Just cancel student debt already

[NewOrleans]

Dec 25, 2021 15:46:42 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

Dec 23, 2021 23:29:01 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Is there some reason that we are not looking at limiting student loans? That is a big part of the problem. If you are getting a degree in Music Therapy, you lifetime earnings are limited. You should not be allowed to take out student loans for $200K. Same with parent loans. I was just talking to my FIL, and he has a friend who is 80, who has $300K in student loans for his 4 kids, plus whatever they have. It is great that little Josphyne gets into X marks the spot University, but if you can't afford to pay for it, with more than a car loan, it is very likely best that she goes to Y, and gets a better deal. It is infuriating to me that they want tax payer dollars to cover college student loans, when they are the highest earners. We need more trades people. I have a friend who works in a factory. He wants to retire, but his employer cannot find apprentices who are interested in doing the kind of work he does, which requires a great deal of skill and training, but not a college degree. He does well, and was here on a visa for many years, until he became a citizen. If college degrees cannot fund themselves, then perhaps we should re-evaluate what we are teaching.

You have a touch of Communist ideology running through your posts.

🤣

Bury me in satin 

[AAM2012]

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

[pixy0stix]

Dec 26, 2021 10:24:02 GMT -5 jennyparnassus said:

I thought up another angle to one of the arguments being made here.

Prior posters have brought up the argument that people should forgo college and prepare for a career in the trades.

I know that "the trades" can encompass a lot of things, and each skilled trade requires different skill sets and working conditions. I also know that working in the trades are honorable ways to support one's family and also that tradespeople demand and deserve as much dignity as anybody else, maybe more. 


One reason that I never considered the trades was because my parents really pushed for me to go to a four-year college (my dad is a retired high school teacher).  My dad maintained that he knew people who worked for decades in physically demanding trades and wore out their bodies and that many of them that he knew had a lot of physical pain by their 40's and 50's.

But - a huge reason that I never considered going into any trade was because I am a female, and based on my personal experiences as a teenager, many of the males that I knew who were preparing for careers in various trades had already sexually harassed me and were emotionally abusive to me. This is based on my experiences as a female at a high school that had a program for high school students preparing for trades. Even though I was in a completely different study track in high school, we shared the same building, the same hallways, the same cafetaria.

Most of the trades that I knew about as a teenager were dominated by males.

So, for the people advocating that females prepare for careers in various trades, what resources are available to address their concerns about being "the only" or "one of the only" females in traditionally male-dominated careers?

About the same as those in place for STEM careers, ie none.

[imojoebunny]

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

[redheadbaker]

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

So, absolutely no acknowledgement or apology for the offensive shit you wrote about music therapists? Fuck you. 

[seeyalater52]

When you’re so close to grasping the point and yet… still so far.

[kadams767]

Dec 25, 2021 23:49:28 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Dec 24, 2021 9:16:07 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Holy shit. I know that I am in the minority because I believe in higher education for education's sake. I think it benefits everyone to have a well-educated populace.

This is slightly a tangent, but I’d push back a little bit in regards to higher education equaling the only way to have a well-educated populace. I do think in many ways elite education plays right in to white supremacy. Most of what I’ve learned in regards to Black history and read the works of Black people and inspirations has definitely NOT come from traditional educational models in this country.

Many of the artists and musicians I know are brilliant and didn’t go to college. Many of my friends in other countries didn’t go to college and they are very educated and intelligent. Just wanted to point that out as I think it’s important for all of us to remember and recognize.

I agree, it isn’t the only way.  And for some, likely not the best way either.  I never said or meant to imply that a person cannot be intelligent or brilliant without going to college.  I would still advocate for, and love to see, a world where there are good options available for everyone for higher learning, though.  

[NewOrleans]

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, 

Well, it is a poor people don’t deserve majors of their choice, or poor people only deserve the trades. So.  

[polarbearfans]

I would love a little student loan relief. I get that the loans were my choice, but they were not explained well..and then I graduated at the beginning of the recession. Jobs were not plentiful and didn’t pay all that well. My husband graduated law school at the same time, and while he was able to get a good job it was not high paying and his loans were a struggle. Many from his graduating class were unable to find jobs at all.

Almost 15 years repaying my loans and I have barely made a dent. Most were around 2.5% interest but the last year of college was 6.5%! These are all federal loans.

I will say the freeze on interest has allowed me to make major dents as in the beginning I was still making payments until money got too tight due to rising living costs and unplanned health care costs. Having a school age child is expensive since the school requires covid tests at every sniffle, and the first year they were not allowing that at-home rapid tests and I had to pay for video pediatrician visits to get a referral for testing. That was the year of meeting 3 deductibles due to employer change and insurance resets.

Limiting interest rates could make a big impact on student loan debt, but college should also just be made more affordable. I also wish they talked up more taking classes at the local community college to off set costs more… it was briefly mention but made to sound harder than it was. My last year I had to take a class at the community college since a class I needed wasn’t available the quarter I needed… so much cheaper, instead of a 300 person lecture I was in a class of 10 students, and the equipment was much much nicer for the lab. Looking back I would have some more of my general education classes at the community college. It was less than half what I was paying at the university I graduated from.

[aurora]

Dec 26, 2021 19:41:13 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Dec 25, 2021 23:49:28 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

This is slightly a tangent, but I’d push back a little bit in regards to higher education equaling the only way to have a well-educated populace. I do think in many ways elite education plays right in to white supremacy. Most of what I’ve learned in regards to Black history and read the works of Black people and inspirations has definitely NOT come from traditional educational models in this country.

Many of the artists and musicians I know are brilliant and didn’t go to college. Many of my friends in other countries didn’t go to college and they are very educated and intelligent. Just wanted to point that out as I think it’s important for all of us to remember and recognize.

I agree, it isn’t the only way.  And for some, likely not the best way either.  I never said or meant to imply that a person cannot be intelligent or brilliant without going to college.  I would still advocate for, and love to see, a world where there are good options available for everyone for higher learning, though.  

Yes, it's an "and" situation:

Higher ed needs to get better (because it largely does propagate the status quo and it's problematic in many ways as wanderingback mentioned)

and also

We need to do better at valuing and celebrating the other ways people can gain an education.

[sent]

Dec 26, 2021 9:08:07 GMT -5 jlt19 said:

Dec 24, 2021 20:09:10 GMT -5 sent said:

This is my understanding of the loan problem as my younger colleagues regularly graduate with $500k+ in debt.

Back in my day in grad school (2000 - 2004), federal loans were capped and there were private lenders who loaned you the rest if you were pursuing a degree or attended a school that cost more than federal loans available to you. In 2007, under President Bush with bipartisan support, the government increased the interest rate on federal loans to something like 7%, created new loan products and made loans limitless. This in turn gave schools free reign to hike tuition to insanity because why not. The private lenders all left the student loan market and here we are 14 years later.

This is interesting, I didn’t know that about the loans. It makes sense though since my private undergrad only left me with about $10k in loans at around 2% (did have scholarships but it was still less than 5 figures a year from 2000-2003).

Then I went to get my MBA (2018-2020) online from a local University and have $30k in debt at 6.6%. I will admit it helped me get hired during the pandemic since my BA in psychology didn’t check a lot of boxes, but it was mostly my 16 year career experience that landed me the new, high paying job I have now. Which I’ve noticed is becoming more important for a lot of jobs than a certain degree, if any.

I’m also curious how sports programs play into the rising costs. With some coaches making as much as professional athletes, that money has to come from somewhere.

I’m looking at the rules for government loans today and I see that grad students can no longer get subsidized loans. I swear I had all subsidized loans for my 4 years as a health professions student. Like low 5 digits worth annually from the Federal government and at least $5K more a year from my state. And the repayment on those loans didn’t start until I finished residency which is again not available to students today. I am 100% sure I didn’t pay any interest that accrued during my schooling and residency. The younger colleagues in school now panic not only about the sheer size of the loans but also the interest accruing the minute you sign for them.

So we used to have loans from our own government that had favorable terms for young adults and now we have this monster issue saddling a lot of people with far more debt. I remember thinking to blame this on Bush but colleagues pointed out that it was apparently passed with bipartisan support near the end of Bush’s presidency.

[nsl]

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

Sooo... cancel student debt?

True story: My undergrad was fully paid for by a publicly-funded merit scholarship (at my state university) that no longer exists. If my kids, growing up and getting educated in the same state and district where I was educated, have my same stupidly high GPA on graduation they will get nothing from our same state university in merit-based scholarship funding. Fair? Nope.

True story: My husband signed away 20+ years of his personal and professional career to the Army while he was 17 years old because they offered him full-ride scholarships to college and med school if he agreed to serve for X number of years per year of school they funded. There was no way he could have calculated the emotional and financial cost to our family of that service (though in the sake of full disclosure we probably wound up ahead on the latter end, ironically at the cost of his physical health) as a teenager. Teenager. Teens are signing those dotted lines and agreeing to put their lives on the line just so they don't take on student loan debt. Sit on that for a second, and consider the proportion of white vs. non-white kids the Department of Defense is effectively preying on every year because they know who likely can and cannot afford to pay for college without loans these days. Fair? Nope.

True story: I'm a public school teacher. Leaving aside my own situation for a moment, I have colleagues who have worked in the system as long as I have (some longer) whose PSLF applications were repeatedly thrown back in their faces with outright laughs from the Department of Education. They met all of the criteria, but the DOE under both Obama (at the end) and Trump were looking for reasons to reject applications in spite of all the PR gloss that attracted students to enter degree programs, apply for jobs, and then fill out ridiculous amounts of redundant paperwork FOR YEARS just to get some measure of relief they thought they were guaranteed if they "did it all right." Fair? Hell no.

I have no student loan debt. My husband has no student loan debt. Systems that both do and don't exist anymore have paid for all five of our collective degrees. I have no illusions about our kids being able to access any of those systems without making commitments that amount to deals with the devil, and I'll work until my dying day to avoid them having to make the choices we had to make.

Cancel fucking student debt. Cancel it.

[lillaguma]

Dec 26, 2021 21:01:13 GMT -5 sent said:

Dec 26, 2021 9:08:07 GMT -5 jlt19 said:

This is interesting, I didn’t know that about the loans. It makes sense though since my private undergrad only left me with about $10k in loans at around 2% (did have scholarships but it was still less than 5 figures a year from 2000-2003).

Then I went to get my MBA (2018-2020) online from a local University and have $30k in debt at 6.6%. I will admit it helped me get hired during the pandemic since my BA in psychology didn’t check a lot of boxes, but it was mostly my 16 year career experience that landed me the new, high paying job I have now. Which I’ve noticed is becoming more important for a lot of jobs than a certain degree, if any.

I’m also curious how sports programs play into the rising costs. With some coaches making as much as professional athletes, that money has to come from somewhere.

I’m looking at the rules for government loans today and I see that grad students can no longer get subsidized loans. I swear I had all subsidized loans for my 4 years as a health professions student. Like low 5 digits worth annually from the Federal government and at least $5K more a year from my state. And the repayment on those loans didn’t start until I finished residency which is again not available to students today. I am 100% sure I didn’t pay any interest that accrued during my schooling and residency. The younger colleagues in school now panic not only about the sheer size of the loans but also the interest accruing the minute you sign for them.

So we used to have loans from our own government that had favorable terms for young adults and now we have this monster issue saddling a lot of people with far more debt. I remember thinking to blame this on Bush but colleagues pointed out that it was apparently passed with bipartisan support near the end of Bush’s presidency.

When my husband was in grad school he got a letter maybe halfway through his first year telling him that he was already accruing $xx amount of interest every day, and that he should really consider paying at least the interest as he went. All that did was give him more anxiety about his loan, since his program was full time and very demanding, and he couldn't work a job at the same time (and he worked full time through undergrad, so he knew how to balance that kind of thing if he could). It's insane. 

[klee23]

Dec 26, 2021 21:25:59 GMT -5 nsl said:

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

Sooo... cancel student debt?

True story: My undergrad was fully paid for by a publicly-funded merit scholarship (at my state university) that no longer exists. If my kids, growing up and getting educated in the same state and district where I was educated, have my same stupidly high GPA on graduation they will get nothing from our same state university in merit-based scholarship funding. Fair? Nope.

True story: My husband signed away 20+ years of his personal and professional career to the Army while he was 17 years old because they offered him full-ride scholarships to college and med school if he agreed to serve for X number of years per year of school they funded. There was no way he could have calculated the emotional and financial cost to our family of that service (though in the sake of full disclosure we probably wound up ahead on the latter end, ironically at the cost of his physical health) as a teenager. Teenager. Teens are signing those dotted lines and agreeing to put their lives on the line just so they don't take on student loan debt. Sit on that for a second, and consider the proportion of white vs. non-white kids the Department of Defense is effectively preying on every year because they know who likely can and cannot afford to pay for college without loans these days. Fair? Nope.

True story: I'm a public school teacher. Leaving aside my own situation for a moment, I have colleagues who have worked in the system as long as I have (some longer) whose PSLF applications were repeatedly thrown back in their faces with outright laughs from the Department of Education. They met all of the criteria, but the DOE under both Obama (at the end) and Trump were looking for reasons to reject applications in spite of all the PR gloss that attracted students to enter degree programs, apply for jobs, and then fill out ridiculous amounts of redundant paperwork FOR YEARS just to get some measure of relief they thought they were guaranteed if they "did it all right." Fair? Hell no.

I have no student loan debt. My husband has no student loan debt. Systems that both do and don't exist anymore have paid for all five of our collective degrees. I have no illusions about our kids being able to access any of those systems without making commitments that amount to deals with the devil, and I'll work until my dying day to avoid them having to make the choices we had to make.

Cancel fucking student debt. Cancel it.

Not to belabor a small point but under the original itineration of PSLF years of service started being credited in 2007 with 120 payments being reached no sooner than 2017- so after the inauguration. Do you mean the Obama administration gave inaccurate answers or denied annual certifications as qualifying? Because no one would have been eligible for actual forgiveness under his administration.

[goldengirlz]

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

So you agree the system is predatory. But you’re like a smug Boomer who thinks that if people like your nephews can make the “right” choices by going to a state school and then choosing a career that makes a lot of money (you know, something like finance 🙄) then everyone should have been prescient enough to make the same choices.

Also, you seem to enjoy mocking liberal arts majors, but I have to say that the vast majority of people I’ve met with large debt loads have been keenly aware of the need to pay them off. This idea that people who are struggling under the weight of their loans just made bad choices in life is not only offensive but so far from the reality of the situation. And even though you can acknowledge that we’ve created forces that have preyed on teenagers and lower-income families (and Black students disproportionately), your response is to shrug your shoulders, point to your nephews and say, “bootstraps!”

ETA: And while we’re at it, let’s talk about this idea that the goal of education should be to prepare you for a career that pays commensurate with the cost of your degree. I’ll point you to the lawyers who dropped $200k on a JD in the ‘90s and early aughts because they were told it would guarantee them a nice life — and then discovered that most legal jobs are nowhere near as lucrative as Big Law jobs, and Big Law jobs can be problematic in their own way. I know we’re mostly talking about undergrad degrees here, but there’s a whole generation of students who were told that spending a quarter-million dollars for a professional degree would be the smartest path to success — and then quickly realized they were sold a bill of goods. The world as it was in the ‘90s is not the world that exists today, and many students borrowed against a false promise, signing their lives away to a system stacked against them no matter which major or type of school they chose. Your opinion on the relative value of music therapists actually has very little to do with the student debt crisis.

[livinitup]

I am just amazed that we all look at the same flawed, predatory financial student loan system and look at the same crushing financial system of re-paying loans that is bad for all
of society and … blame individuals and refuse to provide relief because *some people* navigated it the *right* way and it would be somehow unfair to them.

My god, what a deeply wrong way to solve a problem we all see and would benefit from a solution.

I had my undergraduate degree paid by my mother because she had a good paying nursing job that could pay my tuition because my father had a good paying job that could pay for household expenses. And they were both desperate for me to have a college education “for education’s sake” AND job security for the future. I went to graduate school (private) with that first wave of students who had no idea what student loan debt would mean for the rest of their life. And entered the job market during a recession. The entirety of my guidance/education on student debt burden was standing in the registration office and being handed a student loan application over a very high, half-wall desk the length of the room being told to “Fill this out and sign it”. I was so just grateful to be accepted into the program that it didn’t occur to me to ask questions if I should be paying *this much* in tuition for a career in social work. And NO ONE in the university gave a shit about what that debt burden would mean for me.

The only smart thing I did was to continue working full
time to pay my living expenses while I went to grad school full time. My BFF and roommate had a 100% scholarship, so she used her student loan to 100% pay for living expenses and we graduated with the same student loan. It never occurred to either of us that that was a spectacular BAD decision for her. We both figured “this is what it costs to go to grad school NBD”.

The monthly repayment was crushing on my social work job. But I always paid it. I got wind of “consolidating” my loan to reduce my monthly payment and did it. And paid THAT for twenty years. I was lucky that I was always employed, so I just kept paying every month. I was lucky that I married a person who did not have a student loan. I paid that student loan even when I was paying for crushing child care costs, and if I really looked at it closely I was probably working to pay those + retirement + college saving for my daughter and little more. I was lucky to be able to do that because I had an H who had a good salary and could pay household expenses. I have always worked in non-profit places and there was a lot of chatter (from the younger kids) about qualifying for loan forgiveness. But I finished my last payment the same month the program matured 10 years, so there was no point to apply because my loan debt was zero. Prior to THAT, I barely looked into the program because I ‘consolidated’, and did not trust it would actually work and feared messing around with moving things and doing anything other than pay my manageable
monthly payment (proved right on that instinct).

So, all that to say that I was extremely lucky and privileged (with support and good health and employment) and STILL think we should drastically forgive student loans. AT LEAST forgive the crippling interest. Paying DOUBLE tuition because of interest rates and years of compound interest is insane. I have a friend, (my age) who took student loans for an undergraduate degree and deferred many, many times for various necessary reasons. She has the same god damn debt burden that she had, no dent at all. It’s insane that that the program and rules and system had landed her in this financial albatross.

Even benefiting nothing (personally) from a major National debt forgiveness program lets me see how beneficial it would be to real, hard working people and society in general.

[gretchenindisguise]

Dec 27, 2021 3:14:38 GMT -5 klee23 said:

Dec 26, 2021 21:25:59 GMT -5 nsl said:

Sooo... cancel student debt?

True story: My undergrad was fully paid for by a publicly-funded merit scholarship (at my state university) that no longer exists. If my kids, growing up and getting educated in the same state and district where I was educated, have my same stupidly high GPA on graduation they will get nothing from our same state university in merit-based scholarship funding. Fair? Nope.

True story: My husband signed away 20+ years of his personal and professional career to the Army while he was 17 years old because they offered him full-ride scholarships to college and med school if he agreed to serve for X number of years per year of school they funded. There was no way he could have calculated the emotional and financial cost to our family of that service (though in the sake of full disclosure we probably wound up ahead on the latter end, ironically at the cost of his physical health) as a teenager. Teenager. Teens are signing those dotted lines and agreeing to put their lives on the line just so they don't take on student loan debt. Sit on that for a second, and consider the proportion of white vs. non-white kids the Department of Defense is effectively preying on every year because they know who likely can and cannot afford to pay for college without loans these days. Fair? Nope.

True story: I'm a public school teacher. Leaving aside my own situation for a moment, I have colleagues who have worked in the system as long as I have (some longer) whose PSLF applications were repeatedly thrown back in their faces with outright laughs from the Department of Education. They met all of the criteria, but the DOE under both Obama (at the end) and Trump were looking for reasons to reject applications in spite of all the PR gloss that attracted students to enter degree programs, apply for jobs, and then fill out ridiculous amounts of redundant paperwork FOR YEARS just to get some measure of relief they thought they were guaranteed if they "did it all right." Fair? Hell no.

I have no student loan debt. My husband has no student loan debt. Systems that both do and don't exist anymore have paid for all five of our collective degrees. I have no illusions about our kids being able to access any of those systems without making commitments that amount to deals with the devil, and I'll work until my dying day to avoid them having to make the choices we had to make.

Cancel fucking student debt. Cancel it.

Not to belabor a small point but under the original itineration of PSLF years of service started being credited in 2007 with 120 payments being reached no sooner than 2017- so after the inauguration. Do you mean the Obama administration gave inaccurate answers or denied annual certifications as qualifying? Because no one would have been eligible for actual forgiveness under his administration.

PSLF has been riddled with issues from its inception and throughout until present time.

Do I think that Obama or his administration actually mindfully tried to break the system, no. Do I think they did anything to make sure it worked as intended, also no.

Prior to 2017, people were offered hardship forbearance regularly instead of income based payment plans that would have been $0/mo or very low monthly payments. Hardship forbearance months don’t qualify for pslf and $0 payments do.

People were told repeatedly that they had the correct loan types up until 2017, only to find out at 120 months that they didn’t and needed to start over.

People who had their loans serviced by some loan servicers (contracted by government so under their purview) lost years of payment history.

Payments that had been on auto debit set up by the loan servicers were taken out during administrative forbearance periods, were taken out on the wrong date, were off by $.01, etc. None of those payments counted.

Schools, agencies, hospitals, etc were denied as eligible employers. For years.

This has been a bipartisan failure of epic magnitude.

There has never been clear language, clear interpretation of the language and clear education of the language to the servicers employees who guided thousands of borrowers. To this day the pslf loan servicer continues to give out inaccurate information over the phone and contradictory information via letters.

Biden seems to actually be attempting to fix some of the issues. The waiver will help many. But the fact that many people are getting years of repayments back as refunds is a testament to how screwed up the program has been. For years. Through multiple administrations. It was never set up for success.



Eta: as much as I hate 45, a perfectly run program didn’t self destruct under his administration. A terribly run program continued to be run terribly.

[wanderingback]

Again a tad of a tangent, but there’s a program for primary care physicians (and other healthcare workers I believe) that if you work in an underserved area you get some of your loans forgiven. However, the program definitely has flaws as well.

Where I currently work, the zip code a few years ago was considered an underserved area. But now, due to gentrification, the specific zip code where our building is located isn’t considered underserved. However, specifically where I work we see people who are way below the poverty line who live in surrounding zip codes and we also see uninsured people (mostly people that aren’t US citizens). So all of our patients are on Medicaid or uninsured. Yet we can’t qualify for the hrsa loan repayment programs for working in underserved areas, even though all of patients come from underserved areas.

And most of us who work in such areas have a much lower salary. I often randomly look up jobs and physician jobs through the public health department are crazy for physician type education and student loan levels. $400,000 in student loans can’t be paid back with a salary of $80,000 per year.

[sent]

wanderingback , I didn’t qualify for the recent HRSA payments either. I think the Federal government doesn’t realize I’m a Medicaid provider because of the way I was signed up years ago with the HMOs here that administer it. I don’t know that I feel like trying to fight their determination because I’m busy with a million other things and am not hurting without the money.

I just can’t with my idiot colleagues. One is arguing that the PPP was essentially a tax refund a portion of the 1 million+ he has paid in taxes as a business owner. And that student loans shouldn’t be canceled because bootstraps and Biden is wrong about everything. The aggravating part is there are lots that agree with him. They’re not boomers but may as well be. Ugh.

[foundmylazybum]

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?


I'm sorry if this a dumb question, but honestly, I don't have loans but believe that they are burdensome for so, so many in our country and am for like..blanket forgiveness. I haven't really looked into this except to say "I think we should forgive loan's and reduce college costs, it's ridiculous."

When I hear the "it's unfair!" Statement I always imagine it's a middle aged white guy ned Chad who thinks he paid for college through "hard work" and "moxie!"

And he doesn't want loan forgiveness bc he has on massive blinders and still thinks the world is unfair to him.

But really, nothing has been unfair to him, and in reality loan forgiveness would be the first fucking step of "fairness" to EVERYONE ELSE besides Chad.


But maybe that's just me.

Is it?

[Jalapeñomel]

Dec 27, 2021 16:49:08 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?

People who paid their loans already and don’t get to reap the benefits of loan forgiveness.

People who didn’t go to college and didn’t take out loans but want their mortgages/credit cards/some other debt forgiven instead.

[goldengirlz]

I feel like the story of “the theater major who took out six-figures in loans and then became a waitress” is the student-loan equivalent of the SNAP recipient who supposedly drives a Mercedes.

That is to say, it’s a conservative boogeyman that wants to blame people for their own problems.

[kadams767]

Dec 27, 2021 16:49:08 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?


I'm sorry if this a dumb question, but honestly, I don't have loans but believe that they are burdensome for so, so many in our country and am for like..blanket forgiveness. I haven't really looked into this except to say "I think we should forgive loan's and reduce college costs, it's ridiculous."

When I hear the "it's unfair!" Statement I always imagine it's a middle aged white guy ned Chad who thinks he paid for college through "hard work" and "moxie!"

And he doesn't want loan forgiveness bc he has on massive blinders and still thinks the world is unfair to him.

But really, nothing has been unfair to him, and in reality loan forgiveness would be the first fucking step of "fairness" to EVERYONE ELSE besides Chad.


But maybe that's just me.

Is it?

So this is NOT my personal POV, as I've mentioned up thread that I don't care at all if people get all or a portion of their existing debt forgiven.  

But the arguments I've heard are that it's unfair to people who were "responsible".  And they make "responsible" out to be all sorts of people - those who took out loans but already paid them (or majority of them) back, those who worked their way through school and only had minimal loans, if any, those who went to cheaper schools to avoid loans, those who got "worthwhile" degrees and "good" jobs, and those who didn't go to school at all because they couldn't afford it.  

[imimahoney]

Dec 27, 2021 16:49:08 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?



I can't speak for anyone else but as a publich school teacher, I do not qualify for loan forgiveness. My district is not one listed by the government as a place that it would grant loan forgiveness to. My BIL, who works a few towns over and makes almost double my salary, does qualify. I also have private loans from grad school which do not qualify for the current pause. Thankfully, I did not need it.

So I would assume an argument like that could be used as to why people don't think it's fair.

[livinitup]

Dec 27, 2021 16:49:08 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?


I'm sorry if this a dumb question, but honestly, I don't have loans but believe that they are burdensome for so, so many in our country and am for like..blanket forgiveness. I haven't really looked into this except to say "I think we should forgive loan's and reduce college costs, it's ridiculous."

When I hear the "it's unfair!" Statement I always imagine it's a middle aged white guy ned Chad who thinks he paid for college through "hard work" and "moxie!"

And he doesn't want loan forgiveness bc he has on massive blinders and still thinks the world is unfair to him.

But really, nothing has been unfair to him, and in reality loan forgiveness would be the first fucking step of "fairness" to EVERYONE ELSE besides Chad.


But maybe that's just me.

Is it?

Me. (Stupid) People like ME are complaining because I had a mother (someone not me - this is important) who paid their tuition, and then I paid my graduate student loan for 20 years, so it’s not *fair* to me that other people who deferred for years get it “forgiven”. Those complaining, short-sighted assholes. Because I am literally swimming in accidental privilege and good luck and a teeny tiny bit of bootstraps (worked & then paid shit off). Yes, I made the good decision to move from a HCOL area to a (still nice) LCOL area to have a nice life and pay for everything. BUT THAT IS NOT A GOD DAMN CHOICE FOR EVERYONE. I got lucky several times. So, Chad can just fuck off that he had to live in his parent’s basement while going or school (that’s a fucking privilege, Chad) so he doesn’t want THEIR students loan (that covered cost of living or whatever) to be forgiven because he could have lived the high life (not in his parent’s basement) but didn’t and gotten it forgiven, now, too.

It is literally better for ALL OF US if middle class wage earner money flows to the broader economy and not debt servers.

[NewOrleans]

Dec 27, 2021 16:49:08 GMT -5 foundmylazybum said:

This is a very basic and broad question and please forgive my ignorance here, but when "people" say that loan forgiveness is "unfair" to some people, who is saying this and what do they mean?


I'm sorry if this a dumb question, but honestly, I don't have loans but believe that they are burdensome for so, so many in our country and am for like..blanket forgiveness. I haven't really looked into this except to say "I think we should forgive loan's and reduce college costs, it's ridiculous."

When I hear the "it's unfair!" Statement I always imagine it's a middle aged white guy ned Chad who thinks he paid for college through "hard work" and "moxie!"

And he doesn't want loan forgiveness bc he has on massive blinders and still thinks the world is unfair to 

The original not well-thought-out article that someone posted defined not fair as: “Cancelling student loans is unfair to borrowers who paid off student loans

Life is unfair, as the saying goes. For borrowers who recently paid off student loans, they would not benefit under current proposals for wide-scale student loan cancellation. You can call it tough luck. However, many of these borrowers also faced significant financial struggles, and they managed to pay off student loans. Many of delayed having families or getting married, worked multiple jobs, didn’t buy a home, and made other financial sacrifices to pay off student loans and demonstrate financial responsibility. This doesn’t mean that borrowers who paid off student loans 30 years ago should get compensated. However, if Congress cancels student loans for some borrowers, opponents say Congress should provide compensation to borrowers who paid off student loans recently so they are not excluded.”

[bookqueen15]

So I log into fedloan every few days now to see if there's any change after submitting my temporary PSLF form and after reading this thread wanted to check how much I still owed based on my original loan amounts. I graduated in 2009 from grad school, 2007 from undergrad. My original loan amount was $18,560 (majority from graduate school, $4000 of that from my last year of undergrad but rest of undergrad was paid for by scholarships and my Grandparents). All federal direct loans. My current loan balance is STILL $18,000! My interest rate is about 7%. In 12 years all I have been paying is interest apparently. I had no idea when I was 21 and decided to go to grad school that would be the case, that in 12 years I would only be paying interest.

[AAM2012]

Dec 26, 2021 17:10:35 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Dec 26, 2021 14:05:16 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

So is imojoebunny going to come back and explain or acknowledge anything?

I will never agree that tax payers should pay off individual student loans.  The federal loans are already subsidized by the government, as are the numerous state school options.  Paying off some loans for some individuals and not for others, is not the best use of public funds.  If you want to incent people to go to college, or to certain professions, the better way to do this is to lower the tuition for all, using public funds, not individuals.  If you want people to go into public service, pay them more, but don't decide that what they must use the money for, or that only some in employees who meet some random configuration decided at the whim of politicians, should get extra money to pay off student loans.  

This is not a poor people do not deserve skittles, this is universities and lenders taking advantage of students by lending much more than they could ever hope to repay, essentially saddling them with a lifetime of indentured servitude for degrees that will never pay enough for the loans to be paid off, knowing full well that these loans can never be discharged, unlike pretty much every single other kind of debt.  

That is all I have to say.  

I wasn’t really asking you to explain your initial bullshit response imojoebunny . I was wondering if you would read and acknowledge the feedback that was provided to you based on your initial bullshit response.

It appears the answer is no and you’re a really shitty person.

That is all I have to say.

[seeyalater52]

People wanting to support only policies that benefit them personally and fuck everyone who has different circumstances or needs is a major problem in this country. There are myriad reasons why student loan forgiveness is good social and economic policy that all of us should support. It is a very self-serving and selfish person indeed who only cares for themself and what they get personally. This is one of the reasons why we are in the mess we are in politically.

[pixy0stix]

Dec 27, 2021 20:28:44 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

People wanting to support only policies that benefit them personally and fuck everyone who has different circumstances or needs is a major problem in this country. There are myriad reasons why student loan forgiveness is good social and economic policy that all of us should support. It is a very self-serving and selfish person indeed who only cares for themself and what they get personally. This is one of the reasons why we are in the mess we are in politically.

Or why covid is still such a big issue in communities.