Student Loan Consolidation and Proposals

[BlvdBrawler]

how much does everyone owe on their stuff currently? I owe $4800 for courses i took just last year while I was out of work, then 19,000 on my bachelors degree loans...i got a new job just recently, and am knocking out the $4800 here hopefully soon, but plan on paying on the 19,000 for awhile

None. Parents paid for college .

My brother dropped out of med school...took out loans liberally all throughout, and ended up being close to 200,000 in debt

he ended up landing an awesome job, making good money (medical sales), but they want all that to go towards loans of course, which he'll be paying off forever

My sister did the same thing, minus the going to med school landing a great job part. She somehow racked up 50k in student loans and never graduated anything, not even a bachelors.

 

[No1]

As far as information, I'm not sure what more information you want. Much of what people want to know about schools is out there, and in any case I am not so sure how many people are even taking advantage of the data that is already available. I agree that there should be more info, but also that people should take advantage of it, or I guess be forced to take advantage of it by having it all presented to them by mandatory means.

Think about the mandatory exit-counseling that students now go through about loans when they're graduating. They should be doing that from jump. The information may be out there but you have to go digging for it. I never had a guidance counselor talk to me about the value of different degrees or outcomes based on universities. They were basically directed us to fastweb and that was that. I imagine that's the same scenario at most places. It's not just a matter of the information being available. It's a matter of forcing schools to adequately report this information in a clear and concise manner from which students can make a decision. You'd have to look long and hard to break down the numbers. If you 20 something year olds are making these errors in regards to law schools then you know 17 year olds are going to make it in regards to college.

The loans did not come about before the bubble. The bubble just goes back further than you think (with the start of the loans). A cap would definitely solve the problem.

You're going to have to link to that because most charts do not show this. But maybe you're mixing up what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that college was costly before the advent of student loans and that loans did not initiate the process of expensive education, but perhaps it can be argued that it exacerbated the problem. This is certainly true in regards to for profit colleges.

If a college's choices were to only accept the shrinking pool of kids who could afford super high tuitions, and thus water down the intellectual quality of its student body, or accept more, smarter, but poorer students while keeping costs sane, why do y ou think they would go for the former? What school wants to be known as the place where dumb rich kids go?

Because that's what those colleges have been historically. USC used to be known as the school for the children of rich kids in California and that never affected them. Think about private schools that are almost uniformly white, do they really care that they primarily serve only a certain class of person....

And more transparency would solve your other problem, though that opens a whole other can of worms. I remember a while back someone posted an article about how minorities accepted into schools where the avg kid was way smarter/scored way higher on tests was counter productive and prompted a lot of them to fail out. Makes sense. We have to do a better job educating minorities from the get go, rather than making them scramble to play catch up in college.

This is a bit off, but off topic but the problem with that research is that it often fails to look at the support systems that those schools provide. The graduation rate of black and hispanic students at elite universities is CONSIDERABLY higher than it is anywhere else. I mean at least 40% higher than it would be anywhere else. Once you get into schools like that, you have the infrastructure to stay there and they want you to graduate. Furthermore, those schools open doors that other universities won't and they are gatekeepers to certain "elite" professions, which ideally overtime would become more diverse and this would change many things in society (but let's not get too far). I'm well aware of this "mis-match" model, but it's shortsighted.

But anyway I would rather a black kid go to a school that matches his ability and his budget, than get AA'd into a school they will wind up dropping out of anyway with wild student debt.

The thing is, I wasn't talking about the elite schools when I said this. I meant the mid-tier and lesser schools. They could easily just cut down on class sizes and enroll more people likely to graduate. The bigger named schools would probably be unaffected because they are going to be subsidizing more of that kid's tuition in the first place. I'm not saying this would happen, but it's within the realm of possibility.

I don't have the specific answers, my shyts could be totally fukked up and off base... I can accept that. But as is the system is no go. Govt is writing blank checks to colleges w/18 yr old guarantors. Current system makes no sense. Govt absolutely has to push back if colleges are going to operate on funds enabled by the govt. And the govt DEF shouldnt be charging no god damn 6.8% interest on money it pulls out of thin air and would give to reckless ass banks for nothing. shyt is ridiculous.

Agreed.

 

[No1]

how much does everyone owe on their stuff currently? I owe $4800 for courses i took just last year while I was out of work, then 19,000 on my bachelors degree loans...i got a new job just recently, and am knocking out the $4800 here hopefully soon, but plan on paying on the 19,000 for awhile


My brother dropped out of med school...took out loans liberally all throughout, and ended up being close to 200,000 in debt

he ended up landing an awesome job, making good money (medical sales), but they want all that to go towards loans of course, which he'll be paying off forever

I haven't paid a single dime back because I went straight to grad school. When it's all said and done I'll owe well over 110k combined between that an undergrad (as things stand). Surprisingly, I'm one of the fortunate ones, the average law student has 100k in law school debt alone and it's considerably more for most when you take into account the fact that people take out cost of living loans too because tuition at that level doesn't cover housing. Most of my law school friends are looking at between 150k to 200k.

 

[Dr. Fauci]

I haven't paid a single dime back because I went straight to grad school. When it's all said and done I'll owe well over 110k combined between that an undergrad (as things stand). Surprisingly, I'm one of the fortunate ones, the average law student has 100k in law school debt alone and it's considerably more for most when you take into account the fact that people take out cost of living loans too because tuition at that level doesn't cover housing. Most of my law school friends are looking at between 150k to 200k.

do u have a solid plan of how you're going to pay it off? Thats always the issue...u make good money if u land a job, but the salary/loan repayment doesnt add up as nice as you'd like it to, if ure under the assumption "i'll land my job and then be good to go"

shyt load of roomates and/or shack up with the rents for awhile to atleast take a big ol chunk out of them if thats an option

 

[No1]

do u have a solid plan of how you're going to pay it off? Thats always the issue...u make good money if u land a job, but the salary/loan repayment doesnt add up as nice as you'd like it to, if ure under the assumption "i'll land my job and then be good to go"

shyt load of roomates and/or shack up with the rents for awhile to atleast take a big ol chunk out of them if thats an option

Big law salary = 160k (god-willing that I get offered at the end of the summer).


Get an affordable apartment where my boy and I are roommates or if I start dating someone we'd probably move in together. Either way, an affordable apartment with two bedrooms. It's NYC, but we'll try to pay more no more than 2,000 a month each.

Pay back 35k per year (2,900 per month) for the next 4 years = debt free at 29 years old. At that point I try to look for an in-house counsel position that pays less (still six figures), but has better hours in a place that cost less to live in than NYC.

 

[Dr. Fauci]

Big law salary = 160k (god-willing that I get offered at the end of the summer).


Get an affordable apartment where my boy and I are roommates or if I start dating someone we'd probably move in together. Either way, an affordable apartment with two bedrooms. It's NYC, but we'll try to pay more no more than 2,000 a month each.

Pay back 35k per year (2,900 per month) for the next 4 years = debt free at 29 years old. At that point I try to look for an in-house counsel position that pays less (still six figures), but has better hours in a place that cost less to live in than NYC.

with that salary u can make that work no doubt

the issues are when u have these guys coming out with masters degrees taking jobs for 50-60 k a year with a lot to pay back...u kind of go into it thinking "oh i have a masters...ill make decent money"...but u really dont understand the concept of money until you get put out there yourself, are "officially on your own" and trying to make it work financially

 

[iceberg_is_on_fire]

By now you've probably heard about Elizabeth Warren's fantastic first piece of legislation, the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act. Her goal is to lower student loan interest rates for next year from 3.4% to 0.75% -- the same rate the government loans money to the banks through the Federal Reserve discount window. As of now, unless Congress takes action-- other than drumming up faux scandals to deny President Obama a third term-- student loan interest rates will double to 6.8% on July 1st.

Boehner and Cantor, the Republicans as a party, and the Wall Street bankers who fund them, have declared Senator Warren's proposal a non-starter and have vowed to kill it. Last week Boehner shuffled it into John Kline's Education and Workforce Committee, and Kline did exactly what he was told. The proposal was defeated 23-14, all the Republicans voting NO and all but one Democrat voting YES.

All the Blue America-endorsed candidates support Elizabeth Warren's way of dealing with this problem and all of them would like to get into Congress and make sure her proposal eventually passes.

State Rep. Carl Sciortino is one of Senator Warren's Massachusetts constituents and he's running for the House seat being vacated by Ed Markey, a seat that includes towns like Cambridge, Waltham, Medford, and Framingham, all filled with college students. Carl is 34 and has been an enthusiastic proponent of Senator Warren's approach. He knows that the future of the country lies with people going through school today.

"Our country has always taught its young people that hard work and education are keys to achieving the American dream," he told us. "But for too many families the cost of higher education has become the subject of their nightmares. While Republicans in Washington try to weaken Wall Street regulations, progressive Democrats are working to give our students the same low interest rates as our banks. We have to get serious as a nation about ensuring that our younger generation has the same opportunities to succeed as our parents and grandparents. Senator Warren has put forward a smart and creative solution, and I look forward to supporting her efforts in Congress later this year."

That's right... later this year. There will be a special election in the fall to fill Ed Markey's seat. So, like Nick Ruiz, Daylin Leach, Andy Hounshell and, of course, Alan Grayson, Carl can use some support to make sure a progressive agenda has the strongest possible allies.

We are all in this together,
Howie, for Digby, Amato and the Blue America Team

 

[No1]

They didn't pass shyt. We lost This conservative house of representatives....

 

[babylon1]

you guys realize what is happening here, don't you?

our generation took out these massive loans. we can't pay them back. so the taxpayer ends up footing the bill. the losers? all of us. the winners? professors, universities. it is a gigantic wealth transfer from the taxpayers to the academic elites. it is fraud. it is capitalism.

 

[HideoKojima]

I expect to owe atleast 15K after graduation, I don't know If I really know if this matters to me. 10% a month till im 30 something, seems like I would be overpaying down the line.

 

[kickz]

We can start with the $3 Billion we give to Israel per year for no reason.

These fakkits been eatin on our dime for too long