haapai
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Post by haapai on Apr 26, 2019 17:49:36 GMT -5
It would appear that a coding error by the folks attempting to crunch this data led to an inaccurate and widely cited statistic. In short, the percentage of total student loan debt held by folks in the higher income quartiles was quite exaggerated.
As much as I love to see folks run corrections, I have to wonder how meaningful the correctedly-calculated stat is. Isn't income highly correlated with age? Doesn't student loan debt tend to go down with age as long as you have enough income to make payments that cover the interest?
It sure would be nice to see what the median income of each quartile was and what the median debt level was. Those seem like insanely easy numbers to get.
Even better would be some sort of analysis that separated borrowers according to when they left school and looked at how student loan debt was distributed among income quartiles over time.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Apr 26, 2019 18:18:33 GMT -5
This is somewhat off-topic, but it occurs to me that since think tanks are struggling to crunch numbers on student loan debt in any meaningful way, perhaps professions should pick up the slack and analyze how student loan debt is affecting persons with specific degrees and professional associations. If a specific degree is required for admittance to the profession, they could even use the same huge data set that these think tanks were using.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 27, 2019 8:28:08 GMT -5
It would appear that a coding error by the folks attempting to crunch this data led to an inaccurate and widely cited statistic. In short, the percentage of total student loan debt held by folks in the higher income quartiles was quite exaggerated.
As much as I love to see folks run corrections, I have to wonder how meaningful the correctedly-calculated stat is. Isn't income highly correlated with age? Doesn't student loan debt tend to go down with age as long as you have enough income to make payments that cover the interest?
It sure would be nice to see what the median income of each quartile was and what the median debt level was. Those seem like insanely easy numbers to get.
Even better would be some sort of analysis that separated borrowers according to when they left school and looked at how student loan debt was distributed among income quartiles over time.
Not if you mid-life crisis includes a phd Never had more than 20k in student debt previous to about 50, my degree put me about 60k in, and with parent plus loans - I topped out at about 123k when I stopped borrowing/starting paying. Maybe I was up to 125, idk! Like any midlife crisis - I feel jeune encore! I got student loan debt like a millennial, bitches! #proudofit
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 27, 2019 8:55:58 GMT -5
But as to a more serious reply parent plus loans are huge - so there is that weighing on the oldsters. Also - the less income you have, the more non-loan assistance you get - pell grants (or whatever their new name is), and the american opportunity tax credit. That's about 7k a year in free money - maybe more! and would result in a lot less need for student loans (by student and/or parent!) for an undergrad degree I also used to be able to item other tuition and required books, etc. but went over the income to get either the american opportunity tax for die kinder or to be able to deduct my own tuition at all. I think those itemized things saved me 1-2k a year. maybe more. But I exceed the income limits in 2018 for both the american opportunity and any itemizations - OR student loan interest payments. So the additional income I had was already taxed at 7.5% fica and about 30% (state and fed income), and then lost about 5k in credits and deductions - so it all adds up. Also - I think a lot of schools have need-based aid that they give out, but that varies widely by school. But if you are earning just a little over 6 figures, then you end up taking on a lot of debt. In my case, when the kids were young, most years I was making a lot less. Many years below 30k, I finally got up to about 50k when the kids were 8 and 14, so just survival mode and not saving for college. 50k in a fairly HCOL as well, so even that was not going far. I'm sure I'm not the only one who started making more money just as the college years were approaching, and couldn't save previously, but didn't make enough to bankrole it either. Anyway - some factors that would favor more debt with higher incomes.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Apr 29, 2019 13:59:30 GMT -5
Both the schools and the IRS have students' SSNs. It wouldn't be that hard to merge those datasets so they could have complete transparency on the value of degree X from institution Y. Even dealing with second degrees and grad school wouldn't be that hard. Too bad nobody wants to give prospective students decent tools to make good decisions.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Apr 29, 2019 15:15:54 GMT -5
Not exactly what you're looking for, but this provides some pretty good information, including the states where students graduate with the least debt, and the schools where students, on average, graduate with the least or most debtlendedu.com/blog/average-student-loan-debt-statistics
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2019 15:26:43 GMT -5
Not exactly what you're looking for, but this provides some pretty good information, including the states where students graduate with the least debt, and the schools where students, on average, graduate with the least or most debtlendedu.com/blog/average-student-loan-debt-statistics I don't know how useful those stats are that just include federal loans. It looks like most states are right around the federal max, but you don't know what they have in private loans on top of that.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Apr 29, 2019 15:28:33 GMT -5
minnesotapaintlady - If you click on the states, and go to their school lists, they tell you both federal and private student loan amounts. And the schools that have the highest debt aren't medical schools, so I can guarantee you that most of that is private student loan debt.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2019 15:43:34 GMT -5
Oh, ok, that's more useful. I was just looking at the lists of schools in the Overall lowest and highest debt by school. Odd that they didn't include the private debt in that number...
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oped
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Post by oped on Apr 29, 2019 16:04:53 GMT -5
Got Plus loan info yesterday in mail... 4+ origination fee + 7+ interest rate!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2019 22:38:05 GMT -5
Got Plus loan info yesterday in mail... 4+ origination fee + 7+ interest rate! Holy crap! That's an expensive loan.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 30, 2019 4:37:15 GMT -5
Like I haven't mentioned that to you lot a few times already?
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oped
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Post by oped on Apr 30, 2019 5:57:49 GMT -5
I wasn’t at that stage yet. I mean, I’m not taking one now either thankfully. So maybe more it didn’t apply so I didn’t look or listen too closely... but I got sections mixed up and at first thought it was talking about student loans and was like, wtf...? So I finally paid attention to that info.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 7:31:31 GMT -5
What are the advantages of a Parent Plus loan over private that make it worth all those fees? Or is private just as bad?
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