Student loans: How much do you owe?

morerecords · Post by **morerecords** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:14 pm

I just got denied for Loan consolidation from fucking everyone all claiming they no longer do student debt consolodation due to our tanking ecomony:

Thank you for your interest in Sallie Mae, the nation’s leading provider of saving- and paying-for-college programs. Severe legislative cuts made by Congress made federal student loan consolidation uneconomical. This, combined with the credit market deterioration, has caused us to suspend participation in the federal consolidation loan program.

I owe 87,000 - $1700 a month. Whata fucking joke. It used to really bother me, but, fuck man it's only on paper. I send them $10 every month...

Punky921 · Post by **Punky921** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:29 pm

I feel your pain. While I got away without any student loans, a lot of my friends are getting crushed under them.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:30 pm

87 grand! Damn... you must have one hell of a degree that should land you a great job!

the unknown wanderer · Post by **the unknown wanderer** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:39 pm

Barring interest it will take 7250 years to pay it off at your rate

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:52 pm

Most of my peers took on 100-150K in debt for their wonder law degrees. I'm 10 years out of law school, and I've worked it down to around $14K, and I pay around $160 a month...should be cleared off in another 5 years, but I can still take a tax deduction on the interest I pay, plus I'm consolidated to a fixed 5.5% interest rate, so it's not a bad loan to have. Paying down my carnote and my 2nd mortgage is smarter than paying down the student loan.

However, as you stated, with the economy being the way it is, and HUGE financial institutions going under due to terrible mismanagement, we're all gonna suffer is various ways for a while to come.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:08 pm

I owe $27.00 to the local JC for a parking violation.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:13 pm

the unknown wanderer wrote:Barring interest it will take 7250 years to pay it off at your rate

guess what class he didn't take.

paid mine off in November, worth it. glad I was able to get through before the government fucks up student loan programs, rates are cheap, terms are easy.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:14 pm

beats me wrote:I owe $27.00 to the local JC for a parking violation.

Don't knock meter-maid-education. It's got all the life-essentials:
1. Targeting opportunities
2. Reacting quickly to changing market conditions
3. Bill the client and then run away quickly before the client has a chance to regret the purchase
4. Conflict with insane clients
5. Small and unsanitary working conditions
6. Building character by facing universal hatred

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:16 pm

Tone Deft wrote:rates are cheap, terms are easy.

That's what you wife said on your first date.

(drum roll, crash)

sparklepuff · Post by **sparklepuff** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:51 pm

Hahaha, collage dropout for the win. I ain't owe no money to nobodies. Suckers.

inmazevo · Post by **inmazevo** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:01 pm

Student loans make only slightly more sense than stock-based retirement accounts, or stock-based college funds... where you are basically just giving a bunch of "other people's money" to some f-up so they can think they're helping the economy, but where they really just waste your cash, since it's not their money to spend.

Complete garbage... and it will hurt (everybody) when it falls apart for an entire generation of broke-ass retirees.

Student loans are a great way to ensure indentured-servitude for the next generation... complete BS. Be VERY careful, and they can be a good thing.

How about making education affordable, and have the strength to admit that more than half the people don't need to be there anyway (or, at the very least, shouldn't be there until they figure out what they want to do).

Sorry for your situation...

- zevo

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:14 pm

student loans are great, some of the cheapest loans you can get, without them MANY people would not be able to go to school.

but then you counter that with "why don't we just make education cheaper?" which is by far a more complicated problem than changing cheap affordable into cheaper, more affordable loans.

I take it you never had a student loan and don't know what you're talking about.

inmazevo · Post by **inmazevo** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:27 pm

Tone Deft wrote: I take it you never had a student loan and don't know what you're talking about.

OK. That's fine.
On forum's, people are free to jump to conclusions, rather than asking questions to clarify.

In any event:
I have had them, and they can be good.
But for the most part I view them as a fake solution to the real problem.

Yes, bringing down education cost is complicated. I wouldn't say otherwise.
But simply loaning people the money to cover it, without fixing the original problem, isn't a long-term solution.

At some point, we can't continue to debt ourselves to success. I would have hoped the recent housing crisis in the states would have made people more wary of thinking that credit is the solution to overly expensive systems, and instead focus on looking at the system itself to find out why such basic necessities (housing, education) are priced out of reach for the majority of the population.

Sorry if my original post was less-than-clear.

- zevo

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:55 pm

oh, OK, nice post. the internet is a horrible form of communication, which makes for great forums.

I might also add that grants are great. I was just an average white boy in college and yet I was still able to get grant money, I needed it, that was great.

what I've seen is that people get out of college with credit card debt and the first thing they buy is a car. then down the line they look at paying off student loans vs. paying off their other debt and student loans are the last thing on the list because they're better loans.

I'm also HUGE about education, and this enables people to go to school. I totally agree about making education cheaper. a coworker has a girl just starting school (kindergarten) and he looked into setting up her college fund, starting now he has to put away $500+/month.

arafel · Post by **arafel** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:57 pm

I've always believed that raising the general level of education as high as possible, is the easiest and cheapest way to ensure the overall prosperity, peacefulness, and adaptability of a nation.

Forgive the cheeze.. but... Education costs... a lot, although ignorance costs even more.

When seen on the ledger books, it makes far more sense to just 'import' your educated professionals, trades and workers through temporary immigration and to pay them less than fully certified 'domestic' counterparts. By leaving the domestic population as uneducated consumers, wealth can be tapped from their reserves and ancestral holdings until the indentured servitude of the middle ages is reestablished over the majority of debt-ridden citizenry. Further to this goal, is the burdening of any student with massive fees, high interest loans and red-tape to discourage such pursuits.

But the Prosperity of a nation can not be measured solely by such a ledger, for it does not include such ephemerals as 'Health' and 'Happiness'. Just 2 of the many qualities that every parent teaches and hopes, for all of their children and that the future is built upon.

$500 / month for 15+ years... for college.. holy fak? Am I ever glad I live in Canada now!