Student loan debt has multiple repayment options… pegging the payments at 10% of income, letting you take long breaks from payment if you need them, and the debt is forgiven in 10 or 20 years, or at age 55.
Unless you get the private loans… then you are truly screwed. In which case actual arm breakers probably trump “arm breakers”. I really wish the desperate would get more creative. It would force our society to stop being so fucking cruel… if there were real consequences to this kind of stuff.
What I can never understand is the mentality that you need to go to a 50k+ a year school when you really can’t afford it. The average person can get a good start at a community college then after you get a decent job and save some money you can continue your education at one of these expensive schools. The IT teachers I had in the 90’s were real techs not paper techs. One had a day job as a big shot at Amtrak and the other was a big shot at Bell Atlantic. They were both teachers because of their passion to help students and pass on knowledge. I couldn’t ask for better teachers then those guys with their daily real world network and system administration and enormous companies. This is a racket suckering these kids into getting in debt larger then the cost of a very nice house.
My question is, why do student loans have interest if there’s such a high chance that it’ll get paid back to the point of deducting from Social Security? Isn’t this just free money for the banks?
Default on a Canadian student loan can in fact severely impact one’s credit rating, and disqualifies one from interest relief or loan remission on the outstanding balance, or getting any further student aid in the future. Tax credits, including GST and income tax credits, can be directed to repayment. Defaulting also doesn’t clear the debt, of course, it just sends it to collections where it racks up even more interest.
On the plus side, Canadian student loans can be discharged through bankruptcy after seven years (or five if the court is convinced undue hardship would result otherwise).
Sometimes it’s free money for banks, other times it’s free money for the Feds, and on occassion, it’s free money for the universities. The Feds have the power to end the practice of charging “market” rates, but they have just as much a vested interest in charging, erm, interest, as the other parties involved. Some of whom might be funding campaigns in the next election cycle.
It’s a hot mess of cronyism and corruption. Just like everything else in our capitalist utopia.
