Student Loan Payment Pause Extension

[anon_5e8aassgcbjz1]

Let's start by looking at the income received by college professors these days. It's gotten completely out of hand. Let's look at the race for investment to move up in the US News rankings which is led colleges to specialize in everything to improve their research rating. All the costs of this added infrastructure is being passed along to the students. The job of a school like Clemson is to educate the youth of South Carolina and it should be very cost-effective to do so. Clemson is exorbitantly expensive. The value of a college education is far has never been more diminished.

Student loans begin accruing interest from the time that you borrow them so your loans are increasing all while you're in college. The rates are uncompetitive and is that so surprising given that there are controlled by the government at this point? Is the biggest scam going right now. Ever since it was beat into people's heads that everyone needs to go to college to grow and learn the cost of college has gone up 7 to 9% per year like clockwork. Notice a connection perhaps?

What we need are more trade schools and professional schools that will teach people to do a job that they are interested in. Someone who wants to go into nursing doesn't need to go to a traditional college. They would be much better served going to the nursing school that is designed to deal with the realities of that profession.

Most large companies could run schools that would provide the proper education to people who seek to go into employment in those industries. The reality is we don't need colleges on the scale that we have them now and the sooner we come to that reality the better. Especially when you consider how colleges are poisoning the minds of young people. They're a net negative in society at this point and not a net positive.

Like so many things we don't need to fix what we have now but rather go back to the drawing board and invent a better way of doing things. That is far simpler. The same should be done with public education. It should be completely deconstructed and rebuilt on the basis of a model that will be successful.

My perception is that colleges are spending crazy amounts of money on administrators and student "amenities" of all sorts. Tenured professors make up a decreasing proportion of instructors nowadays, and I think their level of pay is generally pretty fair, depending on the field. The national security and economic apparatus of this country benefits from highly intelligent people being able to make a living as scientists, mathematicians, engineers, etc. I agree with your frustrations about the crazies making up some of these political "science" and sociology departments, but you have to be careful to not damage the universe system to the point where we can't attract talent that the nation benefits from.

 

[CoffeeIsForClosers]

The obvious answer to me is the federal government should not be involved in the college funding process at all. Let the colleges take on the control and liability to whom they loan money to. Colleges get paid now no matter what and that is helping create this current state of affairs. When colleges have to vet students properly, the admissions process will change for the better and then maybe some of these obscure majors will disappear. Maybe technical and trade schools will flourish also.

I’ve heard that idea before and it makes a lot of sense. What if college had no up front cost but universities were paid a percentage of its graduates wages for “X” number of years? Not sure if it would work but we’d definitely see a different business model when all of a sudden the success of a school’s graduates is how they increased revenue.

 

[PawsFan_]

Thoughts on the cost of a college education.

1. Look at the bureaucracy of the college staffs' now. Look how many positions at really BS jobs that at no value to the students. The students are paying for that. There is a lot of pork in the university that if it were run as a profitable business, would be cut to reduce costs.

2. Pundit decried college sports as being "professional." The pointed to college football and basketball coaches' salaries and those sports facilities. Okay. If that's true, then looking a many (not all) college professor, administrator and facilities, shouldn't a university lose it's "non-profit" status? Shouldn't they have to pay taxes? Shouldn't universities be privatized and tax payer money diverted away from them? Just a thought.

3. Finally, college students today take the same number of hours as I did and my dad did. Roughly 130 hours to graduate I think. I'd argue that the world has changed so much that this model likely does not represent what a typical student needs AND that different majors should have very different hours requirements. I can see an engineer needing 130 hours. Does an English major really need 130 hours? Do we really need to be teaching History and British Lit to college freshman in the 2020's? And given the pace of technology changes in our world, much of what a student learned in college is OBE five years after they leave. I think the whole education model needs to be looked at. Four years to get an undergraduate degree is outdated I think. I think it should take less hours to get a undergraduate degree. Then a person needs to go back for Masters degrees more than once in their lifetime to stay current and relevant in their careers. Most Masters degree shouldn't take more than a year to get. Anything more is the school trying to generate revenue. I think that individuals should have shorter durations in school but more "visits"' to colleges in their lifetime. There are certainly exceptions to this idea: doctors and lawyers being chief examples.

4. The greatest "expense" not captured in a college education in opportunity cost of not being employed when not in school.

 

[Clemtron]

This is some of the most ridiculous use of resources. There is zero reason a college educated person could not find a good paying job in this economy. Hell 1 in 7 can work from home now. Help those who can't help themselves....absolutely. But these folks are in an unbelievable job market.

And then we are still talking about loan forgiveness? This is the most anti-socialist socialist idea I've ever heard of. Who does loan forgiveness help? the top 1/3 of people in this country who are able/capable of going to college? And lets not even get started how this doesn't even address the issue that has caused student loan debt to run "out of control" to begin with. If nothing else it only perpetuates it. Cap the amount you loan people. Make each loan go through underwriting. Then maybe schools will start charging what a degree is worth. This is just putting a band-aid on a severed arm.

This is where the left loses me. Look at the economy. The pandemic is 99% over. Time for those who can to start paying their debts.

Biden administration expected to extend payment pause for student loan borrowers through August

Federal student loan borrowers could get more time before they have to resume payments again.

www.cnbc.com

I love it when someone sees the light. There’s hope for you yet

 

[CoffeeIsForClosers]

I love it when someone sees the light. There’s hope for you yet

The light? Not sure what you mean.

Student loan forgiveness is nothing more than the lefts attempt at trickle down economics

 

[jakefest]

The easy access to capital/loans is exactly why college is so expensive though. Pretty much anyone can go get a loan regardless of repayment capability, whether that be credit worthiness or the income potential from the degree for which the loan will be used.

That’s a pretty basic element of the equation. Do you agree?

The example you give is unfortunate. Yet another reason I have zero faith in our government. Baffles me that there are people who want to turn over more responsibility to those bozos.

Circling back to this as was wrapped up in an acquisition the last few months........much like taxes, 40% of households hold 60% of the student debt. Certain income amounts, much like taxes, exempt you from payment anyway. So eradicating college loan debt benefits the people they all claim to hate, the top half of earners.

( https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-f...-most-in-student-loans-new-data-from-the-fed/ )


The highest-income 40 percent of households (those with incomes above $74,000) owe almost 60 percent of the outstanding education debt and make almost three-quarters of the payments. The lowest-income 40 percent of households hold just under 20 percent of the outstanding debt and make only 10 percent of the payments. It should be no surprise that higher-income households owe more student debt than others. Students from higher-income households are more likely to go to college in the first place. And workers with a college or graduate degree earn substantially more in the labor market than those who never went to college.

What may be more surprising, however, is the difference in payment burdens. A growing share of borrowers participate in income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which do not require any payments from those whose incomes are too low and limit payments to an affordable share of income for others. And some borrowers are in forbearance or deferment because of financial hardships. As a result, out-of-pocket loan payments are concentrated among high-income households; few low-income households enrolled in IDR are required to make payments.

 

[fcctiger12]

I had to withdraw from medical school due to health issues in 2012 and had already accumulated $160k in student loan debt paying for medical school (had no debt after undergrad).
I was unfortunate to leave school during the great recession which made finding a job incredibly difficult. Additionally, the bankruptcy law changes from the Bush years (pushed through the senate by Biden) made it impossible for me to discharge my debt via bankruptcy.
By 2017, my debt had ballooned to more than $230k. I was paying ~$1k/month before Trump created the student loans pause. **** you to all of you who are okay with a situation like mine. If I ran up the same amount of debt for a house or in medical bills, I could have declared bankruptcy and walked away relatively unscathed. Now I am trapped into paying at least $1k/month in post-tax money to servicing my student loan debt for basically the rest of my life.

 

[scotchtiger]

I had to withdraw from medical school due to health issues in 2012 and had already accumulated $160k in student loan debt paying for medical school (had no debt after undergrad).
I was unfortunate to leave school during the great recession which made finding a job incredibly difficult. Additionally, the bankruptcy law changes from the Bush years (pushed through the senate by Biden) made it impossible for me to discharge my debt via bankruptcy.
By 2017, my debt had ballooned to more than $230k. I was paying ~$1k/month before Trump created the student loans pause. **** you to all of you who are okay with a situation like mine. If I ran up the same amount of debt for a house or in medical bills, I could have declared bankruptcy and walked away relatively unscathed. Now I am trapped into paying at least $1k/month in post-tax money to servicing my student loan debt for basically the rest of my life.

Sorry for your situation, but that represents an exceedingly low % of student loan situations. Perhaps reform includes a hardship provision, which could cover corner cases like yours. That makes good sense and I think most would support that. But you never ever make broad policy based on rare circumstances.

 

[fcctiger12]

Sorry for your situation, but that represents an exceedingly low % of student loan situations. Perhaps reform includes a hardship provision, which could cover corner cases like yours. That makes good sense and I think most would support that. But you never ever make broad policy based on rare circumstances.

No one should be getting ****ed by the system like I am. Bankruptcy "reform" was a gift to Wall Street right before Wall Street ****ed us all with the Great Recession and neither side is willing to fix it.

Additionally, how many others have to drop out of school before finishing for family/health/other reasons and have no ability to earn the kind of income needed to repay the loans? I can tell you - WAY to many.

Forgive student loans, fix the bankruptcy rules or come up with a different solution. The current way doesn't work. At least the Dems are doing something to try and fix the problem. Maybe if the Republicans got behind some of these ideas, I'd vote for them again (don't really care about the rest of the party's policies when their handling of student loans and bankruptcy screws me).

 

[CUT93]

No one should be getting ****ed by the system like I am. Bankruptcy "reform" was a gift to Wall Street right before Wall Street ****ed us all with the Great Recession and neither side is willing to fix it.

Additionally, how many others have to drop out of school before finishing for family/health/other reasons and have no ability to earn the kind of income needed to repay the loans? I can tell you - WAY to many.

Forgive student loans, fix the bankruptcy rules or come up with a different solution. The current way doesn't work. At least the Dems are doing something to try and fix the problem. Maybe if the Republicans got behind some of these ideas, I'd vote for them again (don't really care about the rest of the party's policies when their handling of student loans and bankruptcy screws me).

I would be for allowing student loan debt to be forgiven in bk. That seems like an ideal solution to me. For cases like yours where the debt is truly overwhelming you can get out of it, but rightly suffer some penalty. Additionally, it would likely cause some much needed scrutiny in the loan process. Maybe don't give $200K plus loans to someone majoring in English/art/etc where the likely salaries are insufficient to pay the loans back. There is plenty of data out there to allocate loans and loan amounts to reduce defaults. There is just little incentive to do it now.

 

[scotchtiger]

No one should be getting ****ed by the system like I am. Bankruptcy "reform" was a gift to Wall Street right before Wall Street ****ed us all with the Great Recession and neither side is willing to fix it.

Additionally, how many others have to drop out of school before finishing for family/health/other reasons and have no ability to earn the kind of income needed to repay the loans? I can tell you - WAY to many.

Forgive student loans, fix the bankruptcy rules or come up with a different solution. The current way doesn't work. At least the Dems are doing something to try and fix the problem. Maybe if the Republicans got behind some of these ideas, I'd vote for them again (don't really care about the rest of the party's policies when their handling of student loans and bankruptcy screws me).

There really isn’t a good solution on a look back basis. Those loans were underwritten knowing they weren’t subject to bankruptcy. That’s favored into the rate. We can change the bankruptcy rules, but now lenders will need to factor in a higher likelihood of nonpayment in their actuarial models. That means rates go up for everyone.

And obviously blanket loan forgiveness is an absurd position. You are asking people who paid their loans, paid for college or never even went to college to bail out people with loans - the vast majority of whom do not have a medical hardship like you.

Student loans should be issued like home loans. Base it on the value of the asset (degree) and likelihood of repayment (future earnings). That solves a lot of this going forward. Throw in bankruptcy if you want, knowing rates will tick up for all.

 

[PawsFan_]

If you borrow money, you sign on the line, you are responsible for paying it back. Period. How hard of a concept is that to accept.

Here's the biggest joke. Biden has absolutely NO intention of relieving any student loan debt. He can't. He knows printing the money to do so will drive inflation even higher. All he's doing is trying to get the debtors excited so they feel like they need to turn out and vote democrat in November. It's all a political move.

Where's the call to forgive mortgage debt?

 

[fcctiger12]

Student loans should be issued like home loans. Base it on the value of the asset (degree) and likelihood of repayment (future earnings).

Agreed. Student and home loans should be the same across the board. Bankruptcy is allowed for home loans.

 

[scotchtiger]

Agreed. Student and home loans should be the same across the board. Bankruptcy is allowed for home loans.

Totally fine with me. But you can only do that going forward when lenders have the ability to price in the risk associated with bankruptcy. And if you agree with my take that the loan should be based on likelihood of repayment, and make bankruptcy an option, be prepared for very high interest rates on questionable borrowers and/or high decline rates in this group.

But hey, that’s the free market. Let it do it’s thing. Drying up some of the loose money may help lower higher ed cost and make those that earn degrees more differentiated in the job market. Both positive developments for my family.

 

[firegiver]

I didn't say anything about decreasing the number of college graduates. All I said was put a cap on how much people could borrow. Colleges won't decrease enrollment. They will realign their costs with what their customers have available to spend. I also said we should put a greater emphasis on technical colleges...which should actually increase the number of people with degrees.

These universities are state entities and run that way....you give them a budget and that's what they will work with. Give them more money and they will spend it. Give them less and they will spend it. This is why cost of going to college increases at such a high rate....because it can.

Do me a favor. Just google 'associates in cyber security.' It's actually very popular

I'm sorry, I'm sure there are some smart mofo's with an associates in cyber security. But if I was paying for my education, and also I hire developers... I'm going with the BS in compsci over the associates everyday of the week all things being equal.

 

[firegiver]

No one should be getting ****ed by the system like I am. Bankruptcy "reform" was a gift to Wall Street right before Wall Street ****ed us all with the Great Recession and neither side is willing to fix it.

Additionally, how many others have to drop out of school before finishing for family/health/other reasons and have no ability to earn the kind of income needed to repay the loans? I can tell you - WAY to many.

Forgive student loans, fix the bankruptcy rules or come up with a different solution. The current way doesn't work. At least the Dems are doing something to try and fix the problem. Maybe if the Republicans got behind some of these ideas, I'd vote for them again (don't really care about the rest of the party's policies when their handling of student loans and bankruptcy screws me).

Meanwhile.... how much PPP loans have been forgiven? Just curious.

$279.4 billion has been forgiven.... as of June 2021... I just don't give a damn to look up new numbers.

 

[firegiver]

If you borrow money, you sign on the line, you are responsible for paying it back. Period. How hard of a concept is that to accept.

Here's the biggest joke. Biden has absolutely NO intention of relieving any student loan debt. He can't. He knows printing the money to do so will drive inflation even higher. All he's doing is trying to get the debtors excited so they feel like they need to turn out and vote democrat in November. It's all a political move.

Where's the call to forgive mortgage debt?

They did forgive mortgage debt. FOR THE FVCKING BANKS YOU MUPPET. Thats the point. You side with the lender, never the borrower, but it takes two to tango. There is forgiveness when you declare bankruptcy for the loan... sheesh

 

[jakefest]

Meanwhile.... how much PPP loans have been forgiven? Just curious.

$279.4 billion has been forgiven.... as of June 2021... I just don't give a damn to look up new numbers.

Forgiven or fraudulent? Or both.......fraudulent PPP was a really high number last time someone wrote an article about it.

Another reason not to let the govt directly lend

 

[jakefest]

I'm sorry, I'm sure there are some smart mofo's with an associates in cyber security. But if I was paying for my education, and also I hire developers... I'm going with the BS in compsci over the associates everyday of the week all things being equal.

To be completely honest, we find kids that didn't go to college and went straight into technology fields more valuable than those that come out of non-tech specific uni's with 4 year CS degrees. The curriculum at large institutions tends to trail the market & technology advancements by a pretty large moat. There are some exceptions but the market is starting to value experience over book smarts, at least on the technical side of fin serv anyway.

 

[fcctiger12]

If you borrow money, you sign on the line, you are responsible for paying it back. Period. How hard of a concept is that to accept.

Here's the biggest joke. Biden has absolutely NO intention of relieving any student loan debt. He can't. He knows printing the money to do so will drive inflation even higher. All he's doing is trying to get the debtors excited so they feel like they need to turn out and vote democrat in November. It's all a political move.

Where's the call to forgive mortgage debt?

Go **** yourself.

There were calls to forgive mortgage debt during the Great Recession. Renters were given an eviction moratorium during the coronavirus peak. Your comparison is asinine.

 

[fcctiger12]

Totally fine with me. But you can only do that going forward when lenders have the ability to price in the risk associated with bankruptcy. And if you agree with my take that the loan should be based on likelihood of repayment, and make bankruptcy an option, be prepared for very high interest rates on questionable borrowers and/or high decline rates in this group.

But hey, that’s the free market. Let it do it’s thing. Drying up some of the loose money may help lower higher ed cost and make those that earn degrees more differentiated in the job market. Both positive developments for my family.

Right, and that's why we need loan forgiveness along with student loan reform.

You do realize the lender on almost all of the student loan debt since 2010 is the federal government, right? If the government can provide tax breaks, they can find a way to provide student loan forgiveness. Cutting the top line tax rate for high earners only benefits a small percentage of Americans but the people in this thread that are bitching the most don't seem to mind if they are benefiting from the government deal.