Will there ever be a student loan bailout? - Page 5

[Leta]

I can give you, in a paragraph, the content of "student loan counseling".

'This is real money. You WILL have to pay it back. You can't bankrupt it. If you end up on permanant disability, we can and probably will take payments out of your disability check.'

Nothing about debt to income ratio, or length of payback, or anything. Just a promise to hunt you down if you try to skip out.

[soccermama]

I don't have a massive amount left to pay - probably around $7K or so, but it's more annoying than anything. We only pay $100-$150 a month on it...it's just one of those things that I wish we could just pay off and be done with it. So yes, a bailout for student loans would be greatly appreciated in this household!!

[Katzchen]

Originally Posted by Pinoikoi

I am a teacher. I have a good friend with a master's in social work.. she makes WAY more than me and her employer is paying back her loans for her.. she got a sweet deal.. She probably makes twice your figure stated above..

Good for her. But I can tell you that that kind of deal really doesn't exist around here for non administrative social workers. My practicum site offered to hire me once I graduate and the salary they offered was just over $28,000 a year, which is pretty standard for crisis intervention and community mental health.

(Now teachers on the other hand in this area start at $38,000 with a Bachelor's and $42,000 with a Master's and most of the districts do pay for you to get your Master's degree. I have a friend that after 13 years of teaching and earning her Master's makes $71,000 a year. She also had a chunk of her student loans forgiven just because she taught for 5 years. But I realize that I can't generalize her experience to every other teacher in the US)

[Girl In The Fire]

I just cant get over some of the comments on this thread. If you borrow money you need to pay it back period end of story. No one borrows money for a car and then whines "I dont like making car payments, Govt. come pass some laws so I don't have to pay my car note".

No one held a gun to anyones head and said "You will borrow more money in student loans than you can ever pay back." If you did not realize you were borrowing more than you could afford it is not the ebil banks/schools/whatever fault and it is certainly not governments responsibility to clean up your mess (or anyone's mess). It is something you should take up with your parents for their failure to teach you basic life skills.

I am going back to school, not for what I would love to do, but for something practical that I could easily get a job in and make a decent living. I quit my job and we are living way below our means off my husbands salary. It sucks but it means I can get through CC with out taking out loans. When I am done with CC I am going to a private school which offers an accelerated program for adults. I will have to take out loans for the private school to the tune of roughly $25,000. We have already planned that when I graduate, the first year I am employed we will still continue to live frugally off my husbands salary and every cent I make will go towards paying off my student loan. The loan should be paid off with in a year. Ideally in about 10 years after we have a substantial amount of money saved up and the kids are older I will go back to school and get a degree in what I really want to do, but until then I am being practical.

You don't always get what you want in life, sometimes it means you aren't able to follow your dreams immediately, sometimes it means you need to live below your means for a few years, and sometimes it means you need to suck it up and pay back the money you owe for the education you already have.

[llamalluv]

Originally Posted by Leta

I can give you, in a paragraph, the content of "student loan counseling".

'This is real money. You WILL have to pay it back. You can't bankrupt it. If you end up on permanant disability, we can and probably will take payments out of your disability check.'

Nothing about debt to income ratio, or length of payback, or anything. Just a promise to hunt you down if you try to skip out.

That was pretty poor counseling you got, then.

Mine included:
*You must pay back the money, even if you don't like the education you received or if you don't take a job in the field you studied for or you get a job, but then lose it
*You cannot discharge the debt in bankruptcy
*If you fail to make payments, we can seize your assets, including bank accounts and tax refunds
*Subsidized vs. unsubsidized and what that meant
*Payback schedules and terms - level vs. graduated
*Forbearance and deferment: what they are, when they can be used
*Borrow smart - don't borrow more than you can pay back. Try to borrow just what you need to.
*The loans are for educational expenses and expenses incurred as a result of being a student - not for things like buying a car, gambling, or vacations

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by Katzchen

Good for her. But I can tell you that that kind of deal really doesn't exist around here for non administrative social workers. My practicum site offered to hire me once I graduate and the salary they offered was just over $28,000 a year, which is pretty standard for crisis intervention and community mental health.

(Now teachers on the other hand in this area start at $38,000 with a Bachelor's and $42,000 with a Master's and most of the districts do pay for you to get your Master's degree. I have a friend that after 13 years of teaching and earning her Master's makes $71,000 a year. She also had a chunk of her student loans forgiven just because she taught for 5 years. But I realize that I can't generalize her experience to every other teacher in the US)

Well, I wasn't trying to generalize, but I was trying to offer hope that there are better paying social worker positions out there..

For teachers here there is a student loan forgiveness program but you have to live VERY rurally to qualify, and you have to have taken out a certain type of student loan as well.. they pay one year for each year of service, but since these are areas I USED to live in as a child, I know for a fact that my dp would be unemployed, so it wouldn't be worth it financially, plus the stress on my children of being the only Filipino kids in town is just NOT worth it (which is what the end result would be).

My parents both were teachers for awhile (mom's retired, dad's currently a prof) and yeah, they both were making well over the $70k each near the end, although they put much of it in tax deferred retirement programs so lived off of FAR less.

Districts here do NOT pay for master's degrees although they will pay for individual courses (like a %) if it is for an underserved topic or area. They used to though.. my sil had her masters paid for, but certainly not me.

[mar123]

This is only specific to teaching- but you can become a National Baord Certified teacher for very little money and most states augment your salary. My state will add 5K a year to my salary once I finish- takes about 2 years- and that is good for 10 years. Then I can recertify, which is not difficult, and continue to collect the extra money. I figure I will teach for 20 more years once I am nationally certified. That is another 100K before taxes, etc, but more than pays for my education.

The time to look for money for college is before and when you are in college- not after. There are lots of scholarships, etc., out there and not all are for straight A students. Live near a Target? There is a $500 grant given by Target- that is just one example. At one of the high schools where I used to teach, we had a senior counselor whose entire job was to find money for the girls (an all girls' school) to go to college. You would be AMAZED what is out there. And while $500 might not make a dent, it all adds up.

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by mar123

This is only specific to teaching- but you can become a National Baord Certified teacher for very little money and most states augment your salary.

Everyone I know personally that is going through national cert or has gone through national cert has told me that they spent an incredible amount of $ out of pocket.

At this point I think I would do it if I were ever considering moving out of state, but I am not, so.. not a big deal to me.

If I ever needed extra $ after retirement, I could sub out of state (we are planning on traveling in an rv), or I could pick up writing full time again.. so unless something really drastic happens to dp or me (like health issues that force us out of state) I am not seeing where it would benefit me any.. 'course I could always teach in the Philippines, which I think would be great, anyway..

[Drummer's Wife]

Originally Posted by Leta

I can give you, in a paragraph, the content of "student loan counseling".

'This is real money. You WILL have to pay it back. You can't bankrupt it. If you end up on permanant disability, we can and probably will take payments out of your disability check.'

Nothing about debt to income ratio, or length of payback, or anything. Just a promise to hunt you down if you try to skip out.

well, maybe it was my community college's specific "counseling" (this was over 5 years ago) because I only wanted to borrow $1200 and had to go thru a pretty extensive half an hour ordeal which included loan calculators, income projection, a section where you typed in your expected housing/food/etc., costs to realistically figure out how much you could afford to pay back. It was a bit different than the session I linked, so that makes me think maybe it was specific to my loan, or my college.

[Scullery]

To be honest, I don't think it's fair that it isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy.

[vbactivist]

do we really want finances deciding careers? Iw ould love to see a student loan bailout. And I don't have any student loans and neither does my dh, and we never have.

[vbactivist]

Originally Posted by Scullery

To be honest, I don't think it's fair that it isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy.

no kidding . you can discharge your mortgage, that you presumably agreed to as an adult after the befeit of a college education, but not discharge the loans you agreed to as a 'green' kid with probably just a high school diploma??

[choli]

Originally Posted by bigeyes

I keep thinking about what a horrible obstacle this is to our children's future. You have to have college to have a shot at a decent income

That's the perception in the USA, but it's simply not true. I and many of my friends do not have college. We took entry level jobs, worked hard, were willing to learn and expand our skill sets, and ended up after a few years working alongside those with MAs, making the same money.

You can spend a lot of money on college, but the bottom line is actually gaining work experience and having a marketable skill set. You DON'T need a degree in Computer Science to be an IT Developer. You don't need a degree in Business to be a Project Manager. You DO need to be willing to work hard, learn hard, and keep your eyes open for opportunities to add value for your employers, rather than believing that an expensive piece of paper entitles you to well paid employment.

[LilMama23]

Sure, I'd love that, since I owe about $15K in student loans.
I would love to know what's going to happen for our children for college. We are not putting money aside for DD because we want to pay off our own loans first, but I believe that more people are going to be attending trade school or taking entry level jobs to work their way up in the next few years.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by choli

That's the perception in the USA, but it's simply not true. I and many of my friends do not have college. We took entry level jobs, worked hard, were willing to learn and expand our skill sets, and ended up after a few years working alongside those with MAs, making the same money.

You can spend a lot of money on college, but the bottom line is actually gaining work experience and having a marketable skill set. You DON'T need a degree in Computer Science to be an IT Developer. You don't need a degree in Business to be a Project Manager. You DO need to be willing to work hard, learn hard, and keep your eyes open for opportunities to add value for your employers, rather than believing that an expensive piece of paper entitles you to well paid employment.

And you need to not get sick, not get old, not get downsized, not be middle aged looking for a job without a degree or in an area where jobs are scarce or your skills aren't marketable. Because then, believe me, that little piece of paper means a lot. The tiniest little mistake can cost a person a lot in the job market, but when you have a degree nobody can take it away from you.

I can't tell you how many different places I've worked where the mere possession of a degree in anything was the key to a promotion. It didn't have anything to do with our work, it was just a qualification for management. My dh had a degree in horticulture that got him his promotion and believe me, that had nothing to do with the field we were working in. A friend of mine has a degree in English Lit and she works for a large retail chain that she says only promotes college grads as well. Retail.

I worked in retail, transportation and for a major corporation over 30 years in addition to bartending at night and nearly everyone I saw promoted except in food and beverage was a college grad. At the corporate job it was well known that the only way to get promoted was to have a degree. Not finishing school is the only real regret I have in life because it has cost me so much in terms of earning power and opportunities, and it didn't have to be. It was a huge mistake I can only hope my children are smart enough not to make.

[choli]

Originally Posted by bigeyes

And you need to not get sick, not get old, not get downsized, not be middle aged looking for a job without a degree or in an area where jobs are scarce or your skills aren't marketable. Because then, believe me, that little piece of paper means a lot. The tiniest little mistake can cost a person a lot in the job market, but when you have a degree nobody can take it away from you.

I can't tell you how many different places I've worked where the mere possession of a degree in anything was the key to a promotion. It didn't have anything to do with our work, it was just a qualification for management. My dh had a degree in horticulture that got him his promotion and believe me, that had nothing to do with the field we were working in. A friend of mine has a degree in English Lit and she works for a large retail chain that she says only promotes college grads as well. Retail.

I worked in retail, transportation and for a major corporation over 30 years in addition to bartending at night and nearly everyone I saw promoted except in food and beverage was a college grad. At the corporate job it was well known that the only way to get promoted was to have a degree. Not finishing school is the only real regret I have in life because it has cost me so much in terms of earning power and opportunities, and it didn't have to be. It was a huge mistake I can only hope my children are smart enough not to make.

Well, I guess we all go on our own experience - it hasn't been my experience at all that the only way to get promoted was to have a degree. My experience was that the only way to get promoted was to be good at what you are supposed to be doing. It looks like you had the misfortune to come across very bad managers.

[Maeve]

Originally Posted by Scullery

To be honest, I don't think it's fair that it isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy.

We found that out the hard way. When dh was 24 and finishing college (it took him longer since he was working FT and going to school) he was diagnosed with cancer and was out of school for 2 years due to all the treaments (he was very very sick). We ended up having to claim bankruptcy because of medical bills and cc's we used for a lot of living expenses (no mortgage at the time though). Our lawyer told us that if we had claimed bankruptcy while he was sick and disabled, we could have put the student loans on there also, but since we didn't realize how bad it really was until he was better, we couldn't. We had hoped to be able to pay off our debts, but it just wasn't happening. If we had known that, we would've filed earlier.
Then when he tried to go back to school, they said that many of his classes would need to be retaken (plus additional ones since requirements changed) and he was looking at another 2 years at least which we just couldn't afford. So now we own about $30-35000 in student loans for a degree he couldn't even finish.
I would love if there was some sort of student loan bailout or help, but I can't see that happening.

[babycarrier]

I'm surprised at so many responses that I'm reading.

No, I don't want to see a bailout on anything anymore. Before last year, where was this concept that things would be bailed out. I think the gov't bailouts are going to have deep repercussions that we cannot even anticipate.

I do have a ba and I don't have any loans. It took my 10 years to get it. I desperately want a masters. But my field (mental health) will not pay much more with a ma and it is a big loan - even through state schools. I never borrowed a lot because I didn't know how I would pay it back.

I don't even have words for how disgusted I am with big business getting bailed out. But I don't want want to live in a world where the rules change so drastically that oops! now forgive my loan for whatever reason (no matter how good the reasons sound) because life changed or didn't turn out how I expected. The first step to a college degree should be understanding real world practicalities.

I'm usually pretty apologetic for my words as I don't want to offend anyone. I am beyond angry at the world and the entitlement everywhere and how the trickle down is destroying the world. I learned of a 33% income cut in my household today. My debt is still my own.

[ShaggyDaddy]

Originally Posted by vbactivist

no kidding . you can discharge your mortgage, that you presumably agreed to as an adult after the befeit of a college education, but not discharge the loans you agreed to as a 'green' kid with probably just a high school diploma??

you can't discharge your mortgage and keep your house. But you always get to keep your diploma.

Can you imagine what interest rates would be like for student loans if they were not federally protected against bankrupcy? I will give you a hint... student loans are 3% to 15%, while non-protected credit cards are what like 8%-26% Do we want to see student loans end up with terms just like credit cards?

We used to joke that if you could just get enough credit cards to prepay college, and get cash advances for minimum payments, you could actually graduate, declare bankrupcy, then 7 years later boom, free education and start building credit.

[Maeve]

Well, I guess there should be no help for anyone for any reason and everyone should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work harder. (not directed at anyone in particular, just some of the attitudes I've seen lately).

I'm not saying that we should have our debts forgiven, but there are a lot of people out there worse off than us who should definitely get some sort of help. Leaving everyone to sink on their own I don't think is what's going to get us out of this mess, nor is bailing everyone out. But I think there is some sort of middle ground.