Debt is the New Slavery

[First]

You are correct.

Edit:If you have no credit, you have no score. Not a zero but no score at all.

Oh ok, I guess I misinterpreted your post.

 

[OverVolt]

If your parents were successful you'd have to be pretty misguided if you didn't listen to them on ways to be successful, assuming they were giving advice and not mandates. College is generally the right route for most successful people, I don't think many people argue this. I also don't think many people argue that for a good chunk of the population, college isn't the right route and they can be perfectly successful as well. It's just a smaller proportion of the "successful" population. And I'm under 30.

Can't be by much!

Take advice from someone if you want to end up like them, you can take advice from lower middle class parents without college degrees like "go to college and get a good job and stuff dunno how it really works" and you will end up lower middle class all over again because you have all this debt and didn't have much direction in how to game college for connections and good jobs.

Even the upper middle class is very naive about how much investment in a fresh 18 year old it takes right now to make them privileged. Alot of the middle class tries to fake it. Hence all the dead end liberal arts degrees with $50k or more in debt etc. Those poor bastards got bad advice and zero financial help without really knowing the value of money.

They listen to people like you but don't actually have the means to attend college.

That is my interpretation of the skyrocketing student loan debt loads. Which I think is irritating since I actually belong here and can probably pick out the people who are a waste of seats and drive up the tuition meanwhile they'd be better off doing something else.

They think they are getting jilted out of the American dream but surprise will be on them when they graduate and see how much they owe per month they'll still be jilted out of it.

 

[Melina42]

Unemployment among graduates from accredited, not-for-profit colleges in the US: less than 4%.

Unemployment among all others of the same age: nearly 20%.

 

[OverVolt]

Unemployment among graduates from accredited, not-for-profit colleges in the US: less than 4%.

Unemployment among all others of the same age: nearly 20%.

Pretty easy to get a job driving cabs and flipping burgers with a bachelors :awe:

They aren't necessarily good jobs, and they have all that debt to pay off. Both groups are more equal than you think.

 

[moonbogg]

Proverbs 22:7

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender."

Debt is not the new slavery, debt is the tried and true old slavery that continues to work so well. Noone sees any reason to change it.

Not religious, but the fact that it was written about thousands of years ago proves the point.

 

[First]

Can't be by much!

Take advice from someone if you want to end up like them, you can take advice from lower middle class parents without college degrees like "go to college and get a good job and stuff dunno how it really works" and you will end up lower middle class all over again because you have all this debt and didn't have much direction in how to game college for connections and good jobs.

There's nothing to "game"; it's called being socially well adjusted by talking more openly to people. That's pretty much how you make "connections". Too often people think putting your head down and just working hard is the only way to succeed. It's half the picture.

Even the upper middle class is very naive about how much investment in a fresh 18 year old it takes right now to make them privileged. Alot of the middle class tries to fake it. Hence all the dead end liberal arts degrees with $50k or more in debt etc. Those poor bastards got bad advice and zero financial help without really knowing the value of money.

Depending on how you define "liberal arts", virtually no one is spending 50K+ to get a liberal arts degree in the first place, and those who are, are in academia and make perfectly fine livings anyway.

They listen to people like you but don't actually have the means to attend college.

Plenty of poor people have the means to attend college, and claiming otherwise is nonesense. Most minorities are eligible for financial aid, scholarships, etc. Most people can get low interest federal loans, it's the law now actually. You can attend your first 2 years of college paying less than $100/unit at great community colleges here in CA (SMC, LACC, PCC, etc.); that's $7200 for two years of college, and double or triple that for the next two years, depending on where you transfer (public UC, smaller Liberal Arts college, etc.), for a total less than your $50K figure.

That is my interpretation of the skyrocketing student loan debt loads. Which I think is irritating since I actually belong here and can probably pick out the people who are a waste of seats and drive up the tuition meanwhile they'd be better off doing something else.

They think they are getting jilted out of the American dream but surprise will be on them when they graduate and see how much they owe per month they'll still be jilted out of it.

You're not very well informed if you believe anything you just wrote. None of what I'm saying is opinion; again, it's not difficult to pay reasonable amounts of money for a great 4-year education, I just listed specific ways how.

 

[First]

Pretty easy to get a job driving cabs and flipping burgers with a bachelors :awe:

Any stats for burger flippers with BA's? The answer is almost zero, in case you didn't already know.

They aren't necessarily good jobs, and they have all that debt to pay off. Both groups are more equal than you think.

No actually, they are necessarily good jobs. It's a fact that college grads earn more than non-grads on average. It's a fact that highly skilled jobs require degrees far more often than not. You can have a great career without a BA/BS, as I said, but it's just a lot harder to do and more rare.

 

[Jeff7]

I will never understand this "anti-education" sentiment from some people. My kids are successful because they received college educations. Most people who have college education go on to do well. Why would anyone be against a good college education? I shake my head at this.

I've seen this way of thinking as being fairly prevalent: Scientists, engineers, mathematicians - they don't build anything with their hands, like shop work or manual labor, therefore they really don't do anything of value with their fancy degrees in imaginary things on a computer screen.

The majority of these people even own complex devices such as cellphones and cars; I can only assume that they think that these things were simply cobbled together on the shop floor in a few afternoons.




You want to go to college and learn about something that's purely interesting? Go for it - but do so only if you understand that it will be expensive, and if you understand how it may or may not affect your earnings potential and future debt. As far as I'm concerned, debt's bad enough. Interest on debt just makes it worse.
I kind of lucked out by happening to be interested in mechanical and electrical things. Now I've got a job where I can, at least some of the time, do stuff that's like a hobby for me, except they pay me for my time there, and they pay for the materials and equipment for the prototype runs.

 

[OverVolt]

http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/01/28/overeducated-and-underemployed/

You really have to stop quoting every 2 sentences heh I feel the need to respond to every little thing. Anyway I see the above with my friends who have graduated.

There was in fact, 110% a cutoff when they started adding "Bachelors + 1 year experience" to job requirements which became next year "Bachelors + 2 years of experience" and so on, on jobs that would actually use the degree. They started doing it in ~09 with 1 year experience required which means the cutoff to get a job was ~08 for the experience you'd need making the age cutoff right now ~27-27.5 if you wanted to be specific (Grad at 22~and change in '08). Its just a known thing to everyone under 27ish although its easier to just generalize "people over 30." I guess I've been using that for a year too long.

Its up to "Bachelors + 5years experience" Which is still 27 I think.

Its rather obvious that companies don't want young grads.

I don't really get what is so difficult to understand. Most of the 30~somethings are a total waste of my time. They aren't connected enough to get you a job and their advice is bleh.

I've never bothered to figure out the exact age since its pointless but there ya go.

 

[Exterous]

If the average student loan debt is $35k-$40k a lot of people are better off just pursuing their dreams and taking on some credit card debt in the process.

The average isn't $35-40k

I would guess the new lines brought your score down just because they're new.

Seems like a big drop for 4 cards. I did 5 new cards in jan-feb and my score only dropped 10 points

 

[Exterous]

http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/01/28/overeducated-and-underemployed/

You really have to stop quoting every 2 sentences heh I feel the need to respond to every little thing. Anyway I see the above with my friends who have graduated.

There was in fact, 110% a cutoff when they started adding "Bachelors + 1 year experience" to job requirements

While under employment is a problem with grads it's incredibly important to note that most of the added jobs since the recession are jobs that require degrees. Non-degree positions are still down ~5m since the recession while jobs requiring degrees are above 2m pre recession levels. The underemployment figures also hasn't significantly reduced the additional earning a degree holder will earn compared to a non degree holder. Granted it dropped from2.0 to 1.97x but it's still significant

http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CollegeAdvantage.FullReport.081512.pdf

I would also be interested to read about this fact about adding years of experience

 

[First]

http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/01/28/overeducated-and-underemployed/

You really have to stop quoting every 2 sentences heh I feel the need to respond to every little thing. Anyway I see the above with my friends who have graduated.

There was in fact, 110% a cutoff when they started adding "Bachelors + 1 year experience" to job requirements which became next year "Bachelors + 2 years of experience" and so on, on jobs that would actually use the degree. They started doing it in ~09 with 1 year experience required which means the cutoff to get a job was ~08 for the experience you'd need making the age cutoff right now ~27-27.5 if you wanted to be specific (Grad at 22~and change in '08). Its just a known thing to everyone under 27ish although its easier to just generalize "people over 30." I guess I've been using that for a year too long.

Its up to "Bachelors + 5years experience" Which is still 27 I think.

Its rather obvious that companies don't want young grads.

I don't really get what is so difficult to understand. Most of the 30~somethings are a total waste of my time. They aren't connected enough to get you a job and their advice is bleh.

I've never bothered to figure out the exact age since its pointless but there ya go.

This was a whole lot of word vomit to say nothing useful, nor did you really reply to anything I said.

Meh.

 

[werepossum]

Not really. From their perspective, credit wise, he didn't exist. I told him that I steer away from people with no credit but I do look at other factors (job, residence, income) to see if I can do something. Some button pusher at a bank won't care to look until he wants his $$, in cash, now.

You are correct.

Edit:If you have no credit, you have no score. Not a zero but no score at all.

Shows the difference between small business and big business. As a small business owner, you're interested in serving your customers where you can reasonably do so, because that's how you make your money and get your wife her new kitchen and your son the G.I. Joe with the Kung-fu grip. As a bank loan officer, he or she is primarily interested with following guidelines and maintaining plausible deniability, more interested in being able to show numbers on a page than in the relationship already maintained. The bank loan officer's income is dependent on making profitable loans and credit card sales, but even more contingent on giving distant management no reason to fire him or her.

 

[Farang]

The average isn't $35-40k



Seems like a big drop for 4 cards. I did 5 new cards in jan-feb and my score only dropped 10 points

Average student loan debt: $32,559
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

This number fluctuates so as a ballpark I wasn't too far off.

 

[OverVolt]

This was a whole lot of word vomit to say nothing useful, nor did you really reply to anything I said.

Meh.

I did and nixed it, I have a limit lol. Sometimes I think you just like hearing what I say even though you don't agree at all.

Maybe some kind of "he's crazy... hmm interesting."

 

[OverVolt]

Average student loan debt: $32,559
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

This number fluctuates so as a ballpark I wasn't too far off.

AFAIK current students don't count until they are off deferment, but of course it counts 38 yr olds paying off that last $5k that in't really worth paying off quickly if you have other debts at higher interest. A lot of them were unable to find jobs and went to graduate or professional school to hideout from the economy some more but of course they will all graduate at the same time again and won't find jobs again.

Its climbing quickly and really just the tip of the iceberg IMO, you guys can argue about it I don't really care. They explain how they average student loan debt. No graduate students included, no current students included. The debt slavery thing? Mostly affecting people who opt for expensive graduate programs in a degree that couldn't get them a job at the bachelors level anyway (liberal artsy), and people hiding from the jobs market in college. :hmm:

Ya know as a case study I know someone who has $400k in student loan debt just hopping colleges and living as a student. I guess its better than being on the street or something.

 

[Exterous]

Average student loan debt: $32,559
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

This number fluctuates so as a ballpark I wasn't too far off.

So you get your figures from a blog with no sources provided for the Student Loan figures? Hell - the figures they used for credit card debt were 2 and 3 years out of date...

FICO says its around $27,000
http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/01/29/more-evidence-on-the-student-debt-crisis-average-grads-loan-jumps-to-27000/

The Federal Reserve has it at about $25,000
http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/mediaadvisory/2013/Lee022813.pdf

Far better sources than an unsourced blog...

 

[Exterous]

AFAIK current students don't count until they are off deferment, but of course it counts 38 yr olds paying off that last $5k that in't really worth paying off quickly if you have other debts at higher interest.

Well - who knows what that site is doing because they don't bother to post the sources for the student loan averages but students in school do count for reporting for reputable sources. Its what allows the 'loans 90+ days delinquent' to sound better than it actually is as they get to count students in school who don't have to pay as part of their 'not delinquent' number. Sallie Mae gets to report a 4.6% delinquent rate when the actual number for those actually in re-payment is closer to 31%. The other side of the coin is that they must report those loan balances

Graduate school is included in the FICO and Fed numbers as well

 

[OverVolt]

Well - who knows what that site is doing because they don't bother to post the sources for the student loan averages but students in school do count for reporting for reputable sources. Its what allows the 'loans 90+ days delinquent' to sound better than it actually is as they get to count students in school who don't have to pay as part of their 'not delinquent' number. Sallie Mae gets to report a 4.6% delinquent rate when the actual number for those actually in re-payment is closer to 31%. The other side of the coin is that they must report those loan balances

Graduate school is included in the FICO and Fed numbers as well

No, its not.

 

[SheHateMe]

For the sake of the argument, my student loan debt is around 22k including interest. I only have 2 unsubbed loans.

My plan is to save some money from my internship and my job during my last months of school so I can have savings to start saving with (saving inception, I guess) so I can pay something after the deferment period is over.

First order of business is paying the $900 perkins loan I have from my uni, though. Projected payment is $40/m. Might nip that in the bud in the summer

 

[OverVolt]

I'm actually about the same.

I have friends who are lawyers or went to private schools and are $150k+ in debt. Its so easy to mess up like that and I feel rather badly for them. However, they can make ends meet.

Even $22k in debt is irritating because the tuition is rising so fast. I'll be glad to graduate but I feel pretty bad about the freshmen, at 7-8% growth they'll be like $40k in debt "doing it right" and the ones doing it wrong with private school or picking the wrong professional school, they won't be able to make ends meet, at all.

Tuition is rising way faster than inflation, like houses it can't go up forever. I think the loan market breaks in order to bring the price down, is how it will have to work. I have to get an education I'm just irritated to be stuck in the middle of a bubble. Its like a legitimate family trying to bid against house speculators in the 2005 house market.

They gotta live somewhere just like I gotta get my education its just there are alot of people here wasting their time with liberal arts, partying, taking out loans like no tomorrow recklessly etc.

 

[rudder]

Debt is nothing like slavery. Slavery generally tends to mean you have no choice but to be subjugated.

Debt is optional. I can sit here and lecture on student loan debt.. but there are people that will have to take it on. So be it... but they should analyze their ROI. I hear of people going to Vanderbilt ($50,000/year) for a teaching degree. This does not make sense. Granted I imagine most are paying that to have access to finding a doctor or lawyer to marry. But the teaching certificate can be had for $40,000 total if you had to borrow for all your tuition by going to a Tennessee state university.

There are options. Debt can make you a slave... but it cannot do it without you.

 

[Exterous]

No, its not.

Care to support your claim?

 

[OverVolt]

Care to support your claim?

No not really lol. I read how they calculate it, can't find it now, and give up. True story!

 

[Exterous]

No not really lol. I read how they calculate it, can't find it now, and give up. True story!

The Fed surveys all student loan debt by age group making no distinction between 4 year degree debt or master's degree debt. If its a student loan its reported
http://www.newyorkfed.org/studentloandebt/index.html