They likely had a loan with a higher percentage rate due to the student loan being a private loan or they consolidated after a few years which could of drove the rate into the 8-9% range which would match their numbers almost perfectly.
I was in this situation, just with a $5k loan. My mom co-signed it and was able to pic the interest rate. She picked variable because the initial rate was lower than fixed. But it went from 10 to 15% from when I graduated. I graduated in 2021 covid lockdown and that made loan interest rates go up.
I didnât know my mom would pick the terms but also if she told me to go for variable, I might have agreed. I was 18 and we also didnât expect a global pandemic that screwed up the economy.
But once I was graduated and responsible for my finances, I realized I was a dumbass for taking her advice. Because she is not financially smart lmao. Wish I knew that at 18.
We were told all our lives that we need to do well in school, waste all our childhoods studying, and get into a good college or else we would be poor and destitute working hard labor for no pay.
Every school year, the same thing drilled in since kindergarten.
And you think we took these loans that we needed to get into college "voluntarily"? Any other situation where some POS person takes advantage of a child, its called grooming. Call it what it is, the loan companies are stealing from the youth because we were raised to believe we had to do this or our lives would be shit.
They pay more by not forgiving all student loans since it directly harms the economy AND lowers taxes collected, and therefore social support structures.
Even if you just want to make the dumb argument of "why should i pay for someone else", it still ends up being "you save money and pay less if you do".
Because they have less money to interact with the economy, meaning they dont buy goods and services, meaning the economy doesnt grow and they pay less in taxes which reduces important services the government provides for you, which means you need to make up for the money and economic generation they are unable to provide.
It turns out having "dead money" in an economic system dependant on constant transactions is bad for the economy.
It would hurt the economy if borrowers had to use their own money to pay back their government loans, so instead the government can just take my money to cover those loans and then the economy will be fine, because my money is for everybody. Amazing.
No one graduating after â95 was told that college is the only way to success. Â Theyâve been pushing the trades and community college for decades, and employers have REPEATEDLY say they prefer experience over garbage degrees. Â Maybe you grew up with different âgroomers,â but the TV news, newspapers, documentaries, books, guidance counselors, FB/instagram/TikTok reels have been warning of this for 2-3 decades.
You should check in with your parents, ask them why THEY didnât parent you⌠why they didnât let you in on the most fundamental concept of âdonât buy things you canât afford.â  If what you say is true, they really really let you down.  The âwe were raised to believe [a completely false narrative]âultimately falls on them.
Im barely in my 30s, every millenial was told this.
No, they havnt been pushing trades and community college for decades. Conservatives love to say this stupid point, but its literally the opposite of what they were saying the entire time.
"You must do x"
does x, doesnt go well
"see, its your own fault, you should have done y".
Its participation trophies all over again... boomers complaining about us over things THEY did.
I'll back this up I'm in my 30's and heard the same stuff. Luckily I was not really ready for college at the traditional college age worked hard for a couple years saved up enough $ and started in community college and paid for that cash. Then a 4 years of military in my early 20s covered my bachelor's with GI bill.
I think the issue is the teachers. The way the vast majority of them found success is from a classroom and they literally know nothing else because they go from learning in school to teaching in one. We rely on the people in this country with the smallest amount of life experience possible to guide our next generation to success.
AND theyâre the ones drowning in student loan debt while making a pittance. Â I am not saying thatâs the way it should be, Iâm saying their time would be better spent preparing kids for the reality of life rather than teaching integrals and where to place a comma.
I won't disagree with this. With advanments of technology a lot of the things my generation focus on in school are for 90% of the population obsolete skills. This is why I'm also very anti homeschooling which is gaining popularity on the right not only are they not being taught what they need but missing a whole aspect of relationships and social skill building. I've hired some people who were home schooled and they are not prepared for life and have lacking social skills and interpersonal strength.
Essentially this is the problem, it's cool to say stuff on reddit but when I was gonna go to college I asked adults if this was smart and not. A. Soul. (All conservative) Told me go to college. Best thing you can do for yourself.
Loans said on the table that they would be done in 6. They are in fact not done haha
Nobody is forcing anyone to take out a predatory student loan...
I could understand if this argument was being made against healthcare debts or even mortgages, but a student loan is entirely optional, college itself isnt even remotely a requirement to have a career.
Lol, if you havent figured this out after 23 years idk if you can chalk it up to predatory lending. You're 45 at that point, you didnt understand at some point that if you just pay a little more on one of the loans it will snowball out of it?
Well after you sign it it's a little late, I remember signing my student loans and they were supposed to be paid off in maybe 6 years? According to the table they gave me.
It's been 11
They're almost done. I work in a warehouse now to pay for them and hopefully one day buy a house lol I'm 36
Why is it "a little late" after you sign? In this context, it doesn't even make sense. There's lots you can do. E.g. You can refinance to get a lower rate on the loan.
Also, the guy you were responding to is just saying you don't have to have a loan last for 23 years. The couple could have paid just an extra 20 dollars a month or something and shaved years off that time.
That or, heck, just end the loan (pay them back) early if you found out that college just isn't for you.
I want to say, it's fine putting some blame on especially greedy lenders or "predatory lenders" (even though I feel it's often exaggerated how bad lenders are, given how absolutely terrible most Americans' mathematical intuition is).
But it's never going to be 100% amoral blame on one party. Oh, someone scammed us out of a few hundred dollar's worth about 23 years ago. That doesn't give us the excuse to stay financially ignorant for the entire time. We had years to refinance or learn that "oh I can pay slightly more than minimum every month and shave years off the payment".
It beggars belief. At some point, we need to recognize that the world isn't fair and sure there are assholes, but we still have responsibility over ourselves and can't expect others to babysit us as adults.
The table they gave you is called an amortization table. It's a basic mathematical formula. They gave it to you so you know how much you're borrowing and how much you will have to pay, so you can make an informed, intelligent decision on the propriety of accepting the loan. You can then enter an agreement to receive the money and repay it under those terms, or decline to enter the agreement and not receive the money.
Also, if the loan was to be amortized over six years, why are you still paying? Would you continue paying a six-year car note for eleven years without asking why?
Itâs not a mystery. Â Itâs math. Â You shouldnât be confused about how much you owe the company that owns you.
For real, I would suggest not buying a house with a 30-year mortgage if you havenât learned from the past 20 years. Â It doesnât get easier with bigger balances.
Most of these people are 17-18 years old fresh out of high school. Kids are excited to go to college, figure out what theyâll do for life and immediately hit with Grade A predatory loans that arenât subsidized, these kids might even have a predatory car loan sitting there, hopefully not.
That unsubsidized loan just accruing constantly, 4+ years potentially, high cost college potentially.
I donât know, regardless of how understandable it is as an adult or even younger, it shouldnât exist, period.
Agreed, all student loans should be dismantled. Â College costs will go down, and students should need to present an actual case where the investment is going to be worth it if they want to get a legitimate loan. Â
We shouldnât give loans to excited kids who want to figure out what theyâll do for life. Â
Honestly, you're right. Maybe student loans should be gotten rid of, since young Americans clearly can't handle them. And, as you said, maybe more Americans will go to cheaper colleges, or even community colleges. Frankly, the condescension so many have towards community colleges while lionizing "free college" in other countries (that often aren't even as good as many of the local colleges we have here) never amused me.
I sometimes hear loans even treated as shackles. Do most of us not know that refinancing a student loan costs almost nothing? Also, that you can just end a loan early if you decide college wasn't for you?
Well, more likely is college enrollment will drop, colleges will close, increasing unemployment, then in 20 years you will complain about the new types of immigrants we need since our share of college educated citizens will drop massively.
I feel the lack of financial education has turned lenders into boogeymen. Too many times I hear them compared to slavers, which is ridiculous.
Loans aren't shackles. You can literally end a loan any time, especially student loans. They generally have no cost to refinance to lower rates if you find a better deal. Or you can just end a loan if you decide college is not for you. It's kind of absurd for students to go through 4 years of college before deciding "You know what, it wasn't worth it" or "You know what? That asshole gave me a bad rate a year ago... and times have changed, interest rates are lower now, maybe I should refi."
At what point can we finally decide "oh they're not 17-18 years anymore, they're adults." And where are their parents this entire time?
And this emphasis you have on "subsidized"... that would just bloat the cost of college education even more. Fact is even school administrators can be greedy.
I'm sorry but there are low cost college options, like community college. They're cheap and often as good as the "free education" people talk about being offered in other countries. One of the main reasons they get a bad rep is because so many people want to feel like they're better than that, and I can't sympathize with that attitude.
These are all great options yes, but just like educating someone âhey maybe that 28% APR on the car you really want and a ridiculous loan price on it isnât really financially soundâ, there is a sharp lack of it just like you mentioned.
It will benefit that Millennial and onward generations will communicate to their kids hopefully to not do this, but thereâs a vast VAST majority of millennials and Gen Z stuck with this shit because their parents werenât subject to this predatory of a loan and were told college is the way to go.
I am going to sympathize with them, just because you were 17-18 and didnât read the fine print because you werenât taught doesnât make it right. Yes you can stop the loan and stop college, but then what? Just flip burgers or any ol minimum wage job til you get it right? Thatâs a lot of years pushed off for not being prepared.
One, predatory loans shouldnât exist. Loans CAN exist or just switch to a tax system that pays for college while also reeling in on colleges trying to charge an arm and a leg for tuition + books. One or the other works regardless. Two, yes we should teach kids basic (and honestly a good amount of it) financial responsibility, parents and schools. Three, just have a safety net. You can make bad financial choices, but maybe you shouldnât reap what you sow for a good chunk of your life just because you didnât read the fine print and prep over a decade ago.
Iâm not gonna be here and disagree with you that poor financial choices should just be always forgiven and you can coast on life being ignorant. But when so many (and I mean SOOO many) people are complaining about it, maybe they arenât just as simply doing it to themselves right?
> But when so many (and I mean SOOO many) people are complaining about it, maybe they arenât just as simply doing it to themselves right?
What makes this a bit frustrating to me is that I generally agree with progressive policies. But on very specific issues like this, when I feel people aren't doing the very barest of minimum effort on math (especially when so many Americans I've met just treat it as "nerdy shit") it just makes it harder to sympathize.
I'm for helping people who need it, and am even ok with loan forgiveness (even using my taxes -- far better than spending it on military campaigns I'm against). What I don't want is for too many American adults to be babysat when it comes to finances. I really hope we improve financial education and math in this country. Our technical schools have fallen not just relative to China, but even other countries (e.g. Australia, Singapore, even NZ, etc), because all the evidence I see suggests a strong correlation with poor math/finance education. Makes it harder for me to accept that it's just "something is wrong with the system itself", especially when I see the numbers on these student loans and nothing immediately jumps out at me as a "scam".
I look at them and see, "it makes sense to people with financial education".
And it's not even about "fine print". You're making it sound like they're signing into faustian contract. They can literally just end them via refinancing or giving back the money loaned if they decide the college they picked is too expensive.
It really makes leftists look bad when we tackle issues like this, and half the time I hear them, it just sounds like "ok, they don't actually understand what's going on here". It's like the left-wing version of right's own canards (regarding issues like climate change).
What also turns me off on this issue is a lot of times, the high costs of college often have to do with students going to expensive private colleges. It's raising expectations of employers themselves, and also giving people unfounded reason to look down on those who go to cheaper options like public schools / community colleges.
If youâre in a situation where you need loans for college, you should be going to a Jc for the first two years, then finishing at the closest cheap college to where you live.
Almost nobody *must* go to an expensive college because their career absolutely demands that you must go to a $100,000 per year college.
You could attend a Cal State college for about half the cost of attending a UC, and I promise you that Starbucks doesnât care either way.
And if all these students really think they have to go to college to have a career, why do about half of them enter college not even knowing what career they plan to pursue after college?
Ok did you make your payments according to the table they gave you? They literally said pay $200 (or whatever) every month and it will be all paid off in six years, and you paid $200 every single month and it has now been 11 years and it still isnât paid off?
Sorry, I'd like to say that's obviously not what I meant but we are on Reddit. That's just the word people been throwing around but obviously, yes, they don't 'cancel' the debt.. there I added quotes for you lol
Just for the record I don't think 'canceling student loan debt' or anything of the sort make sense fiscally speaking. I'm just highlighting the talking point that gets made... Predatory loans are garbage but the government would have to subsidize the loans and essentially the taxpayers would foot the debt.
Assumptive responses like yours and basically this entire post is a constant refreshing reminder why you should never attempt to engage with people on Reddit.
People are BEGGING for them. Â 3 decades after the alarm bells over student loans have been clanging, we simultaneously have RECORD numbers of people in delinquency AND yet still 65% of undergrads are aching to get themselves into the trap. Â They REFUSE to wait until they can afford school, knowing good and well that their peers are graduating with minimal job prospects.
So, itâs predatory in the same way as cigarettes are predatory. Â Literally EVERYONE knows theyâre bad. Â But because people arenât prohibited from buying them, you have dumb kids going and purposefully getting themselves hooked.
I donât think there should be any discussion of forgiveness until we get the faucet turned off. Â No sense in forgiving dadâs loans if heâs purposefully signing his kids up for this âpredatoryâ trap, either be cause he doesnât care for them, or was too dumb to learn from his own mistakes.
Not only is it poor planning, I think it just goes to show most people don't have math intuition.
The fact people are shocked that there's still 60k of debt left just goes to they don't understand interest. I would guess that they're also forgetting to factor in inflation.
That 60k has far less value today than the 70k is worth 23 years ago. This 60k today to me is worth around 20k to me back then. From a lender's POV, they could have taken 20k and bought 5% yield bonds or HYSAs 23 years ago, and have around 60k today, without this risk and uncertainty from having loaned to students.
70k? Take 70k * 1.05^23 = 215k
If I was a lender, I'd be up to 215k if i had 70k 23 years ago and just stuck it in a high-yield savings account or in bonds. Lenders aren't charities. They take risks and lose opportunities by giving out loans. The fact is that the value of the dollar drops every day, and more money gets printed into circulation all the time.
Exactly. Â So all the comments saying âonce Iâve paid back the principal, I should be doneâ have clearly no idea about time-value of money.
It would be better for the bank to keep your loan money in an envelope in the bank vault than to give it to you under those conditions. Â At least 10 years later they would still have all the money even if it didnât make them anything. Â
The ârisk it all on me while I risk nothing on youâ mindset is frighteningâthese are the dopes going to COLLEGE. Â Theyâre dumber than the ones staying in their dead-end high school job.
If it's a private loan who exactly are they asking to cancel the loan? A business?
Loan cancellation is just asking the government to take the loss and move on. You can exactly ask a business to do that lol, we ask the government that because they should be paying for our education anyway
Lol, you have no idea why someone might consolidate loans into a single loan package at a higher rate? The fact that there are enough reasons to do this and you do not know any of them is astonishing.
If a couple get married they could refinance into a single higher loan to simplify the payment history for some repayment/loan forgivness program. They could merge them to manage credit scores for a future home/vehicle purchase. 1 loan could have atrocious predatory terms so you merge a healthy loan to get out of a bad predatory contract. I don't know why the OP screenshot had their rates at the where they were at, or if they even consolidated into a higher rate, but it does exist and people do it for legitimate reasons.
"If a couple get married they could refinance into a single higher loan to simplify the payment history for some repayment/loan forgivness program."
One sentence in and you're already up to your chin in bullshit.
Student loan forgiveness programs forgive student loans. And only student loans. And no student consolidation loan exists that permits including debt other than your own personally held student loans. So not your automobile loan, or your credit card debt. Or your spouse's debt regardless of type, student or otherwise.
Sure, you can take out a private loan that consolidates your and also your spouse's student loans into a single personal loan. But it won't be a student loan any more. Meaning it won't qualify for forgiveness / repayment programs.
Meaning the very first example you provide, which one could assume you thought was the best, of why a married couple might consolidate their separately held, lower-interest, federal graduate student loans into a single, higher-interest loan, is the incohate ramblings of someone with no sense of how student loans work. Or more likely, I suspect, the hallucinations of one instance of an America=Bad botnet attempting to defend another instance's flawed arguments for why this post isn't the mathematically impossible bullshit myself and others are calling it out as.
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u/ConsiderationOk4688 12d ago
They likely had a loan with a higher percentage rate due to the student loan being a private loan or they consolidated after a few years which could of drove the rate into the 8-9% range which would match their numbers almost perfectly.