Some older Americans say millennials’ student debt is their own fault

Well DUH, YOU applied for it and YOU spent it.

"Alf Seccombe, a San Francisco area-based director with $223,000 in student loans, says those who blame students for the problem are “a little out of touch.” “People don’t realize that everybody is living paycheck to paycheck and they are not doing that by choice,” said Seccombe, 36."

A "director" and you took out $233,000 in student loans to become one? What kind of "director"?

"He makes six figures in retail fashion marketing, but is still sliding into credit-card debt to pay his loans. Seccombe thinks of his in-laws, who both worked as teachers and bought a house with an ocean view. His house is on a highway and has plumbing work that needs to be put off."

Well I bet they didn't take out $228,000 in loans to become teachers. And he paid $228,000 to come a marketing director for a clothing company? What did he possibly pay for? A business and marketing degree to the tune of $228,000 and that's the best he can do?

Now he wants Joe the plumber to pay for his college education? Why doesn't he petition the college if the degree they sold him does not earn enough to pay what they charged him and have THEM forgive the loan or pay them off for him?

Hey about about paying off my mortgage?
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/s...cx_politics&cx_tag=other&cx_artPos=6#cxrecs_s

 

This issue is more complex than it appears on the surface IMO. For decades now, free of any state or federal trade regulatory oversight that applies to the -entire- private sector, the gov-edu industry has peddled the lie that ANY post secondary degree in ANYTHING from ANYWHERE is a ticket to the American Dream using out of context, spun and sometimes outright fabricated claims and "statistics." In the relatively recent past, after significant years of repayment, student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy. In light of the many false claims of the edu industry about its products for decades, should student loans be dischargeable in bankruptcy after say 7 years of repayment? Yes IMO they should be dischargeable.

Moreover, the government guarantee of student loans has exacerbated problems associated with this false advertising campaign, leading directly as a primary cause to spiraling tuition and other costs in education. Should a naïve student or well-meaning parents EVER have been CAPABLE of borrowing $200,000 for a sociology degree? Hell no, no more than people should be able to borrow $50k to finance a base model KIA. So there is much government blame here also. Lots of people got rich by lying to Americans, enabled by government, who did nothing to regulate the lies.

Should people be generally accountable for their debts? Of course, but the student loan fiasco is not that simple I'm afraid, and those who profited and are still profiting from the lies will never be held accountable. As usual, it will be the rank and file private sector taxpayer forced to pay for an inevitable restructuring.

 

The problem is that student debt has been designed deliberately by the banking industry to economically enslave students for decades.

Relief must be given. Period. It will.

 

Apparently the student loan program had a darker side.
There were a lot of predatory private loan companies preying on naive young students.

Old thread from four years ago: Student Loan Program ruining people's lives

In a way, this is all part of the college loan bubble, where people were being told, at that time, a college degree will always pay off no matter what.

 

Why should people who borrowed student loan money for a college degree be given more relief than anyone else?

What about those who scrimped and saved to pay off their debt, even though it wasn't easy? Should they get retroactive relief too?

How about those who didn't go to college because they knew it would be too much of a burden with all the debt it would place them under?
Give money to them too?

 

I worked my way through college and even went into the military to finish college after I dropped out. My brother paid his way through college. My parents put my mom through college after my brother and I moved out. If you don't make stupid, life altering decisions, it's not impossible.

 

The fact is that going to college or university often makes young people poorer.

It's much like going to fly-by-night schools (like Virginia College storefront classrooms nationwide) where students can't pay what they owe after they graduate.

If going to college or university were a good choice students would benefit enough from it that they could pay what they owe.

Students pay way, way too much for subpar educations at colleges and universities. But that's their choice and that's their fault.

 

I dunno, maybe some kinda deal can be hatched up to where if you join the marines and actually see combat, you can choose to have your salary pay the principle off. A few tours of duty and before you know it, they'll be able to have a college loan debt paying off party in mom's backyard. It will start with a speech from mom on the evils of borrowing money, then the ceremonial burning of the angry creditor letters in the hibachi.

 

BS. It wasn't the banking industry that had raised the cost of tuition to the point that a four year degree costs six figures or saw to it that a four year degree now takes six years or more.

 

A fool and his money are soon parted.

That in no way makes me responsible for the fool's decisions.

 

Too immature at 18 or so to not be hoodwinked by the education/finance cabal but mature enough at 16 to vote they say. Aaaalllrighty then.

Gonna brag on my wife. She went to four years of private boarding high school. At the end of the four years the school wrote her a check for what they owed her after deducting tuition from her wages earned in industries affiliated with the school.

After a year of private college and three of state university she owed about $5500 in student loans.

She doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for those who whine about student debt. I don’t either.

 

I was born into the tail end of the Greatest Generation, worked four and a half years to pay my way to a Business and Econ Degree. I graduated with $1800 in college load debt and paid it off. Therefore, am unqualified to talk about the current situation except to say, what a mess.

 

And then what? Extend more loans to more kids to do the same thing?

 

But now, good students that deserve to be in college, that will earn useful degrees, can't afford it because of the many hundreds of billion$ loaned out to semi retards to go to college and study utter crap.

 

Sure. If your gonna pay for the others.
These folks are way behind on retirement planning because they paid their debt.
Can't expect them to work into their seventies in order to retire. Where's their relief?

 

Nearly a quarter million in student debt? Someone has an extremely poor ability to make decisions.

 

But now they're qualified to be the night manager at Burger King

 

I clipped the rest of your post because that nails it. It is, indeed, "a mess".

My brother co-signed for a sizable student loan for his daughter, who decided after half a semester that she would rather sling hash at Denny's. To quote you again, "what a mess" is putting it mildly. To top things off, my brother had to pay to repair the roof when he found out that her career plans had changed, but the debt remained the same, and the bills were addressed to him.

Honestly, I don't know what can be done. If the debt is written off, that will hurt the universities because no loving parent in their right mind is going to sock away a little every month in a college fund. It will also stop government secured student loans. If the debt isn't excused, that's a time bomb ticking away for all sorts of things because they just won't have the money to pay it off and go shopping for houses, cars, and vacations.

Maybe not loan forgiveness, but... what?

 

Whatever advantage that is given to those who knowingly took on the debt needs to also be given to those of us who sacrificed and saved to pay for college. Why reward the fools and punish the responsible?

 

They went to school with their eyes wide open. If we are to pay off the student loans it should come from their professor's salaries.

 

It is the students fault and also their parents that likely co-signed the loan.

Sallie Mae loans are the worst. The student doesn't have to start making payments until they Graduate. Yet during the time they are in school interest keeps accruing. So when they Graduate many can't get a job that pays their cost of living and student loan payments.

So it is important to determine whether their degree will afford them a job that pays well. And to select a school that has affordable tuition

Professional and technical degrees are the best and will pay the most upon graduation.

 

Hey, my wife insisted that we stop off at the bank on our way home from the hospital with our first born so that we could open a college savings account. For 18 loooooong years, we put 200 bucks into that account every month. We couldn't get at it for 18 years so there was interest involved, and that along with a bit more from personal savings, we were able to send her to college after she graduated high school.

200 a month sure the hell wasn't easy the first ten years, but we managed (mostly because of my wife who didn't think that beer money for a friday night with the guys was as important).

So yeah, if they want to forgive hundreds of thousands of student loan debt for others, I'm going to be the first hog at the trough of student loan debt forgiveness reparations.

 

Easy money. Just like credit card debt. Too many people just don't understand you don't spend money you don't have or don't have enough to pay the debt off.

 

.

 

So you want the workers who didn't go to college to subsidize those who did go to college?

I think the Democrats should really run on roofers being told they need to subsidize the the student loans of CEOs because wahh.