pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Apr 8, 2022 10:44:25 GMT -5
I went to Georgetown undergrad, the medical school was the most expensive in the country. 1/2 of the class were on military scholarships. Have a good friend who did it for medical school. He was sent to NC, Washington state, Arkansas, and Virginia before his commitment was done. Was over 40 before he could get into private practice. You pay with time instead of money, your life is not your own, and you are at the whims of the military. It is not a free lunch. If you are in between in income where aid does not cover cost of attendance and your family cannot pay, if is impossible to get through college and medical school for under $300k. That is the reality. So your saying that everyone who is poor/middle class needs to join the military to become a physician. You do realize those options are also limited. It is not available to everyone. Really? That's what you get out of my quoted statement? eta: The only reason I even mentioned the military is because of your saying there was NO WAY to become a physician without debt. Then you go on to say half your class was getting theirs paid by the military! The idea that someone has to join the military to become a doctor is what I have an issue with. The idea that there is not a significant downside to doing it is false. You could wind up in a war zone if you get a military scholarship. Just saying do it without considering that says all I need to know.
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Post by minnesotapaintlady on Apr 8, 2022 10:51:37 GMT -5
Really? That's what you get out of my quoted statement? eta: The only reason I even mentioned the military is because of your saying there was NO WAY to become a physician without debt. Then you go on to say half your class was getting theirs paid by the military! The idea that someone has to join the military to become a doctor is what I have an issue with. The idea that there is not a significant downside to doing it is false. You could wind up in a war zone if you get a military scholarship. Just saying do it without considering that says all I need to know. If this is the level of reading comprehension that comes out of Georgetown it was definitely not worth whatever you paid. I never said anyone HAD to do anything. I never said the military didn't have downsides. But my family has a lot of people in the military, and there's a crap ton of upsides too.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2022 11:04:35 GMT -5
What is funny to me is when private colleges (read: my alma mater), despite charging a poop-ton for tuition, board, and meals--it's not medical school but one year could be $40k, easily--gets bought by the state school that charges less than half that, mostly because of money mismanagement. One of my brothers is a cost accountant- his job is to find a reasonable way to determine the cost to produce the various widgets a company makes using reasonable allocations of compensation, real estate costs, marketing, etc. to each product. He did some pro bono work with a team asked to find ways a local private college could save money. They did the work, they prepared the report with recommendations... and a year later none of them had been implemented.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Apr 8, 2022 16:02:41 GMT -5
A close friend of mine went the military route, back in the 1970's. After time at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, he was sent to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. That was all the moving they did for the military.
During the stint at Wright Patterson, they had their two children. That worked out great for them because maternal grandparents were in Ohio.
After he did his required stint in Spokane, he signed up for the Reserve. Opened his private practice and had just retired when Covid hit. His son took over his practice in Spokane.
They built their dream home at a fairly young age and are still living in it. The son loved the neighborhood so much that when a house was for sale, he and his wife approached his parents to see if they would mind them as neighbors. They said that would be great and they definitely see those grandkids more often than if they lived across town.
For them that was a great way to go to medical school, even if he was in the SDS in college. Somehow he explained that away as youthful stupidity.
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susana1954
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Post by susana1954 on Apr 8, 2022 16:28:26 GMT -5
My daughter went to pharmacy school from 1997-2001. Her PharmD is from a private university. I think tuition was about $17k a year, and she ended up with about $100k+ in loans. None of them were for undergraduate studies--she took advantage of a program that provided admission to pharmacy school after 2 years of undergraduate and lived at home for those 2 years and 2 of the 4 years of pharmacy school. Still, that was a lot of money back then. Actually, it still is. I have no idea if they have paid them off yet (her husband has similar loans from law school), but they earn a good living and don't complain. And I think that is the key here. With these kinds of degrees (pharmacy, medicine, dentistry . . . not so sure about law school), you will earn a decent living and will be able to pay the $$$ back. But you probably will have to live modestly like the rest of us while you are doing it. As long as you graduate, you should be ok. But you won't be on easy street.
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Value Buy
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Post by Value Buy on Apr 9, 2022 6:29:34 GMT -5
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geenamercile
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Post by geenamercile on Apr 9, 2022 7:25:38 GMT -5
I do think interest rates should be lower on student loans. I would also like to see the Public Loan Forgiveness plan be expanded to include a volunteer option. Maybe a certain amount per hour of volunteer work? I am not for blanket forgiveness, but do think we should look for ways alternative ways for people to pay it off as well.
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susana1954
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Post by susana1954 on Apr 9, 2022 7:30:57 GMT -5
One person's definition of affluent is different from another's. The article doesn't bother to define it. It is actually ironic that lawyers are included because most lawyers are not affluent. Many are actually struggling. Of course, the student loan interest pause benefits doctors, etc. more for at least two reasons. First, the more money you owe, the more valuable the pause is. Second, they are more likely to have continued to pay during the pause. I know several people who are taking a wait-and-see approach to student loan forgiveness, feeling as if they would be stupid to pay it off and then have nothing to "forgive." But the number for forgiveness has always been proposed as relatively low--$10,000. If you have student loans that are much higher than that, go ahead and pay so that the student loan pause means something. It means nothing if you simply defer payments.
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nidena
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Post by nidena on Apr 9, 2022 10:46:00 GMT -5
I read these articles about how some members of Congress are bringing up "lost revenue" because of the student loan freeze and it baffles me. It seems that these folx count on making money by screwing over the public. Now, I realize that concept is nothing new but it really hurts my head when they talk about the "$150 billion" that was lost due to this freeze.
I mean, the govt is going to get the money of their constituents, one way or another. Yes, people are saving if they're able to but the average person is spending every penny they have just to live. It's not like everyone took the balance of their SLs and put that in some high interest account until they absolutely HAVE to pay. Again, yes, some people ARE doing that but most people spent it elsewhere: cars, houses, groceries, home reno, other bills.
The govt can get only as much as people have to spend. If someone makes $50,000/yr, the most they'll get is $50,000.
I guess the angry folx just want their blood from a turnip with fewer steps in the middle.
I'm glad for the continued pause. It no longer benefits me but it benefits oodles of people that I know and even more oodles of people that I don't know and this gives them a chance to get on their feet without the immediacy of crushing debt payments.
As for the military path, it's a good path to take. Even for non-doctor types. The G.I. Bill is a great benefit for those who enlist and want to go to or finish school afterwards; plus there's the route of Tuition Assistance WHILE you're AD. The only thing you have to pay for are the non-tuition fees and book expenses that exceed $1000/yr. It's 1080 days that can be covered--they still tout it as 36 months but it's really broken down into days because if you attend school for only ten days in a month then you use only ten days for that month rather than the full month that it used to be. Hell, I went to school full-time for 2.5 years and still have more than 500 days left of my benefit. Saving that for Grad School. In addition to the GIB and TA, there's also the Yellow Ribbon program. Many schools have this but not all. It covers any tuition fees not covered by the GI Bill (which is capped at something like $21,000/yr).
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stillmovingforward
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Post by stillmovingforward on Apr 9, 2022 13:28:26 GMT -5
My DD1 has about $400,000 in student loans. Only $30,000 from undergrad. Medical school was very expensive, traveling for away rotations was expensive as most programs closed their student housing due to the pandemic, etc. She lived very frugally (with us for 2 years of rotations) and still accrued that much. And we were in no position to help her financially. She was ineligible for the military (has a disability) and specializes in medical for rural and undeserved populations. She'll never make specialist money, would have loved to have not needed to take on that much debt, and is very frugal. It happens.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 12, 2022 12:37:52 GMT -5
One person's definition of affluent is different from another's. The article doesn't bother to define it. It is actually ironic that lawyers are included because most lawyers are not affluent. Many are actually struggling. Of course, the student loan interest pause benefits doctors, etc. more for at least two reasons. First, the more money you owe, the more valuable the pause is. Second, they are more likely to have continued to pay during the pause. I know several people who are taking a wait-and-see approach to student loan forgiveness, feeling as if they would be stupid to pay it off and then have nothing to "forgive." But the number for forgiveness has always been proposed as relatively low--$10,000. If you have student loans that are much higher than that, go ahead and pay so that the student loan pause means something. It means nothing if you simply defer payments.I'd argue it does. Inflation is eroding that balance in a very real sense. And for those taking the opportunity to advance themselves financially such as retirement savings, home purchase, etc. that may pay dividends well into the future. Even if it is just buying a car - if you needed a car and had to have one - to get that and pay down/off before resumption of payments is a step forward. And for those just chugging along, the past year or so has been a great time to advance professionally or just change jobs for more money. I think a lot of people are going to be in a lot better shape for having this pause. Particularly those just going into professional work who get to settle into a job and new expenses, etc. Some people may not do anything positive with the pause. maybe some will do a something foolish and wind up with a net negative outcome. Why should that matter? a proportion of people are always doing that kind of thing.
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susana1954
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Post by susana1954 on Apr 12, 2022 12:50:11 GMT -5
One person's definition of affluent is different from another's. The article doesn't bother to define it. It is actually ironic that lawyers are included because most lawyers are not affluent. Many are actually struggling. Of course, the student loan interest pause benefits doctors, etc. more for at least two reasons. First, the more money you owe, the more valuable the pause is. Second, they are more likely to have continued to pay during the pause. I know several people who are taking a wait-and-see approach to student loan forgiveness, feeling as if they would be stupid to pay it off and then have nothing to "forgive." But the number for forgiveness has always been proposed as relatively low--$10,000. If you have student loans that are much higher than that, go ahead and pay so that the student loan pause means something. It means nothing if you simply defer payments.I'd argue it does. Inflation is eroding that balance in a very real sense. And for those taking the opportunity to advance themselves financially such as retirement savings, home purchase, etc. that may pay dividends well into the future. Even if it is just buying a car - if you needed a car and had to have one - to get that and pay down/off before resumption of payments is a step forward. And for those just chugging along, the past year or so has been a great time to advance professionally or just change jobs for more money. I think a lot of people are going to be in a lot better shape for having this pause. Particularly those just going into professional work who get to settle into a job and new expenses, etc. Some people may not do anything positive with the pause. maybe some will do a something foolish and wind up with a net negative outcome. Why should that matter? a proportion of people are always doing that kind of thing. Maybe. The problem is that people who have been using the deferment to buy homes and cars may be in for a world of hurt when they are trying to pay for those and resume student loan payments. Retirement savings less so since those can simply be stopped. I used the break we had from SS contribution to increase mine. But I did have to stop when it resumed. And I lived through that period of inflation where people said to buy now because your money is going to be worth less in the future. That's true to some extent. I have bought/done things now because I felt the price will only go up in the future. But that assumes that you have the money now. Because if people are using CCs (never YMers, I know!), the rates are going to go up, too. I remember when 18% was the norm for people with good credit and how "lucky" we were to have financed our house at 8.75%. This is a unique opportunity for borrowers to pay without the compounding interest driving their balances higher and higher. Isn't that what you always read? The person only owed $100k, but deferments, etc. have now made that balance $250k. But to each his/her own.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 12, 2022 13:00:21 GMT -5
I'd argue it does. Inflation is eroding that balance in a very real sense. And for those taking the opportunity to advance themselves financially such as retirement savings, home purchase, etc. that may pay dividends well into the future. Even if it is just buying a car - if you needed a car and had to have one - to get that and pay down/off before resumption of payments is a step forward. And for those just chugging along, the past year or so has been a great time to advance professionally or just change jobs for more money. I think a lot of people are going to be in a lot better shape for having this pause. Particularly those just going into professional work who get to settle into a job and new expenses, etc. Some people may not do anything positive with the pause. maybe some will do a something foolish and wind up with a net negative outcome. Why should that matter? a proportion of people are always doing that kind of thing. Maybe. The problem is that people who have been using the deferment to buy homes and cars may be in for a world of hurt when they are trying to pay for those and resume student loan payments. Retirement savings less so since those can simply be stopped. I used the break we had from SS contribution to increase mine. But I did have to stop when it resumed. And I lived through that period of inflation where people said to buy now because your money is going to be worth less in the future. That's true to some extent. I have bought/done things now because I felt the price will only go up in the future. But that assumes that you have the money now. Because if people are using CCs (never YMers, I know!), the rates are going to go up, too. I remember when 18% was the norm for people with good credit and how "lucky" we were to have financed our house at 8.75%. This is a unique opportunity for borrowers to pay without the compounding interest driving their balances higher and higher. Isn't that what you always read? The person only owed $100k, but deferments, etc. have now made that balance $250k. But to each his/her own. yes - every wrinkel provides an opportunity. some may make very good use of it, and others worse than not having it. aka lotto winner get millions and declares bancrupcy a few years later. other maybe not in a position to make use of it.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Apr 12, 2022 15:37:44 GMT -5
I'm not nearly as worried about borrowers who were in repayment when the pause hit as I am about the ones who have never made a payment. The ones who had made a few payments and begun to realize how long they were going to last were well positioned to understand the value of the relief that they had just been handed.
Those who left school in 2020 and 2021, not so much.
I suspect that a good portion of those who left school with federal student loans in 2020 did not even complete exit counseling. Those who left school in 2021 were probably more likely to sit through it, but they were under very little pressure to actually put any of that information to use. Payments were on pause. I don't know if they got letters from their servicers three months, or five months, or six months after they left school informing them that they had been placed in standard (10-year) repayment. Even if they got those letters, I doubt that those letters included calculations of what their payments would be. In short, I suspect that only a small minority of those borrowers jumped through the requisite hoops to get themselves into another repayment plan.
From what I have seen, that other repayment plan was almost certainly an income-driven repayment plan. The .gov student loan repayment pages that I have seen omit crucial details regarding extended repayment options and play up the scariness that always accompanied graduated repayment plans. The presentation steers borrowers to choose between a standard repayment that they cannot afford and income-driven options that may not cover the interest and require two decades of obsessive compliance that almost nobody can achieve.
But hey, it's a great way to keep student loan defaults down. It also guarantees plenty of work for tax lawyers when the loans are forgiven and the tax bill is huge.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Apr 12, 2022 20:53:02 GMT -5
DS4 is one of those who hadn't started repayment yet when the pause took effect. He had one small loan that wasn't included in the pause, and would have begun payments - he just paid it off in full before the first payment due date to be done with it.
He's not making any principal payments during the pause, waiting to see if forgiveness materializes, but he is saving in the meantime. Depending on how long this goes on, he could accumulate enough to pay them all off by the end of the year - he's living with us ATM and works 50+ hours a week, he's not spending much elsewhere. He just funded a tIRA for 2021, and next up is an HSA and eventually tIRA for this year - all to reduce his AGI for ACA subsidies, because his employer doesn't offer either health insurance or retirement accounts.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Apr 12, 2022 22:30:12 GMT -5
Since November, I've been working on the Temporary PSLF for both myself and my husband. It's been a tedious, paperwork-filled process. It seems to be closer, but it's not finished yet. One delay is that the HR person wrote slightly imperfect numerals on my husband's form regarding the dates of employment. The HR person had to spend 60 minutes on hold the other day to verify his form.
Anyhoo, I am still not optimistic about forgiveness, but I'm going to see the process through.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Apr 14, 2022 19:16:17 GMT -5
What is funny to me is when private colleges (read: my alma mater), despite charging a poop-ton for tuition, board, and meals--it's not medical school but one year could be $40k, easily--gets bought by the state school that charges less than half that, mostly because of money mismanagement. One of my brothers is a cost accountant- his job is to find a reasonable way to determine the cost to produce the various widgets a company makes using reasonable allocations of compensation, real estate costs, marketing, etc. to each product. He did some pro bono work with a team asked to find ways a local private college could save money. They did the work, they prepared the report with recommendations... and a year later none of them had been implemented. No surprise there. If the people at the college were actually interested in running the place efficiently, they would’ve figured it out themselves instead of hiring consultants. The small private college I attended was able to charge about the same as the state college down the road from me, despite not having a huge endowment and not getting government money. And being a smaller place, they didn’t have the option of having one professor teaching hundreds of students in those huge lecture halls. Most of the non-managerial jobs were done by students, which meant the college got cheaper labor, and the students didn’t need cars.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 7:54:02 GMT -5
Another thought on the so-called lucrative professions (Med schools and Law schools)- BF had a law degree. He's 70 now so it was a LONG time age and far cheaper even in today's dollars. He was a criminal defense attorney- never made the big leagues and sometimes his clients couldn't pay, but he was more interested in giving them their day in court and a fair sentence if they were guilty. He's got tons of FB friends who are former defendants and families of former defendants and has wonderful stories about how he went above and beyond to get a fair deal for his clients. Now he's working for a company that contracts with the government to answer calls from Medicare beneficiaries. He's making $60K/year. He says that's more than he ever made in his life. Another data point: my dentist is VERY good (trust me, I get a lot of dental work done ) and his practice appears to be healthy. Back during the 2008 financial crisis when stimulus payments were going out, DH was on a trip with the dentist and his BIL (dentist belonged to our church) and they were talking about what they were doing with their stimulus payments. They asked DH what we were doing with ours and were surprised when DH said we didn't get one. I think the threshold was $150K for a couple and the dentist's wife worked PT in his office so they made less than that together. The crazy-high costs of the professional schools drive more doctors and lawyers into the lucrative specialties and more prosperous areas of the country. No one wants to specialize in geriatric medicine, for example, because you're dependent on what Medicare pays. And who wants to defend petty criminals who have no funds when you have $200K in student loans and you can go work for a bank or an insurance company instead? I know we do have some programs that provide loan forgiveness for work in certain areas- doctors in rural regions, for example- but we need to find a way to expand this so that doctors and lawyers don't have to go for the most lucrative jobs just so they can pay off their loans AND put food on the table.
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Ava
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Post by Ava on Apr 15, 2022 11:45:54 GMT -5
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Apr 15, 2022 13:02:15 GMT -5
Another thought on the so-called lucrative professions (Med schools and Law schools)- BF had a law degree. He's 70 now so it was a LONG time age and far cheaper even in today's dollars. He was a criminal defense attorney- never made the big leagues and sometimes his clients couldn't pay, but he was more interested in giving them their day in court and a fair sentence if they were guilty. He's got tons of FB friends who are former defendants and families of former defendants and has wonderful stories about how he went above and beyond to get a fair deal for his clients. Now he's working for a company that contracts with the government to answer calls from Medicare beneficiaries. He's making $60K/year. He says that's more than he ever made in his life. Another data point: my dentist is VERY good (trust me, I get a lot of dental work done ) and his practice appears to be healthy. Back during the 2008 financial crisis when stimulus payments were going out, DH was on a trip with the dentist and his BIL (dentist belonged to our church) and they were talking about what they were doing with their stimulus payments. They asked DH what we were doing with ours and were surprised when DH said we didn't get one. I think the threshold was $150K for a couple and the dentist's wife worked PT in his office so they made less than that together. The crazy-high costs of the professional schools drive more doctors and lawyers into the lucrative specialties and more prosperous areas of the country. No one wants to specialize in geriatric medicine, for example, because you're dependent on what Medicare pays. And who wants to defend petty criminals who have no funds when you have $200K in student loans and you can go work for a bank or an insurance company instead? I know we do have some programs that provide loan forgiveness for work in certain areas- doctors in rural regions, for example- but we need to find a way to expand this so that doctors and lawyers don't have to go for the most lucrative jobs just so they can pay off their loans AND put food on the table. A good formerly coworker friend of mine is married to a dentist, who she met while he was working on his perio specialty in our lab. Anyway, he bought into a perio practice and then decided to open up a part time perio practice in a retirement town, on off hours (Thur and Fri evenings and all day Sat.). As long as I knew him he was a working fiend. Anyway, my friend (who was now working part time as a receptionist at his part time practice). At this time, between his practice buy in, the practice he opened himself and his student loans, he was nearly $2,000,000 in debt. Luckily, he made some excellent financial decisions along the way but I think I'd have a heart attack marrying someone who was that deep in debt (and a good chunk of it being student loans) right out of college. Your second comment also struck a chord. When I was working on my doctorate, I had a woman in one of my classes who was an MD, working on getting her DrPH. She had been in the program to try to forgive her medical school loans in an underserved area of KY. After several years, she quit and decided to make pay her loans off. I don't know if the time she spent there was prorated or not though. The problems that the healthcare professionals have when they work in underserved areas are not insignificant. For instance, she was married to an engineer, who had to put his career on hold as there was nothing available there for him - which turned out being a good thing as her husband had to homeschool her kids to keep them with their age group as the schools were so bad. Professionally, the MD had a horrible time maintaining her credentials via continuing education because she needed someone to step in and help while she was gone - and she had difficulty finding someone to step in. She was on call 24/7/365 as the only doctor in the area. Any thought of a vacation was impossible, if she couldn't find someone to fill in so she could remain credentialed, finding someone so she could find a break wasn't happening. Finally, she felt like her education was languishing. She did not have any sort of cohort where she could bounce difficult diagnoses off of (internet service in the area was really sketchy, and this was around 2007 or so). Peer to peer discussions didn't happen. So with her husband's career, her future career, and her kid's education in jeopardy, she decided to cut her losses. She was heartbroken about it, but the support she needed just was not available for her.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 15, 2022 13:12:46 GMT -5
Another thought on the so-called lucrative professions (Med schools and Law schools)- BF had a law degree. He's 70 now so it was a LONG time age and far cheaper even in today's dollars. He was a criminal defense attorney- never made the big leagues and sometimes his clients couldn't pay, but he was more interested in giving them their day in court and a fair sentence if they were guilty. He's got tons of FB friends who are former defendants and families of former defendants and has wonderful stories about how he went above and beyond to get a fair deal for his clients. Now he's working for a company that contracts with the government to answer calls from Medicare beneficiaries. He's making $60K/year. He says that's more than he ever made in his life. Another data point: my dentist is VERY good (trust me, I get a lot of dental work done ) and his practice appears to be healthy. Back during the 2008 financial crisis when stimulus payments were going out, DH was on a trip with the dentist and his BIL (dentist belonged to our church) and they were talking about what they were doing with their stimulus payments. They asked DH what we were doing with ours and were surprised when DH said we didn't get one. I think the threshold was $150K for a couple and the dentist's wife worked PT in his office so they made less than that together. The crazy-high costs of the professional schools drive more doctors and lawyers into the lucrative specialties and more prosperous areas of the country. No one wants to specialize in geriatric medicine, for example, because you're dependent on what Medicare pays. And who wants to defend petty criminals who have no funds when you have $200K in student loans and you can go work for a bank or an insurance company instead? I know we do have some programs that provide loan forgiveness for work in certain areas- doctors in rural regions, for example- but we need to find a way to expand this so that doctors and lawyers don't have to go for the most lucrative jobs just so they can pay off their loans AND put food on the table. Some good examples, but I’d like to take it further. The entire country benefits from an educated population in many direct and indirect ways. Daily. Everybody. If we could embrace education as a truly national benefit, stop with the stem only nonsense, and not have everyone burdened with loans and not have insane loan amounts for our dentist doctors and lawyers…society would benefit. Costs for vital services would likely decrease. Ability to pay or willingness to take on huge debt would removed and talent, ability, and love for the work would become larger movers of who goes into which profession.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Apr 15, 2022 14:09:30 GMT -5
I read these articles about how some members of Congress are bringing up "lost revenue" because of the student loan freeze and it baffles me. It seems that these folx count on making money by screwing over the public. Now, I realize that concept is nothing new but it really hurts my head when they talk about the "$150 billion" that was lost due to this freeze. I mean, the govt is going to get the money of their constituents, one way or another. Yes, people are saving if they're able to but the average person is spending every penny they have just to live. It's not like everyone took the balance of their SLs and put that in some high interest account until they absolutely HAVE to pay. Again, yes, some people ARE doing that but most people spent it elsewhere: cars, houses, groceries, home reno, other bills. The govt can get only as much as people have to spend. If someone makes $50,000/yr, the most they'll get is $50,000. I guess the angry folx just want their blood from a turnip with fewer steps in the middle. I'm glad for the continued pause. It no longer benefits me but it benefits oodles of people that I know and even more oodles of people that I don't know and this gives them a chance to get on their feet without the immediacy of crushing debt payments. As for the military path, it's a good path to take. Even for non-doctor types. The G.I. Bill is a great benefit for those who enlist and want to go to or finish school afterwards; plus there's the route of Tuition Assistance WHILE you're AD. The only thing you have to pay for are the non-tuition fees and book expenses that exceed $1000/yr. It's 1080 days that can be covered--they still tout it as 36 months but it's really broken down into days because if you attend school for only ten days in a month then you use only ten days for that month rather than the full month that it used to be. Hell, I went to school full-time for 2.5 years and still have more than 500 days left of my benefit. Saving that for Grad School. In addition to the GIB and TA, there's also the Yellow Ribbon program. Many schools have this but not all. It covers any tuition fees not covered by the GI Bill (which is capped at something like $21,000/yr). In many ways, the US government is behind the schools dismantling their trade programs and pushing kids who aren’t particularly bright or motivated to get four-year degrees. This is resulted in the market being flooded with degrees and now companies can require bachelors degrees for jobs than high school graduates used to do with masters degrees for for jobs that people with bachelors degrees used to do. This push towards requiring useless credentials is a big factor in economic inequality.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Apr 15, 2022 14:43:48 GMT -5
Another thought on the so-called lucrative professions (Med schools and Law schools)- BF had a law degree. He's 70 now so it was a LONG time age and far cheaper even in today's dollars. He was a criminal defense attorney- never made the big leagues and sometimes his clients couldn't pay, but he was more interested in giving them their day in court and a fair sentence if they were guilty. He's got tons of FB friends who are former defendants and families of former defendants and has wonderful stories about how he went above and beyond to get a fair deal for his clients. Now he's working for a company that contracts with the government to answer calls from Medicare beneficiaries. He's making $60K/year. He says that's more than he ever made in his life. Another data point: my dentist is VERY good (trust me, I get a lot of dental work done ) and his practice appears to be healthy. Back during the 2008 financial crisis when stimulus payments were going out, DH was on a trip with the dentist and his BIL (dentist belonged to our church) and they were talking about what they were doing with their stimulus payments. They asked DH what we were doing with ours and were surprised when DH said we didn't get one. I think the threshold was $150K for a couple and the dentist's wife worked PT in his office so they made less than that together. The crazy-high costs of the professional schools drive more doctors and lawyers into the lucrative specialties and more prosperous areas of the country. No one wants to specialize in geriatric medicine, for example, because you're dependent on what Medicare pays. And who wants to defend petty criminals who have no funds when you have $200K in student loans and you can go work for a bank or an insurance company instead? I know we do have some programs that provide loan forgiveness for work in certain areas- doctors in rural regions, for example- but we need to find a way to expand this so that doctors and lawyers don't have to go for the most lucrative jobs just so they can pay off their loans AND put food on the table. Some good examples, but I’d like to take it further. The entire country benefits from an educated population in many direct and indirect ways. Daily. Everybody. If we could embrace education as a truly national benefit, stop with the stem only nonsense, and not have everyone burdened with loans and not have insane loan amounts for our dentist doctors and lawyers…society would benefit. Costs for vital services would likely decrease. Ability to pay or willingness to take on huge debt would removed and talent, ability, and love for the work would become larger movers of who goes into which profession. The fact that college does not make a person educated, a lifelong learner, or an innovative thinker has kept me employed for 30 years. Most of the dumbest, most anti-learning people that I’ve met in my life have had college degrees. Frankly, the fact that a four year degree is a requirement for jobs I could train my 13-year-old to do is a big factor in the anti-education sentiment you see in this country. Because even if college were free, forcing people to piss away four years of their life to be allowed to do a job they could’ve done right out of high school is a huge waste of their time, and most people resent it when you waste their time. I’m not against making college dirt cheap for people who actually belong there, and having dirt cheap community colleges, were someone who blew off high school can get remedial education and prove that they are serious this time. But I do have a problem subsidizing someone spending four years flirting with alcoholism, getting college credit for doing high school work, all so they could get a job they could’ve done right out of high school, and knowing full well that they will never crack a book again after graduation. We all have devices in our pockets that will allow us to watch free lectures on virtually any subject from the finest Educational institutions. They’re called smart phones. Going to a brick and mortar college is the most expensive time-consuming way for a person to get educated.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Apr 15, 2022 14:54:04 GMT -5
I agree Ava, but I refuse to count on it so won’t hold it against anyone too much if it doesn’t come through. And…,There could be a lot of great forgiveness passes that doesn’t effect me, but I’ll be thrilled for others. I’m working so hard at day job and rukh, inc that I’m working 7 days most weeks. Trying to shore up retirement. My one worry is that I continue working my health away for 2-3 more years but I would have been equivalent or even better off if I downsized to just rukh, inc and qualified for loan forgiveness that I won’t due to higher income from working myself this way.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Apr 15, 2022 15:02:05 GMT -5
Some good examples, but I’d like to take it further. The entire country benefits from an educated population in many direct and indirect ways. Daily. Everybody. If we could embrace education as a truly national benefit, stop with the stem only nonsense, and not have everyone burdened with loans and not have insane loan amounts for our dentist doctors and lawyers…society would benefit. Costs for vital services would likely decrease. Ability to pay or willingness to take on huge debt would removed and talent, ability, and love for the work would become larger movers of who goes into which profession. The fact that college does not make a person educated, a lifelong learner, or an innovative thinker has kept me employed for 30 years. Most of the dumbest, most anti-learning people that I’ve met in my life have had college degrees.Frankly, the fact that a four year degree is a requirement for jobs I could train my 13-year-old to do is a big factor in the anti-education sentiment you see in this country. Because even if college were free, forcing people to piss away four years of their life to be allowed to do a job they could’ve done right out of high school is a huge waste of their time, and most people resent it when you waste their time. I’m not against making college dirt cheap for people who actually belong there, and having dirt cheap community colleges, were someone who blew off high school can get remedial education and prove that they are serious this time. But I do have a problem subsidizing someone spending four years flirting with alcoholism, getting college credit for doing high school work, all so they could get a job they could’ve done right out of high school, and knowing full well that they will never crack a book again. The trade programs have been cut for budgetary reasons. They are local decisions made because people do not want to pay the taxes necessary to keep them going. Enough with this nonsense.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on Apr 15, 2022 15:20:46 GMT -5
The fact that college does not make a person educated, a lifelong learner, or an innovative thinker has kept me employed for 30 years. Most of the dumbest, most anti-learning people that I’ve met in my life have had college degrees.Frankly, the fact that a four year degree is a requirement for jobs I could train my 13-year-old to do is a big factor in the anti-education sentiment you see in this country. Because even if college were free, forcing people to piss away four years of their life to be allowed to do a job they could’ve done right out of high school is a huge waste of their time, and most people resent it when you waste their time. I’m not against making college dirt cheap for people who actually belong there, and having dirt cheap community colleges, were someone who blew off high school can get remedial education and prove that they are serious this time. But I do have a problem subsidizing someone spending four years flirting with alcoholism, getting college credit for doing high school work, all so they could get a job they could’ve done right out of high school, and knowing full well that they will never crack a book again. The trade programs have been cut for budgetary reasons. They are local decisions made because people do not want to pay the taxes necessary to keep them going. Enough with this nonsense. I agree with you that budget factor in cutting trade programs. But there was a time when most people didn’t look down their noses at people who work with their hands. And if you didn’t have the majority of the population convinced that trade school was somehow inferior, they wouldn’t have been OK with eliminating the trade programs.
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Deleted
Joined: Apr 25, 2024 19:20:31 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 16:18:40 GMT -5
I’m not against making college dirt cheap for people who actually belong there, and having dirt cheap community colleges, were someone who blew off high school can get remedial education and prove that they are serious this time. But I do have a problem subsidizing someone spending four years flirting with alcoholism, getting college credit for doing high school work, all so they could get a job they could’ve done right out of high school, and knowing full well that they will never crack a book again after graduation. I agree. I think vocational programs were cut because the "quality" of high schools was measured by the % going on to college. Never mind how many were still there a year later- let's just measure acceptances. )
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Apr 15, 2022 17:23:57 GMT -5
We had a great culinary program. Town budget failed. Cuts needed to be made. It got axed. All due to the local anti-tax group. Funny thing is that it was generally the people whose kids would have benefited the most from these type of programs.
The ratings may have played a part. But I would argue that local factors played a much larger role. The whole world complains about their property taxes. The major driver of those rates is the school budget
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jerseygirl
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Post by jerseygirl on Apr 15, 2022 18:46:42 GMT -5
In our state the vocational schools are normally county run so less dependent on only one town. The vocational schools are included in the county wide ‘magnet’ schools. Usually for at least the first 2 years of HS kids go to local HS I’m morning then to vocational school in afternoon. Or if considered a magnet school then kids go full time. They are well respected and supported
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Apr 15, 2022 20:45:06 GMT -5
In our state the vocational schools are normally county run so less dependent on only one town. The vocational schools are included in the county wide ‘magnet’ schools. Usually for at least the first 2 years of HS kids go to local HS I’m morning then to vocational school in afternoon. Or if considered a magnet school then kids go full time. They are well respected and supported Our BOCES programs are broad area, too. DS5 is attending a two county program, at least six school districts feed into his location.
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