One of the best things my country did was interest free student loans while you remained in the country.
Debt is alot more manageable without interest
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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Canada now has interest free student loans and very generous, flexible repayment schedules.
We also directly transfer a lot of money to our colleges and universities that helps keep tuition lower.
Ours are % of income above a threshold. Technically if you make less than that and stay in the country it goes up like $5 a year in fees.
My wife finished studying while we had our first kid and only worked 4 hours a week - student loan wasn't touched till she went back to full time a few years ago.
In Norway, student loans are interest-free until you're out of college. Crazy that a "first world" country wouldn't have something like that.
Most Federal loans in the US are the same (at least they were when I took them out nearly 20 years ago, problem is you are only in school for 4 years.
Then you get a shit paying job for at least 5 or 10 years after that—maybe you’re motivated enough to seek a masters or PHD after that but most aren’t (for the implied benefit of higher earnings, nothing else). Coupled with the fact that the cost to attend any higher ed in the US is outrageously overpriced to begin with, wages are stagnant, cost of living is beyond unaffordable pretty much everywhere in the states…
It’s just another facet of the capitalist hell system we’ve saddled ourselves with and continue to just shrug off as if there’s no other way to do things.
I took out a 31k loan, I've currently paid 40k against it and still owe 20k. Exact scenario. Turns out 17yo me didn't know what major I wanted and I had to defer until I had a new plan. The current system is predatory.
But this way companies make soo much interest
Your country damaged it's economy by doing that.
You probably have college educated citizens who can work less the older they get because of the higher income they earned getting out of college. This means they're less productive than the college educated Americans whose extra income is siphoned away through the interest from their loans, keeping them perpetually on the edge of poverty, and thus at peak productivity.
Oh no, not the economy!
Also your whole argument is that older people aren’t being held at gunpoint, and younger people are having to do more work to earn far less than they did.
Your argument is that we should starve the dogs to keep them obedient.
Fuck right off
I'm guessing this is sarcasm, but it's uncomfortably close to how actual neoliberals think
I'm absolutely certain that there way student loans were set up in the US was a concerted effort by the ruling class to keep the working people who went to college from accumulating wealth for themselves.
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Not sure why they report on one person doing this.... isn't this the norm nowdays? Work two jobs to pay a debt that ought never have existed?
Me, I got the 100k debt but I just pretend it doesn't exist and I'm fine!! We'll pay the minimums til I die....
This is CNBC. This series exists to gaslight people about their finances and the economy. In this article they have normalization of hustle culture and admonishment of her getting a degree based on passion instead of ROI.
In the past it's been used to gaslight readers into thinking their budget problems are solely due to their own inadequacy. They do this by highlighting people who are usually in marginal areas, like disabled people, and show how they make their budget work. Every single article has something like, "lives rent free with parents" somewhere in there. Others have straight up given ridiculous numbers for rent and utilities.
It's absolutely the norm. I work with loads of people who jumped ship on their degree because they couldn't find good enough pay in the field. I'd say maybe 40% of my team is in this situation most of them over 35. One of the younglings gave up after his first semester after researching his FOS and learning he didn't stand a fincial chance. It's pretty fucking sad honestly. Great kid with nothing but ambition and hard work to give.
As a near 40 year old with the same amount of student loan debt, I have absolutely considered a part-time gig to help pay down the loans. But the amount seems so enormous, and the repayment would be so comparatively small, that the little free time with my family is far more valuable.
I will never understand why people work so hard to pay off student loans..If you've been paying off a loan for years and the balance just keeps going UP, the sensible thing to do is default on the loan, accept the consequences of that (which is minimal with student loans) and move on with your life
Edit: everyone saying they will garnish your wages, this is not something that is common, its fear mongering. If anyone has personal antidotes about having their wages garnished I'd love to know how long that process took and what it was like but I doubt we will see any.
I thought one of the big problems with America's student debt was that you can't effectively default on it? That it will still persist even after filing for bankruptcy for example?
And guess who is president and responsible for that?
Not how it works you utter fucking moron
By default I just mean stop paying. You can't get rid of the debt by bankruptcy or anything, you still owe it, but it also doesn't affect peoples credit score as much as many seem to think it does.
They can garnish your wages
You can’t escape student loan debt by default, bankruptcy, etc.
The best thing you can do is sign up for IBR and accept that 5% of your income is lost for 20 years, and hope that whoever is president at that time isn’t a sadist cunt. Also try to save some extra money for possible income tax on the forgiven amount.
That’s assuming your loans are subsidized. If they’re private, try delivering for DoorDash on the side!
I'm saying you can stop paying, Im not saying you won't still owe them, but I know people who owe tens of thousands in student loans and have not paid them a cent in over ten years, they have a credit score of around 800, its never affected their ability to get any kind of credit or housing.
I think people over estimate how important they are or what kind of consequences there are for not paying as if it ruins your credit score forever or something, and its just not true.
You may have missed this link someone else posted, but if you stop paying, your employer may be required to withhold some of your wages to make the payments
https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/what-is-wage-garnishment
Okay but what I'm saying is, why work extra hard and take a second job? Why not just make a single minimum payment every 270 days to avoid them moving to the next steps? There are just so many other options besides working a second job to pay them, and so many delay tactics you could employ to avoid getting to the point of garnished wages.
You're right. Im late 30s, took out tons of loans at 17yo, and my dad swindled me out of anything that didnt go directly to tuition.
I stopped paying a decade ago, keep waiting for my checks to be garnished, but hasn't happened yet.
I don't use credit, im financially not an adult in many ways, but i kept waaaaay more of my money than anyone else i know.
thank you! Ive yet to hear a single story from anyone who's actually defaulted and had wages garnished for student loans. Sure it can happen but its pretty rare.
I've had two employees at my work get their wages garnished for defaulting on student loans. It definitely happens.
Edit: One of the guys told me flat out that he will never willingly give a cent towards his student loans ever again. The other guy was going through some financial hardship after leaving here and we got a notice to garnish but he was no longer employed with us so we just had to respond back to the notice.
Interesting to hear, and yeah one of the main issues with garnishing someones wages is, even the government has to do a bit of work to actually track down your employer and people who default on student loans don't tend to have very good employment (i'm not at all arguing you shouldnt pay them if you can actually afford to, just that you shouldnt go out of your way for it if you're struggling).
I wonder how much they got from 15% of that one employees wages, I'll bet it was less then they'd have to pay to actually pay off the loan... and of course if that person ever changes jobs they have to track down the new employer each time. also wonder how common it is for wages to be garnished over say child support compared, or back taxes to student loans..
Same- all threats, don't know anyone actually being garnished.
When my choice was pay loans or eat, i ate, and i sure af am not going to call someone and offer them money just because it got slightly better a couple years later. Ive never owned a new couch, i am not well off.
If debtors prisons come back, I'm fucked, but until then, frankly, what can they do? I can't afford a house or kids either way, and i am not throwing away anything on interest that will only grow and stress me out.
I have no idea what i must owe now, over triple my salary, min.
They sold a for-profit bullshit degree.
Fuck em
Or just flee to a developed country
You can't.
You can't do this with student loan debt which seems incredibly dumb. I also don't understand borrowing 100k for school.
I also don't understand borrowing 100k for school
Other than the fact that college tuition has become absurdly expensive, the predatory fees and interest structures of student loans means that most people who have been paying theirs to the best of their ability for several years actually still owe MORE than the original amount borrowed, which I'm guessing is the case here.
The terms and conditions that people who are usually 17-18yo and know fuck all about contract law are coerced into agreeing to in order to "ever make something of themselves" would make Franz Kafka disown The Trial for being utopian sentimentalism in comparison.
Are in-state tuitions not a thing anymore? I'm old but when I went to school it was the difference between something like $30k a year and $5k a year.
Edit: for one local major university in a kinda shitty state (but a good school), I guess now it's 10k/year vs 30k/year
Also, how many 17-18yos are deciding on this stuff without parents' help?? I mean, clearly not all, but surely most?
My parent encouraged me to take out loans including housing, then overcharged me rent from it lol
Not all parents are helpful
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Education is for becoming more and more just for the rich