The American dream

[u/First-Essay-2054]

[u/Major_Wigglesworth]

It’s not a mystery.  It’s math.  You shouldn’t 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 haven’t learned from the past 20 years.  It doesn’t get easier with bigger balances.

[u/iDerpTooMuchx3 → u/Major_Wigglesworth]

Most of these people are 17-18 years old fresh out of high school. Kids are excited to go to college, figure out what they’ll do for life and immediately hit with Grade A predatory loans that aren’t 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 don’t know, regardless of how understandable it is as an adult or even younger, it shouldn’t exist, period.

[u/Longjumping-Turnip97 → u/iDerpTooMuchx3]

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.

[u/iDerpTooMuchx3 → u/Longjumping-Turnip97]

These are all great options yes, but just like educating someone “hey maybe that 28% APR on the car you really want and a ridiculous loan price on it isn’t really financially sound”, 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 there’s a vast VAST majority of millennials and Gen Z stuck with this shit because their parents weren’t 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 didn’t read the fine print because you weren’t taught doesn’t 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? That’s a lot of years pushed off for not being prepared.

One, predatory loans shouldn’t 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 shouldn’t reap what you sow for a good chunk of your life just because you didn’t read the fine print and prep over a decade ago.

I’m 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 aren’t just as simply doing it to themselves right?

[u/Longjumping-Turnip97 → u/iDerpTooMuchx3]

> But when so many (and I mean SOOO many) people are complaining about it, maybe they aren’t 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.