MoveOn.Org Calls For The Wiping Of Student Load Debt

[Patranus]

Picking up the protesters' thread, liberal interest group MoveOn.org is pushing a national petition that at last count had 600,000 signatures for the forgiveness of "all" student loan debt in America.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...calling-for-wiping-out-all-student-loan-debt/

LOL - These guys become a bigger joke every day. Its not like anyone held a gun to the head of these ass clowns and made them take out student loans and choose a field that had/has no future.

 

[nageov3t]

people are signing a petition for the government to give them each hundreds of thousands of dollars? stunned and amazed.

I think college costs are running out of control, but wiping out loans doesn't seem like the right place to start when it comes to reform... although I'd highly encourage students to start by voting with their feet and taking a pass on going to a $50,000/year school to get a degree in art history.

 

[JSt0rm]

yeah not gonna happen. We need reform in this area though.

 

[Aegeon]

LOL - These guys become a bigger joke every day. Its not like anyone held a gun to the head of these ass clowns and made them take out student loans and choose a field that had/has no future.

The problem is unlike essentially any other type of debt in the US, you can't get rid of it with bankruptcy or a house foreclosure. It therefore can potentially stick with you for decades and really ruin your life. (They also could potentially have started getting suckered into it at the ages of 17 or 18, as opposed to other areas where it is generally tougher today to get into really huge debt by such an early age before someone's judgement might become better.)

The problem is even if they picked a field of education where they reasonably expected to get a good job out of it, with this economy that may well not have happened.

While absolute student debt forgiveness presumably doesn't make sense, there does appear to be a strong argument for some sort of reform of the current system.

 

[Infohawk]

This is an interesting issue. It's ridiculous that we have a system set up where people need to go to what amounts to country clubs for four years in order to get a job. Or worse, they go to some crappy University of Phoenix program and then accrue a lot of debt.

It's also a reminder that most people cannot be trusted to manage important finances. They can't handle any credit and they certainly can't handle their own retirement. It's just a reality. With that in mind social security and the consumer protection agency make sense to me.

 

[Engineer]

If you take them out, you pay for them. I do agree with many that if you cannot afford to pay your bills and have to file bankruptcy, I don't see a reason that these should not be restructured or discharged (as long as your credit history gets the 7 year ding that it deserves for filing bankruptcy).

 

[Spikesoldier]

outrageous.

i guess they saw the DREAM act and thought they were entitled to their piece of the free higher education pie as well.

silly americans, those are for the illegals only!

 

[matt0611]

So will I, who payed back about 60k of my undergrad loans be reimbursed as well?
I'm guessing not.

What about all the people who didn't even go to college? Why should they pay?

This idea is bullshit.

 

[nageov3t]

If you take them out, you pay for them. I do agree with many that if you cannot afford to pay your bills and have to file bankruptcy, I don't see a reason that these should not be restructured or discharged (as long as your credit history gets the 7 year ding that it deserves for filing bankruptcy).

I'm torn on the issue... on the one hand, it seems only fair that you should have the bankruptcy option if you're truly desperate.

but on the other hand, I can think of many, many, many people who would take 5-6 years to graduate from a $50,000/year school with a useless major, declare bankruptcy, and just live at home for a couple years waiting for their credit to improve.

 

[Lithium381]

System is fux0red...... as loki said..... but in order to have a thriving society, YOU MUST BE ALLOWED TO FAIL.....

 

[Lithium381]

Oh, and this is exactly why the welfare state will continue, these same people signing the petition. . . are the same ones that vote to get their free government cheese every month

 

[Engineer]

I'm torn on the issue... on the one hand, it seems only fair that you should have the bankruptcy option if you're truly desperate.

but on the other hand, I can think of many, many, many people who would take 5-6 years to graduate from a $50,000/year school with a useless major, declare bankruptcy, and just live at home for a couple years waiting for their credit to improve.

I see your point. It does make it easy to just go to school and then destroy the debt (no job) and move in with mom and dad. I don't know all the "deferral" rules on student loans now so I'm don't know what else to say at this point. I paid mine so as I said, they should be paid unless it's just not possible.

Oh, and when I tried to consolidate my loans and cut my payment in half, I was denied for insufficient income. Strangely, the company that I applied to consolidate held 3 of my 5 loans. I asked them if they thought that I could pay this new loan back and they said no. I then ask if they thought that I could pay back my original 5 loans, 3 of them belonging to them with a payment more than what a consolidated payment would have been and they said "yes, yes you should be able to pay them back". I was "WTF".

 

[child of wonder]

The biggest problem is 18 year olds thinking it's a good idea to go $100k into debt for a degree. More kids should be exploring 2 year degrees, get into the work force immediately, then if your company offers tuition reimbursement take night classes to finish up your 4 year degree, if you want to.

My $14k Associate's degree has served me extremely well. Other guys in my field talk about going back to school for a Bachelor's but I see no need.

 

[Attic]

Oh, and when I tried to consolidate my loans and cut my payment in half, I was denied for insufficient income. Strangely, the company that I applied to consolidate held 3 of my 5 loans. I asked them if they thought that I could pay this new loan back and they said no. I then ask if they thought that I could pay back my original 5 loans, 3 of them belonging to them with a payment more than what a consolidated payment would have been and they said "yes, yes you should be able to pay them back". I was "WTF".

Wow, that's pretty bad. Gotta love the zombies who take up that kind of work.


College debt is a real problem. The guaranteed and easily available loans are the problem. If you were selling college education and millions of kids basically had what they considered free money,... what would you do to your tuition rates? How many kids who shouldn't be on the hook for 10s of thousands of dollars would be on the hook for 10's of thousands of dollars? It's another poorly thought government backed policy IMO.

 

[glenn1]

The biggest problem is 18 year olds thinking it's a good idea to go $100k into debt for a degree. More kids should be exploring 2 year degrees, get into the work force immediately, then if your company offers tuition reimbursement take night classes to finish up your 4 year degree, if you want to.

My $14k Associate's degree has served me extremely well. Other guys in my field talk about going back to school for a Bachelor's but I see no need.

But that would likely involve them taking an entry level job in a position that wouldn't allow them full self-actualization, something like a night-shift call center position paying $22k/year to start, and need to work their way up over several years. Don't you know that these kids are better than that?

 

[Engineer]

But that would likely involve them taking an entry level job in a position that wouldn't allow them full self-actualization, something like a night-shift call center position paying $22k/year to start, and need to work their way up over several years. Don't you know that these kids are better than that?

I know what you mean but there was a CNN discussion that stated that the unemployment rate for college grads that have been out of college for 6 months is over 15%, and that doesn't factor in the fact that many keep going to college to pursue a higher degree only because of the bad employment situation. With the global market, with super depressed (and uneven if not unfair wages because of currency issues) wages, these kids better take whatever they can get at this point. And as far as I'm concerned, some of the bullshit "general elective" classes need to be removed to focus on shorter "more to the point" degrees that focus entirely on the subject at hand.

 

[Nintendesert]

How about these fucksticks go join a government related industry that will forgive their debt like oh the military?

I went to Iraq and Afghanistan, twice each, and did I waste all my money on cars and shit like that? No. I paid off my fucking student loans and when I was done in the Marines I came out with no debt and instead I had investments and savings.

These lazy sorry fucks can do the same.

 

[Engineer]

How about these fucksticks go join a government related industry that will forgive their debt like oh the military?

I thought that I read from someone on here (Nebor maybe?) that the military basically had more than they could handle recruit wise right now. Like others have said, maybe they should choose a career path that has a future instead of some of the crap degrees out there. Of course, some of it is the economy and with that said, there should be deferral programs available to help them through it, but they took the loans out and need to pay them.

 

[child of wonder]

I know what you mean but there was a CNN discussion that stated that the unemployment rate for college grads that have been out of college for 6 months is over 15%, and that doesn't factor in the fact that many keep going to college to pursue a higher degree only because of the bad employment situation. With the global market, with super depressed (and uneven if not unfair wages because of currency issues) wages, these kids better take whatever they can get at this point. And as far as I'm concerned, some of the bullshit "general elective" classes need to be removed to focus on shorter "more to the point" degrees that focus entirely on the subject at hand.

I agree. My degree was very focused on computer networking specifically with Cisco routers and switches. The only elective I had to take was Speech had I not already taken some previous college courses. Had I not, the only other electives I would have had to take were Psychology, Sociology, Math, Composition, and Technical Writing -- most being very relevant to a career in IT.

All these precious little snowflakes need to focus on developing marketable skills rather than assuming a Bachelors or Masters Degree in anything is some secret key to success.

 

[Patranus]

---

 

[JSt0rm]

These lazy sorry fucks can do the same.

So what you do is what everyone should do? I dont think the pathway you took would work with 50 million people going down it. I dont actually know, thats just my common sense tingling.

 

[LegendKiller]

I'm torn on the issue... on the one hand, it seems only fair that you should have the bankruptcy option if you're truly desperate.

but on the other hand, I can think of many, many, many people who would take 5-6 years to graduate from a $50,000/year school with a useless major, declare bankruptcy, and just live at home for a couple years waiting for their credit to improve.

This is one huge reason why they stopped them from being dischargable in BK. Many doctors and lawyers were going BK just after graduating.

The problem now is that it's an asymmetrical situation which has caused risk spreads for that debt to flatten while the risk equation has stayed the same. In any normal situation the higher the risk, the higher the rate. However, if you remove risk (dischargeability with .gov backing) you get rid of most of the risk. This has made borrowing cheap and lending even cheaper. It's a money machine for the lenders. That's why they shove as much money at the students as possible. This is one huge reason why you see tuition going up, more cash flooding into the institutions results in inflation.

I woud say that you allow dischargeability but only after 10 years and even then only for a portion, depending on your future ability to repay while your credit score gets utterly fucked for another 10 years. That way high-end professions will have to repay for 1/3 of the loan term, then only be able to discharge a portion, if any, then they can't even touch a house or a car for another 10 years.

I came out of grad school with ~70k in loans, my wife another 50k. I am repaying every fucking penny of them because *I* signed on the dotted line. *I* took out the debt. *I* went to school and knew how much money it was costing. I However, if I could't pay the loans, at all, even if I were working 3 jobs, then I might seek to get relief.

What's ridiculous is coming out of undergrad with 40k in student loans with an art history major. No underwriter should approve of that loan.

 

[Icepick]

This is potentially dangerous. If they wipe out the students' loan debt then that punishes others, like me who did not get into debt to go to school.

 

[alphatarget1]

The problem is unlike essentially any other type of debt in the US, you can't get rid of it with bankruptcy or a house foreclosure. It therefore can potentially stick with you for decades and really ruin your life.

Nobody forced them to take out 200k in loans to get a MA in Music. Fuck them.

 

[Nintendesert]

So what you do is what everyone should do? I dont think the pathway you took would work with 50 million people going down it. I dont actually know, thats just my common sense tingling.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/15/news/economy/loan_forgiveness/index.htm


There's plenty of shit out there for them to do, but they don't want to. I gave my example and that wasn't even a forgiveness program.

The military is only one small part of it.

Let's just get down to it, these people crying are selfish fuckers who thought they could run up these huge debts and do whatever they wanted to in life and have it all handed to them.