
I've Paid $18,000 to a $24,000 Student Loan, and I Still Owe $24,000 - dsr12
https://www.bustle.com/p/ive-paid-18000-to-a-24000-student-loan-i-still-owe-24000-9000788
======
waffleau
Hacker News has a pretty well educated community, so it's not surprising that
the general response seems to be that this was an obvious outcome. But this
story is not unique to this woman. There are a huge number of people that seem
to be in the same situation, and it's dismissive to just say that people
should be more educated.

People aren't rational agents. They suck at making decisions about their long
term well being. They're told that the best way to support their future is to
go to university, so they take out a loan under the assumption that once
they're finished, they'll earn so much that paying it off won't be an issue.
And if you're not particularly financially literate, you might assume that
this is fine since everyone else seems to be doing it. And you might also
assume that they wouldn't lend you money that you couldn't repay.

The reality is there's an information asymmetry in favour of lenders. They
know better than you how likely you are to repay your debt. And their
incentives are structured to maximise their return, not clear your debt. So if
the best way for them to make money is for you to not be able to pay off your
debt, that's what they'll try to do. The harder it is for you to understand
what you're getting into, the better for them. The less financial literacy you
possess, the better for them.

I'm not arguing that the author shouldn't bear responsibility for her
decisions. Of course people should understand the things that they agree to
and meet their obligations. But there is a calibration problem when the
pursuit of an education can lead to three decades of financial hardship.

~~~
merinowool
You forget that there are also ignorant people who just take the loan whatever
the deal is regardless if what they do makes sense - it just "feels" right for
them. Then when the time comes to pay it back, they'll just try to moan it
away. If there is enough people with such attitude so that it could be a good
number of voters, there will be a politician willing to climb on it and force
companies one way or another to waive the loans. Ultimately people should be
taught to take responsibility and not that ignorance pays off.

~~~
angersock
_> Ultimately people should be taught to take responsibility and not that
ignorance pays off._

You mean like the people who keep lending money to students who aren't going
to be able able to pay it back?

~~~
paulddraper
Absolutely. Both lenders and borrowers shouldn't be able to bailed out.

(Somehow -- through mechanisms that are still beyond me -- this is exactly
what happened in 2008. Absurd.)

------
lb1lf
This is -ahem- exotic, seen from Scandinavia.

In Norway, student loans are granted by the state; roughly speaking, the terms
are as follows -

-They're personal; noone acts as collateral. Neither do you need to provide any - however, if you default, they _may_ go for your assets, within reason.

-No interest while you're under education (within reason; if you're delayed significantly, interest may start to accrue.)

-You get approx. $14,000/year, intended to cover living expenses, study materials, beer &c.

-Once you graduate, interest starts to accrue (at the time being: 2.08% per annum; after a few months, you have to make monthly payments.

-If you're unemployed, you can apply for postponement of payments; interest keeps running.

-If you're ill for any significant duration of time, you can apply to have interest stopped, as well.

-If you default on your loan, the lender may go after assets - bank accounts, vehicles, homes &c - but only after a long and involved due process, and they need to try to work with you to find a solution which isn't as drastic..

Edit: Also, the terms, including the caveat that interest rates may rise &c
are being spelled out - more or less literally, they go through great pains to
ensure you know what you're getting yourself into - and you get an estimate
based on the expected length of your studies as to how much your monthly
payment will be+when you will have repaid the loan in full.

~~~
the8472
Germany goes even further. They also waive part of the loan if you graduate
within the regular number of semesters, with a high enough grade or if you
repay early. Additionally it is interest-free unless you're late with
payments.

~~~
Mirioron
Estonia goes even further than that. University is free as long as you don't
fall behind (too much) in the curriculum.

~~~
the8472
University is mostly free in germany too (there's an administrative fee of
~200€ per semester). Those loans are just to cover living expenses so that
everyone has a chance to study even when parents can't provide support.

------
firic
> Kids are taking loans out at 17 or 18 that they won’t be able to pay back
> until they’re 40 or 50.

This is the big problem. Calling 18 year olds, kids, is basically saying that
18 year olds aren't old enough to be considered adults. Either you get the
freedom of being an adult along with the responsibility or your leader decides
what is best for you and you no longer have freedom. Even more so in her case.
Her parents are ok the hook for repaying the debt. That means that they (ages
40 I guess) looked at the contact and thought it was a good deal. Is the
author suggesting that 40 year olds shouldn't be allowed to get loans?

If that isn't enough she describes defaulting on a loan as something okay. She
decides to fly abroad and just assumes that the loan holders won't require her
to start repayment.

But even before that, she realizes in the middle of her undergrad that the
tuition is to much. But she decides to get a loan on bad terms because she
doesn't want to loose her friends. Come on. She decides to get a terrible loan
because she is to shy to make new friends.

For poor people, who know how to handle the freedom of being an adult, student
loans could be exactly what they need to succeed in life. But for
irresponsible people like the author, I don't think any laws can protect her
from herself.

~~~
mattm
Most 18 year olds have never had anything more than a minimum wage jobs and
now they are supposed to be responsible for making decisions worth more than
they've made in their entire life and lasting longer than they've been alive?
Where is someone this age supposed to get the experience to make these
responsible decisions?

I graduated about $40,000 in debt and it was only then that I realised how
difficult it is to pay that back. Up until that point, it's just a number on a
piece of paper. I managed to pay it back in about 2 years but I was lucky in
that I graduated with Comp Sci which is in demand and got a pretty well paying
job in my city for someone with no experience.

And I say lucky because choosing my degree was just based on an interest of
mine in high school that I thought would be interesting. It's no different
than other people choosing to study what's interesting but in my case, comp
sci and programming pays well in the economy while history doesn't.

Student loans are a vicious supply and demand cycle. Students can take out
loans to cover school so universities realise they can charge more which in
turns leads to students taking out more to cover education.

~~~
humanrebar
> Most 18 year olds have never had anything more than a minimum wage jobs and
> now they are supposed to be responsible for making decisions worth more than
> they've made in their entire life and lasting longer than they've been
> alive?

They're old enough to know that $10,000 is real money and that they should be
asking for advice and help if they feel over their heads.

------
arenaninja
I graduated nearly the same year as the dates listed in the article, and I
find it hard to sympathize with the author.

Why did she go to private university? There's no shortage of public
universities with substantially better financial terms unless you get a FULL
RIDE to a private institution.

When she had $67000 she decided to take another $24000 loan? With a variable
interest rate? In the year 2010, 2 years after the financial crisis of 2008
she didn't understand how a variable interest rate was disastrous? I need to
either suspend disbelief to entertain that idea or deduce that the author was
beyond clueless -- she was actively disinterested in her future.

There is zero useful introspection on lessons learned or things she could have
done better. Her takeaway in all this:

> If I can appreciate anything about this struggle, it’s that it was
> ultimately in the pursuit of something bigger than I would have achieved if
> I had taken a job just out of high school in the Bronx.

I think many of us here agree there is an issue with predatory lending and
student loans. The problem I have with this article is that it sets the debate
back. For the civil rights movement, the NAACP very carefully considered and
skipped a number of people to challenge segregation laws until Rosa Parks.
This woman is no Rosa Parks.

~~~
batteryhorse
I completely disagree with this comment.

In 1988, Bill Clinton signed the Higher Education Amendments which made
student loans NON-DISCHARGEABLE. Essentially, he handed the students to the
bankers on a silver platter. These loans should be dischargeable and forgiven,
because in my opinion they are FRAUDULENT.

I don't think you realize the amount of damage this has caused to US society
as a whole. There is an entire generation of kids whose lives were ruined
because they were told to get a university degree which turned out to be
worthless and expensive.

Essentially you are saying she should have known better. I read your comment
and you say that she is clueless, and I cannot help but think that you are
also clueless because you also do not understand how the financial system
actually works. But you are not alone, because all of the "expert economists"
also do not understand, everybody is clueless.

Believe me, this is a crisis that will be felt for generations.

~~~
mortehu
If you make student debt dischargable, the cost of the loan must also include
the cost of insuring against borrower default. I.e. students who don't default
must pay for those who do, plus an additional amount to due to uncertainty in
future default rates.

~~~
conanbatt
Welcome to the world of lending. Thats how its supposed to work.

------
chrisbennet
Once upon a time, kids (in the US) could afford to go to state schools without
racking up horrendous debts. Now, the in state tuition in my state (NH) is
over $28K a year. Education was once a societal priority. Maybe we should, as
a society, value educating our populace as much as say, we value imprisoning
them? [1] It wouldn’t surprise me that we societally _do_ value it but
something is thwarting us from getting what we value.

[1] $30-$60K year [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-a-nation-of-
incarce...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-a-nation-of-
incarceration/)

~~~
cobookman
Georgia does it right. The Zell Miller & Hope scholarship + cheap cost of
living makes university incredibly affordable.

I literally made money while attending Georgia Tech for my engineering degree.
100% of my tuition was paid for by the state

~~~
mhluongo
Important to remember it was paid for from Georgia lotto proceeds, making it a
tax on the poor to pay for middle-class education.

Disclaimer: Hope recipient

~~~
cobookman
Tax, "a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on
workers' income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods,
services, and transactions.".

Nothing about the lotto is compulsory or based on income. I don't think its
fair to say that its a "tax on the poor".

This scholarship has been great for the state overall and was a smart move.
Georgia Tech is now a top 5 engineering school in the us, and top 10
worldwide. UGA became a highly ranked University. The tier 3 schools became
tier 2, and tier 2 schools tier 1.

If it wasn't for this scholarship you'd have overall worse schools, and a
brain drain on your hands.

~~~
camgunz
Lotteries are marketed pretty directly to lower income folks, and you can tell
it's working because they're the ones buying most of the tickets. They also
spend a higher percentage of their income on it. This is just sort of
empirically clear, like do you see lottery signs in upper middle class areas?
Nope. You see them in the "poor" grocery stores (not Whole Foods), gas
stations, and liquor stores. For maximum convenience, some check cashing/pay
day loans have lottery booths too.

Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/lottery-is-a-tax-on-the-
poor-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/lottery-is-a-tax-on-the-poor-2012-4)

> If it wasn't for this scholarship you'd have overall worse schools, and a
> brain drain on your hands.

I mean, if you're OK with this kind of redistribution (FWIW I am too, it makes
a lot of sense) then I think we should ask the richest of us to foot it, not
the poorest of us.

~~~
curun1r
They're marketed at that target segment to avoid the problems that came with
not providing a state-sponsored version of those services. If you look back at
the history of the lottery, it started out as black market, unregulated
gambling that led to violence and other crime as the people running the often-
fixed games fought over the right to fleece people. The modern, state-run
lotteries just provide an outlet for gambling that would happen anyways.

~~~
camgunz
> If you look back at the history of the lottery, it started out as black
> market, unregulated gambling that led to violence and other crime as the
> people running the often-fixed games fought over the right to fleece people.

I think a game (quoting Powerball here) where your odds are 1:292,201,338 is
by definition a fleece. All that happened here is the state is reserving that
right for itself, justifying it as taxing a vice. This is a common theme --
look at cigarettes and alcohol -- but in basically every case it's lower
income people who are shelling out.

> The modern, state-run lotteries just provide an outlet for gambling that
> would happen anyways.

This is a common policy argument (see cigarettes/alcohol above or legalizing
drugs), but does this even make sense? White collar crime is pretty rampant,
so what if we legalize it and make an embezzling tax? Or human trafficking is
a persistent scourge, what if we legalize it and tax it?

Furthermore, these vice taxes are regressive flat taxes. If we start
legalizing things and replacing the criminality with a tax, really that only
opens it up to people with means. It's still ruinous for lower income people
to engage with it. Which is -- you probably won't be surprised to hear --
another reason the lottery preys on lower income people.

I think we should just admit that this stuff is discriminatory -- a lot on
class but at least a little on race.

~~~
bryondowd
There's a clear difference between gambling/drinking/smoking/drug abuse and
the crimes you mentioned like embezzling and human trafficking. The former are
self victimizing while the latter directly victimize others. That's the
rationale behind legalization and why nobody would suggest it for regular
crimes. Essentially it's giving people the freedom to make their own mistakes
as long as they aren't hurting anyone but themselves. Instead we tailor the
laws to protect others from being hurt by collateral effects (no smoking in
public buildings, no stealing for drug money, no advertising cigarettes to
kids, etc) and we raise money, often to support programs to educate people
about the risks of those behaviors and help those who want to recover.

From what I've seen from places that have legalized various vices, it seems to
always end up doing more good than criminalization.

~~~
camgunz
There's really no such thing as a victimless crime, because there's no such
thing as an act that affects only the actor. Drinking alcohol has an impact on
others, smoking cigarettes has an impact on others, same with gambling and so
on. You can separate based on "collateral effects", but the whole thing is a
continuum and we draw the lines arbitrarily.

I dislike this line of reasoning because it leads us naturally to the
conclusion that vice taxes (etc.) are the best we can do because some people
are very incorrigible and many people are a little incorrigible. While I think
we'll never eradicate "vices", I do think most of them have root causes and
the most effective thing would be to treat those. If we think Behavior X is
unhealthy to the self or societally damaging, sure taxing it is a way to
balance out the damage to society, but that does nothing for the person. If we
spent time fixing smoking, for example, we'd save so many lives and so much
money that it's kind of bewildering that we haven't done it.

I do think legalization in general is better than criminalization -- but only
because the US criminal justice system is deeply harmful. It would be better
if we treated the more serious users of vices instead of imprisoning or
aggressively taxing them.

~~~
bryondowd
Ok, but who gets to decide where to draw the line between harmful behaviors
and nonharmful ones. One could argue that just about everything we do has some
degree of risk, some more than others. As you say it's a continuum. Should we
ban unhealthy foods? Should we ban contact sports? How about extramarital sex?
The values of the person you ask will dictate whether any given thing is a
vice or a pastime.

What right do you have to say whether the enjoyment someone finds in a vice is
offset by the damage it does to their health or finances or social life? And
for any given vice, usually the ill effects are a function of how heavily one
uses the vice. So does a full ban to save the few who overindulge balance
against depriving the rest of the option to make small trades against their
own lives for some pleasure? Should we ban alcohol to save the alcoholics at
the cost of everyone else being able to unwind with a beer? We tried that and
it didn't go very well.

Evidence seems to point to education and access to treatment being far more
effective than bans. And it's very difficult to get any kind of long term
results by involuntarily treating someone, so I'm not sure there's much to be
gained by criminalization with enforced treatment instead of just punishment.

At the end, you pretty much have to let people make their own _informed_
decisions. Anything else sounds like a step toward an authoritarian state
dictating everything you do.

~~~
camgunz
> Ok, but who gets to decide where to draw the line between harmful behaviors
> and nonharmful ones.

You're right, this is tricky. But consider China's opium epidemic in the late
19th century. A lot of legalization advocates argue that drug use is a
victimless crime, but in that epidemic 13.5 million people were addicted to
opium. That has a huge social cost. Or US prohibition in the early 20th
century: alcohol was leading to awful domestic abuse and it caused women to be
the strongest supporters of the 18th amendment.

In fact the prohibition case is interesting because I think we went about it
entirely the wrong way, which was the point of my parent post. If we simply
criminalize the act then we're essentially saying whomever commits the "vice"
is incorrigible and has to be separated from polite society. One step better
is to tax the act so society can in some ways be reimbursed for the cost of
the behavior. But the best step would be to discover why so many people are
abusing alcohol in the first place and solve that problem. We'll only have the
justification to do that though, if we recognize that the people who fall
victim to those vices deserve our support, rather than just being abandoned as
morally weak or fundamentally lower than us.

The cool thing about that is then we don't need to have some weird arbitrary
line between, "oh 2 drinks is OK, 4 drinks you're going to jail". And we help
people who fall victim to alcoholism or whichever vice we're talking about.
It's a win-win, if only we can get over our preening moralism.

But in general you're right, there's not a lot of daylight between an act and
a crime because not everything we regulate has a moral underpinning. But that
doesn't mean those regulations can't do good, and it certainly doesn't mean
that just because we enact some regulations we're inevitably headed towards
totalitarianism. That's just a slippery slope fallacy.

------
Illniyar
As others have mentioned, this seems like a test case issue of bad financial
planning. There are lots of ways to get into such a situation, not all of them
student loan related.

Frankly if you look at only the numbers, then 170,000$ total on a 95,000$ is
what you'll get for a 20 year loan with 6.5% interest (give or take). From
what I can tell from the article she will be paying it for roughly 20 years.
If you take a fixed-rate payment (I.E. paying the same amount monthly for the
entire loan, rather then paying the same percentage of the remaining loan
every month), this is exactly the situation you'll get - I.E. the first few
years your payments go almost entirely to interest and only later years you
pay for the principal.

These are very common financial instruments that you can get from a bank or
credit company. Especially if your parents are cosigned.

I think the main takeaways are rather these:

1\. How in the world is a variable interest loan based on LIBOR (which the
article alludes to) gets to 11% interest? that's prime + 8%, at least. That's
practically loan-shark territory. How is a government led (and financed) aid
program have such an insane interest rate?

2\. When you take a loan for investing (such as education, or starting a new
company), I.E. leveraging, you should always consider whether the future value
of the investments is higher then what you borrowed. I'm assuming she studied
for jobs that don't pay well.

3\. American education is insanely expensive. It's probably cheaper to just
study abroad for a few years and come back (like she did for her master's
degree).

~~~
saalweachter
Not defending student loans or the entire predatory infrastructure that
supports them, but rates on _all_ unsecured loans are nasty.

Home loans can be cheap because they are secured by the value of the house: if
you default, the bank thinks it can sell your house and still make a profit.

Unsecured loans yield nothing when they go bad, so they have absurd interest
rates whether the loan is for education, business, or whatever. That’s why
many people choose to eg take out a second mortgage when starting a business:
better interest rates, because it is secured, but you lose your house if your
business fails.

~~~
asmithmd1
Educational loans are guaranteed by the US government. When she defaults,
Sallie Mae will sell her loan to the government and will be compensated 100%
for all principal and interest.

The US government now owns a non-performing loan which they then sell for
10%-15% of what they bought it for to - you guessed it - Sallie Mae loan
recovery. Since this loan can't be discharged by bankruptcy, part of every
paycheck she ever earns will be garnished, every tax refund will be seized
until Sallie Mae gets their money.

~~~
saalweachter
My understanding is that only _federal_ student loans are insured & guaranteed
by the government, and that private student loans, while they benefit from the
whole “can’t be defaulted on” thing, can still go bad.

------
raverbashing
Ah student loans, the magic money factory (for the lenders, that is) preying
on youth ignorance.

And young people seem to feel a kind of pride in knowing jack nothing about
loans and interest calculations and "only the payment matters" because hey,
math is hard and is not "cool". And "nobody told us how to calculate that"
well, it's not like there are no ways of finding out.

But it seems the smart way is to default on this (as long as it doesn't affect
the co-signer, or the co-signer should default on it - if possible - as well)
.

~~~
Hextinium
Even if you go into default because it is a student loan the IRS will garnish
any return and send it to the creditor and of course your credit score will
drop. Doing so may force a more reasonable interest rate than what you
previously. I am interested if anyone on here has taken this route.

~~~
UncleEntity
Nope, they just resell it repeatedly tacking on ~$1,200 each time. I once
saved up enough to pay off my last loan and they resold it before I could get
a check in the mail which meant I didn't have enough money so I was like
"screw those people" and bought a car instead. Probably not a good plan but,
you know, screw 'em.

Don't even think they bother to send a bill anymore since they'd have to fight
with the IRS to (not) get money out of me.

------
privateSFacct
I'm a dual citizen. The European model is wonderful, but there are also some
things to be careful of here - the authors article is basically a story of her
own experience - with some key facts omitted.

The author never discusses the degree they got for all this expensive private
education! That is critical point.

She doesn't discuss what her own parents suggestions beyond her father
correctly pointing out the idiocy of these loans! I find it hard to believe
they pushed for a degree that gets you an office job at $20K? That makes no
sense if you know working class or first gen immigrant families.

The only angle here is the big bad system doing her in.

Seriously working class parents are generally focused on solid white collar
jobs. Ie, nurse, accounting, construction management up to doctor. First
generation immigrant families - even more intense in this area

Even a masters in something boring like accounting or nursing (blue collar
white collar jobs) pays way better - you should expect $100K within a few
years accounting side and RN's can easily do $74/hr - which is reasonable.
You'd be starting at 40 - $50/hr.

In European system, much of education is free, but access to courses depends
on your performance in high school. The germans here will know of the
"Abitur", high school graduation and university entrance degree all rolled
into one. And for selective (high cost to state) upper education - the bar is
not low to get into programs! The European model also has a lot more
vocational training and its not looked down on as it is here. So it's a
different model.

I went to private school -> and picked the one that gave me those most
financial aid by far! I ALSO applied to state universities. For those who
thing the University of Michigan, University of California, University of
Virginia etc isn't "good enough" for them - get a grip.

School is what YOU make of it most of the time and sometime I wish I'd gone to
a state university

~~~
evoloution
You are missing the point of how strongly people in US still believe that you
can achieve the American Dream if you choose whatever field, just work hard
and are good to your job. Most Americans are not consciously aware of the
class system that exists in contrast to most Europeans and other foreigners.
There is also a disproportionately higher percentage of people that seek true
satisfaction from their jobs (live to work) than seeing it as a job (work to
live). It is not even PC to say that your parents are working class or you are
1st generation immigrant so I advise you to become a nurse, doctor or a
plumber. In addition, as history has shown again and again people can and will
do poor or risky financial decisions if given the opportunity across the whole
spectrum (e.g. from payday loans to very expensive underperforming actively
managed funds with huge fees). For a financial institution it may make sense
to have 11% interest rate and a 20% chance that people will default before
paying at least the principal but these interest rates make life unbearable
for the people who have them and is detrimental for the society. Finally
people would probably make better decisions if they had an advisor like you
but truth is that most people that come from low socioeconomic status either
cannot imagine their selves being for example doctors (they even don't know
anyone, an uncle or a family friend) and they have no access to advisors like
you from their environment.

~~~
privateSFacct
I agree - for profit colleges in particular seem to prey on this.

For example, we had like 3-4 chef schools nearby - 100K in tuition?!? That is
a totally false dream, those "degrees" do not get you anywhere!

But my point though was - the article left out what HAD to have been some
feedback from parents AND what her degree was. How we can read this whole
article without some context about her degree.

It's not that someone else would say your first gen so do a practical degree,
I'm saying that a first gen immigrant family - they are talking at the family
level about this. And practical degree can mean doctor, it can mean computer
programmer - so it's still shoot for the moon. But these are degrees with big
and growing markets.

------
michaelbuckbee
It's easy to nitpick at this particular author for the choices she's made but
I think that skips a really important aspect of the larger situation:
structural changes to the economy/jobscape that are working against people.

The article I keep re-reading is this one from the highline -

[https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-
millenn...](https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-
millennials/?mobile=1)

If the author had made the exact same college/career choices 20/30yrs ago -
the outcome very likely would have been much different.

------
SamReidHughes
It sounds like the real culprit's the university that charged a ton of money
for a useless education.

~~~
qaq
hmm did they force her to get one?

~~~
VikingCoder
How is there not enough competition to provide a good education at a lower
price?

It shouldn't be this hard to find a good, affordable education.

~~~
qaq
It is easy there are many good online options in many cases with very
reasonable cost.

~~~
VikingCoder
Just to throw this out there,

The experience of living in a dorm, and socializing with people... That was
the best time of my life. I wouldn't trade that away, if I could help it.

~~~
qaq
well I guess the question is what can people do if they can't afford to pay
for that option.

~~~
VikingCoder
The question I'm trying to ask is,

Why isn't there enough competition to provide "live at a good, affordable
college"?

------
SagelyGuru
It is a pity that the expensive colleges don't at least teach their students
about the principles and practice of usury.

~~~
mattm
The expensive colleges benefit from this practice just as much as the
companies issuing the loans.

~~~
nighthawk1
Yes, this easy credit environment allows colleges to rapidly raise tuition.
They love it.

------
lawn
As a data point I'm from Sweden and I have loans of around 300k SEK (34k USD)
and my interest rate is 0.13%. Yes the rent is so low you shouldn't ever repay
it faster as it's even better to just stick it in a savings account despite
the poor interest of 0.7%.

~~~
grecy
I'm from Australia, my 5-year Software Engineering degree netted me a loan of
about $20,000. The loan has no interest, though it is indexed with inflation.

If I earn over $54,000 AUD in any year, I will pay a few extra percent in
income tax per year until it's paid off.

If I never earn over $54,000, or pay it off so slowly it will never actually
get finished, then so be it, and that's fine.

I think everyone in the Developed would outside the USA sees that when you
make things for-profit (Health, Education, etc.) the result it always more
profit.

------
zinckiwi
One of the main reasons I will be strongly encouaging (read: insisting) my
fortunately-dual-national kids to avoid university in the USA. It was
staggeringly expensive when I went to US college in the 90s. Now it beggars
belief.

~~~
Taniwha
We moved back to NZ when my eldest hit high school, here college is much
cheaper with interest free loans so long as you stay in the country and pay
them off as required (or are in school), we used a small portion of what we
made from selling our Bay Area home to pay off our kid's loans free and clear
when they were done - best decision we ever made

------
lykahb
Does the average career of a graduate with comparative literature degree
provide enough income to pay off a debt of this scale? If this were a medical
or law degree, the decision to take the loan would be more justified.

I wish the high school kids were taught more about career and finance.
Obtaining higher education is not a goal that should be achieved by any means,
it is simply an optional tool for building the career.

~~~
bluntfang
When did college turn from learning institutions into career factories?

~~~
nemo44x
When we scaled it to the level it’s at today. A university education was at
one time for academics and our best minds. There were plenty of jobs for
everyone else. Those jobs are gone and a university degree has scaled to a
level where many students wouldn’t be there under the original intent of the
university.

The purpose of the university has changed as our society has changed. But we
are using the old, unscalable model to try and scale a university degree for
the many.

~~~
coredog64
I describe this as the last bastion of socially acceptable racism.

PoC are less likely to get a college education, so requiring a degree helps to
restrict the labor pool without bringing the EEOC down on the company.

~~~
nemo44x
It’s more a socio-economic thing than racist I think. It’s disproportionately
affects you the lower on the wealth heiarchy you are.

------
FloNeu
Reading something like this is just horrible... As someone who received a
mostly free education I can only shake my head in disgust at these companies
and a government allowing people to be extorted like this...

------
jamisteven
Stopped reading at "Variable interest rate" and "may have been explained to me
at the time (I truly don't remember), but I know I didn't fully grasp what
that meant". Uhhhh yea well, you not grasping "what it meant" and not doing
your due diligence is what got you into this mess, jackass.

~~~
tw04
In her defense, when I went to college, we had financial aid advisors whose
job it was to explain the options. I can say unequivocally I was not prepared
to make that decision on my own at that age. Years later, it came out that
Banks were giving those advisors kickbacks to steer students to their most
profitable loans. In typical fashion, the banks and schools paid a small fine
and promised not to do it again, with 0 recourse for the students.

Fortunately I didn't get stuck in something this ugly, but i definitely could
have.

Our schools do a VERY poor job of educating students on fiscal responsibility.
It's actually something I think every high school should have as a required
course.

~~~
rocky1138
I think it should begin earlier. In primary school, kids should learn that
debt is bad. Animal Crossing has done more for this than schools have.

~~~
nighthawk1
I believe nations do this on purpose. Educating people on savings and thrift
can have bad economic consequences

------
wdb
Ah yes, student loans when I was studying the interest on the loans were much
lower then what you were getting for a savings account. So what we did was
loan money, put it on the savings account, earn the 4-5% interest and at the
end of studying we would pay off the loan straight away. Keeping the profit :)

------
smsm42
Now let me ask this - if there would be a proposal in Congress to disband
Sallie Mae and do away with these bad loans, just not let people take loans
that they can't pay - which side of it she would be on? I have little doubt
she would claim this is terrible and makes only rich people to afford
education and ruin the country and so on. And would never vote for any
representative that proposes that. But when she gets exactly what she, and her
parents, and everybody around them, enthusiastically supported and voted for -
subsidized loans that there's no way they could afford otherwise and that are
way beyond her means normally - it's suddenly terrible and somebody else's
fault.

~~~
cimmanom
What about a proposal to return to subsidizing higher education the way that
most developed countries do, so that prohibitive loans are no longer necessary
in order to acquire it? In the Information Age, isn't having an educated
workforce a public good?

~~~
shaftoe
So the solution to a problem of unaffordability is to have Uncle Sam pay for
it and take it out of the tax payer's pocket? That lady couldn't pay for her
expensive education, so I should?

Since I graduated 15 years ago, the public University I went to has increased
costs significantly and massively improved student amenities. Baristas and
rock climbing walls and whatnot. Why? It improves rankings and people will
still pay for it, subsidized by student debt. If, say, people actually had to
be able to afford the bill, I bet all the expensive nonsense and massive staff
beuracracy would shrink in no time and the schools would go back to costs
being classrooms and books.

~~~
keithpeter
UK: over the last decade or so we have moved from a grant based/free tuition
system of finance for university students to a (capped) fee paying/state loan
one.

Not sure which is best. The move the fee paying/state loan has seen the
salaries of University managers rise significantly. The part time degree
sector has been significantly reduced in volume.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40511184](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40511184)

I do personally think that the classrooms + books + dorm/shared house route
with subsidy for less affluent ones has benefits.

~~~
smsm42
> the salaries of University managers rise significantly.

> classrooms + books + dorm/shared house

I think we can notice what's going on here. I do not know about the UK, but if
you look at education costs in the US, it becomes painfully obvious. It's not
books, classrooms or dorms the students are paying for. I mean, think about
it. Which books can cost 100K over a bachelors degree, where most knowledge
has been known for centuries already? Classrooms have been built years ago in
the most places, and their marginal costs of maintenance is negligible. Dorms
are not that expensive to run either, not to the tune of tens of thousands per
year per student, unless you're talking about luxury which most people neither
need nor can afford. So subsidizing those necessities should not cost much.
Something else is driving the costs up.

------
ggggtez
Some comments are discussing doing this to a 18 year old, but it seems to me
she is saying this happened in her 4th year. So really it would be when she
was 21-22. Not to defend predatory lending, but let's be a little more
intellectually honest.

------
RickJWagner
I'm just not sympathetic. College isn't meant to be free, and choosing private
colleges without considering the costs just isn't somebody else's fault.

I've got 3 kids to put through college, the first just finished freshman year.
It's fine-- he broke his hump studying for a good ACT (this led to good
scholarships), he's working internships over the summers to raise cash. My
wife and I cover what's left, it's not too much to bear.

My son's room-mate is doing even better. He's in Army ROTC, his school is
completely paid for.

We're not wealthy and college is not breaking us. If there's a college debt
emergency, it's an avoidable one.

------
kelnos
It's a bit sickening to see many the replies here crapping all over this
woman. I suspect that most (all?) of us are quite a bit older than 17, and
have taught ourselves a decent amount about finance in the meantime. And yes,
I'll admit that my knee-jerk reaction is often similar to the negative ones
here.

But then I _really_ think back to when I was just graduating from high school
and figuring out how to pay for college. I didn't understand much about
finance, or about loans. I had no idea how repayment worked, or how the
majority of each payment would go toward interest for a long time. I didn't
know how much in total I'd pay, or even how to figure that out. My parents
(who co-signed some of my loans) tried to help me, but their understanding
certainly wasn't all-encompassing either. There's pretty much no such thing as
"financial education" in K-12 schools in the US. They don't even teach you how
to balance a checkbook, let alone tackling the concept of debt.

I was lucky. I was lucky that my interest rates were low, and stayed low. I
was lucky that I got a stable, well-paying job (with regular raises) after
college and was able to exceed my monthly payments. It was all luck. I could
have just as easily ended up in a bad situation. If I _had_ ended up in a bad
situation, I hope I would have been mature enough to accept at least some of
the blame for it.

But that doesn't mean predatory lenders are off the hook. That doesn't mean
it's ok to avoid telling a potential customer exactly how repayment works,
ahead of time. That doesn't mean it's ok to charge exorbitant fees and
penalties that make it harder to repay. That doesn't mean it's ok to make
someone jump through hoops to access and understand detailed information about
their loan accounts. And the lack of up-front, plain-language transparency is
disgusting.

If you're not swayed by that, let's talk about outcomes. We're raising a
generation of new adults who will be crushed by debt well into their 30s and
often later. These people can't meaningfully participate in the consumer side
of the economy while they're forking over half or more of their paycheck to
lenders. If there are massive defaults, that will be a huge drain on
resources: economic, financial, and educational. And the next generation of
students just won't bother being students. They'll see what happened, and
forego higher education. In some cases, that will be ok, and they'll be
financially better off for it. In most others, though, it will just weaken the
level of education in the US, which hurts science, engineering, research,
technology, everything. Even if you have no compassion for the students with
crushing debt, at least consider the scope of the problem all this causes, and
be pragmatic about it.

~~~
lolc
Luckily I never had to face these predators. Living in a place where
universities charge around $1000 per semester and having parents that didn't
charge rent allowed me to get by with jobs on the side.

One of our economy teachers explained: "As students you can get a loan from
the state with no interest. You're stupid if you don't take it and keep it for
some extra interest." I calculated the interest this would generate and
decided that it was too much hassle for few extra bucks. And I didn't want the
temptation either.

------
charlesdm
Can't she refinance that floating rate debt? 11% is horrendous.

~~~
thesimon
Is it easy to get a regular loan of >$25k with no securities though?

~~~
charlesdm
I'm not US based, so I don't know. But I don't see why it wouldn't be possible
if someone has been employed on a decent income for years. Even paying 5 or 7%
would be better than 11%.

But I would assume she has looked into that.

~~~
IanCal
One problem is that she has a lot of debt and a history of missing payments.

------
dixie_land
I'm pretty surprised to learn student loans accrue compound interests. I
genuinely thought they're illegal in consumer lending.

~~~
pg_bot
I don't think I've ever seen a bank offer anything other than compound
interest on a loan. It's definitely legal and most likely the default for
every account.

~~~
dixie_land
Interestingly I came across this article [https://thefinancebuff.com/is-home-
mortgage-simple-interest-...](https://thefinancebuff.com/is-home-mortgage-
simple-interest-or-compound-interest.html)

I think as the article pointed out we might've different standards in
referring to what is compound interest.

But my original point is that I thought consumer loans would not incur
interest-on-interest (as in if you're late in payments for your car loan, the
interst "compounds" due to higher unpaid principal, but the missed interest
would not add to the principal), which seems not be the case for student loans
as per the author.

------
dwaltrip
This issue is fascinating to me as it so perfectly straddles the dichotomy
between personal responsibility and harmful systemic problems that individuals
can't manage alone. Both sides have very strong points.

Of course, with this view, some sort of moderate compromise seems necessary.
However, I wish I had more I could say about the issue with confidence.

------
konraditurbe
> If, like me, you didn't receive a ton of financial education in high school,
> and you're wondering how that's even possible, welcome to my boat.

While it is true that high school definitively needs a "basic finance" class
(where taxes, these loans, how to save, how banks work... are explained) she
got a TON of warnings, and she took a loan.

------
protomyth
So, what is your rule of thumb for how much college debt is acceptable? I'm
suspect its about 1.5x your expected starting salary[1] with the degree you
are going for. At some point, I need to go through the job stats and do some
loan calculations.

1) I mean average, not your dream job in SV for example.

------
yuhong
Trivia: A lot of the student loans that are paid off when Bitcoin etc prices
increases are private student loans.

------
neil_macintyre
There is a lot of talk in this form about lack of information regarding
student debt in this form. I will be starting an undergrad degree next year
and am wondering what are some good resources that provide information about
the dynamics of student loans?

~~~
anoncoward111
find out if the debt is in your name or your parents' name

find out if you need a cosigner

find out the rate and if its variable or static

find out if theres a prepayment penalty

find out if interest compounds while youre in college

once youve found all that out, take the total balance and put it into a
compound interest calculator. if you owe $25,000, you'll end up paying $30,000
or more usually

find out if you'll have a job where you can pay that debt off quickly

------
ohazi
Why are the interest rates on these student loans so outrageously high when
they aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy?

Shouldn't they be pegged a hair above the prime rate, since the holder is more
or less guaranteed interest payments for life?

------
wfbarks
maybe you shouldn't have gone to private school, or not gone to college at
all.

~~~
itake
I am also wondering what degree she go where the starting pay is less then
$20k / year.

------
anoncoward111
I enjoyed the depth and honesty of this journalism. It's good writing.

She needs to refinance her loans. My mom refinanced hers from 8% to 4%.

Or, she should pay the student loans with a credit card or home equity loan,
and then go bankrupt.

------
tinus_hn
Why can’t you just refinance a loan with this kind of interest?

------
ttonkytonk
Didn't read the article, but this makes me wonder if compound interest is
ethical, as opposed to simple interest.

------
aceon48
Maybe someday we will actually enact policy to prevent predatory lending
practices to our youth.

We could fix this really fast to by allowing people to default on these loans.

------
gfodor
Removing default risk from loans provided to young people for education is so
perverse it almost goes beyond words. Re-introducing the ability to default
would actually set a fair price on these loans -- interest rates would
skyrocket, tuition prices would go down, or students would shift towards
cheaper universities. If doing so results in massive outflows of tuition from
universities for relatively worthless degress, and a large number of students
deciding to forgo college altogether, that is what you call a "market
correction" and would be extremely healthy.

The reason we are in this mess is because the loans are not priced properly
because, other than the debtor dying or being unable to provide a steady
income stream, or the government deciding to reverse policy, there is zero
default risk. These loans are _already_ yielding 8% in a market that has a
risk free rate of about 3% over 30yr, and these loans cannot be defaulted on
without a change in government policy! This should tell you just how fucked
things are -- if students seeking degrees that will earn $20-30k/yr could
default on these loans they would probably have a 20-30% interest rate (if not
higher) or probably just wouldn't even be offered, since the default rate
would be hilariously high, so the higher education market would be forced to
correct.

Loans should not be a de-facto life-long indentured servitude to a lender.
It's an abject moral failure of our society that this has been allowed to go
on as long as it has. The day of reckoning will come eventually, maybe in a
year, maybe in a decade, but when it does it's going to leave a gigantic
crater in the interest rate markets.

This does _not_ mean I am sympathizing with the people who have made poor
financial decisions. Once corrected, these individuals should be free to
declare bankruptcy and default on these debts, like any other, and pay the
price for their actions in being unable to secure further lines of credit,
potentially for the rest of their lives. This has real consequences: no credit
cards, no car loans, no mortgage on a new house. This is the price we all
agree to pay in the case of being unable to pay our debts: we cannot borrow
money for many years if ever again. However, except for these poor souls,
borrowers do _not_ agree to being lifelong slaves if they make one poor
financial decision or fall upon hardship that prevents repayment.

The loans are mispriced, and the lenders should have had higher interest rates
on them knowing the risk of default was extremely high on a liberal arts major
going to school for $50k/year. I am simply recognizing the fact that in this
sector, the market has been distorted and is deeply corrupted by the removal
of a fair market for student debt. These banks deserve to be wiped out on
these loans.

------
drelihan
A basic personal finance class in high school would go a long way. Anyone take
one of those in high school ( or even college )?

~~~
arenaninja
I graduated around the same time as the author, and I can't remember whether
it was my loan provider (MyGreatLakes) or FAFSA, but I had to take a quick
financial course online where every term in my student loans was spelled out:
including interest rates, interest-only payments, amortization schedule, etc.

I'm surprised if this isn't standard, because it should be (with a refresher
course every 6 months)

------
scarface74
I have no empathy for anyone who gets in debt to go to a private college
instead of going to a state school. Even better most state 4 year colleges
have partnerships with even cheaper two year colleges where you could stay at
home.

I went to a no name state school and within three years of graduating I was
making just as much as students with tens of thousands in debt and had no
debt.

------
gigatexal
We need to teach basic financial literacy to our kids. This is my takeaway
from this article.

~~~
quadrangle
If you add "…because there are a lot of usurers out there who will exploit
you" I agree.

I mean, we don't want victim-blaming and that's that. We want to teach all
sorts of safety practices to kids too, but that doesn't mean if someone is
abused or mugged etc. that we focus only on the victim's actions and skip
fighting the abusers.

------
NightlyDev
How hard can it be to understand that businesses doesn't just hand out money
without expecting anything in return? This is just stupidity and
carelessness...

And clearly refinancing would be a good option to get a way better interest.

------
megaman22
No shit, pay more than the minimums. That's personal finance 101.

------
talltimtom
An interesting article about a person who got every warning, knew all the
details of her own undoing but is trying to claim ignorance after the fact to
put the blame on the “big bad industry” who really did nothing wrong here.

She’s a fool who complain that her principle hasn’t gone down when she never
actually paid anything towards it. And yes she knows that and yes they and her
parents, old teachers, friends and any advicers she has ever talked to
explained that the basics of a loan are that you pay it down and pay interests
on it.

She’s mortified that a variable rate interest loan has a rate that varies....
and sure as hell she remembers them telling her that, she’s just playing dumb
to sound the victim.

Oh and ofcause they make the details of the loan “almost impossible to
find!....” in a tab called details on their website....... or if in doubt you
know, you could call them. What sort of black hole level of entitlement is she
living in?

Education is costly in the USA, this is horrible and wrong. But hell Tesla’s
are costly too, you’d get no sympathy if you buried yourself in debt to buy a
Tesla and then didn’t pay off the principle for years.

In the ideal world she could have been denied the loans on the basis of her
lack of ability to manage her own financiancials. But then it would not be the
land of the free, and she would just have been complaining about that instead.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That seems like a bit of an unfair reading to me.

Yes, ultimately everyone is responsible for managing their own finances, and
it seems like the author acknowledges that and her own part in their
mismanagement.

But expecting young people to make rational, fully-considered choices about
taking loans in order to receive education is a tough sell. Higher education
is often - sometimes unfairly - seen as an essential requirement for making
progress in many careers. And in a situation where so many people are
struggling with unmanageable debt, it seems that “every individual is
responsible for their own choices” is a less useful position than “what is
wrong with this system nationally and how can we fix it”. It’s kind of like US
healthcare: participants are almost obliged to participate in the system, and
for various reasons can’t be considered fully rational consumers.

There are lots of things that can be done, though. A change in culture making
college education less essential; better loan programs; excision of
bureaucracy; single-payer education systems; the list goes on.

The answer is a lot more complex than “college students need to make better
decisions”.

~~~
andrewxhill
Completely. Nobody sat me down to explain debt, they just explained that it
was an option to go to the school I wanted to go to. I'm pretty much an idiot
now, I can barely comprehend how stupid I was at 18. So to think that I
somehow could fully realize the repercussions of student loans is less than
unrealistic.

It's a many many billion dollar industry versus some (mostly) naive kids. I'm
on the side of the idiot kids on saying that the moment in time we are living
through is brutal. I hope we find a fix for future kids.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
> I'm pretty much an idiot now, I can barely comprehend how stupid I was at
> 18.

HN expects one to add to the discussion rather than simply quoting and liking,
but it's hard to add anything to that quote :-)

------
reacharavindh
As harsh as this may sound, she is not that smart, and the whole article reads
like an implementation of natural selection with respect to personal finance.

Sure, it is debatable that cost of U.S education is too high and loan
companies are predatory. But, her case is not one that is emphasizing either
of those problems.

She chose really expensive education options that wouldn't lead to a
reasonable return, especially ones she could not afford, and didn't read the
papers she was signing, and chose to top it off with another loan when she
realized the earlier one was bad. After all of these, the article pleads
sympathy from readers trying to shift the blame.

~~~
zackbloom
1- You shouldn’t have to be smart to have a happy life.

2- The purpose of adolescence is to make mistakes and learn. Having those
mistakes color decades of your life is not a great situation.

~~~
reacharavindh
Nothing is stopping her from having a happy life, except her own idiocy about
spending money that she doesn't have on something that doesn't provide value
in return. Think about it as an expense than "education", then you start to
see the mistake for what it is.

2 - of course we make mistakes and learn. Small or big is up to us. But, the
individual should own it, and not write an article about how unfair life is
that it let them make those mistakes... I can always buy an expensive with the
rent money for the entire year, but that's not life being unfair to me. It's
my failure to see where the path leads in the short term.

------
drivebycomment
[https://www.bustle.com/profile/kaitlyn-
cawley-1912533](https://www.bustle.com/profile/kaitlyn-cawley-1912533)

"She has a bachelor's and a master's in comparative literature from The
American University of Paris and Trinity College Dublin, respectively."

This person chose comparative literature as major, studied _abroad_ and did
master's, with $95k loan, and claim that this was "to transcend my working
class upbringing".

EDIT: Removed the part that probably caused the flagging.

~~~
dang
Please don't post denunciatory rants to HN, regardless of how right you are or
feel you are. Perhaps you owe no better to comparative literature majors, but
you do owe this community better.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
drivebycomment
Thanks. Sorry about that. Removed the denunciatory part.

------
arca_vorago
This thread is a perfect example of everything wrong with the hn crowd. Yall
make me sick.

~~~
whataretensors
Elaborate?

~~~
panzagl
Not GP, but the tone is that everyone else is stupid and emotional, especially
those who want to pursue non-STEM (for a very narrow definition of
STEM)/finance degrees, and that everyone obviously had the same advantages the
average HN poster had.

Unfortunately I'm old enough that I'm now looking at putting my kids through
college, and the answer of 'you have to stay in town and take CS' seems
ridiculously narrow. Even state schools run around $40K a year if you're out
of state, and unfortunately my state college system is overrun with trust fund
stoners. I was lucky in that I went to school before higher education in the
US was turned into a money tit, and it kills me that I cannot offer my
daughters the same opportunities I had.

~~~
drivebycomment
[https://www.bustle.com/profile/kaitlyn-
cawley-1912533](https://www.bustle.com/profile/kaitlyn-cawley-1912533)

"She has a bachelor's and a master's in comparative literature from The
American University of Paris and Trinity College Dublin, respectively."

My daughter's in college, so I know personally how expensive college is in the
US. I know of many kids who did have to make tough choices due to financial
constraints, even for middle-class families.

And you simply don't choose comparative literature as a major and study in a
private school in Paris and then Dublin, if you can't afford. There are
clearly cheaper (but possibly inferior) options. This person clearly chose
more expensive option and now complain that the choice was too expensive. It's
like buying a Mercedes and then complain that auto loan payment is too high.

~~~
anoncoward111
In theory, the Mercedes can be reposessed if she starts missing payments, and
she can file bankruptcy to protect herself from spiraling debts.

In this situation, "a degree can't be repossessed", so the IRS and banking
system will squeeze every penny they can out of her since she can't declare
bankruptcy to get rid of these loans (that she's paying!)

What she really should do is negotiate a refinance, put the loans on a credit
card, and then go bankrupt. She won't have good credit for 7 years, but she
will also lose the $65,000 worth of debt hanging around her neck too.

------
jstewartmobile
Financing is just all-around bad news that should be strenuously avoided.

At the same time, I'm sure her deal with the devil was very clearly spelled
out in 8pt type.

It is very hard to wade through that much whining when it comes from a
literate and numerate middle class kid, in a western country, in the age of
Google.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
> in the age of Google

Rose colored glasses.

It's probably worth keeping in mind that the internet of endless information
is still relatively new. I went to college in 2003. Google was a freshly
minted verb[0]. "The age of Google" probably didn't even really start until
after I had graduated. I know that it wasn't part of my college life. I think
it was my sophomore year when "wikipedia" started showing up in school ethics
codes. The countless blog articles available to you right now simply didn't
exist. You assume this info was at everyone's finger tips, but the people who
wrote most of those articles probably graduated after I did. ROI of education
really only became a conversation topic after the financial crisis started to
display a permanent effect on the workforce. My younger brother is about the
author's age, and we were still ingrained with the mindset of "that's just
what you do after high school". The pro/con list had very few cons until
relatively recently.

[0]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-
first-use-of-the-verb-to-google-on-television-buffy-the-vampire-
slayer/373599/)

~~~
jstewartmobile
I also attended during the dark ages. Even then, the value proposition was
questionable to anyone paying close enough attention.

Books on it had been written. Talks on it had been given. This lady was just
too focused on the gold at the end of the rainbow to care.

------
Glyptodon
She went to private schools. No sypmathy.

Though I do think variable rate loans are kind of outrageous in a general
sense. And I find it curious that one was the only option.

~~~
quadrangle
Do you have sympathy for other irresponsible victims? If an party-hard
sorority girl is flirty and into drinking and then gets raped, no sympathies?
Honestly, it's _harder_ to have sympathies in such cases, but we should still
work to find it and to focus on criticizing the actual abusers who took
advantage of the irresponsible victim.

~~~
Glyptodon
I really think you're stretching.

One of America's diseases right now is the entitlement of those who think they
that they're obligated comfortable success if they check the right boxes
without ever stopping to think or do the math. And when they dig a hole, I do
not feel sorry for them. (And I don't think it's remotely like rape.) If her
article was about how she was stupid, and how somebody could avoid making the
same mistakes, and how she'd learned, I might be sympathetic. But it's not.

I fail to see how making bad, but clearly demarcated, decisions, is remotely
like rape. (So on some level, yes, I don't see her as a victim.) (And yes, I
do have a chip on my shoulder because I could see this kind of thing coming
and so turned down the University of Chicago to go to a state school for less
than half the money - my best guess is I'd have graduated with something over
$120k in debt had I accepted, from the state school I graduated with almost
zero.)

~~~
quadrangle
It's perfectly fair to criticize her article, criticize her decisions,
emphasize the responsibility that people take in watching out for their own
long-term best interest…

But when financial institutions are making massive _profits_ off of other
people's irresponsible decisions, you can't ethically just say that's fine.
The ethical way to deal with irresponsible people is to teach them to be
responsible, not to exploit them.

As long as powerful interests are profiting off of irresponsible people, those
interests will actively seek to encourage continued irresponsibility…

------
ryanlol
So uh, why doesn't she move out of the country? She already got her masters
abroad.

An US citizen with a masters degree could basically immediately get a 5 year
Schengen visa. She’s obviously an extremely privileged person who could go
anywhere she wants.

It just seems stupid to stick around and keep paying.

Edit: Almost feels like it’s somehow offensive to suggest that there’s life
outside of the US.

~~~
kingosticks
> An US citizen with a masters degree could basically immediately get a 5 year
> Schengen visa.

Maybe I'm wrong but I was under the impression you needed a job (sponsor)
first. Why should a US citizen waving a masters degree around be given the
right to work?

~~~
ryanlol
You get a job seeking visa, and find a job. Not at all hard stuff for a white
highly educated american.

Far easier than paying off her debts anyway.

I’ve helped friends with this stuff recently and all I keep hearing is how
they get special treatment because they’re the only white english-speaking
people applying.

------
505aaron
I find it hard to feel sorry for her. This is what happens when you only live
in the moment. Going to grad school out of the country is exciting. However,
doing it without any research on your loans was dangerously impulsive. She
didn’t state the reasons, but I would guess it was to impress or stay with
friends.

I lost all sympathy when we she decided to live in one of the highest cost of
living cities in the world. It is a simple choice. Delay satisfaction or live
outside your means. She displayed a consistent pattern of living outside her
means. Don’t be surprised when you realize that you’re not rich and these
actions have consequences.

~~~
learnstats2
"When I was 18, I fully believed that taking out student loans was the only
way to achieve my dream and my parents’ dream for me — to transcend my working
class upbringing."

This is not living in the moment, not at all.

