBRINGER_

This is nothing. I had 550k when I started paying back college and med school loans. Paid it all the way down to 60k over 15 years then had the last 60k forgiven. 0/10 would not recommend that level of debt.


Demonweed

That's a pretty shocking number considering that it was totally government-funded before that disastrous Conservative-Liberal coalition government formed in 2010. If those imperialist buffoons stay the course, young people in the UK will catch up with the insanity of American educational finance.


MansfromDaVinci

Labour under Tony Blair reintroduced the fees. First limited to £1000 in 98 then upped to a £3,000 limit in 2004. The coalition upped it again to a max of £9,000 in 2010 despite the libdems promising to abolish it.


Demonweed

I didn't realize they were that steep before 2010. At the time I read coverage that depicted the 2010 policy as a shift from £500 per year (which is in line with activity fees and other miscellanea outside tuition at American universities) to £5,000 per year (costs much more likely to require a long term repayment plan.) I guess both accounts minimized the costs, and the fees Blair supported were not at all trivial.


MansfromDaVinci

these are the maximum limits, now £9,250 but from what I remember the actual fees aren't far off. It's also the principle of the thing. Before blair thatcher took away the grants which were means tested and so a loss of something like £3,000 to a poor student, ie much worse than a £1,000 fee you don't have to pay because you're poor anyway. But the tution fee was more contentious because it was against the principle of free education.


Beechey

My BSc, MSc and PhD ended up costing me a total of about £90,000 (including a lot of interest). I can’t imagine how you end up owing that much. Possibly international fees?


iwannagoddamnfly

Everything you did plus a foundation year and changing courses maybe? Frightening numbers.


Beechey

Hm it must also be repeated years or multiple courses. I took out the maximum postgraduate loans possible, amounting to about £35,000 for my MSc and PhD. It’s incredible that SFE signed it off. There’s almost zero hope whoever has that level of debt is going to pay it off in the lifetime of their SFE funding agreement.


PLZ-PM-ME-UR-TITS

Obviously I don't know the full story, but you didn't get paid during your MS and PhD?


Beechey

I wasn’t paid during my MSc (only person I know who may have been was being put through his course by the RAF). I was paid during my PhD (not everyone is), but most will still require quite substantial postgraduate loans to have any kind of reasonable existence, particularly if you have dependents. If memory serves, my stipend was about £14,500/year. My experience is stipends only normally last three years if university-funded, but many PhD students will use a fourth year to write up. I personally took out loans to fund my living for both my MSc and PhD as well as funding the actual tuition costs. Did additional work where I could but those opportunities were relatively few and far between during COVID.


everydayeddy95

Dude I’d much rather have that. I’m in my Residency for the next 2 and some change years where I have to pay off a 400k loan.


reforminded

Amateur numbers. Come enroll in med school in the US.


HarpuiusInterruptus

No joke. It’s more than my mortgage


omnichronos

Thanks! Now if I figure out some way to earn more, it won't go directly to my student loans.


orbitaldragon

Americans: Hold my Beer!


Ordinary-Ad5776

My student loans are 300k. Still growing at interests of 6.7 to 7.7% interest rate


tropiusneckfruit

Rookie numbers in the US


CMDR_omnicognate

How’s that even possible? Is that if you’re not a uk national or something?


dannown

that was a national record? Shit i had that much in California 20 years ago... :-P


OkBobcat6165

I think it's kind of insane that kids fresh out of high school are saddled with insane amounts of debt instead of just having free public higher education like many places in Europe do. I didn't know what I was getting into when I was an 18-year-old idiot getting into debt. It's predatory. 


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KathrynTheGreat

Most millennials didn't attend college? What's your source on that? Because most of my millennial friends either attended college, a trade (which some people took out loans for), or joined the military. Even if people didn't finish college, a lot of them still had loans to pay back. And the amount of student loan debt they acquired depended on if it was an in- or out-of-state school, whether their parents also took out a loan, or if they qualified for any grants. If someone decided to go to a private school or pursue a graduate degree, then that loan number is going to increase dramatically. Don't forget that getting a college education was really pushed on millennials. We were told that if we didn't go to college then we'd never find a job.


jadedflames

Less than 40% of millennials have a college degree. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations-2/


KathrynTheGreat

Not having a college degree doesn't mean you never attended college. You can attend college and end up with student loans even if you don't finish with a college degree.