College people: Does this pic just about sum it up?

[Charmonium]

How can you owe more than you borrowed on a student loan?!

If you get a degree that doesn't help you find a good job at the end of 4 years, you can find yourself in some deep sh**. For example, here are the stats for various types of colleges now.

According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2014–2015 school year was $31,231 at private colleges, $9,139 for state residents at public colleges, and $22,958 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.

So even if you go to a state school, you're looking at $40k minimum by the time you're out. Got to a private school and it can be 3x that. And that's just for tuition and fees. There are still living expenses.

So unless you have rich parents who can pay your tuition for you or unless you get a considerable amount of financial aid in the form of either grants or scholarships, you're gonna be suckin' some big wienie by the time you're out.

This essentially turns college into a vocational school because unless you learn a useful trade, you'll never be able to pay back your loans. Except the whole purpose of college originally was to get a well rounded education - to become someone who knew more about the world than their narrow area of expertise. Unfortunately those days are gone.

In terms of the amount of interest noted in the OP, that can happen very easily if you get a few deferments. The interest continues to accrue even if you default so people who don't pick a marketable major can easily find themselves falling further and further into debt.

 

[videogames101]

That's true for some majors, but not for the sciences, which is where she has her sights set.

I disagree, I think work experience is really the biggest factor in hiring decisions. But for the sake of argument lets say that it's true. You can find state schools which are highly ranked in STEM majors. Even as an out-of-state student you can save quite a bit of money over private universities. Certainly it won't cost you $200k, more like $120k. Which is still a lot obviously, but it's still $80k less.

And maybe you happen to live in the state of one of the better public universities, then you're really golden.

Let's just say after 4 years I'm glad I didn't shell out the $50k/year for RPI.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I disagree, I think work experience is really the biggest factor in hiring decisions. But for the sake of argument lets say that it's true. You can find state schools which are highly ranked in STEM majors. Even as an out-of-state student you can save quite a bit of money over private universities. Certainly it won't cost you $200k.

And if someone were looking for a career in the hard sciences they would need to go to grad school anyways. So they can go to a good state school for undergrad and then to a prestigious school for their masters/phd.

I went to a state school (~$6300 a year post 2010) and some people would go on to Stanford for grad school for example.

 

[SSSnail]

That sign is less than honest. Even if she pays the required minimum, which is just the interests for 23 years, there's no way the total amount could accumulate to ~$77K.

 

[Wuzup101]

That's true for some majors, but not for the sciences, which is where she has her sights set.

Nope - there are plenty of state schools with good programs in the sciences. Better to save that money for graduate school. Paying $200k for undergrad is silly unless you have money to burn.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Funny my Nieces school had a parents night when they talked about school costs,financing,ext. The person hosting it said if you have the money to pay for a private school think which would be better. The private degree or a state school degree plus a condo or a huge down payment on a home.

 

[irishScott]

Whenever I see one of those photos I just replace the text with:

"I made mistakes."
"They're all someone else's fault."
"Be righteously indignant with me!"

I graduated college last year, I know plenty of people with student loans who would spit on that photo.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I blame Obama. When he traveled back in time to plant the fake birth certificate he also forced this poor woman to sign up for debt she didn't want, all so that she could get a degree in underwater basket weaving. He told her he was from the future and that the skill would be in high demand.

It's clearly not her fault.

 

[Exophase]

I don't think this is representative of what people will deal with today because for one thing the average loans needed for someone today for a four year education w/o significant scholarships or grants will be much higher $26,400. And probably much higher than the inflation adjusted amount would be too.

I graduated 10 years ago and had somewhere around $20k in personal federal debt (Stafford and Perkins loans) while my mother had another $20k for me on a PLUS loan. All were 10 year loans but I deferred for a couple years while I was in grad school so I haven't quite finished paying off the Stafford loan and my mother deferred while she was unemployed so I haven't quite finished paying off her PLUS loan (I paid off the Perkins loan several years ago just because I could never get it on direct withdrawal and forgetting to pay the thing was causing too many problems)

I don't know exactly how much debt there was originally much less have I tracked how much I've paid in total (or how much my mom paid back when she was paying) and I don't really care. The only thing I care about is the interest rate, which is much lower than what I make in investments, and therefore I have no incentive to pay them off. But I could have easily done so years ago.

She choose the 30-year repayment plan because she's an idiot and therefore will pay loads in interest. Probably private loans too.

I have 100K in student loans and it will be payed off in way less than 10 years.

I doubt she has a 30 year loan which has been paying faithfully because if she did she should have a lot less debt remaining after 23 years. Maybe she chose a 50 year loan

Or more likely, there were many periods where the loan was deferred due to unemployment or other conditions.

Yeah except that in most cases the loan is guaranteed by the federal government and the bank risk is zero. I'm sure they tell themselves the same story when they make up those numbers, though.

I don't think the federal government does anything to guarantee private loans. Private loans are needed if you don't qualify for enough federal funding. For example, if your parents make too much money.

 

[Cappuccino]

9k pounds x 4 =
not inc food/bus money etc etc etc
I have 1 year left.
Help me mom.

 

[Ns1]

9k pounds x 4 =
not inc food/bus money etc etc etc
I have 1 year left.
Help me mom.

find a BF who doesn't blow their tuition on a soccer game

 

[Cappuccino]

find a BF who doesn't blow their tuition on a soccer game

lool you still remember that post omigowd!
Unfortunately he isn't a rich Ugandan prince

 

[Ns1]

lool you still remember that post omigowd!
Unfortunately he isn't a rich Ugandan prince

ATOT never forgets

 

[Cappuccino]

ATOT never forgets

that day was the saddest day of our lifes. Lesson learnt. Never bet the favorites.

 

[postmortemIA]

College industry makes sick money of young peeps. I am talking about everybody:
- government, with the insane interest rates (loans to people at much higher rates than to banks). Govt has no desire to stop the money flow, until loan bubble happens.
- schools, inflating income of their professors and senior staff mainly. I know ones that teach class or two per semester, and make at least 150k. All in areas where that's triple the average household income.

In the meantime, H1B holders have insane advantage over domestic folks: they have no loans, so they can work for much less.

Not everybody is made for STEM degrees; and there are almost no decent jobs outside trades left without college degrees. Surely not enough for army of teenagers.

So my advice? Take the damned loan, because you are damned if you don't. If you take the loan, you have two favorable outcomes: you'll make more money working comfortable job, or loan pyramid scheme will crash down sooner than later, and you'll owe much less.

 

[Exophase]

Nope - there are plenty of state schools with good programs in the sciences. Better to save that money for graduate school. Paying $200k for undergrad is silly unless you have money to burn.

And then if you can't get funding for grad school in STEM you're probably not a great candidate for it. Unless things have changed a lot in the past few years.

 

[child of wonder]

No sympathy for woman in the OP.

I got a 2 year AAS degree, borrowed $14k to get it, and paid it off in 5 years.
A few years ago my wife also went to school for 2 years, went $22k into debt, and we paid it off in 6 months (thank you to my employer's stock grant ).

Don't go to scam schools, go after degrees that are likely to result in a good career, don't loan more than you need to, and make sacrifices to pay it off in a timely fashion.

 

[Cappuccino]

No sympathy for woman in the OP.

I got a 2 year AAS degree, borrowed $14k to get it, and paid it off in 5 years.
A few years ago my wife also went to school for 2 years, went $22k into debt, and we paid it off in 6 months (thank you to my employer's stock grant ).

Don't go to scam schools, go after degrees that are likely to result in a good career, don't loan more than you need to, and make sacrifices to pay it off in a timely fashion.

May I ask how old were you guys when you started University? Also what is a AAS degree? How did you pay offff $14k in less than 6 months after graduation? Did you get a super duper job or something? Also you don't ask for how much maintenance loan you receive, they give you x amount based on your family income. The max you can get is 3.5k pounds for 1 year. I dunno how it works where you live but I'm studying in the UK and everything is different here. I dunno maybe someone can correct me here. Still sucks cuz coupel years ago it was 3k/year but now it's 9k/year juss shows how fked up everything is atm. I'm mad. I wish I was born 5 years earlier ;D

 

[Exophase]

- government, with the insane interest rates (loans to people at much higher rates than to banks). Govt has no desire to stop the money flow, until loan bubble happens.

Is this really true? My federal loans have very low interest (~2%). If people could get better deals through private banks why would they choose federal loans in the first place? They go to private loans because they're not eligible for enough federal loans, but have someone who can take the fall for them by cosigning (usually a parent).

- schools, inflating income of their professors and senior staff mainly. I know ones that teach class or two per semester, and make at least 150k. All in areas where that's triple the average household income.

Then there's for-profit universities, who charge more to admit students who can't get into non-profits but probably spend significantly less on payroll because more of their course credits are online. They've done a great job both increasing student debt and decreasing the perceived value of a degree, making it harder for graduates to pay back loans. That is, for the people who graduate in the first place.

Fortunately, the Obama administration has been cracking down in regulating them more.

The professors you know probably get these big salaries because they bring in big research funding money, and their research is also why they barely teach courses. It'd be better if the investors (probably the government at least a lot of the time) had more conditions about how the money is spent, including salary caps.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I disagree, I think work experience is really the biggest factor in hiring decisions. But for the sake of argument lets say that it's true. You can find state schools which are highly ranked in STEM majors. Even as an out-of-state student you can save quite a bit of money over private universities. Certainly it won't cost you $200k, more like $120k. Which is still a lot obviously, but it's still $80k less.

And maybe you happen to live in the state of one of the better public universities, then you're really golden.

Let's just say after 4 years I'm glad I didn't shell out the $50k/year for RPI.

This, not sure what part of STEM he's talking about. My undergrad college is a very average state college, but the students that were competent all went on to schools of much higher repute for their PhDs. Since we were all biochem/biology, none of us are getting great jobs right away with only a BS. Considering that the degree cost is probably around $8,000 a year (ignoring scholarships) for in-state, I'd say it's easily worth it.

 

[MongGrel]

I blame Obama. When he traveled back in time to plant the fake birth certificate he also forced this poor woman to sign up for debt she didn't want, all so that she could get a degree in underwater basket weaving. He told her he was from the future and that the skill would be in high demand.

It's clearly not her fault.

:sneaky:

 

[MongGrel]

College industry makes sick money of young peeps. I am talking about everybody:
- government, with the insane interest rates (loans to people at much higher rates than to banks). Govt has no desire to stop the money flow, until loan bubble happens.
- schools, inflating income of their professors and senior staff mainly. I know ones that teach class or two per semester, and make at least 150k. All in areas where that's triple the average household income.

In the meantime, H1B holders have insane advantage over domestic folks: they have no loans, so they can work for much less.

Not everybody is made for STEM degrees; and there are almost no decent jobs outside trades left without college degrees. Surely not enough for army of teenagers.

So my advice? Take the damned loan, because you are damned if you don't. If you take the loan, you have two favorable outcomes: you'll make more money working comfortable job, or loan pyramid scheme will crash down sooner than later, and you'll owe much less.

Even trades programs aren't what they used to be decades ago, and a lot of the manufacturing has been shipped overseas.

 

[Svnla]

$60K job with $0.5 million in student loans = http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1444775/

Do not jump into a "hot" major just for the money because it may become cold when you are done with school.

 

[Engineer]

Don't know if it sums it up....yet....but it might in the future. Shipping good paying jobs offshore for those that didn't (or shouldn't) get a college education has pushed many into college that shouldn't be. We can send everyone....and will end up with the most educated McDonald's workforce in the world. One that is saddled with enough student debt to last a lifetime....and maybe beyond.

 

[LegendKiller]

Funny how college students are charged 6 percent to borrow but banks and wallstreet pay significantly less interest rates.

Funny how the static pool default rate of a student loan pool is 15%+, every year, year after year, forever. That's just the ones who pay and then default. Nevermind those who are in permanent deferment/forbearance, IBR/PAYE, or delinquency.

Funny how 2/3 of student borrowers don't pay a dime.

Funny how if 2/3 of "Wall Street" didn't pay their bills they'd be out of business.


Funny how private lenders, who underwrite their debt, have default rates far lower, but interest rates higher.

Funny how the government fucking sucks at lending money but does it as a social program, only to burden millions with debt they can't pay.