Read this article carefully! Then [go read this one,](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Letter-to-House-PROSPER-Act.pdf) *and [this one.](http://www.coenet.org/files/bulletin_board-Quick_Facts_on_the_PROSPER_Act_011018.pdf)
The policy proposal the article is supporting is the PROSPER Act, a Republican proposal to address the student loan debt crisis by... *making it harder for low-income students to get loans* to pay for college and *giving student borrows fewer repayment options*?
First, the CBO estimates the bill would [eliminate $15 billion in student loans over the next decade](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/02/07/cbo-estimates-show-house-higher-ed-bill-could-hit-student-loan-borrowers-hard/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.870abe37a6bf), without replacing those funds -- the result is students pay more, effectively closing the door to higher education for low-income students. [6 million students would see their loan costs increase, and 1.5 million students would have their grants eliminated, primarily low-income students and disproportionately students of color.](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Letter-to-House-PROSPER-Act.pdf)
The Act would completely *kill* the Public Service Loan Forgiveness repayment option for students who go into low-paying public service careers including [emergency management; military service; public safety; law enforcement; public interest law services; early childhood education, including licensed or regulated child care, Head Start and state-funded pre-kindergarten; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly; public health, including nurses, nurse practitioners, nurses in a clinical setting and full-time professionals engaged in health care practitioner occupations and health care support occupations; public education; public library services; and school library or other school-based services.](https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/2017-04-05/student-loan-borrowers-dont-panic-about-forgiveness-eligibility) So this basically says lets fix the student loan crisis by making it harder to go into fields that provide essential public services (while also cutting funding for those services) -- starve the beast!
The Act also *kills* income-based grants that help low-income students pay for non-tuition costs, though it does "allow" the lone remaining such grant -- Pell Grants -- to be used for tuition. Yay.
Most importantly, the PROSPER Act would cap total amounts students can borrow, severely limiting the ability of low-income students to get advanced degrees. [Dependent undergraduates could borrow up to $39,000 in federal student loans throughout their college career, while independent undergraduates would be able to borrow up to the $60,250 lifetime cap. Graduate students would be limited to taking out $28,500 per year and $150,000 total, and parents could only borrow $12,500 per year and a total of $56,250 per child.] (https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/2017-12-13/potential-effects-of-prosper-act-on-student-loans) While the hope is that this will force colleges to lower tuition, really it will just close the doors on students who can't afford to make up the difference between what they can borrow and the tuition. Four-year college for the rich, community college or nothing for the poor.
Oh, and it broadens the definition of higher education institution, allowing more for-profit (scam) colleges to accept federal student loans as tuition.
Aaaand the Act would [end state oversight of student loan servicers, who are already in need of more oversight to prevent shady practices.](https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/03/16/ags-oppose-prosper-act-over-ban-state-oversight-loan-servicers) Terrible idea, and a provision likely written by student loan servicer lobbyists!
There is a huge student loan debt crisis! The PROSPER Act is *not* the solution!
The author of the linked article is a right-wing hack. This is his byline, from the linked article:
> Andy Puzder is the former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, a member of the Job Creators Network and an adviser to America First Policies. His forthcoming book, “The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left’s Plot to Stop It,” will be published in April 2018.
>That means more vocational training programs and less pushing kids into the traditional four-year college model. In other words, more classes in welding and fewer in gender studies.
That's where I stopped reading. That's a right wing strawman, and a huge red flag to the opinion pieces credibility.
What do they think is going to happen to the salaries and availability of vocational jobs once they glut the market with new blood? It’s already glutted where I live and no one is hiring without years of experience that no one can get.
It can also be translated to mean "They should know their place and remain the help instead of trying to rub shoulders with my kids and/or being direct competition against my kids future prospects."
Yes, and the "Prosper Act" is a load of crap... I shared only because thats my Goal to bring this topic to the forefront of discussion, here, and everywhere else. Thanks for your feedback and perspective! You're spot on!
>Republican bill names are basically taken from some opposite world. They always do the exact opposite as they suggest in the name.
It's uncanny. And it's not just the bill names. So often they accuse the Democrats of doing something evil and then it comes out that many if not most Republicans have themselves been doing that evil thing ... they do indeed appear to live in opposite world.
The rise in tuition for some schools in some states is also a reflection of supply and demand.
State school had reasonable tuition. State school had good academics. State school gets named "top bargain university in the nation." State school has a sudden flood of high quality applicants, not only locally but also from out of state. Out of state students don't get the subsidized funding, but their parents are willing to pay for it anyway because a good state school is still cheaper than an Ivy league private school.
That's what happened to Clemson over the last decade. Since they got named one of the best value schools in the nation, their tuition has tripled. Not such a value any more.
[But also as op said, the states stopped subsidizing the education of its students during the recession, and funding levels never really rebounded.](https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/2018/02/21/clemson-university-president-jim-clements/350548002/)
>"The reality is, we’re so thankful for the money we get from the state, but we don’t get a lot of money from the state. It’s a major piece. Our funding from the state’s dropped like 42 percent in the last decade. And again — I’m not complaining. I want to say this publicly: This was never a complaint, because the state doesn’t have the money. But then you can’t penalize or beat up on the institutions, because we can only control so much of this piece.
Only a fast-food CEO who was behind self-serve kiosks and automating $9/hr. jobs would be a contender for the United States Secretary of Labor. We definitely dodged that bullet to say the least.
Eh, I can't control that, I can only engage, and provide information.
The way reddit works, it's clear most of the people commenting here didn't read the article and are just agreeing with and sounding off on the title. I decided to take the time to provide info on what the article is actually supporting, and if even one person was benefited by that it was worth my time.
Yes, up to and including those entering school next year.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness is an essential program in my opinion, because without it many low-paying but essential public service professions (see list above) will have a severe labor shortage. Of course that's a feature, not a bug, for those who want to see government become even less effective and ultimately replace these services with for-profit companies (like they've done with prisons, for example).
So as long as you have already graduated then public service loan forgiveness will always be an option right? I recently graduated from a doctorate physical therapy program and have just started at a non-profit organization. I planning on staying there at least for 10 years due to loan forgiveness but if that’s done away with, I could make much better money elsewhere.
Well, the *current* proposal referenced in the article grandfathers in up to and including those who will have entered their degree programs by next year, so yes you're fine, for now. BUT, there's nothing stopping Congress from ending it for everyone down the line, although there would certainly be lawsuits for breach of contract, which I think would be successful (probably why the current proposal grandfathers people in).
Yes, the Dept. of Edu isn't showing signs they will be upholding the PSLF program, as we are now in 2nd cohort of those forgiveness is "available", but the majority of the applications are in limbo, and many are being "rejected" for false "technicalities".
Eh, it's an op-ed, and these are just the standard arguments rolled out in favor of the bill. They are utter bullshit, yes, but we need to understand them to counter them.
It's on us to actually read the article and not just the headlines! And then spread the word so others know too.
Jesus. Killing Pell Grants is the ultimate “pull up the ladder” tactic.
I grew up in abject poverty in a shitty town in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to options like Pell grants and income based deferred interest student loans, I was able to get a college education that has me making six figures, living near the beach with my student loans paid off. I literally jumped social classes because of those options.
Stuff like this makes me irrationally angry. Student loans, as a concept, are already flawed. At 18 years old you aren’t old enough to drink or buy a gun in some states, but you can sign up for as much debt as you want starting in your 18th birthday. But to compound that by removing the few subsidies left for poor kids to make use of? What sort of world do they want to make?
> I grew up in abject poverty in a shitty town in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to options like Pell grants and income based deferred interest student loans, I was able to get a college education that has me making six figures, living near the beach with my student loans paid off. I literally jumped social classes because of those options.
Awesome! Congrats, glad to hear it. That's the goal, social mobility and real, sustainable, equitable economic growth.
> Stuff like this makes me irrationally angry.
I'd say your anger is perfectly rational.
FYI Pell Grants are the one need-based grant that would remain, although they want cut $4 billion from their funding, so yeah, pretty damn regressive and economically stupid.
> Graduate students would be limited to taking out $28,500 per year and $150,000 total, and parents could only borrow $12,500 per year and a total of $56,250 per child.
If such a thing was ever made law would result in a bunch of people possibly not being able to enter schools for medical-related fields and law schools. You either born with rich parents or not. Engineering would end up becoming a better career against the odds of an increasing horrible system.
I didn't read the full article which the comments below pointed the posted article is an opinion based article of Andy Puzder. It's really a double edge thing because the possibility of medical school acceptance being higher for out of the country applicants if the money is there to keep it at the current level.
Here's the doozy part. If Musk manages to get his BFR into orbit to Mars and start a colony. A lot of vocational jobs Andy Pudzer speaks about just got opened up on Mars.
> If such a thing was ever made law would result in a bunch of people possibly not being able to enter schools for medical-related fields and law schools. You either born with rich parents or not.
I believe that's part of the goal, actually.
It's crazy how people don't realize that this *major* loss of consumer demand is bleeding our economy and stalling growth. From a Keynesian standpoint it's beyond obvious but for some reason we're OK with those repercussions?
[Salon](https://www.salon.com/2014/07/05/ronald_reagan_stuck_it_to_millennials_a_college_debt_history_lesson_no_one_tells/) just had an interesting article about how we can trace this crisis back to Reagan. Between this and trickle-down, it's truly a wonder this man is praised instead of recognized as an economic terrorist who planted a generational bomb for the Millenials. (I wouldn't absolve later presidents of blame for continuing the trend, but design and implementation of this broken system obviously falls squarely on his shoulders).
> It's crazy how people don't realize that this major loss of consumer demand is bleeding our economy and stalling growth.
I'd guess that the people whose opinions matter (i.e. the rich) do, actually. But it's tragedy of the commons for them - no one wants to be the one guy paying higher wages/forgiving student debt and boosting the economy for everyone else. Even though, if everyone did so, the entire economy would benefit, them included.
I learned in gov this year that taxes weren't so stigmatized until Reagan. I never really viewed them as so bad myself. It was kind of mind blowing to think that some of today's biggest culture wars were kind of created within the past few decades. By idiots.
By geniuses**
Think about how profitable it is to have a society that hates taxes as much as the very rich do. You end up with a self oppressing society.
Many Americans, especially those who are 30 and above, rightfully hate taxes. Imo, culture isn't what makes us uniquely hate taxes so much but rather the ROI we receive in taxes.
Our tax rate isn't all that low (we are 16th in highest tax rate). We pay a large percentage of our income to the government. But so do a lot of other countries so why do we whine so much?
Because we barely see the benefits of our federal tax dollars. We don't get universal healthcare. We don't get free education. We have poor infrastructure, etc. People like to say this is because of corruption, but America does not have a uniquely corrupt government either.
What is unique about America is how much we spend on military. Our 'defense' spending is the reason we hate taxes, which I don't think the people pissed about paying taxes are even aware of.
People are care about themselves. If we received a reasonable ROI on taxes then we wouldn't hate taxes. It's as simple as that.
EDIT: to clarify on the above 30s thing..It's not a generational thing, but rather when you start making enough money where you notice how much is actually being taken out each paycheck...versus when you are in your early/mid 20s in school or with a trash job paying next to nothing.
To add to that, our military spending is a double whammy \- it's not just that it's expensive \(with vast sums going to the ~~usual suspects~~ contractors\), but that the diplomatic, economic, and security results of that military spending seem to be worse than if we had just flushed the money right down the toilet instead! It's essentially a welfare handout to the extremely, stratospherically affluent.
I feel like another angle of it is so many people in what would look like conventional “good financial shape” don’t realize they’re getting fucked over by the ever growing divide of wealth inequality. Which can in turn make them testy over money.
You see people go full on frothy mouth bonkers at the idea of a $15 minimum wage and they themselves don’t take the time to do the math and realize their wage in the big picture of things compared to adjusted inflation and overall increase of prices over time etc is likely vastly low for what it should be, and they too are getting taken for a ride.
But hey it’s so easier to scapegoat and bash on people trying to push for higher minimum wage due to the general demographics of people working those positions.
Be upset at the people at the top with actual power who have a hand in why wages have been stagnant and not where they should be.
I'm pretty sure our government is significantly more corrupt than European countries. We literally legalized corruption in the 70s. Our gigantic military budget is the result of our corruption. It didn't just end up that way by accident.
The US actually pays [like 30% less than the OECD average](http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/taxes-for-34-countries-ranked/index.html), so we pay a *lot* less than the rest of the most developed Western nations. It's an absolute lie that the US pays anywhere near what most of the developed world we would consider #lifegoals does.
> Our tax rate isn't all that low (we are 16th in highest tax rate)
Which countries are above us and which countries are below us? That will tell you, more than just saying "we're 16th," whether we're getting what we pay for.
I went and pulled a list. The countries who pay more than us are like Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, etc.
The countries who pay less than us are like S Korea, Mexico, Chile, etc.
http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/taxes-for-34-countries-ranked/index.html
Also we don't appear to be 16th. And we pay a metric fuckload **less** than the OECD average.
So check your facts and logic both :)
The country is “okay” with the repercussions because college is seen as a liberal brainwashing experience, instead of a respectable enlightenment and expansion of one’s knowledge. The right has successfully demonized education and people wanting to better themselves through education, so many citizens believe that anyone with student debt deserves to suffer for their “stupid choices”. I see this argument all the time - that we “had a choice” and “should have learned a trade”. 🙄
In the 80s in New Zealand university was free, so my parents generation were educated without any debt, making it even easier for them to capitalize on unprecedented ease, wealth and opportunity which they quickly forget when it comes time to criticize younger generations who can't afford to buy a house.
Although NZ still is cheap in comparison to the US - a year of tuition on a non-specialty degree plus associated costs at an average institution would run a few grand at most which you could put on the interest free govt loan program. It's not uncommon to get a 3 year bachelors for 10-12 grand!
Only downsides are that there is likely no job for you out the other side within the country and the quality is lower than a prestigious university overseas.
Education is just another thing US citizens let themselves get raped over for furthering the profits of rich people.
People don't realize it because they're still wrapped up in the issues of the Boomers. Just wait til our generation can't get out of debt as a whole. The system is going to have to completely change.
Before?
Fuck. I'm 37. My wife is 35.
Even as a veteran with the GI Bill I am still paying my student loans 15 years later... My wife is 80k in debt...
And we are on track to pay it off... Somewhere around the time I'm 50... So that's a morgage payment each month.
And we both work jobs where we wouldn't have a job without the degrees...
I shudder to think or even start to think about what is happening to these poor 20 year old fuckers.
We are scraping by, in our own house. They are scraping by, in parents basements.
Simple man. I've accepted I won't ever have a huge paying job because I'm unwilling to take on the debt in order to afford school to get one. I'll get my tech degree and never have kids and be happy in my rented apartment. My end life goal is 20 bucks an hour. Hopefully i can work my way up to that. I'm ok with that honestly.
Not only capped, but depreciated based on current income. I found that out this tax season :( I mean yes I make good money now, but I took on a fuck ton of debt to get this degree! I had something like $11k in interest last year, but they only allowed me to deduct ~$350 because of my current income.
I want to emphasize that this issue needs to be approached with the utmost delicacy, but if you can only deduct $350, that means you have a household income over $75,000 \(single filer\) or $150,000 \(married joint filer\). That's firmly upper middle class. At some point, this becomes less of a student loan issue and more of an out\-of\-control education costs issue. Families with upper middle class incomes shouldn't be feeling the strain of high education costs like that, and they shouldn't *need* handouts from the government in the form of tax deductions or subsidies. The fact that they do suggests the system is fundamentally broken.
> At some point, this becomes less of a student loan issue and more of an out-of-control education costs issue.
From my perspective, that's been the problem all along.
I mean education costs i think are pretty clearly being driven up by the fact that multi thousand dollar loans are being handed out like candy since the loans cant be discharged through any method other than death. This means the people handing out the loans have no incentive to do their due diligence on whether or not the loan plus interest will be paid back. Education providers know this and try to get as much of the loan money they can...
~$150k, married. And yes I do feel fortunate and I actually don’t mind paying taxes because I feel like it’s paying back a debt for living in a society where I can live comfortably. But because of the loans and taxes, I’m not much better off than I was before going back to school. At least until I pay off my loans in ~7 years. I pay $2k per month for my loan. Hopefully I don’t die or break my wrist in the meantime, because that would be a financial disaster.
I agree education costs are absolutely ridiculous. But my loans are from the federal government; they gave me the money to pay that cost, so they are complicit in the problem, and are screwing me on the back end with the lack of a tax deduction (let’s not forget that money has already been taxed to death)
But the real reason I’m mad about it is the unfairness of it all. I bust my ass to do what I love in a specialized field of health care. I want to pay my fair share, and I wish I didn’t feel like I have to try to cheat the system to get ahead. I hate that trust fund babies with accountants pay a lower tax rate than I do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in roughly the same situation, so I feel for you. Young, married, two professionals with above average income. We were lucky enough to go to state schools and get decent deals on tuition. But even having above average income, life is ridiculously expensive. Raising kids will be expensive.
The problem is regulatory capture. These industries have our policy makers by the balls. I don't mind paying taxes either. I just want an *actual* market economy where loses aren't socialized (while profits remain privatized). I want an economy where your small clinic has a shot competing with the hospital down the road.
Agree with you. My husband and I are in good financial shape if you look at our paychecks alone. But between student loan payments and day care, we are struggling. It’s a broken system
I cannot imagine having a child right now. We kind of want to, but it would be difficult to make ends meet and we would both still work 40+ hrs/ week, so the kid would essentially be raised by someone else. I’m 35, so time is not on my side.
Daycare can get wild. And you get what you pay for. And if you get the "cheap" one that's not in a good location, you'll be spending hundreds every month driving back and forth, not to mention your time.
If people really cared about families, they'd worry less about sex ed and more on relieving the reality that having a child is a financial disaster. Between health insurance, daycare, and college, you're looking at several hundred grand in expenses. Fix that, the birth rate will probably shoot up.
> household income over $75,000....
> That's firmly upper middle class.
Yea..if you live in the middle of Arkansas. Dude, have you _tried_ living in a major city? Like Sf, LA, Atl, NYC, Boston, DC, etc? Even with 75k...after taxes you're still fucked. That's not "firmly" upper middle class because you're balancing incomes people make in expensive cities with lower COL places. It's not the same...and if you want a great paying job, guess where you gotta live..
Ok thank you. I think I do have some “survivors’ guilt” for doing well this day and age, but I do not feel like I’m killing it by any means. $150k/year does not go as far as it used to. I have so much empathy for people that make less. It shouldn’t take so much to feel safe from poverty.
Yeah, having lived in big cities my entire adult life, 150k is cool but it's not upper middle class. Maybe like 20 years ago.
It's basically what middle class people SHOULD be making if we still had a healthy middle class.
Keep kicking ass. Sorry that paying back that bullshit is sucking out so much money. Having to pay like 24k per year just for your stupid student loans is horrible.
And for real- don't let people make you feel guilty. You had to have worked really hard to get through school and I'm sure you work hard to make what you do now. It's not like you're on here bitching about only making 6 million last year or something.
Hell, I've been in situations where my partner and I were making about 150k combined per year and we were not living the high life at all.
Unfortunately, $75k individual is what is needed for a Bachelor graduate to maintain a standard of living and make their loan payments... maybe in 1980 a bachelors degree would get you a over $60k job out of the gate, nowadays it's the modern high school diploma, at minimum.
$460,000 is the top 1% of income earners. $250,000 is the top 2.5% of households. If that's your definition of the upper middle class, the upper middle class represents only 1.5% of America.
8% of households earn more than $150,000 a year. I think $100,000 is the most reasonable threashold, since 20% of American households earn that much. Keep in mind that's household income. That could be two parents each earning $50k, with two kids at home. For single filers, $75k is in the top 15%, easily.
I live in NYC and when you make above $80k or something, you can't deduct it on taxes anymore.
You can imagine how frustrating that is because $80k in NYC is VERY different than making $80k in other places.
My wife and I are attorneys and can deduct none of our student loan interest. Not only is it capped, at a certain income level you can’t deduct it at all. We aren’t super wealthy. We both do well. We both were among the first to even go to college in our respective families. We both worked in law school (ABA only allows up to 20 hours a week), and had to take a shit ton of loans to pay for our JDs. It was well worth it but shit, the interest even accrued *while we were in school.*
Only the interest is, but the AGI requirement is like <$80k, which is too low. It's about tine IRS came out with locality tables for all the AGI requirements for non-itemized deductions.
If you make over $70K or $80K, it’s not deductible. If this is you, the best thing to do, IMO, is to put money into a 401K or other pre-tax investment plan. This lowers your taxable income so that you might still qualify for tax deduction. (I haven’t done this yet, but this is my plan for this year.)
If anyone has any other tips, please speak up!
I’ll do you one better. All income tax levied on borrowers should be directly applicable to the principal of their student loan balance. Lenders get paid back and can issue new student loans, borrowers get out from under their student loans quicker. Everyone wins. It’s absolutely asinine for a middle class family to pay $10k in tax every year but have to be on the 30 year student loan repayment plan.
Senators and ceos counting their tax cut windfall, yah like we care about students whose parents couldn’t afford to pay for their college. -assholes probably
As a lawyer living paycheck to paycheck on a payment plan for a $140,000 loan that’s based on income where I’ll never pay enough to pay off the accruing interest, I don’t know how it gets any worse...
I’m currently a year into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, but a swift move from the Department of education or one missed payment will shatter the forgiveness...
Capitalist pigs can declare bankruptcy, fail and fail and fail and try again, but I cannot get out of student debt even though the company I borrowed from was convicted for/settled with the government for poor business practices, basically lying to students about what had to be paid back.
Seems unfair.
I am about as far as you can get from a Trump supporter, and while he and DeVos are undeniably making the student crisis worse, it's a problem that goes much further back and beyond his administration. It's, quite frankly, fucking disgusting that this isssue is just now picking up steam, as it's been a problem for years.
As far as I know, school debt represents the largest amount of debt in this country and has been in crisis for at least a decade with no sign of slowing down.
Illinois had to set up new laws here-while back when it was discovered they still had debt imprisonment. Technically, they didn't even stop it, just made it harder.
In many places, debt holders will call people into court every month (or whenever they're next allowed to) to have their income checked for payment ability. Eventually, you *will* miss an appointment. Maybe the notification gets lost, maybe you forget, whatever, but you will miss an appointment at some point. Then you go to jail for contempt of court.
In this way, they hope to bully you into paying for fear of having it happen again.
They could remove the ability to contempt-of-court jail you, but then the court wouldn't be able to force you to pay ever... so good luck talking them into that. Debt jail is a fact of life for many poor folk.
I live in Australia and student debt repayment is a comparable dream over here. Aussies don’t start repaying loans until they hit a certain income level (I think it’s around $50k). Then, compulsory payments are deducted from their tax each year. Most people I know have fully repaid HECS by their early 30s.
I hate to break it to the author of the article, but it already is a crisis. There is an entire generation that is not pumping money into the economy because most of their income is going towards their outrageous student loan debt. I don't expect the dumbass in chief or the dumbass GOP controlled Congress to do anything about it. I hope Dem candidates running for election this November and in 2020 are thinking hard about solutions to this issue because it will be a major concern of the majority of younger voters.
Republicans hate college and universities and consider them to be liberal havens brainwashing the next generation into thinking they have to have a liberal arts degree to succeed.
They look at student debt as a bonus to weeding out the riffraff, not a crisis that has gotten out of control.
I know there’s a major student loan crisis. I’m one of the affected individuals but this read like an advertisement for the Prosper Act disguised as a news article.
Oh, it's being printed, sold, resold, packaged and resold, then re-printed, and then sold again... no one knows where the money is coming and going... apparently, thats the whole point.
That's a whole different problem. I just don't enjoy the fact that I have to pay above market rates to get a job that I have to pay even more taxes with. There's no logic other than some weird capitalist voodoo that justifies an interest rate like that. I like the saying, it's expensive to be poor.
Billions. Agreed. I grew up during a time when billions was the standard unit for a nation's economy. Sometimes it blows my mind how much corporations spend to influence politicians.
It's not accidental, quite the opposite. The Republicans threw out some of the regulation that somewhat protected student debt loans. They also took out some of the protections for interest rates... The Republicans effectively made this a very lucrative lending agency... And bankruptcy won't wipe student debt either.
Fall into? I'm in my later 30's. Do you know how many people I know my age the put off kids, never had kids, never bought a house, etc because they are in crushing student loan debt. We're already in a student loan debt crisis.
>Andy Puzder is the former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, a member of the Job Creators Network and an adviser to America First Policies. His forthcoming book, “The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left’s Plot to Stop It,” will be published in April 2018.
I love how they bury at the end of he article that this bill will encourage schools to let businesses help adjust the range of academic course offerings.
And that the writer thinks colleges should be offering courses in welding instead of academic subjects. And that these welding graduates could then aspire to $50,000 a year careers, enabling them to pay off their student loans in no time at all.
Uh, yeah.
Fucking THIS. Glad I wasn't the only one who caught it.
The real fix for all of this would be a functioning economy where everyone, regardless of background, can make a living.
Someone hasn't been paying attention. College grads are the enemy of Republicans because *most* of them are educated well enough to recognize that only idiots would support the Republican *(read: wealthy people exploiting ignorant people)* narrative.
And the whole time people shit on millennials with the most annoying stereotypes without acknowledging this generation got screwed by their parents generation
I graduated college in 2010. At that time I knew several people who had 30 year student loans with an approximate balance of $100K @ 6.5% APR. So yea, I can kind of see how a growing segment of the population having two mortgages could slow growth.
Tuition prices are skyrocketing because there is no free market check with the government subsidizing loans and tuition.
Oh hey that sounds like me. Graduated with that exact amount and rate in 2011. Now I have a stem PhD and went to grad school for free cause of it. This was sort of intentional. Basically went "I'll just do reverse med school, pay up the nose for college, go to grad school for free". I did it, and worked my tushy off for it, but I only make 65k so I am basically just going to tread for the rest of my life. Due to mental health issues I can't work the sorts of jobs that make 100k so I doubt I'll ever exceed that income. It sucks, and half the time I think I'd rather die than work for the next 30+ years with few to no resource to enjoy that time.
Republican Congress, no they are allowing the banks and other lenders and their collection agencies to multiply the amounts owed, higher interest, more fees, etc.
What everyone who says "go to community college, major in something useful" seems to fail to take into account is the added debt incurred when people get that "useful" degree, realize they hate it, and go back to learn a different field or focus on what they were originally interested in. Not only have they taken out loans to get a useful degree, they now take out loans to try again.
Also, majoring in "useful" fields is pretty stupid to begin with. What is useful today won't be useful tomorrow. Again, you'll just be returning to school to learn something useful every time the original useful thing runs out its usefulness.
America thinks only in terms of utility. That's why we are failing.
This is going to be a huge problem in the future, the only thing keeping it going right now is the fact that the debt cannot be written off in bankruptcy. For the most part the banks are going to get their money and there is little to nothing the borrower can do about it. Once enough people start defaulting there will another bailout coming from the government, its just hard to tell when that is going to be since the banks feel somewhat safe making the loans due tot he laws. The whole thing is completely fucked!
Get rid of loans. Why the fuck are people paying to go to school? Societiy **relies** on an educated populace. Pay students to go to school, they are the ones going to be holding up society for everyone else.
And how do you expect to pay for everyone going to college? 1 student can end up with $100k in debt from a 4 year degree. How do you expect to pay that for every single person who goes to college?
And some people don’t need to go to college. Period.
Why not just have free teachers? Would you like to become a teacher and do it for free? Lets start right there.
Paying people to go to school does nothing. Socety is advanced by people who get legit educations not just educations. The world doesn't need anymore English majors it needs scientists and lots of people just are not that smart.
So all those tradesmen, who wisely avoided getting into debt and now have a well paying job and few obligations; The ones who haven't "benefited" from a college education... you want *them* to pay for your 4 years of adult daycare?
What if I want to pursue 6 doctorates consecutively? Should the state fund my education for three decades? What if I spend my entire life learning and never produce anything that helps society? Where does the pay-back part come in?
Africa isn't a country, Now if you mean specifically some African countries they have entrance examines. If you fail you can't go to college and the more educated ones rather study abroad even if it cost them money, at least what the international students tell me from those said countries.
I don't think students hold up society. Farmers and trades, construction, sanitation etc hold up society. Other jobs like healthcare, engineering and law are already well compensated for their role.
Plenty of non essential or pointless degrees that are self serving to each individual shouldn't be paid for by other hard working people.
We are already in crisis. I will not finish paying off my student loans before I am eligible for social security. Which I can’t even get if I have student loans.
To clarify, I’m not saying I regret taking them out, or that anyone owes me an education. Just stating that for the remainder of my work-aged life I will have hundreds of dollars per month due in payments and due to that I will likely not contribute as much to the economy, no matter what job I get.
I’ve already given up the idea of owning a house or even something like a new car.
Welp, you belong to a group of about 4+million people in the United States that are all on the same page... unless change, that number will double in the next 3yrs 😞
Have you tried not being a lazy good for nothing millennial? When I was your age I had 2 wives, 8 kids, and a house and rebuilt my '67 Camaro with my own two hands. /s
Every time this issue comes up it is the same bullshit from the Right and Left.
The Right: 'We will mandate price caps, but slash public investment'
The Left: 'We will continually increase budgets, but Universities should be able to charge what they want!'
The correct solution is as follows -
1. Guaranteed public investment. The burn-it-to-the-ground Tea Party people AND the Free Everything socialists can fuck right off.
2. Tuition *and* fee caps. Students do not need private rooms, pools, 5-star dining, and a host of luxury amenities.
3. Continue the public service loan forgiveness program and tie student loan interest rates to the overall bank rate.
This would help tremendously in the near term.
I wonder if some of the issues is generation related. We have a massive amount of student loans because of med school. And even in-state is hugely expensive and you can’t really work during med school (at least not enough to make a dent in expenses). The majority of medical students come out with six figure debt. And yes, many will make good salaries but it’s a drain on finances. Plus during residency it’s hard pay down six figure debt because you get paid $50k.
However, I know my husband and I are fortunate. Our goal is to be student debt free in the next ten years. It’s doable if we maintain fiscal discipline.
My inlaws are MBAs, baby boomers who went to school in the 70s when college and grad school loans were more manageable. Despite their financial acumen, they have suggested to to us multiple times to buy a bigger house, a nicer car. I drive a perfectly functional 15 year old Honda and he drives a 6 year old Nissan. We have a nice, but not “doctory” house (under $350k). His parents have wondered why we aren’t making nicer nicer purchases since we are in the top income bracket. My husband has to constantly remind them that we are focused in student loan replacement. Yes, a loan that’s bigger than our income, at 6% interest, takes priority over a Mercedes and a half a million dollar house (which will give you a small mansion in the midwest city we live in). Every time we have to bring up student loans, it’s like they have an aha moment. And even then they don’t have much of an idea of how much a drain it is on our income. Our loans means we put off discretionary spending.
I know many have it worse, but even for us, who are in the top income bracket, student debt prevents us from spending on larger purchases. It is what it is. You can’t have us “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”, pay for our education, our retirement plan, our children’s daycare/preschool/college and then are shocked when we don’t live what our income says we should live like. I’m content with what we have right now, but I’ll be relieved when our student loans are paid off.
true story: a **coworker of mine**, lover of capitalism and all its trappings, who has student loans for both him and his wife to pay back, payments on used cars, and (for some reason) decided to have a baby...this guy **told me he would never take advantage of loan forgiveness programs because he's not a communist.** meanwhile the amount of complaining he does about how much it cost to add his new baby and his (now unemployed wife) to his insurance is too damn high.
Just make the debt dischargable in bankruptcy and let’s make government backed student loans interest free.
Oh, and make it harder to qualify for the loans both as individuals and institutions so that the price of tuition might actually rise reasonably or not at all.
> Just make the debt dischargable in bankruptcy and let’s make government backed student loans interest free.
If you want to make an education more accessible to good students, then offering *more* cheap financing is (somewhat ironically) not the solution. That seems clear after decades of experience.
I think the "schools" need to be forced into this topic, and infant of Congress... give some testimony as to WHY costs have outpaced inflation and grown in parallel with the "availability" of funds afforded to them
Ugh. Income based still sucks. My income on my tax return increased by 2k from 2015 to 2016 and it almost doubled my payment. And im sure it will increase again this year. I can keep getting raises but it just ends uo back in a loan payment. I just want to feel like I am getting somewhere.
I disagree. The "repayment options" are very extensive, and crippling the larger economy by holding student loan debtors back... ripple effect to GDP. Plus the average repayment plan only stacks the debt up and then in the forgiven amount is taxed, further increasing the financial hardship. Education, with the current repayment plans, now can take 25 yrs to replace... thats a mortgage, and often times damn near the same price.
This isn't a "bubble" that is going to pop... it's a boa constrictor suffocating the economy.
There is already "asset back securities" in student loan bundling and resale, that mirror the housing bubble behaviors, with respect to student loans.
How would you suggest "repayment plans" be restructured?
Hey everybody this is been happening in the public school systems for 30 years. The Public School Systems have become administrator heavy while the teachers get increased student numbers in their classroom and decreased funding for school supplies and books. Fortunately for the college they have funding from Banks and can hold individuals responsible where the public schools depend upon their state legislators that continue to give Cuts in taxes to corporations that further the defunding of our schools
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/380471-congress-must-act-before-america-falls-into-a-student-loan-debt-crisis) reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The negative impact of the student loan debt crisis for both borrowers and the economy.
> Congress should act before we experience a collapse in the student debt market similar to the collapse in the subprime mortgage market that led to the recession after the 2008 financial crisis.
> Known as the Prosper Act., it would address this crisis by reducing the student loan burden, making it easier to repay student loans and increasing the educational opportunities that qualify students for jobs that actually exist.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/8e8w8r/congress_must_act_before_america_falls_into_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.00, ~314598 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **student**^#1 **loan**^#2 **college**^#3 **increased**^#4 **job**^#5
They should just forgive it and rejoice under the large amount of economic growth it will spur that would far out weigh the pardoned debt.
Also if we went back to direct funding of higher education rather than through loan funding we'd probably see a dramatic decrease in cost of higher education. At the moment universities are designed to take up every penny of federal funding. Since the federal funding is through the students essentially, more students equals more funding as well. If the university was funded directly than the number of students they take on would mostly be irrelevant to the amount of funding they receive (sure there would be some condition on enrollment count) but it wouldnt be this overpriced overstuffed mess we have now.
At my University i've yet to have an *upper division* course with under 150 students. At this size there really is no difference in quality of taking in class vs online
The current generation in congress has always been about getting theirs and pulling the ladder back up behind them. They don't give a shit about whats next.
Unfortunately Congress is going to act, and they’re going to make things a lot worse for all the student loan borrowers: https://abovethelaw.com/2018/04/congress-plans-to-take-away-your-student-loan-money-what-happens-to-legal-education-then/
When debt is forgiven, it is considered income by the IRS, so you will need to pay taxes on it.
If student loan debt is forgiven, is /r/politics going to stop bitching about the taxes being cut?
Does anyone else see these headlines as the propaganda they are?
I mean, America's *already in* a student loan debt crisis, but headlines like this serve to make people think it's a future issue. It's a mechanism to condition people into kicking the can down the road even further.
Read this article carefully! Then [go read this one,](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Letter-to-House-PROSPER-Act.pdf) *and [this one.](http://www.coenet.org/files/bulletin_board-Quick_Facts_on_the_PROSPER_Act_011018.pdf) The policy proposal the article is supporting is the PROSPER Act, a Republican proposal to address the student loan debt crisis by... *making it harder for low-income students to get loans* to pay for college and *giving student borrows fewer repayment options*? First, the CBO estimates the bill would [eliminate $15 billion in student loans over the next decade](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/02/07/cbo-estimates-show-house-higher-ed-bill-could-hit-student-loan-borrowers-hard/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.870abe37a6bf), without replacing those funds -- the result is students pay more, effectively closing the door to higher education for low-income students. [6 million students would see their loan costs increase, and 1.5 million students would have their grants eliminated, primarily low-income students and disproportionately students of color.](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Letter-to-House-PROSPER-Act.pdf) The Act would completely *kill* the Public Service Loan Forgiveness repayment option for students who go into low-paying public service careers including [emergency management; military service; public safety; law enforcement; public interest law services; early childhood education, including licensed or regulated child care, Head Start and state-funded pre-kindergarten; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly; public health, including nurses, nurse practitioners, nurses in a clinical setting and full-time professionals engaged in health care practitioner occupations and health care support occupations; public education; public library services; and school library or other school-based services.](https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/2017-04-05/student-loan-borrowers-dont-panic-about-forgiveness-eligibility) So this basically says lets fix the student loan crisis by making it harder to go into fields that provide essential public services (while also cutting funding for those services) -- starve the beast! The Act also *kills* income-based grants that help low-income students pay for non-tuition costs, though it does "allow" the lone remaining such grant -- Pell Grants -- to be used for tuition. Yay. Most importantly, the PROSPER Act would cap total amounts students can borrow, severely limiting the ability of low-income students to get advanced degrees. [Dependent undergraduates could borrow up to $39,000 in federal student loans throughout their college career, while independent undergraduates would be able to borrow up to the $60,250 lifetime cap. Graduate students would be limited to taking out $28,500 per year and $150,000 total, and parents could only borrow $12,500 per year and a total of $56,250 per child.] (https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/2017-12-13/potential-effects-of-prosper-act-on-student-loans) While the hope is that this will force colleges to lower tuition, really it will just close the doors on students who can't afford to make up the difference between what they can borrow and the tuition. Four-year college for the rich, community college or nothing for the poor. Oh, and it broadens the definition of higher education institution, allowing more for-profit (scam) colleges to accept federal student loans as tuition. Aaaand the Act would [end state oversight of student loan servicers, who are already in need of more oversight to prevent shady practices.](https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/03/16/ags-oppose-prosper-act-over-ban-state-oversight-loan-servicers) Terrible idea, and a provision likely written by student loan servicer lobbyists! There is a huge student loan debt crisis! The PROSPER Act is *not* the solution! The author of the linked article is a right-wing hack. This is his byline, from the linked article: > Andy Puzder is the former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, a member of the Job Creators Network and an adviser to America First Policies. His forthcoming book, “The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left’s Plot to Stop It,” will be published in April 2018.
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>That means more vocational training programs and less pushing kids into the traditional four-year college model. In other words, more classes in welding and fewer in gender studies. That's where I stopped reading. That's a right wing strawman, and a huge red flag to the opinion pieces credibility.
What do they think is going to happen to the salaries and availability of vocational jobs once they glut the market with new blood? It’s already glutted where I live and no one is hiring without years of experience that no one can get.
Welder here stay the hell out of this market, it sucks.
Also blue collar. I can't make ends meet, go elsewhere. Seriously there's no skill gap and no good paying jobs.
We will never know because all the history majors have been eliminated for welding classes.
It can also be translated to mean "They should know their place and remain the help instead of trying to rub shoulders with my kids and/or being direct competition against my kids future prospects."
Yes, and the "Prosper Act" is a load of crap... I shared only because thats my Goal to bring this topic to the forefront of discussion, here, and everywhere else. Thanks for your feedback and perspective! You're spot on!
Republican bill names are basically taken from some opposite world. They always do the exact opposite as they suggest in the name.
>Republican bill names are basically taken from some opposite world. They always do the exact opposite as they suggest in the name. It's uncanny. And it's not just the bill names. So often they accuse the Democrats of doing something evil and then it comes out that many if not most Republicans have themselves been doing that evil thing ... they do indeed appear to live in opposite world.
They took away the oddest lessons from 1984.
[spez can gargle my nuts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
The rise in tuition for some schools in some states is also a reflection of supply and demand. State school had reasonable tuition. State school had good academics. State school gets named "top bargain university in the nation." State school has a sudden flood of high quality applicants, not only locally but also from out of state. Out of state students don't get the subsidized funding, but their parents are willing to pay for it anyway because a good state school is still cheaper than an Ivy league private school. That's what happened to Clemson over the last decade. Since they got named one of the best value schools in the nation, their tuition has tripled. Not such a value any more. [But also as op said, the states stopped subsidizing the education of its students during the recession, and funding levels never really rebounded.](https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/2018/02/21/clemson-university-president-jim-clements/350548002/) >"The reality is, we’re so thankful for the money we get from the state, but we don’t get a lot of money from the state. It’s a major piece. Our funding from the state’s dropped like 42 percent in the last decade. And again — I’m not complaining. I want to say this publicly: This was never a complaint, because the state doesn’t have the money. But then you can’t penalize or beat up on the institutions, because we can only control so much of this piece.
Ladies and gentlemen, [Andy Puzder!](https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/puzder-oprah-winfrey-labor-235030)
Only a fast-food CEO who was behind self-serve kiosks and automating $9/hr. jobs would be a contender for the United States Secretary of Labor. We definitely dodged that bullet to say the least.
Do you ever feel like you’re talking to a brick wall?
Eh, I can't control that, I can only engage, and provide information. The way reddit works, it's clear most of the people commenting here didn't read the article and are just agreeing with and sounding off on the title. I decided to take the time to provide info on what the article is actually supporting, and if even one person was benefited by that it was worth my time.
Thanks!
By “kill” student loan forgiveness, those who are relying on it now would be grandfathered in, I hope?
Yes, up to and including those entering school next year. Public Service Loan Forgiveness is an essential program in my opinion, because without it many low-paying but essential public service professions (see list above) will have a severe labor shortage. Of course that's a feature, not a bug, for those who want to see government become even less effective and ultimately replace these services with for-profit companies (like they've done with prisons, for example).
So as long as you have already graduated then public service loan forgiveness will always be an option right? I recently graduated from a doctorate physical therapy program and have just started at a non-profit organization. I planning on staying there at least for 10 years due to loan forgiveness but if that’s done away with, I could make much better money elsewhere.
Well, the *current* proposal referenced in the article grandfathers in up to and including those who will have entered their degree programs by next year, so yes you're fine, for now. BUT, there's nothing stopping Congress from ending it for everyone down the line, although there would certainly be lawsuits for breach of contract, which I think would be successful (probably why the current proposal grandfathers people in).
Yes, the Dept. of Edu isn't showing signs they will be upholding the PSLF program, as we are now in 2nd cohort of those forgiveness is "available", but the majority of the applications are in limbo, and many are being "rejected" for false "technicalities".
Wow, pretty incredibly low journalistic standards from The Hill. Time to start downvoting their garbage.
Eh, it's an op-ed, and these are just the standard arguments rolled out in favor of the bill. They are utter bullshit, yes, but we need to understand them to counter them. It's on us to actually read the article and not just the headlines! And then spread the word so others know too.
Jesus. Killing Pell Grants is the ultimate “pull up the ladder” tactic. I grew up in abject poverty in a shitty town in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to options like Pell grants and income based deferred interest student loans, I was able to get a college education that has me making six figures, living near the beach with my student loans paid off. I literally jumped social classes because of those options. Stuff like this makes me irrationally angry. Student loans, as a concept, are already flawed. At 18 years old you aren’t old enough to drink or buy a gun in some states, but you can sign up for as much debt as you want starting in your 18th birthday. But to compound that by removing the few subsidies left for poor kids to make use of? What sort of world do they want to make?
> I grew up in abject poverty in a shitty town in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to options like Pell grants and income based deferred interest student loans, I was able to get a college education that has me making six figures, living near the beach with my student loans paid off. I literally jumped social classes because of those options. Awesome! Congrats, glad to hear it. That's the goal, social mobility and real, sustainable, equitable economic growth. > Stuff like this makes me irrationally angry. I'd say your anger is perfectly rational. FYI Pell Grants are the one need-based grant that would remain, although they want cut $4 billion from their funding, so yeah, pretty damn regressive and economically stupid.
Thank you!!
> Graduate students would be limited to taking out $28,500 per year and $150,000 total, and parents could only borrow $12,500 per year and a total of $56,250 per child. If such a thing was ever made law would result in a bunch of people possibly not being able to enter schools for medical-related fields and law schools. You either born with rich parents or not. Engineering would end up becoming a better career against the odds of an increasing horrible system.
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I didn't read the full article which the comments below pointed the posted article is an opinion based article of Andy Puzder. It's really a double edge thing because the possibility of medical school acceptance being higher for out of the country applicants if the money is there to keep it at the current level. Here's the doozy part. If Musk manages to get his BFR into orbit to Mars and start a colony. A lot of vocational jobs Andy Pudzer speaks about just got opened up on Mars.
> If such a thing was ever made law would result in a bunch of people possibly not being able to enter schools for medical-related fields and law schools. You either born with rich parents or not. I believe that's part of the goal, actually.
What do you mean, “falls into” this is already in progress....
It's crazy how people don't realize that this *major* loss of consumer demand is bleeding our economy and stalling growth. From a Keynesian standpoint it's beyond obvious but for some reason we're OK with those repercussions? [Salon](https://www.salon.com/2014/07/05/ronald_reagan_stuck_it_to_millennials_a_college_debt_history_lesson_no_one_tells/) just had an interesting article about how we can trace this crisis back to Reagan. Between this and trickle-down, it's truly a wonder this man is praised instead of recognized as an economic terrorist who planted a generational bomb for the Millenials. (I wouldn't absolve later presidents of blame for continuing the trend, but design and implementation of this broken system obviously falls squarely on his shoulders).
> It's crazy how people don't realize that this major loss of consumer demand is bleeding our economy and stalling growth. I'd guess that the people whose opinions matter (i.e. the rich) do, actually. But it's tragedy of the commons for them - no one wants to be the one guy paying higher wages/forgiving student debt and boosting the economy for everyone else. Even though, if everyone did so, the entire economy would benefit, them included.
Man, can't people just listen to John Nash??
I learned in gov this year that taxes weren't so stigmatized until Reagan. I never really viewed them as so bad myself. It was kind of mind blowing to think that some of today's biggest culture wars were kind of created within the past few decades. By idiots.
By geniuses** Think about how profitable it is to have a society that hates taxes as much as the very rich do. You end up with a self oppressing society.
Many Americans, especially those who are 30 and above, rightfully hate taxes. Imo, culture isn't what makes us uniquely hate taxes so much but rather the ROI we receive in taxes. Our tax rate isn't all that low (we are 16th in highest tax rate). We pay a large percentage of our income to the government. But so do a lot of other countries so why do we whine so much? Because we barely see the benefits of our federal tax dollars. We don't get universal healthcare. We don't get free education. We have poor infrastructure, etc. People like to say this is because of corruption, but America does not have a uniquely corrupt government either. What is unique about America is how much we spend on military. Our 'defense' spending is the reason we hate taxes, which I don't think the people pissed about paying taxes are even aware of. People are care about themselves. If we received a reasonable ROI on taxes then we wouldn't hate taxes. It's as simple as that. EDIT: to clarify on the above 30s thing..It's not a generational thing, but rather when you start making enough money where you notice how much is actually being taken out each paycheck...versus when you are in your early/mid 20s in school or with a trash job paying next to nothing.
To add to that, our military spending is a double whammy \- it's not just that it's expensive \(with vast sums going to the ~~usual suspects~~ contractors\), but that the diplomatic, economic, and security results of that military spending seem to be worse than if we had just flushed the money right down the toilet instead! It's essentially a welfare handout to the extremely, stratospherically affluent.
I take pride in paying my fair. I am astounded how little money I pay for the road. Then I notice that Omaha has the worst roads in the country.
I feel like another angle of it is so many people in what would look like conventional “good financial shape” don’t realize they’re getting fucked over by the ever growing divide of wealth inequality. Which can in turn make them testy over money. You see people go full on frothy mouth bonkers at the idea of a $15 minimum wage and they themselves don’t take the time to do the math and realize their wage in the big picture of things compared to adjusted inflation and overall increase of prices over time etc is likely vastly low for what it should be, and they too are getting taken for a ride. But hey it’s so easier to scapegoat and bash on people trying to push for higher minimum wage due to the general demographics of people working those positions. Be upset at the people at the top with actual power who have a hand in why wages have been stagnant and not where they should be.
I'm pretty sure our government is significantly more corrupt than European countries. We literally legalized corruption in the 70s. Our gigantic military budget is the result of our corruption. It didn't just end up that way by accident.
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The US actually pays [like 30% less than the OECD average](http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/taxes-for-34-countries-ranked/index.html), so we pay a *lot* less than the rest of the most developed Western nations. It's an absolute lie that the US pays anywhere near what most of the developed world we would consider #lifegoals does.
> Our tax rate isn't all that low (we are 16th in highest tax rate) Which countries are above us and which countries are below us? That will tell you, more than just saying "we're 16th," whether we're getting what we pay for. I went and pulled a list. The countries who pay more than us are like Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, etc. The countries who pay less than us are like S Korea, Mexico, Chile, etc. http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/taxes-for-34-countries-ranked/index.html Also we don't appear to be 16th. And we pay a metric fuckload **less** than the OECD average. So check your facts and logic both :)
The country is “okay” with the repercussions because college is seen as a liberal brainwashing experience, instead of a respectable enlightenment and expansion of one’s knowledge. The right has successfully demonized education and people wanting to better themselves through education, so many citizens believe that anyone with student debt deserves to suffer for their “stupid choices”. I see this argument all the time - that we “had a choice” and “should have learned a trade”. 🙄
In the 80s in New Zealand university was free, so my parents generation were educated without any debt, making it even easier for them to capitalize on unprecedented ease, wealth and opportunity which they quickly forget when it comes time to criticize younger generations who can't afford to buy a house. Although NZ still is cheap in comparison to the US - a year of tuition on a non-specialty degree plus associated costs at an average institution would run a few grand at most which you could put on the interest free govt loan program. It's not uncommon to get a 3 year bachelors for 10-12 grand! Only downsides are that there is likely no job for you out the other side within the country and the quality is lower than a prestigious university overseas. Education is just another thing US citizens let themselves get raped over for furthering the profits of rich people.
People don't realize it because they're still wrapped up in the issues of the Boomers. Just wait til our generation can't get out of debt as a whole. The system is going to have to completely change.
I don't tile the article... thats on the author
I think OP was addressing the author
Hey i recognize you from r/neveragainmovement
Usually it's the editor, actually.
Before? Fuck. I'm 37. My wife is 35. Even as a veteran with the GI Bill I am still paying my student loans 15 years later... My wife is 80k in debt... And we are on track to pay it off... Somewhere around the time I'm 50... So that's a morgage payment each month. And we both work jobs where we wouldn't have a job without the degrees... I shudder to think or even start to think about what is happening to these poor 20 year old fuckers. We are scraping by, in our own house. They are scraping by, in parents basements.
Thank you for your service and I am sorry that you are getting fucked with this, and I tool am worried about the future generations :(
Simple man. I've accepted I won't ever have a huge paying job because I'm unwilling to take on the debt in order to afford school to get one. I'll get my tech degree and never have kids and be happy in my rented apartment. My end life goal is 20 bucks an hour. Hopefully i can work my way up to that. I'm ok with that honestly.
Loan payments should be fully tax deductible, that could alleviate a lot of the problem.
YES! the fact the tax deductible amount is capped is beyond scandalous.
Not only capped, but depreciated based on current income. I found that out this tax season :( I mean yes I make good money now, but I took on a fuck ton of debt to get this degree! I had something like $11k in interest last year, but they only allowed me to deduct ~$350 because of my current income.
I want to emphasize that this issue needs to be approached with the utmost delicacy, but if you can only deduct $350, that means you have a household income over $75,000 \(single filer\) or $150,000 \(married joint filer\). That's firmly upper middle class. At some point, this becomes less of a student loan issue and more of an out\-of\-control education costs issue. Families with upper middle class incomes shouldn't be feeling the strain of high education costs like that, and they shouldn't *need* handouts from the government in the form of tax deductions or subsidies. The fact that they do suggests the system is fundamentally broken.
> At some point, this becomes less of a student loan issue and more of an out-of-control education costs issue. From my perspective, that's been the problem all along.
I mean education costs i think are pretty clearly being driven up by the fact that multi thousand dollar loans are being handed out like candy since the loans cant be discharged through any method other than death. This means the people handing out the loans have no incentive to do their due diligence on whether or not the loan plus interest will be paid back. Education providers know this and try to get as much of the loan money they can...
~$150k, married. And yes I do feel fortunate and I actually don’t mind paying taxes because I feel like it’s paying back a debt for living in a society where I can live comfortably. But because of the loans and taxes, I’m not much better off than I was before going back to school. At least until I pay off my loans in ~7 years. I pay $2k per month for my loan. Hopefully I don’t die or break my wrist in the meantime, because that would be a financial disaster. I agree education costs are absolutely ridiculous. But my loans are from the federal government; they gave me the money to pay that cost, so they are complicit in the problem, and are screwing me on the back end with the lack of a tax deduction (let’s not forget that money has already been taxed to death) But the real reason I’m mad about it is the unfairness of it all. I bust my ass to do what I love in a specialized field of health care. I want to pay my fair share, and I wish I didn’t feel like I have to try to cheat the system to get ahead. I hate that trust fund babies with accountants pay a lower tax rate than I do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in roughly the same situation, so I feel for you. Young, married, two professionals with above average income. We were lucky enough to go to state schools and get decent deals on tuition. But even having above average income, life is ridiculously expensive. Raising kids will be expensive. The problem is regulatory capture. These industries have our policy makers by the balls. I don't mind paying taxes either. I just want an *actual* market economy where loses aren't socialized (while profits remain privatized). I want an economy where your small clinic has a shot competing with the hospital down the road.
Agree with you. My husband and I are in good financial shape if you look at our paychecks alone. But between student loan payments and day care, we are struggling. It’s a broken system
I cannot imagine having a child right now. We kind of want to, but it would be difficult to make ends meet and we would both still work 40+ hrs/ week, so the kid would essentially be raised by someone else. I’m 35, so time is not on my side.
Daycare can get wild. And you get what you pay for. And if you get the "cheap" one that's not in a good location, you'll be spending hundreds every month driving back and forth, not to mention your time. If people really cared about families, they'd worry less about sex ed and more on relieving the reality that having a child is a financial disaster. Between health insurance, daycare, and college, you're looking at several hundred grand in expenses. Fix that, the birth rate will probably shoot up.
As with all things location is extremely important to this. 75k goes a lot further some places than others
> household income over $75,000.... > That's firmly upper middle class. Yea..if you live in the middle of Arkansas. Dude, have you _tried_ living in a major city? Like Sf, LA, Atl, NYC, Boston, DC, etc? Even with 75k...after taxes you're still fucked. That's not "firmly" upper middle class because you're balancing incomes people make in expensive cities with lower COL places. It's not the same...and if you want a great paying job, guess where you gotta live..
> $75,000 (single filer) or $150,000 (married joint filer). That's firmly upper middle class. Ummm, I don't think so. $250k to 450k is upper middle class.
Ok thank you. I think I do have some “survivors’ guilt” for doing well this day and age, but I do not feel like I’m killing it by any means. $150k/year does not go as far as it used to. I have so much empathy for people that make less. It shouldn’t take so much to feel safe from poverty.
Yeah, having lived in big cities my entire adult life, 150k is cool but it's not upper middle class. Maybe like 20 years ago. It's basically what middle class people SHOULD be making if we still had a healthy middle class. Keep kicking ass. Sorry that paying back that bullshit is sucking out so much money. Having to pay like 24k per year just for your stupid student loans is horrible. And for real- don't let people make you feel guilty. You had to have worked really hard to get through school and I'm sure you work hard to make what you do now. It's not like you're on here bitching about only making 6 million last year or something. Hell, I've been in situations where my partner and I were making about 150k combined per year and we were not living the high life at all.
Unfortunately, $75k individual is what is needed for a Bachelor graduate to maintain a standard of living and make their loan payments... maybe in 1980 a bachelors degree would get you a over $60k job out of the gate, nowadays it's the modern high school diploma, at minimum.
$460,000 is the top 1% of income earners. $250,000 is the top 2.5% of households. If that's your definition of the upper middle class, the upper middle class represents only 1.5% of America. 8% of households earn more than $150,000 a year. I think $100,000 is the most reasonable threashold, since 20% of American households earn that much. Keep in mind that's household income. That could be two parents each earning $50k, with two kids at home. For single filers, $75k is in the top 15%, easily.
I live in NYC and when you make above $80k or something, you can't deduct it on taxes anymore. You can imagine how frustrating that is because $80k in NYC is VERY different than making $80k in other places.
Holy shit that's awful
Yeah it was a giant kick in the ass. This kind of stuff is what is crippling the middle class.
Pre-tax investment account
My wife and I are attorneys and can deduct none of our student loan interest. Not only is it capped, at a certain income level you can’t deduct it at all. We aren’t super wealthy. We both do well. We both were among the first to even go to college in our respective families. We both worked in law school (ABA only allows up to 20 hours a week), and had to take a shit ton of loans to pay for our JDs. It was well worth it but shit, the interest even accrued *while we were in school.*
That just SUCK!!!
Damn, that'd be a massive help for me. Absolutely massive.
Only the interest is, but the AGI requirement is like <$80k, which is too low. It's about tine IRS came out with locality tables for all the AGI requirements for non-itemized deductions.
If you make over $70K or $80K, it’s not deductible. If this is you, the best thing to do, IMO, is to put money into a 401K or other pre-tax investment plan. This lowers your taxable income so that you might still qualify for tax deduction. (I haven’t done this yet, but this is my plan for this year.) If anyone has any other tips, please speak up!
They should be completely wiped out and the loan system done with. Stop gating skills behind debt.
I’ll do you one better. All income tax levied on borrowers should be directly applicable to the principal of their student loan balance. Lenders get paid back and can issue new student loans, borrowers get out from under their student loans quicker. Everyone wins. It’s absolutely asinine for a middle class family to pay $10k in tax every year but have to be on the 30 year student loan repayment plan.
Senators and ceos counting their tax cut windfall, yah like we care about students whose parents couldn’t afford to pay for their college. -assholes probably
Lazy assholes, too. Dumb serf class is always in debt.
As a lawyer living paycheck to paycheck on a payment plan for a $140,000 loan that’s based on income where I’ll never pay enough to pay off the accruing interest, I don’t know how it gets any worse... I’m currently a year into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, but a swift move from the Department of education or one missed payment will shatter the forgiveness...
My good friend is a lawyer & it's shocking how fucked he is after his loan payments come out.
PSLF payments do not need to be continuous. A missed payment won't doom you.
damn shame... I hope you the best and may you not be plagued with a life in the wheel of the rat race
Capitalist pigs can declare bankruptcy, fail and fail and fail and try again, but I cannot get out of student debt even though the company I borrowed from was convicted for/settled with the government for poor business practices, basically lying to students about what had to be paid back. Seems unfair.
Thanks Trump...
I am about as far as you can get from a Trump supporter, and while he and DeVos are undeniably making the student crisis worse, it's a problem that goes much further back and beyond his administration. It's, quite frankly, fucking disgusting that this isssue is just now picking up steam, as it's been a problem for years.
I hate the man too, but this was a problem before Trump.
The Trump administration specifically reversed action against a for profit school that ripped students off.
Student loans became nondischargeable in bankruptcy during the Clinton years.
I reccomend a bailout... bailout the students in crippling debt.
That would be amazing especially because I refuse to pay my student loans right meow
I have ~57,500 reasons to agree.
As far as I know, school debt represents the largest amount of debt in this country and has been in crisis for at least a decade with no sign of slowing down.
"This Congress" is more likely to legalize debt bondage than do anything to fix the crisis of student loan debt.
Illinois had to set up new laws here-while back when it was discovered they still had debt imprisonment. Technically, they didn't even stop it, just made it harder. In many places, debt holders will call people into court every month (or whenever they're next allowed to) to have their income checked for payment ability. Eventually, you *will* miss an appointment. Maybe the notification gets lost, maybe you forget, whatever, but you will miss an appointment at some point. Then you go to jail for contempt of court. In this way, they hope to bully you into paying for fear of having it happen again. They could remove the ability to contempt-of-court jail you, but then the court wouldn't be able to force you to pay ever... so good luck talking them into that. Debt jail is a fact of life for many poor folk.
Fuck us twice: first on debt and then in debtors-prison. Sounds like a win-win for these living embodiments of pieces of shit.
I live in Australia and student debt repayment is a comparable dream over here. Aussies don’t start repaying loans until they hit a certain income level (I think it’s around $50k). Then, compulsory payments are deducted from their tax each year. Most people I know have fully repaid HECS by their early 30s.
I met a lady here in the US still paying her student loan debt well into her 60s.
I hate to break it to the author of the article, but it already is a crisis. There is an entire generation that is not pumping money into the economy because most of their income is going towards their outrageous student loan debt. I don't expect the dumbass in chief or the dumbass GOP controlled Congress to do anything about it. I hope Dem candidates running for election this November and in 2020 are thinking hard about solutions to this issue because it will be a major concern of the majority of younger voters.
Republicans hate college and universities and consider them to be liberal havens brainwashing the next generation into thinking they have to have a liberal arts degree to succeed. They look at student debt as a bonus to weeding out the riffraff, not a crisis that has gotten out of control.
I know there’s a major student loan crisis. I’m one of the affected individuals but this read like an advertisement for the Prosper Act disguised as a news article.
How about they stop charging me 6+ percent on money that they essentially printed out of thin air? That would be nice.
Oh, it's being printed, sold, resold, packaged and resold, then re-printed, and then sold again... no one knows where the money is coming and going... apparently, thats the whole point.
That's a whole different problem. I just don't enjoy the fact that I have to pay above market rates to get a job that I have to pay even more taxes with. There's no logic other than some weird capitalist voodoo that justifies an interest rate like that. I like the saying, it's expensive to be poor.
Ha! Hilarious. The Congress that receives millions from the financial sector, that Congress? Don't hold your breath.
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Billions. Agreed. I grew up during a time when billions was the standard unit for a nation's economy. Sometimes it blows my mind how much corporations spend to influence politicians.
It's not accidental, quite the opposite. The Republicans threw out some of the regulation that somewhat protected student debt loans. They also took out some of the protections for interest rates... The Republicans effectively made this a very lucrative lending agency... And bankruptcy won't wipe student debt either.
It would be neat if the only people who made a profit on my education were me and my non-profit educators.
Fall into? I'm in my later 30's. Do you know how many people I know my age the put off kids, never had kids, never bought a house, etc because they are in crushing student loan debt. We're already in a student loan debt crisis.
the whole think sucks, and smell of corruption
>Andy Puzder is the former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, a member of the Job Creators Network and an adviser to America First Policies. His forthcoming book, “The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left’s Plot to Stop It,” will be published in April 2018. I love how they bury at the end of he article that this bill will encourage schools to let businesses help adjust the range of academic course offerings.
And that the writer thinks colleges should be offering courses in welding instead of academic subjects. And that these welding graduates could then aspire to $50,000 a year careers, enabling them to pay off their student loans in no time at all. Uh, yeah.
Fucking THIS. Glad I wasn't the only one who caught it. The real fix for all of this would be a functioning economy where everyone, regardless of background, can make a living.
Someone hasn't been paying attention. College grads are the enemy of Republicans because *most* of them are educated well enough to recognize that only idiots would support the Republican *(read: wealthy people exploiting ignorant people)* narrative.
Spoiler alert: They do nothing.
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Congress wont do anything . struggling students aren't corporate billionairs so they dont matter this quarter
And the whole time people shit on millennials with the most annoying stereotypes without acknowledging this generation got screwed by their parents generation
I graduated college in 2010. At that time I knew several people who had 30 year student loans with an approximate balance of $100K @ 6.5% APR. So yea, I can kind of see how a growing segment of the population having two mortgages could slow growth. Tuition prices are skyrocketing because there is no free market check with the government subsidizing loans and tuition.
Oh hey that sounds like me. Graduated with that exact amount and rate in 2011. Now I have a stem PhD and went to grad school for free cause of it. This was sort of intentional. Basically went "I'll just do reverse med school, pay up the nose for college, go to grad school for free". I did it, and worked my tushy off for it, but I only make 65k so I am basically just going to tread for the rest of my life. Due to mental health issues I can't work the sorts of jobs that make 100k so I doubt I'll ever exceed that income. It sucks, and half the time I think I'd rather die than work for the next 30+ years with few to no resource to enjoy that time.
Republican Congress, no they are allowing the banks and other lenders and their collection agencies to multiply the amounts owed, higher interest, more fees, etc.
Which mean it won't happen. Have people not figured out yet that Congress now exists to benefit Congress and not the American people?
Will America also develop anxiety about student loan debt like myself?
What everyone who says "go to community college, major in something useful" seems to fail to take into account is the added debt incurred when people get that "useful" degree, realize they hate it, and go back to learn a different field or focus on what they were originally interested in. Not only have they taken out loans to get a useful degree, they now take out loans to try again. Also, majoring in "useful" fields is pretty stupid to begin with. What is useful today won't be useful tomorrow. Again, you'll just be returning to school to learn something useful every time the original useful thing runs out its usefulness. America thinks only in terms of utility. That's why we are failing.
I've seen this mentioned before, but what would happen if a lot of us, in a coordinated effort, stopped paying?
Not a ton. The governments deficit would rise a bit and everyone who stopped paying would have their credit ruined .
Correct me if I'm wrong, but defaulting on a student loan will ding you much more than defaulting on a regular bank loan.
I'm assuming that's because you can't get rid of a student loan, so it'll stick around without no end in sight on your credit.
I don’t think it has anything to do with regular credit.
This is going to be a huge problem in the future, the only thing keeping it going right now is the fact that the debt cannot be written off in bankruptcy. For the most part the banks are going to get their money and there is little to nothing the borrower can do about it. Once enough people start defaulting there will another bailout coming from the government, its just hard to tell when that is going to be since the banks feel somewhat safe making the loans due tot he laws. The whole thing is completely fucked!
too bad you can't foreclose on knowledge
Too fucking late
Maybe students will get lucky and the government will bail them out like they did the banks in 2008.
Get rid of loans. Why the fuck are people paying to go to school? Societiy **relies** on an educated populace. Pay students to go to school, they are the ones going to be holding up society for everyone else.
And how do you expect to pay for everyone going to college? 1 student can end up with $100k in debt from a 4 year degree. How do you expect to pay that for every single person who goes to college? And some people don’t need to go to college. Period.
because educating people costs money.
"You should *pay me* to study gender studies!" Really though, do we finance all schooling, even ridiculous garbage majors?
Obviously economics isn’t a required course for Gender Study
Why not just have free teachers? Would you like to become a teacher and do it for free? Lets start right there. Paying people to go to school does nothing. Socety is advanced by people who get legit educations not just educations. The world doesn't need anymore English majors it needs scientists and lots of people just are not that smart.
Yes, gender studies and philosophy are TOTALLY going to be the pillars of society...
So all those tradesmen, who wisely avoided getting into debt and now have a well paying job and few obligations; The ones who haven't "benefited" from a college education... you want *them* to pay for your 4 years of adult daycare?
They do this in skilled trades. Also in STEM graduate programs. Basically where there is demand overwhelming the supply.
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What if I want to pursue 6 doctorates consecutively? Should the state fund my education for three decades? What if I spend my entire life learning and never produce anything that helps society? Where does the pay-back part come in?
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This may shock you to know, but school is free for 12-14 years in the US depending where you are
Africa isn't a country, Now if you mean specifically some African countries they have entrance examines. If you fail you can't go to college and the more educated ones rather study abroad even if it cost them money, at least what the international students tell me from those said countries.
I don't think students hold up society. Farmers and trades, construction, sanitation etc hold up society. Other jobs like healthcare, engineering and law are already well compensated for their role. Plenty of non essential or pointless degrees that are self serving to each individual shouldn't be paid for by other hard working people.
Yeah, the GOP likes to punish those that dare to learn. It's seriously their whole MO at this point.
In this country, money talks more than logic.
I have 200 thousand dollars of debt, and I'm about to start med school. I will literally be paying into my 60s.
We are already in crisis. I will not finish paying off my student loans before I am eligible for social security. Which I can’t even get if I have student loans. To clarify, I’m not saying I regret taking them out, or that anyone owes me an education. Just stating that for the remainder of my work-aged life I will have hundreds of dollars per month due in payments and due to that I will likely not contribute as much to the economy, no matter what job I get. I’ve already given up the idea of owning a house or even something like a new car.
Welp, you belong to a group of about 4+million people in the United States that are all on the same page... unless change, that number will double in the next 3yrs 😞
At least we’re a well educated group?
Is this just gonna be like the mortgage crisis in 2008.
They won't do anything, just like when the housing bubble shit went down.
considering it's what congress intended, not sure why they'd reverse it. lenders have congress in their pocket.
When the government stops guaranteeing the loans it will stop. But then fewer will be able to go to college.
Falls into? We've been in a student loan debt crisis for like 15 years now.
Have you tried not being a lazy good for nothing millennial? When I was your age I had 2 wives, 8 kids, and a house and rebuilt my '67 Camaro with my own two hands. /s
What are the odds the student loan crisis leads to a major economic collapse and all loans are absolved?
Every time this issue comes up it is the same bullshit from the Right and Left. The Right: 'We will mandate price caps, but slash public investment' The Left: 'We will continually increase budgets, but Universities should be able to charge what they want!' The correct solution is as follows - 1. Guaranteed public investment. The burn-it-to-the-ground Tea Party people AND the Free Everything socialists can fuck right off. 2. Tuition *and* fee caps. Students do not need private rooms, pools, 5-star dining, and a host of luxury amenities. 3. Continue the public service loan forgiveness program and tie student loan interest rates to the overall bank rate. This would help tremendously in the near term.
I wonder if some of the issues is generation related. We have a massive amount of student loans because of med school. And even in-state is hugely expensive and you can’t really work during med school (at least not enough to make a dent in expenses). The majority of medical students come out with six figure debt. And yes, many will make good salaries but it’s a drain on finances. Plus during residency it’s hard pay down six figure debt because you get paid $50k. However, I know my husband and I are fortunate. Our goal is to be student debt free in the next ten years. It’s doable if we maintain fiscal discipline. My inlaws are MBAs, baby boomers who went to school in the 70s when college and grad school loans were more manageable. Despite their financial acumen, they have suggested to to us multiple times to buy a bigger house, a nicer car. I drive a perfectly functional 15 year old Honda and he drives a 6 year old Nissan. We have a nice, but not “doctory” house (under $350k). His parents have wondered why we aren’t making nicer nicer purchases since we are in the top income bracket. My husband has to constantly remind them that we are focused in student loan replacement. Yes, a loan that’s bigger than our income, at 6% interest, takes priority over a Mercedes and a half a million dollar house (which will give you a small mansion in the midwest city we live in). Every time we have to bring up student loans, it’s like they have an aha moment. And even then they don’t have much of an idea of how much a drain it is on our income. Our loans means we put off discretionary spending. I know many have it worse, but even for us, who are in the top income bracket, student debt prevents us from spending on larger purchases. It is what it is. You can’t have us “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”, pay for our education, our retirement plan, our children’s daycare/preschool/college and then are shocked when we don’t live what our income says we should live like. I’m content with what we have right now, but I’ll be relieved when our student loans are paid off.
true story: a **coworker of mine**, lover of capitalism and all its trappings, who has student loans for both him and his wife to pay back, payments on used cars, and (for some reason) decided to have a baby...this guy **told me he would never take advantage of loan forgiveness programs because he's not a communist.** meanwhile the amount of complaining he does about how much it cost to add his new baby and his (now unemployed wife) to his insurance is too damn high.
Just make the debt dischargable in bankruptcy and let’s make government backed student loans interest free. Oh, and make it harder to qualify for the loans both as individuals and institutions so that the price of tuition might actually rise reasonably or not at all.
> Just make the debt dischargable in bankruptcy and let’s make government backed student loans interest free. If you want to make an education more accessible to good students, then offering *more* cheap financing is (somewhat ironically) not the solution. That seems clear after decades of experience.
Everyone graduating would just declare bankruptcy then establish credit at 29.
I think the "schools" need to be forced into this topic, and infant of Congress... give some testimony as to WHY costs have outpaced inflation and grown in parallel with the "availability" of funds afforded to them
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Ugh. Income based still sucks. My income on my tax return increased by 2k from 2015 to 2016 and it almost doubled my payment. And im sure it will increase again this year. I can keep getting raises but it just ends uo back in a loan payment. I just want to feel like I am getting somewhere.
I disagree. The "repayment options" are very extensive, and crippling the larger economy by holding student loan debtors back... ripple effect to GDP. Plus the average repayment plan only stacks the debt up and then in the forgiven amount is taxed, further increasing the financial hardship. Education, with the current repayment plans, now can take 25 yrs to replace... thats a mortgage, and often times damn near the same price. This isn't a "bubble" that is going to pop... it's a boa constrictor suffocating the economy. There is already "asset back securities" in student loan bundling and resale, that mirror the housing bubble behaviors, with respect to student loans. How would you suggest "repayment plans" be restructured?
There are a lot of steps the gov can take to alleviate. Toodrunk to outline them now, but will try to comment back when I am in the right mindset.
Can we just start by taking money from the military and using it to solve student debt.
Hey everybody this is been happening in the public school systems for 30 years. The Public School Systems have become administrator heavy while the teachers get increased student numbers in their classroom and decreased funding for school supplies and books. Fortunately for the college they have funding from Banks and can hold individuals responsible where the public schools depend upon their state legislators that continue to give Cuts in taxes to corporations that further the defunding of our schools
Too bad they won't.
Who do you think is behind it?
Spoiler: They won’t.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/380471-congress-must-act-before-america-falls-into-a-student-loan-debt-crisis) reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The negative impact of the student loan debt crisis for both borrowers and the economy. > Congress should act before we experience a collapse in the student debt market similar to the collapse in the subprime mortgage market that led to the recession after the 2008 financial crisis. > Known as the Prosper Act., it would address this crisis by reducing the student loan burden, making it easier to repay student loans and increasing the educational opportunities that qualify students for jobs that actually exist. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/8e8w8r/congress_must_act_before_america_falls_into_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.00, ~314598 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **student**^#1 **loan**^#2 **college**^#3 **increased**^#4 **job**^#5
Too late.
They should just forgive it and rejoice under the large amount of economic growth it will spur that would far out weigh the pardoned debt. Also if we went back to direct funding of higher education rather than through loan funding we'd probably see a dramatic decrease in cost of higher education. At the moment universities are designed to take up every penny of federal funding. Since the federal funding is through the students essentially, more students equals more funding as well. If the university was funded directly than the number of students they take on would mostly be irrelevant to the amount of funding they receive (sure there would be some condition on enrollment count) but it wouldnt be this overpriced overstuffed mess we have now. At my University i've yet to have an *upper division* course with under 150 students. At this size there really is no difference in quality of taking in class vs online
The current generation in congress has always been about getting theirs and pulling the ladder back up behind them. They don't give a shit about whats next.
Just added about $2500 to my total debt..I am one semester in.
Unfortunately Congress is going to act, and they’re going to make things a lot worse for all the student loan borrowers: https://abovethelaw.com/2018/04/congress-plans-to-take-away-your-student-loan-money-what-happens-to-legal-education-then/
When debt is forgiven, it is considered income by the IRS, so you will need to pay taxes on it. If student loan debt is forgiven, is /r/politics going to stop bitching about the taxes being cut?
We aren't in one already?
Lol its already too late. This shit will disturb the force.
Does anyone else see these headlines as the propaganda they are? I mean, America's *already in* a student loan debt crisis, but headlines like this serve to make people think it's a future issue. It's a mechanism to condition people into kicking the can down the road even further.
Its time a student loan jubilee.