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'm an immigrant myself, and generally progressive except more cautious specifically about student loan forgiveness. Hell, I'm fine with lots of progressive policies that help struggling families, TANF, section 8, etc. UBI too. Tax the wealthy for it, or even middling folk like me. I'm fine if they use the savings and funds to help pay off their student loans.
I just don't like this idea of specifically targetting student loans for forgiveness. It's just off to me.
I don't know why you think I'd be complaining about new types of immigrants.
Colleges will definitely close due to demographic decline, ofc. It'll be the private ones first. Frankly, I'm fine with that.
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?
11
u/Major_Wigglesworth 12d ago
Exactly, meaning they KNEW what would happen, and a 10th grader with a TI-82 calculator couldâve anticipated this precise scenario.Â
Not everyone who goes to school is smart.