Comments on: Majority of Bank Risk Managers Expect Student-Loan Delinquencies to Continue to Rise

By: WaityKatie

WaityKatie — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:38:42 +0000

@MuffyStJohn I believe the correct terminology is Makers. (and you, I and the rest of us would of course be the Takers.) Takers work pretty long hours, as it turns out! All that taking…

By: nogreeneggs

nogreeneggs — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:40:56 +0000

@seaermine I think about teaching this type of class all the time! I would do it for free, just so kids wouldn’t keep taking out 200k in loans thinking it would be no big deal to pay back. I just don’t really know how to go about starting this type of class, would I pitch it to high schools?

By: nogreeneggs

nogreeneggs — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:38:30 +0000

@tea for all Hello I am that taxpayer. I paid off all my student loans already, can’t wait to pay of other people’s loans! *sarcasm*

By: MuffyStJohn

MuffyStJohn — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:27:06 +0000

@MuffyStJohn (I kid, I kid, they’re totally naming their daughters James and their sons Rudolph now.)

By: MuffyStJohn

MuffyStJohn — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:25:40 +0000

@tea for all They’re called the 1%. Tomorrow we will read an article featuring them complaining about how they can barely afford Maddeysuhn and Jeydern’s private school tuition next month after they’ve made the payment on their Bentley.

By: MuffyStJohn

MuffyStJohn — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:13:57 +0000

@stuffisthings Is it weird that I clicked this article mostly to hear whatever meta-economic commentary you would have for me, complete with links and fabulous inflation-adjusted numbers?

You are a tease.

By: MissMushkila

MissMushkila — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:58:16 +0000

@seaermine My public university now charges 13500 for tuition for undergrad. That is before student fees, books, transportation, and housing.

It was about 11000 a year when I started (2007) and was 12500 when I graduated (2011). This is madness. And I worked during those four years of college and managed to find part-time jobs that paid $10.00. That is generous in my state where most service/mall jobs pay less. (I had a job at a work clothing store at the mall shortly when looking for a new job last summer – it paid 9.25 an hour in 2012).

I have 29,000 in student loans. I did all the “right” things: state school, worked, scholarships. I’m on income-based repayment, which has me at $68 a month. I try to pay more, but I’m afraid it will never end.

By: tea for all

tea for all — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:16:34 +0000

tell me more about these taxpayers who will be on the hook for the defaulted student debt, who are somehow a population entirely separate from the former students defaulting on their debt… ?

By: WaityKatie

WaityKatie — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:39:22 +0000

@seaermine Yep, that’s the thing. Even state schools are expensive now. And, obviously not everyone on earth can go to the limited number of state schools that exist anyway. Telling people to “choose a cheaper option” might make the teller feel smug, but even “cheaper” nowadays still isn’t “cheap,” people still get stuck with debt, and what are they supposed to do about it? You need a bachelor’s degree to get virtually any job now. Our solutions should involve attacking the cost of education, not blaming the victims who are compelled to take on debt to pay for it.

By: seaermine

seaermine — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:28:10 +0000

Also, and I should have mentioned this before, I think there should be more options for avoiding these loans for people with less…choices? Maybe that’s a bad word choice but I think the focus is on people choosing fancy expensive schools instead of a cheaper, not as good school. Because the easy solution there would go to a school that might not be as good but has a bigger endowment or gives more financial aid or whatever. But not everyone has that choice!

For example, a good friend of mine went to an in state school (with reasonable in state tuition rates), where he got a very large pell grant for all 4 years. And he just graduated with 46k in student loans. In that case, how do you prevent that? Especially when, for him, not going to college would have meant going back to the shitty farm work he’d been doing since he was 12, or, if he was lucky, food service in a town where all the businesses are dying and where it’s hard to get a job at the mall.