
The inescapable weight of my student debt - DomreiRoam
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/21/the-inescapable-weight-of-my-100000-student-debt
======
bluejay2387
There are books published by the US Government in almost every public library
in the United States that have detailed earning stats and employment forecasts
on every career. There are an enormous number of web sites (including sites
maintained by the government) that offer the same information with a few
seconds of searching. At some point people need to take responsibility for the
consequences of their own actions.

~~~
petermcneeley
"At some point people need to take responsibility for the consequences of
their own actions." Are you talking about the people that lent the money? Debt
is a two way street this is why some people are credit worthy and others are
not.

~~~
thebigspacefuck
This is a good point. Obama got rid of defaulting on student loans, so there's
really not much of an excuse for banks not to give people a loan they won't be
able to pay off. If there were, the bank might take more of an interest in
what you were studying and what your career goals were.

~~~
sjg007
It was Bush, not Obama.

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sjg007
There's the loan forgiveness program if you work at a non-profit or in
education for 10 years. That seems like one pathway out at least for the
Federal loans.

There are some people who don't pay the loans at all and take the credit hit
and find their tax refunds taken. The interesting thing is that the refund
directly reduces the principal and is not applied to the interest. For some
people that seems to be a reasonable mitigation. I could be misremembering the
details here though.

The other thing is that people need to vote. Vote for politicians who will
reform student loans.

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cellularmitosis
“I have spent a great deal of time during the last decade shifting the blame
for my debt. Whose fault was it?”

After all that he has been through, he still doesn’t seem to give
consideration to his choice of major as the root source of the problem.

~~~
thebigspacefuck
He does consider it. "Or was it my fault for not having the foresight to
realise it was a mistake to spend roughly $200,000 on a school where, in order
to get my degree, I kept a journal about reading Virginia Woolf?"

~~~
cellularmitosis
Oh, I thought he was calling into question the quality of his school or
department in that statement.

~~~
sjg007
He's doing both. He's saying the price he paid for his education was not worth
the 200k sticker.

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willio58
Great read. Looking back I’m so glad I chose to go with the in-state public
school in my home town for a CS degree. I am looking at graduating in a year
with zero debt and some good career prospects.

Makes me shutter now to think I was considering out of state $40-50k per year
universities. I was 17 years old and in my undeveloped head I was really
thinking it would be worth it..

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honkycat
>> “I have spent a great deal of time during the last decade shifting the
blame for my debt. Whose fault was it?”

There is no one single person to point to, but I'll take a whack at it:

1\. The father, who should know better, for agreeing to co-sign a loan for a
worthless degree. A 5 minute conversation with ANYONE related to the degree
would have told him the facts.

I wanted to be a video game designer and my parents would not sign for a loan
for a degree in that area. We compromised on Computer Science. BULLET. DODGED.

I'm a bit sorrowful I'm not working at my passion, but I'm pretty young and
for all I know being a game designer would have made me miserable. Traveling
the world, living comfortably, and putting away a lot of money as a computer
programmer is not something I'm about to complain about.

2\. The people giving these people toxic loans for degrees that have no chance
of every paying off.

They have essentially created a servant class that has to pay a large % of
their monthly take-home to a parasitic student loan company. Instead of taking
risks, buying houses and cars, and getting more useful education, they are
doing data entry.

The best minds of my generation are doing data entry and working at call
centers.

3\. The Universities themselves. How is it at all ethical to allow students to
go through a 4 year program, charge them 100k for the effort, and then turn
them out on the streets to suffer for years and years?

I remember in my non-major classes in college, the attitude of other students
with worthless degrees and professors who teach them was: Don't talk about it.
Don't think about it, just keep going. Which is bullshit. Talk about it. Tell
the students what they are getting into.

~~~
milesvp
You missed one.

4\. The government for passing legislation making the discharge of student
debt in bankruptcy nearly impossible.

When people talk about the inflation of the cost of a university degree I
never see as the number one cause for it being the no risk loans to people who
have no money sense (17 year olds) that pour money into the system.

Bankruptcy is a vital check valve on financial systems as well as an essential
safety net to allow risk taking, even if that risk taking is pursuing a
worthless degree.

I was lucky, in that I knew I could only afford in state tuition at a
university where I could live at home. I used to laugh at some of my high
school peers who were going off to really expensive liberal arts colleges. I
still think it was foolish for most of them, but now that I'm older I really
hope the decisions didn't cripple them financially.

------
vectorEQ
>.> bad parenting letting their kid rack up 100k in debt.

~~~
willio58
It’s a bit more complex than that. Yes it’s some really horrible advice they
gave, but they gave it founded on the weird idea that had been hammered into
their heads—that if they sent their child to a _good_ school they would be
successful in life.

The author acknowledges this. It’s akin to the American dream. I think getting
the word out with pieces like this is a good step in the right direction.

------
fatalVoltage
As soon as I read that he graduated with a degree in "English Literature" I
knew what the problem was - what did he expect? Where does he think the demand
for that is? How did he justify 100k$ for such a degree ( or any degree for
that part )?

There are so many jobs like welding, plumbing, etc that need to be done, pay
very good money and require no ( or very small ) loans, and he studied
something like English Literature ( for 100k$ !! ) complaining...

Hell, even studying something "elite" as he calls it like CS in his own time,
on his own, doing projects to get some starting job in any CS-related industry
would be preferrable.

People who study these bullshit degrees are in a mess of their own doing.

~~~
torstenvl
Seems like you're victim-blaming. Do you really think a 17-year-old has the
capacity to sort through the wrong career guidance?

This problem is emphatically _not_ of the students' own making. It's on the
teachers and guidance counselors who insist on a college degree at any cost
and brook no disagreement.

~~~
fatalVoltage
I do actually since when I was 17 I got advice by all my teachers, parents,
etc to go into something that pays. Also it's just common sense that you need
money to pay your bills, therefore you need a job that is in demand.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The part of the brain responsible for critical reasoning about consequences
isn't fully developed until 25 (see: car rental company age limits). Also,
congrats on your strong support system! A lot of people don't have that, and
you can't form public policy based on your sole experience.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Ok, so he can now study something that pays and then pay off his debt. Nobody
forced him to take loans.

I paid for my own education in the US, and I worked while studying. It wasn't
easy, but I recognized the value of money.

I'm not even sure what your argument is for. Do you want us to pitch in for
his bad financial decisions? Why don't you pay him from your checking account,
show us how it's done?

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I paid for my own education in the US, and I worked while studying. It
> wasn't easy, but I recognized the value of money.

A single anecdote holds no value for broad policy decisions.

> I'm not even sure what your argument is for. Do you want us to pitch in for
> his bad financial decisions? Why don't you pay him from your checking
> account, show us how it's done?

I financially support candidates who support discharging student loan debt.
It's a drag on the US economy, and would provide more financial stimulus than
tax cuts for the wealthy.

~~~
bufferoverflow
I assume "discharging student loan debt" is the euphemism for "let the
taxpayer pay for that undesirable pile of shit that he chose to study".

That will only worsen the situation - more young people will study shit that's
not in demand.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The recently approved $717 billion in defense spending increased military
spending by $80 billion dollars, far in excess of what would've been necessary
to provide free college to everyone. Hard to argue the moral hazard on
education spending when you're firehosing billions of dollars of taxpayer
money into a dumpster fire already.

"Those concerns were brushed aside Monday night, as the Senate overwhelmingly
approved an $80 billion annual increase in military spending, enough to have
fully satisfied Sanders’s campaign promise. Instead, the Senate handed
President Donald Trump far more than the $54 billion he asked for. The lavish
spending package gives Trump a major legislative victory, allowing him to
boast about fulfilling his promise of a “great rebuilding of the armed
services.

Or with $80 billion a year, you could make public colleges and universities in
the U.S. tuition-free. In fact, Sanders’s proposal was only estimated to cost
the federal government $47 billion per year."

[https://theintercept.com/2017/09/18/the-senates-military-
spe...](https://theintercept.com/2017/09/18/the-senates-military-spending-
increase-alone-is-enough-to-make-public-college-free/)

~~~
prepend
Or with $80 billion a year, you could do lots of stuff like have a lower
deficit.

Reducing defense spending being good does not mean that using it to discharge
bad student loans is the best use.

~~~
craftyguy
You can argue all day about the 'best' thing to spend $80bn on, but there's no
way the 'defense' budget will be reduced by any meaningful amount for the
foreseeable future.

