CNN blurbs on a few people with crazy-high college debt

[Doppel]

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/news/economy/1106/gallery.student_debt/?iid=HP_LN

Somewhat funny/sad to read. The guy on the first page has a good job and a good degree but the rest got toilet paper degrees and borrowed an absolutely insane amount of money to get them.

It must really blow goats making chump change and having half a mortgage in loans, though. Too bad nobody ever told them to not get a degree in "public health" at the cost of 10's of thousands of dollars.

And now they cannot even discharge this in bankruptcy. They = kind of fvcked for many years now.

 

[JMapleton]

College is not a place to "learn your passion." It's job training and you need to train for a job that will put money in your pocket.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Money apparently does not mean anything when chasing your dreams.

It is later when you find out that dreams cost money and most dreams do not make money.

Maybe this will squash the liberal arts area; when people realize that the degree wipes ones butt and that is it.

Similar to the kids in the ghetto that make it to college on a athletic scholarship.
They are "good" enough to be the big fish in a little pond. Then get benched in school and do not have any educations to back them up when they can not get to the pros or semi pros.

 

[Mursilis]

From the last one:

I hope one day, I can afford to take a vacation, take my girlfriend out on a date again, and buy some new clothes (my dress shoes now have holes in them). I hope, I dream, I wonder, but America is letting me down.

WAAAAHHHH!! It's everyone else's fault!!
🙄

 

[Blackjack200]

Wow, I do feel for those people. Say what you want, but 'college! college! college!' is drilled into our heads, and many never get sensible advice about not racking up debt by making use of community colleges and in-state schools.

I went to my cousin's graduation a few weeks ago and he mentioned that he has about $40k in loans. He asked me what I have and I was actually kind of embarassed to say 'umm... none'

I have other cousins with that much debt and no degree... I wouldn't even know what to say to them.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I'll read through these in detail when I have a few minutes, but who on earth would go into $185K of student loan debt for BS in Industrial Engineering?!?!? Come on folks, use common sense here. Even more shocking is the idiot who went $240K in debt for a MS in Social Work. Social workers are one of the lowest paid professions and it isn't exactly a secret -- WTF was this idiot thinking? $240K in debt is med school territory folks.

College is not a place to "learn your passion." It's job training and you need to train for a job that will put money in your pocket.

Exactly. You have to treat it as an investment and analyze the return on your investment when considering where to go and what to major in. You have the crowd that says "You're there to get an education, not a job!!!" but that viewpoint, IMO, is incredibly naive and completely out of touch with today's reality. If college were free and I had an unlimited amount of free time then sure, I'd go study things I'm passionate about (such as history). At the end of the day, it isn't free and I don't have an unlimited amount of free time, so I have to try to balance my interests, earning potential, and amount of debt after school is over. No one is going to pay me enough to support myself simply because I know history very well or can tell stories about the fall of Rome; they will, however, pay me to design/build/maintain their computer networks and systems and with the extra money I make, I can indulge my passions.

 

[Texashiker]

Debt, its the american way.

When I started going to college (for a legal assistant degree), I was 28 years old, had been established in my career for 10 years and was making decent money. After talking to the people in the for a legal assistant field, they said you need at least a 4 year degree to make the same money as my present career. I quickly changed my major to something else. I was not going to get a 4 year degree to make the same amount of money I was currently making.

I see a lot of people that buy into the hype of going to the best universities. The issues is the amount of debt they will build up.

There are some college degrees that are not worth the time or money. People need to figure that out before they head down that path.

One of the problems I see with the article linked to in the OP. People finish school, then expect to find a high paying job right away. That is not how it happens. Most of the time people will start out on entry level positions - regardless of your degree.

 

[CycloWizard]

I graduated from one of the top engineering schools in the nation, thinking my starting salary would be between $70,000 and $80,000 a year.

First, Kettering is no longer one of the top engineering schools in the nation. Second, I've never met an industrial engineer making $70-80k, even after 5+ years of experience. The guy's simply an unrealistic idiot. If he had taken 5 minutes to read about what he would realistically make upon graduation, he would have known better.

edit: Didn't even take me five minutes. The low end of his anticipated salary isn't within three standard deviations of the mean.

edit #2: I made the mistake of continuing past the first guy in the article. The second doesn't have a clue:

After holding my Master's for three years, I'm still fighting to find a Master's level position. I have been seeking employment in the medical field and after about a hundred interviews, I'm left doing contract work for $19 an hour.

Work on your interviewing skills. If you get 100 interviews and don't get any of the jobs, you're doing it wrong. One of the definitions of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

First, Kettering is no longer one of the top engineering schools in the nation. Second, I've never met an industrial engineer making $70-80k, even after 5+ years of experience. The guy's simply an unrealistic idiot. If he had taken 5 minutes to read about what he would realistically make upon graduation, he would have known better.

Yep, IE is the bottom rung of engineering disciplines. When I was in engineering school (EE), we made fun of IEs.

 

[rudder]

Take Vanderbilt University for example. It is an expensive school. They have a top notch medical school. However, they also have degrees leading to teacher licensure.

The school probably costs $50,000/year for a student. Yet there will be people graduating with 4 years degrees who will go on to earn $35,000/year as a teacher. These people will then complain that they will never be able to afford a vacation.

 

[Texashiker]

The guy's simply an unrealistic idiot. If he had taken 5 minutes to read about what he would realistically make upon graduation, he would have known better.

An idiot, probably not. I think the best word to describe his situation is "naive". He probably talked to some counselor at the school that sold him a degree package.

Maybe we should start looking at college counselors like we do used car sales men.

By the time this couple finishes paying off their debt, they will be 67 years old

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/news/economy/1106/gallery.student_debt/5.html

Three years after we started paying the minimum payments on this loan, you would think it would go down. Instead, we now owe $48,000 because of the interest!

We have done the math -- and not including our private, car or credit card loans --I will be 67 years old before I am "done" paying on my school loans alone.

 

[matt0611]

From the last one:


WAAAAHHHH!! It's everyone else's fault!!
🙄

LMAO!
That's awesome!

These people are idiots.

You know what else is to blame?
Government guarantee and government provision of these loans.
Under a free market, no bank would lend a kid 250k to study sociology. That's just batshit insane.

And the colleges know no one will be turned down so they hike and hike the costs every year.

Once again government swoops in to fuck things up under the guise of helping us.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I ran into a girl I went to high school with recently. We were talking about school, and I mentioned i dropped out of college to take a job in IT and just spend a few thousand to get certified in different areas. I said things worked out well for me by getting a head start on job experience and getting certifications down the road when I could pay cash for them and already had the experience to make the certs actually worth something.

She went on to say 'yea.... I went to Webster (an upscale uni in st. louis) for SCULPTURE and I owe $145k and haven't been able to find a job in 6 years". She waits tables and works a second job at a resale shop. And that $145k only got her a bachelors.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Yep, IE is the bottom rung of engineering disciplines. When I was in engineering school (EE), we made fun of IEs.

EEs made fun of all the other disciplines.

People would start as EE and then after 1-2 years switch out.

At the time, the only one considered rougher was the Petroleum engineering;
school did not have that; but they were getting GOOD (+10-20&#37😉 offers according to the engineering rags.


Came out with 2500 debt.
Paid off in two years after leaving active duty. Payments were deferred while on active duty.
Realize that take home pay for a junior officer at that time was about $1400/month

 

[Texashiker]

She went on to say 'yea.... I went to Webster (an upscale uni in st. louis) for SCULPTURE and I owe $145k and haven't been able to find a job in 6 years". She waits tables and works a second job at a resale shop. And that $145k only got her a bachelors.

Who in their right mind spends $145k on getting a degree in sculpture?

This aint ancient greece. Where did she have plans on going to work?

When people get these expensive degrees, is there any thought into the actual demand for their skills? Do they ask themselves "who is going to hire me?".

 

[Mursilis]

Wow, I do feel for those people. Say what you want, but 'college! college! college!' is drilled into our heads, and many never get sensible advice about not racking up debt by making use of community colleges and in-state schools.

I'm not all that sympathetic to the "but no one told me" arguement! Since I knew early on that I would be paying for most of my higher education (parents covered most of my expenses for 1 year of my 7 years of higher ed. - BA and JD), I just tried on my own to keep my loans small. No one had to tell me that money I borrowed for school would eventually had to be paid back - that's just common sense! I worked 20-40 hrs/week during most of my years, and saved every way I could. I finished my two degrees with under $20K in student debt, and paid it all off in just over 5 years. It's not that hard to figure out.

 

[Mursilis]

Who in their right mind spends $145k on getting a degree in sculpture?

This aint ancient greece. Where did she have plans on going to work?

When people get these expensive degrees, is there any thought into the actual demand for their skills? Do they ask themselves "who is going to hire me?".

College is a complete detachment from reality in a lot of ways, and a lot of professors, who are themselves detached from reality, don't help the matter by encouraging students to "pursue your passions". They don't tell you, and don't like you to ask, about the very limited career prospects in many fields of study, especially the liberal arts.

I know exactly what I'm talking about here - I have a BA in sociology, and while it's still a fascinating field to me, there's NO money in it. But at least I didn't rack up a huge amount of debt figuring that out.

 

[QuantumPion]

Higher education is a bubble that will soon collapse in the exact same way as housing did. It is simply an unsustainable system.

government social engineering->guaranteed cheap government loans->more people buy houses->higher demand for houses->houses increase in price with higher demand->repeat until collapse.

government social engineering->guaranteed cheap government loans->more college students->higher demand for college graduates->colleges increase tuition with higher demand->repeat until collapse.

 

[QuantumPion]

These kids with 200k of debt and a liberal arts degree are the exact same fricking thing as sub-prime mortgages. Idiots buy a 500k house when they make 30k a year, and the bank lets them because they just sell the mortgage to the government which is "too big to fail".

 

[Mursilis]

These kids with 200k of debt and a liberal arts degree are the exact same fricking thing as sub-prime mortgages. Idiots buy a 500k house when they make 30k a year, and the bank lets them because they just sell the mortgage to the government which is "too big to fail".

Good analogy. In either case, if they actually stopped for two seconds and thought "There's just no way I'll ever be able to pay this off!", they wouldn't have gotten themselves into this mess.

 

[LegendKiller]

Perhaps loan underwriting to potential income in the field would make sense.

One thing that just astounds me is the beautiful buildings on the campuses. The school I went to is located in a place that's very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. They've recently gone on this huge streak of building these awesome looking buildings with half the building faced with glass. They recently replaced an all-classroom building with a glass-faced building that is now 50% filled with admin. Meanwhile, tuition has gone up 70% since I went there 10 years ago.

Who cares if the building costs us an arm and a leg to heat and cool, it's pretty!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

EEs made fun of all the other disciplines.

This is true. 😀 It must be something in our blood.

People would start as EE and then after 1-2 years switch out.

At the time, the only one considered rougher was the Petroleum engineering;
school did not have that; but they were getting GOOD (+10-20&#37😉 offers according to the engineering rags.

When I was in school, the figure was something like only 25% who started in EE would actually finish in EE.

 

[fskimospy]

These kids with 200k of debt and a liberal arts degree are the exact same fricking thing as sub-prime mortgages. Idiots buy a 500k house when they make 30k a year, and the bank lets them because they just sell the mortgage to the government which is "too big to fail".

Except there are a lot fewer of those people and a lot less money in the system as a whole. It's really nothing like the subprime mortgage debacle. That being said, the idea that you're going to drop $100-$200k on a fine arts degree is sheer stupidity. If you do that, your family better be wealthy enough to cover your end or you're screwed.

I think a big problem with this is how detached students are from the debt they are taking on due to how it only needs to be repaid in the future. I was able to finish my masters and get out with zero debt, and while everyone might not be able to do that well, $100-200k is just nuts. I was reading the other day how new federal mortgage regulation has forced lenders to show borrowers exactly how much they were borrowing, what their monthly payments will be, and how much they will pay in the end. EDIT: I wonder if that might be useful for student loans as well.

Eighteen year olds are stupid, but hopefully learning that you're going to be paying $1,000 a month for life might make some think twice.

 

[rcpratt]

I feel bad criticizing these kids since I went to a top, expensive out of state school...and my parents paid every penny of the probably $130k bill. But I wouldn't have gone there if I was going to be responsible for any significant portion of it.

And Kettering, top engineering school? Come on kid. And every engineering student in the country knows that Industrial Engineering is the easiest major in the field.

 

[QuantumPion]

Except there are a lot fewer of those people and a lot less money in the system as a whole. It's really nothing like the subprime mortgage debacle. That being said, the idea that you're going to drop $100-$200k on a fine arts degree is sheer stupidity. If you do that, your family better be wealthy enough to cover your end or you're screwed.

The total US mortgage debt is around $10 trillion, while the total student loan debt is around $1 trillion. So this economic collapse will be about 1/10 as bad as the 2008 crash (the worst crash in history). I'm sure that will do wonders for our currently vibrant, strong, and stable economy. :\