S T E M

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 10:36:06 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:30:05 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

You went off on a rant and never answered my question. Nowhere in any of my posts did I say that only stem people should be able to take out ridiculous loans. What I said was as a business person, the payback on spending over $100k (no one wants to consider four years of lost wages) makes no sense if you will wind up wih a job making $40k. I live in a LCOLA and I pay the accounts payable person $37k and that is not a degreed position. So as far as a return on investment, that is a poor one. In my opinion only. But if someone wants to take on debt to make $40k a year that is totally their decision. As log as they aren't going into it with the plan to not pay it back. Then I have a major issue with it

Now can you answer what I actually asked?

I don't know many people who would be able to get a $30k/year job right out of high school nowadays. Maybe that's why no one is considering lost wages.

Maybe not the job you want but there are decent paying jobs out there. My daughters boyfriend is working construction this summer. He makes $15/hour. My daughter works promotions and she makes between $20 to $25/hr depending on the job. We hire at our plant right out of high school and the starting rate is more than $15/he and they get overtime and kick ass insurance.

[midjd]

I think if we are worried about people not doing research, a better focus might be on enforcing honesty in school-reported data. Researching isn't much use when most of the information out there is purposely misleading.

I'm sure some can point out where I went wrong, but I chose my school in part because of its employment statistics -- something like 90% or 95% of students were employed at graduation, earning an average starting salary of $160K. I even talked to a couple of alumni and they were very positive about the opportunities my school could provide me. I took out loans because paying back $100K on a $160K salary sure didn't sound too hard. When I graduated in 2009, the employment rate was less than 25%. I think the average starting salary dropped too, but since they carved out from their stats anyone who wasn't working in a position that required a law degree, it was hard to tell. 

Since that time, tuition rates have gone from $40K to close to $60K. Law schools (and others I'm sure) are still enrolling students and using their jacked-up employment data to promise them there will be six-figure jobs waiting upon graduation. That is no longer the reality, if it ever was.

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 10:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:40:47 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

And it should be. They didn't honor their repayment plan and didn't even pay enough to cover the interest.

Is this not a repayment plan? How are they not honoring it?

Let me rephrase that. They didn't honor their own commitment. They took out a huge loan for a low paid career. They made poor choices and get set free from their debt. That bothers me. Im a firm believer in personal responsibility. I don't take out a loan unless I can pay it back.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I believe colleges charge as much as they do because they know we'll go to great lengths to get it.

There us an entire industry devoted to getting them that money. If I can't get enough in federal loans I can turn to private. If I can't get enough there well then there is the parent student loan industry waiting in the wings.

It's a vicious circle. We've been fed the only thing we can ever do to afford college us play the game and we've been hooked so well that any suggestion if changing the system is net with horror because his will people go to college?

I think major changes need to be made in the student loan industry. If colleges can't count on us doing anything to match their price then they'll have to compete like any other market.

It may mean not everyone can go to college but isn't ym always saying not everyone should go and if you want to bad enough there is always a way?

We can't complain about student loans and at the same time say there is nothing we can do to change the system.

The burden shouldn't be on the student to pick the right major (which may not be the right one in four years. I found that out firsthand).

Not saying people shouldn't do their homework they absolutely should.

At the same time lenders shouldn't be able to hand out thus kind of money with no skin in the game. A bank can take a house back or a car back, there us collateral for any other loan that big.

No collateral and it's insecure so they take the risk of me walking which gives them incentive to loan carefully.

Student Loan companies can loan with abandon confident I'm on the hook till I die.

I think that's warped and needs to change. When that changes college prices will eventually reflect the new reality

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 10:44:23 GMT -5 midjd said:

I think if we are worried about people not doing research, a better focus might be on enforcing honesty in school-reported data. Researching isn't much use when most of the information out there is purposely misleading.

I'm sure some can point out where I went wrong, but I chose my school in part because of its employment statistics -- something like 90% or 95% of students were employed at graduation, earning an average starting salary of $160K. I even talked to a couple of alumni and they were very positive about the opportunities my school could provide me. I took out loans because paying back $100K on a $160K salary sure didn't sound too hard. When I graduated in 2009, the employment rate was less than 25%. I think the average starting salary dropped too, but since they carved out from their stats anyone who wasn't working in a position that required a law degree, it was hard to tell. 

Since that time, tuition rates have gone from $40K to close to $60K. Law schools (and others I'm sure) are still enrolling students and using their jacked-up employment data to promise them there will be six-figure jobs waiting upon graduation. That is no longer the reality, if it ever was.

And that is a valid point. But shouldnt research be done outside of the school? When I did my research I did it on the accounting profession as a whole. I didn't graduate from an Ivy League school so I was more worried about the field itself over the graduates of my school.

[MJ2.0]

Jul 31, 2016 10:45:44 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Is this not a repayment plan? How are they not honoring it?

Let me rephrase that. They didn't honor their own commitment. They took out a huge loan for a low paid career. They made poor choices and get set free from their debt. That bothers me. Im a firm believer in personal responsibility. I don't take out a loan unless I can pay it back.

They are using resources legally available to them to help eliminate their SL burden. They are paying it down and have been doing so for years. I fail to see the problem.

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 10:47:20 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I believe colleges charge as much as they do because they know we'll go to great lengths to get it.

There us an entire industry devoted to getting them that money. If I can't get enough in federal loans I can turn to private. If I can't get enough there well then there is the parent student loan industry waiting in the wings.

It's a vicious circle. We've been fed the only thing we can ever do to afford college us play the game and we've been hooked so well that any suggestion if changing the system is net with horror because his will people go to college?

I think major changes need to be made in the student loan industry. If colleges can't count on us doing anything to match their price then they'll have to compete like any other market.

It may mean not everyone can go to college but isn't ym always saying not everyone should go and if you want to bad enough there is always a way?

We can't complain about student loans and at the same time say there is nothing we can do to change the system.

The burden shouldn't be on the student to pick the right major (which may not be the right one in four years. I found that out firsthand).

Not saying people shouldn't do their homework they absolutely should.

At the same time lenders shouldn't be able to hand out thus kind of money with no skin in the game. A bank can take a house back or a car back, there us collateral for any other loan that big.

No collateral and it's insecure so they take the risk of me walking which gives them incentive to loan carefully.

Student Loan companies can loan with abandon confident I'm on the hook till I die.

I think that's warped and needs to change. When that changes college prices will eventually reflect the new reality

But 18 year old would qualify for any loan? That's a serious question. You say the banks should look carefully before they give out a student loan. But how would they do that? My daughter will be 18 soon. Do you really think any bank would lend to her if I didn't agree to cosign? Ao what does that mean for the really poor kids whose parents couldn't cosign for a credit card let alone a lot of student loans? You keep pointing the finger at the banks but you aren't explaining how any 18 year old will qualify.

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 10:51:30 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:45:44 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Let me rephrase that. They didn't honor their own commitment. They took out a huge loan for a low paid career. They made poor choices and get set free from their debt. That bothers me. Im a firm believer in personal responsibility. I don't take out a loan unless I can pay it back.

They are using resources legally available to them to help eliminate their SL burden. They are paying it down and have been doing so for years. I fail to see the problem.

And we will have to agree to disagree. it says someone didn't dontheir homework before taking out all that debt and now get to walk from it.

[MJ2.0]

Jul 31, 2016 10:53:10 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:51:30 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

They are using resources legally available to them to help eliminate their SL burden. They are paying it down and have been doing so for years. I fail to see the problem.

And we will have to agree to disagree. it says someone didn't dontheir homework before taking out all that debt and now get to walk from it.

Your problem should then be with the program offering loan forgiveness - not the people taking advantage of it.

Also, what if someone graduated with a ton of loans, makes a lot of money but then becomes disabled and can't do that job any more? Their social security or disability payments may not be enough to cover their SL burden. It is not always about making "stupid" choices.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jul 31, 2016 10:51:32 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:47:20 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I believe colleges charge as much as they do because they know we'll go to great lengths to get it.

There us an entire industry devoted to getting them that money. If I can't get enough in federal loans I can turn to private. If I can't get enough there well then there is the parent student loan industry waiting in the wings.

It's a vicious circle. We've been fed the only thing we can ever do to afford college us play the game and we've been hooked so well that any suggestion if changing the system is net with horror because his will people go to college?

I think major changes need to be made in the student loan industry. If colleges can't count on us doing anything to match their price then they'll have to compete like any other market.

It may mean not everyone can go to college but isn't ym always saying not everyone should go and if you want to bad enough there is always a way?

We can't complain about student loans and at the same time say there is nothing we can do to change the system.

The burden shouldn't be on the student to pick the right major (which may not be the right one in four years. I found that out firsthand).

Not saying people shouldn't do their homework they absolutely should.

At the same time lenders shouldn't be able to hand out thus kind of money with no skin in the game. A bank can take a house back or a car back, there us collateral for any other loan that big.

No collateral and it's insecure so they take the risk of me walking which gives them incentive to loan carefully.

Student Loan companies can loan with abandon confident I'm on the hook till I die.

I think that's warped and needs to change. When that changes college prices will eventually reflect the new reality

But 18 year old would qualify for any loan? That's a serious question. You say the banks should look carefully before they give out a student loan. But how would they do that? My daughter will be 18 soon. Do you really think any bank would lend to her if I didn't agree to cosign? Ao what does that mean for the really poor kids whose parents couldn't cosign for a credit card let alone a lot of student loans? You keep pointing the finger at the banks but you aren't explaining how any 18 year old will qualify.

It's not a problem I have all the answers to.

I do think if private lenders want to be secured they should have to operate under limitations like federal loans do such as caps on interest rates and loan amounts.

Maybe a higher limit for private than $15K a year.

When they first came out when I was in high school one of the company flyers said interest rates could go as high as 19%!!!

No cap on what I could borrow of course.

That's insane. My CC can charge that because there is a risk of me discharging the debt.

If private loans want to be private I think they should have to operate like any other unsecured loan.

If they want to enjoy the perks federal lenders do then in exchange there should be limitations.

If things keep going as they are there is no incentive for colleges to change and the price tag will keep growing side by side with student Loan debt figures.

It's one of the few things I'm in agreement with Paul so you can take it with a grain of salt.

[wvugurl26]

Jul 31, 2016 10:09:55 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 9:33:45 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I thought her loan forgiveness was for working in public service, not because of her income?

I might not be remembering correctly. I thought income was tied to it. Im not knowledgable at all

There is an income component as well. You have to qualify for income based payments and make 10 years of payments while working in a job that qualifies. I was halfway through when I got kicked out this year. My income based payments would be higher than the standard payment. I'd have to double check but I think my AGI was in the low $70k range last year. Your loan balance also matters in the calculation and mine is very low compared to say caiwau's wife.

[milee]

Jul 31, 2016 10:36:06 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:30:05 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

You went off on a rant and never answered my question. Nowhere in any of my posts did I say that only stem people should be able to take out ridiculous loans. What I said was as a business person, the payback on spending over $100k (no one wants to consider four years of lost wages) makes no sense if you will wind up wih a job making $40k. I live in a LCOLA and I pay the accounts payable person $37k and that is not a degreed position. So as far as a return on investment, that is a poor one. In my opinion only. But if someone wants to take on debt to make $40k a year that is totally their decision. As log as they aren't going into it with the plan to not pay it back. Then I have a major issue with it

Now can you answer what I actually asked?

I don't know many people who would be able to get a $30k/year job right out of high school nowadays. Maybe that's why no one is considering lost wages.

Really?  I made that much ($15/hr) as a waitress.  And that was 25 years ago in a LCOLA.  I know that wasn't the norm, but it's not exactly a huge outlier either.  

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 12:59:21 GMT -5 milee said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:36:06 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

I don't know many people who would be able to get a $30k/year job right out of high school nowadays. Maybe that's why no one is considering lost wages.

Really?  I made that much ($15/hr) as a waitress.  And that was 25 years ago in a LCOLA.  I know that wasn't the norm, but it's not exactly a huge outlier either.  

Exactly. My 17 year old didn't like workog for minimum wage so she found jobs that paid more. There are days she will come home with $125 in tips from a 4 hour shift. She is very outgoing and most patrons love her. Her other job pays between $20-$25 per hour depending on where she is placed. She hasn't worked for minimum wage since she was 16.

[milee]

Jul 31, 2016 10:44:23 GMT -5 midjd said:

I think if we are worried about people not doing research, a better focus might be on enforcing honesty in school-reported data. Researching isn't much use when most of the information out there is purposely misleading.

I'm sure some can point out where I went wrong, but I chose my school in part because of its employment statistics -- something like 90% or 95% of students were employed at graduation, earning an average starting salary of $160K. I even talked to a couple of alumni and they were very positive about the opportunities my school could provide me. I took out loans because paying back $100K on a $160K salary sure didn't sound too hard. When I graduated in 2009, the employment rate was less than 25%. I think the average starting salary dropped too, but since they carved out from their stats anyone who wasn't working in a position that required a law degree, it was hard to tell. 

Since that time, tuition rates have gone from $40K to close to $60K. Law schools (and others I'm sure) are still enrolling students and using their jacked-up employment data to promise them there will be six-figure jobs waiting upon graduation. That is no longer the reality, if it ever was.

This x 1000.

One issue nobody's mentioned is the huge variation in the quality of education among schools.  Even in fairly technical degrees - such as accounting - there is a HUGE difference in quality of education from one college to another.  So just saying a person has an "accounting degree" isn't enough information to know if that degree will be helpful in finding a job and how much money that job will pay.  For example, in the college town I graduated from there were two schools.  One school had one of the top rated accounting programs in the nation.  The other school (located less than 15 miles away) had a poorly regarded accounting program.  Students graduated with roughly similar amounts of debt because costs weren't significantly different, but students with one type of "accounting degree" got jobs at the Big 4 accounting firms making top salaries while students with the other type of "accounting degree" struggled to get accounting jobs at all and sometimes ended up taking positions like Miss T describes as an AP clerk.  Same degree, but hugely different potential to pay back student loans.

It's uncomfortable and awkward, but as a country we need to start having an objective way to measure, compare and discuss quality of different programs.

[MJ2.0]

I made more than minimum wage at my part time jobs, but it was way less than $10/hr. I didn't want to waitress (i was pretty clumsy/accident prone and have a less than stellar short term memory) and those were the only jobs I recall where you had that much income potential. Construction wouldn't have worked either - clumsiness. I guess telemarketing, but ick.

[Virgil Showlion]

Jul 29, 2016 21:00:41 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Science
Technology
Engineering
Math


now how did you draw your conclusion if you didn't know what the acronym meant?

How could that possibly be relevant?

I'm glad my mom isn't reading this site.

To the OP: Your attitude is surprisingly prevalent (even among people who know what "STEM" stands for). My mom is a professor of education, and she has to go through hell and back again to secure even a fraction of the grant funding and grad assistance that the engineering department receives.

You realize you'd be murdering students' chances of becoming doctors, nurses, administrators, accountants, lawyers (actually, forget this one since it really wouldn't be so bad), teachers, traders, and a host of other careers besides?

I realize the spike in student loans is troubling, especially given the high odds of default, but "STEM or no soup for you" is a terrible idea.

[lurkyloo]

Jul 31, 2016 8:46:32 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jul 31, 2016 7:33:23 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Don't believe the hype around STEM...particularly the S.

I have a hard science degree--several, actually, from top schools.  I wouldn't recommend anyone go the S route. They did a survey and found that the money and job growth was all in TEM.  The shortage of US science degree holders is a total myth.  It sounds good to politicians (and to businesses that want to increase the worker supply and hold wages down)...been debunked many, many times but the idiot speeches just keep coming    

With my 11 years of post-HS school/training in S, I make roughly a third of what DH does with his E degrees.  Same school for the PhD, as to the rest...meh, he has a master's as well; I did a fellowship and a postdoc at an equally well rated school.  I'm likely one of the lower earners among my graduating class while he's one of the higher ones in his, but the average holds.

I think business/accounting and computer science/programming are good bets from a field stability/growth point of view.  However, a psychology BA that you use for marketing and/or sales will likely earn you more than a STEM PhD if you're good at your job.  I wouldn't recommend hard and fast rules so much; I'd recommend talking to your kid and making sure (s)he has a plan, an idea of how (insanely) much tuition and other expenses cost, and what the effects of student loans would be on his/her quality of life.  Also what a real danger outsourcing to China and India is.  Programming can be outsourced without even trying very hard; a plumber or electrician has to be on site.

I graduated with a bunch of CS majors. None of them could find jobs in their field. I guess that's changed.

Or possibly advice you get from an internet message board is worth exactly what you paid for it!     When I graduated, CS was the degree to have...until the dot com bust and then everyone was unemployed.  I had the impression that that had turned around, but could easily be wrong.

[Deleted]

Jul 31, 2016 13:02:02 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 12:59:21 GMT -5 milee said:

Really?  I made that much ($15/hr) as a waitress.  And that was 25 years ago in a LCOLA.  I know that wasn't the norm, but it's not exactly a huge outlier either. 

Exactly. My 17 year old didn't like workog for minimum wage so she found jobs that paid more. There are days she will come home with $125 in tips from a 4 hour shift. She is very outgoing and most patrons love her. Her other job pays between $20-$25 per hour depending on where she is placed. She hasn't worked for minimum wage since she was 16.

Part-time, it's easier to make more per hour.  Landing a full-time job with benefits making that kind of money right out of high school is a different story.  

[lurkyloo]

Jul 31, 2016 8:52:20 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Well, let's hope someone gets a teaching degree so some one can be teaching all the STEM folks what they need to know or are they coming out of the womb with the STEM degree in hand?

Actually, tenured professor is a position that there is an insane amount of competition for.  Especially in the sciences (likely worse in the humanities, though).  Look at it this way:  each professor with a (graduate) research group will typically have a 30+ year career.  Assume (s)he has 2 graduate students at a time, which is a VERY low estimate, and each PhD takes 5 years to complete.  This professor will train 12+ students over her career, but will leave only one job vacant when she retires.  Where will the other eleven go?  If they can't find jobs in industry, they will either wind up as adjuncts (non-tenured university lecturers with famously crappy pay; you'd do better flipping burgers) or leave the field.  

For reference, the groups I was in typically had 5-20 graduate students at a time.  Non-research universities can absorb some of the excess PhDs.  I would estimate perhaps 15%.  

Teaching ability is also of famously low importance as a criterion on the tenure decision.  

 

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 31, 2016 14:09:22 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 31, 2016 13:02:02 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Exactly. My 17 year old didn't like workog for minimum wage so she found jobs that paid more. There are days she will come home with $125 in tips from a 4 hour shift. She is very outgoing and most patrons love her. Her other job pays between $20-$25 per hour depending on where she is placed. She hasn't worked for minimum wage since she was 16.

Part-time, it's easier to make more per hour.  Landing a full-time job with benefits making that kind of money right out of high school is a different story.  

Our plant hires rigt out of high school and the guys make way more than $30k a year. Not a job that I would want but Im just saying they are out there.

I agree that it would probably not be as easy for my daughter to land a full time job at those rates

[sesfw]

I realize the spike in student loans is troubling, especially given the high odds of default, but "STEM or no soup for you" is a terrible idea.


We had just read an article about a mid-20s girl that had a fine arts degree, working retail, living with parents and complaining she wasn't making enough funds to make SL payments and live on her own.

To me it's bad choices in career.  You get an education of some kind to support yourself and then 'follow your dream' as you can afford it.  STEM was probably a bad example but we did want to know what the acronym meant.

I've worked hard all of my adult life and some jobs were not the best .... but I stayed with them to help support us.  I'm retired now and enjoy my music on my time and my dime.

Personal responsibility ........ you do what you have to do to.

[Virgil Showlion]

Jul 31, 2016 15:58:17 GMT -5 sesfw said:

I realize the spike in student loans is troubling, especially given the high odds of default, but "STEM or no soup for you" is a terrible idea.


We had just read an article about a mid-20s girl that had a fine arts degree, working retail, living with parents and complaining she wasn't making enough funds to make SL payments and live on her own.

To me it's bad choices in career.  You get an education of some kind to support yourself and then 'follow your dream' as you can afford it.  STEM was probably a bad example but we did want to know what the acronym meant.

I've worked hard all of my adult life and some jobs were not the best .... but I stayed with them to help support us.  I'm retired now and enjoy my music on my time and my dime.

Personal responsibility ........ you do what you have to do to.

I agree that some degrees have highly limited career prospects and that people ought to consider this before taking on debt and sacrificing income for post-secondary education. But "STEM only" for loans is too restrictive, and that's coming from an engineer.

In any case, loan standards are up to the lenders. As long as these aren't socializing their losses by asking for government bailouts, they can loan to whomever they please as far as I'm concerned. If they want to hand out $50K credit to an 18-year-old eager to get an artsy fartsy degree that affords no marketable skills, that's their money to risk.

As for "free money" such as scholarships and bursaries, it's offered much more sparingly for non-technical degrees. This is understandable, but there's definitely such a thing as going too far. I've been in situations where terrible proposals in a "hot" technical field have received funding at the very same time that excellent proposals in non-technical fields are benched due to lack of money. Sometimes a new compendium of southeast Asian literature or a study on a new iPad-based math training program for grade 9 students is a more worthy project than a transistor that uses .1% less energy.

[swamp]

Jul 31, 2016 15:58:17 GMT -5 sesfw said:

I realize the spike in student loans is troubling, especially given the high odds of default, but "STEM or no soup for you" is a terrible idea.


We had just read an article about a mid-20s girl that had a fine arts degree, working retail, living with parents and complaining she wasn't making enough funds to make SL payments and live on her own.

To me it's bad choices in career.  You get an education of some kind to support yourself and then 'follow your dream' as you can afford it.  STEM was probably a bad example but we did want to know what the acronym meant.

I've worked hard all of my adult life and some jobs were not the best .... but I stayed with them to help support us.  I'm retired now and enjoy my music on my time and my dime.

Personal responsibility ........ you do what you have to do to.

And I also know someone with a fine arts degree who started out as a museum curator, and then through the connections made at her job got a job in communications/marketing and makes over 6 figures. 

The degree isn't the end all, networking is key. 

[NoNamePerson]

Jul 31, 2016 14:23:12 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Jul 31, 2016 8:52:20 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Well, let's hope someone gets a teaching degree so some one can be teaching all the STEM folks what they need to know or are they coming out of the womb with the STEM degree in hand?

Actually, tenured professor is a position that there is an insane amount of competition for.  Especially in the sciences (likely worse in the humanities, though).  Look at it this way:  each professor with a (graduate) research group will typically have a 30+ year career.  Assume (s)he has 2 graduate students at a time, which is a VERY low estimate, and each PhD takes 5 years to complete.  This professor will train 12+ students over her career, but will leave only one job vacant when she retires.  Where will the other eleven go?  If they can't find jobs in industry, they will either wind up as adjuncts (non-tenured university lecturers with famously crappy pay; you'd do better flipping burgers) or leave the field.  

For reference, the groups I was in typically had 5-20 graduate students at a time.  Non-research universities can absorb some of the excess PhDs.  I would estimate perhaps 15%.  

Teaching ability is also of famously low importance as a criterion on the tenure decision.  

 

They should have gotten a S.T.E.M degree instead.  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jul 31, 2016 15:58:17 GMT -5 sesfw said:

I realize the spike in student loans is troubling, especially given the high odds of default, but "STEM or no soup for you" is a terrible idea.


We had just read an article about a mid-20s girl that had a fine arts degree, working retail, living with parents and complaining she wasn't making enough funds to make SL payments and live on her own.

To me it's bad choices in career.  You get an education of some kind to support yourself and then 'follow your dream' as you can afford it.  STEM was probably a bad example but we did want to know what the acronym meant.

I've worked hard all of my adult life and some jobs were not the best .... but I stayed with them to help support us.  I'm retired now and enjoy my music on my time and my dime.

Personal responsibility ........ you do what you have to do to.

Well an article about someone like me who went to a liberal arts college via transfer, graduated with $30K in debt but makes her payments just fine and pays her regular bills, saves for retirement and plans to buy her house in the near future would be a pretty boring article.

Outside if ym who us going to want to read about boring people like me?

I certainly do not fit the agenda concerning "victims of predatory student loans" that articles like these want to push.

If these stories were common they would not generate enough clicks. Gira has posted how the average debt load is $30K. That means some borrow six figures, some borrow a couple grand. Most fall in the boring non click worthy middle.

Or, a much more insidious thought, the media picks people like in your story in order to get you angry and on the "personal responsibility" soapbox while not paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

[whoisjohngalt]

Jul 31, 2016 10:23:13 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Jul 31, 2016 10:19:45 GMT -5 midjd said:

It was enacted in 2007 under George W. Bush. There were some changes made in 2014 to lower the amount of income on which the payment amount is based, but it's not retroactive to those who took part before 2014. Obama also tried to reduce the total amount that could be forgiven to $58K, unsuccessfully.

Unless your loan is forgiven under the fairly strict Public Service Loan Forgiveness requirements, you're taxed on any amount forgiven. You don't just get to work a low-paying job for 20 years and hop away scot free.

I would rather pay the tax on $100k than pay back the $100k....

Especially considering the fact that if your income is too low to pay off the payments, you are most likely paying very very little tax as it is

[Ombud]

Jul 29, 2016 20:57:19 GMT -5 sesfw said:

DH and I are having a discussion about what the qualifications for student loans should be. We have decided that loans should be for STEM majors only.  Anything else needs to be on the students' time and dime.

Now the question ........... what does S T E M stand for?

Dumb question ...... I know

Got it ... no teachers, social workers, accountants, physical therapists, nurses, musicians unless your parents are rich. How's that double standard working asks this idiot who graduated with a Bachelor's in Psychology and a Master's in Behavioral Science only to be 'stuck' in a government job where I needed that Masters in Behavioral Science in order to become a director of health services before retiring early to a second career.

Instead of saying that only the rich can have a college education why don't we educate students as to the cost of Education Loans?

[Ombud]

Now granted, GS1 won't be able to buy a car for 3 yrs after graduation bc he'll be paying off his student loans (apx 10-14k) and supporting himself. As for how much he should make, he currently earns $15 an hour so that's about $31k a yr if full time. (He only works 5-10 hrs a week.)

Oh wait, he doesn't drive! He takes public transportation or Uber like all his friends. Actually none of his friends have driver's licenses. And according to recent articles that's becoming more and more common.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-decline-of-the-drivers-license/425169/

[Deleted]

Another option which ought to be used more widely is Co-op programs. My Dad got through the University of Cincinnati, class of 1953, that way. You attend school for 3 quarters your freshman year. (Grandma went to work in a pub to pay for that.). Then you find a co-op employer with the help of the school and do one quarter of work, one quarter of school. It takes 5 years but when I attended UC most of the Engineering grads had paid their way through school (many found co-op jobs near parents, so no rent ) and had offers from their co-op employers. The co-op jobs were better-paid and more rigorous than internships since you did more as you learned more in college. The FedEx logo was designed by a UC co-op student!

It wasn't available to me as a Math major in the class of 1975 but it's been extended to many more disciplines now. I think it's a great solution.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Jul 31, 2016 22:19:12 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Another option which ought to be used more widely is Co-op programs. My Dad got through the University of Cincinnati, class of 1953, that way. You attend school for 3 quarters your freshman year. (Grandma went to work in a pub to pay for that.). Then you find a co-op employer with the help of the school and do one quarter of work, one quarter of school. It takes 5 years but when I attended UC most of the Engineering grads had paid their way through school (many found co-op jobs near parents, so no rent ) and had offers from their co-op employers. The co-op jobs were better-paid and more rigorous than internships since you did more as you learned more in college. The FedEx logo was designed by a UC co-op student!

It wasn't available to me as a Math major in the class of 1975 but it's been extended to many more disciplines now. I think it's a great solution.

My nephew is here and has gone through the co op program.  I think he is in graphic design, due to graduate next year, but think he already has job offers in hand.