Student loan garnisheeing topped $176M in three months

boing
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Oh c’mon, athletic departments of schools that build or own stadiums are separate entities from the school, and are often a cash cow for a school. They can and do issue bonds to build or renovate, they will rent (from their own school) the facilities a school owns, they sell naming rights for tens of millions even for temporary naming, they reap untold millions in licensing.

Doubtless some may siphon off a small bit off the tuition revenue stream, but students don’t pay for those shiny stadiums… unless they pay taxes, because with all those revenue streams into athletic depts that turn a profit, guess who foots the largest portion of stadium building costs, be they for a city or college team? You guessed it, the same people having their wages forcibly taken, and everyone else too.

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When California had tuition-free Universities there wasn’t a glut of failed poetry majors filling up the unemployment lines and threatening the entire economy.

The debt crisis isn’t the result of most American college students suddenly choosing career paths that aren’t in demand. It’s the result of bad changes in education policy and loan structuring.

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Regretfully, I cannot like this the thousand times I wish to do so.

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That’d be a lot of poetry majors! But I get your point. People acted with some sense. And if they didn’t, there wasn’t a huge debt to deal with. Thank you.

But just as they didn’t suddenly choose bad careers, the bad policies didn’t show up instantaneously. Or recently. So why didn’t people adjust? Why did college costs go up so fast? My thought is the two are linked. Just as college began to become the standard career path, students demanded better schools. Better schools, not necessarily better education. The thought process you noted for avoiding gluts of poetry majors became less important than other factors. How’s the food? The dorms? Buildings? All very nice things. But tangential. Schools responded by battling to keep up with the joneses, sending costs spiraling. And corresponding bills. Cutbacks in state funding didn’t help. Easy loans were gasoline on the fire.

It took time to get here. It’s going to take time and good policy to unravel the problems. But in the interim, there are steps people can do to mitigate costs and improve employment prospects. The side effect is putting a halt on increasing costs and quite possibly reversing it. Any suggestion that simply puts money towards the problem seems to be just supplying more gasoline. Yeah, debt might be avoided, but that fire is going to get out of control until we end up repeating what California went through: introducing tuition again.

As for fixing policy, I’m pessimistic. I advocate it, I support it. I just don’t think we should wait for it.

That’s my thinking at least. I look forward to your thoughts.

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What did you study and when and where did you attend university? If it isn’t too personal. I’m curious about your particular lifestyle choices and how they shape your perception.

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Fair question, and one I’m sure people will happily find a reason to crucify me with the answers. My apologies for being vague. Technical degrees (personal affinity). End of eighties to mid nineties. In-state. Yeah, things have gone up since then. But I still had classmates who single majored and racked up 5 figure debt. Seemed crazy to me. I was in school to get a better life, not live the good life in school. But it was their choice. I still had a fun college experience, but without spending nearly as much money. And I never heard my friends complain about having to pay their loans back.

After school, I found that I still didn’t mind living modestly. Better lifestyle, for sure. But being careful had become a habit. Even now, I fix my kid’s toys, buy second hand clothes, buy a used car and keep it running for years. When my business went south and my income disappeared for 3 years, it was stressful. But the mortgage got paid, food was on the table, heat was on, kids had clothes. Savings disappeared, but I had savings to start with.

Likely someone will call bullshit on this part of my story too. Screw 'em. I refuse to be ashamed of my past.

How does it shape my perception? I have less patience than most for people who live beyond their means then complain about it. Call me heartless, because in this one respect, I am.

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We have much less of those things.

Not everyone needs them. The working poor need them. People who will be in dire straights if they put their kids through school need them. the BA is the new HS diploma.

Why do you get to decide who gets to complain?

We all got to pay rent and buy food and have clothing and drive a car (generally speaking). We live in a capitalist society, with all of our needs having to be traded for dollars. To get dollars we need jobs. Increasingly, to get a job that will support you, you need a BA.

My students who have children can’t “cut corners” on their children’s care. They shouldn’t be having to decide between good food and electricity/heat. That’s many of my student’s reality, in a public university with a large working class population. They are busting their asses with scholarships and loans, often working full time, taking care of family (their children, or sometimes, their parents), trying to do exactly what they are told they need to do - go to school, make something of themselves, so they can do better than their parents did. It’s turned out to be a lie, often times. These are not bad kids. They are good kids, doing what they are told they should be doing. And people like you still scoff at them. it’s heartbreaking.

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Dude I keep filing bugreports but the sysadmins keep telling me to sod off. There’s onl so much you can do when the guys with root for things can’t be assed to do basic cleanup and policy oversight.

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Given the current system I doubt you’d do so well 10 years ago, or now.

Because since you were in school, as I’m sure you’re aware, tuitions have gone up some 800%, way, way above inflation. Meanwhile, wages and salaries have been at near stagnant for the past 20 years in many, even most sectors. In some I have experienced, they’ve even decreased, decreased -before- accounting for inflation or currency fluctuations. Like, I know people in services who could make a hundred dollars a day doing their job in 1995, who must settle for $80 a day in 2016.

Add to that that more people have been streaming for university by systems both institutional and cultural chasing the fading dream when the trades are a better risk, or services (some of which require a degree for any advancement) since manufacturing isn’t too much of an option.

In all likelihood, what you did is still possible but with much greater difficulty. Much. It is and has been the case that people can go to school on loans, be spendthrifts and still come out with unmanageable debt and low prospects even with their degree.

The only difference between you and them at this point is that you managed to graduate without unmanageable debt. Your observations about a few of your roommates aren’t a solid basis for interest that amounts to practical usury, ignores the benefit to society that education is, refuses to consider changing economic climes, and is in fact faerie money in many respects. Who would be harmed were student debt forgiven in a rational maner in response to the above? Who would be harmed if tuition were moderated and universities went back to teaching over profiting?

No one here is likely to shame you for being of modest means or for living within them. They might not agree that personal responsibility is the answer to a systemic problem, but only because it would involve ignoring evidence. I didn’t even go to university and I try not to do that.

It’s really hard to see what you’re defending beyond yourself, and it’s impossible to see an actual need for that.

edit - I know you aren’t trying to do so, but you’re effectively placing the problem of poverty at the feet of the poor. It doesn’t matter how proud they are, we don’t do that.

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I was honestly curious because there were so many strong / dismissive responses but I knew you are a human being and truth is always compelling. A friend of my sister spent a large amount of time applying for scholarships before she graduated at the top or maybe second in her class in the late 80s and actually made quite a bit of money while she attended college. So much so that she said she still had not had a job that gave her as much money as she was making in college from scholarships the last time I talked with her, which was maybe 2003-2004 when she was working on a cruise ship.

Myself I received humble in-state education, paced so that I don’t have debt, and I live with great austerity not out of necessity, but out of an understanding of “wealth” as “that which allows more options” that gives me the liberty of lumping my knowledge and abilities under my personal wealth rather than just my finances. While I’ve generally been considered highly intelligent, I’ve been a very un-ambitious person in my life and I find myself working at a job I’m very capable at but making less than five figures a year. I’ve made peace with the fact that I probably won’t reproduce as it is way out of my means and that my immediate family has produced enough offspring that genes that are a reasonable facsimile of mine will indeed be passed on.

I would like to be involved with post-graduate education but I have great anxieties about putting a chain on my neck until I’ve paid off the loans I would have to take out to pay for an education that might not return on my investment for maybe four decades.

I’m not trying to persuade you to any opinion, I’m just weary of the opposing Conservative “Strict Father” and Liberal “Nurturing Mother” ethoses, and I’ve had enough experience in my life to understand that people act rationally by their own measure and honest communication is good for people.

I’m sorry if that was unclear or rambly but if you read this I really appreciate it. Also thank you for your response.

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All hail America’s sysadmin!

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Unpopular opinion: I welcome getting garnished just to get it over with.

I worked night shift while I went to college, with the idea that I could take a couple of evening classes before work and a couple of morning classes after work and sleep during the day. Due to prerequisites, co-requisites, and class schedules, that didn’t work out so I mostly slept in breakrooms at school or work.

Still had to take out loans, but not much, only a few thousand. I even almost had them paid off before financial catastrophe struck. By the time I could pay again, I’d lost all the records, lost track of where to send the money, and they’d quit sending bills. I didn’t pay because I no longer knew what I owed or where to send the money.

That’s exacerbated by the fact that nowadays loans are bought, sold, and traded like bubblegum cards. If I found out who I originally owed, and paid them, would that clear it, or could some other company claim that they’d bought the debt and I still owed them? If someone claims that I owe them, how do I know it’s legit and not just a scammer?

Interest piles up, so I probably owe as much as I did before I started paying. I don’t mind paying, I just want it off my back. I was lucky, it was only a few thousand.

But that was years ago. If I tried now, it’d be an order of magnitude more expensive, and there’s no way I could ever pay it back, even though I’m cheap (I still like ramen and hot dogs) and even with a good upper-middle-class job. So yeah, I empathize. Eating nothing but ramen and hot dogs for a few years while you’re in college is one thing. Having no choice but to do it for your entire life and condemn your children and grandchildren to the same until they’ve paid off your debt is quite another.

It’s messed up. I just want out of this twisted game. If garnishing can automatically solve it for me, that’s nice. Will suck for those still in the game, and especially for those just getting into it though. I feel bad for them. No amount of scrimping and thrift and hard work will be enough. Most of them will be indentured servants for life, and not by choice.

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But try to use more bile and hatred.

Just trying to close the loop with your bilious and hateful ideology. Glad to know I made the connection with your dumb hateful bullshit.

Also, take a class in macroeconomics. It will give you a better appreciation in means and the reality behind actual reality.

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So true. We need both in moderation. I’m tired of the sides fighting over orthodoxy. Sometimes you can meet your goals by using the other side’s ideas.

Thank you for you response. After responding to you, I thought maybe I’d walked into a trap. It sucks becoming a cynic.

If it’s any consolation, I’ve learned that post graduate work is only required for a few jobs. Otherwise it’s only useful for a first job. Most places really just want capable people. Desperate, in fact. Your degree shows you can put up with a certain amount of BS without cracking. I truly hope you find a career and life that makes you happy. Money or no.

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I don’t get to decide who complains. But I do get to decide who I have sympathy for. You are free to have your own opinions. Who are you to judge me? Dumb question. You are free to judge me and have an opinion. I may not like it, but tough.

Let me clarify. I say complaining in the sense of expecting someone else to bail them out. Saying that things are tough, having to deal with it, etc. is nothing. We all do it.

I do not scoff at the poor. Grew up poor. The people around me were poor. I love and respect them. I’m scoffing at anyone, regardless of class, that wants someone to bail them out. Bankers or bums.

Sounds like your students are bailing themselves out. Going through tough times? Yeah, been there, done that. But they should be proud. Success or failure, they should be proud.

If when it is all done, they decide someone else should pay for their loans, my opinion changes. For personal reasons, for policy reasons, for long term reasons. I’m glad you disagree with the last two. That’s the crucible heat that helps us find solutions.

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80%, but I get your point. And loan interest was 10% or greater. And I tend to agree with much of what you said. I love the idea of tuition being moderated and universities getting back to teaching. My own analysis is that debt forgiveness does just the opposite. I’ve not seen any argument otherwise. I would have been thrilled to see one.

Who does debt forgiveness hurt? It hurts those of use, then or now, that bust their asses to not build up debt. If not financially, it’s a metaphorical punch in the nuts. Marks us as colossal fools.

I do not place the problem of poverty at the feet of poor. Many people are trapped. I place the problem of high loans at the feet of the people that borrowed the money. Often this is middle class, since they don’t get financial aid. It’s not the poor that have a problem scrimping. To them, that’s normal. They get it. They are the smart ones.

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Which you seem to be expressing, that you understand what they are going through. But you don’t seem to think that student loan issues are a crisis, most especially for the working poor. I’m having a hard time squaring those two things, I guess.

Yet, you’re saying you have no sympathy for them? These are the people who are deeply in debt, not some mythical privileged kid who is being irresponsible with their money. The person you seem annoyed with and have no sympathy for really doesn’t exist.

Look, we’re telling you that the experiences you had in college, regarding funding and debt, are not the same situation. Things have changed and the vast, vast, Vast majority of people in debt up to their eyeballs are there because they did the same thing you did, just that they are having to take a bigger financial hit than you did for it. I’ve mentioned this several times and you’ve not addressed this point at all. I wish you would, because that’s sort of the core argument I’ve made here.

You don’t want to have sympathy, that’s fine, but this is going to be a problem for the whole country if a large amount of people have to default on these loans. They are out of control and something needs to be done. This is the housing bubble, but maybe even worse, because it’s hitting the largest generation out there right now. This is not going to be pretty. So, you maybe don’t need to have sympathy, but you should at least feel concerned. We all should be.

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+/- 800%. You did say you attended in the late 80’s to mid 90’s. It may average at 80-100% in absolute dollars, but things cost much more now, and wages/salaries are moribound. You can’t use absolute dollars honestly in that scenario, unless it is to demonstrate some other aspect, such as the wage stagnation, for illustrative purposes.

If you haven’t seen an argument in favour of debt forgiveness in any applicable finance question, you didn’t look or didn’t care. Ask a Haitian.

Your argument against debt relief is personal pride. Including in large part a pride built on how you see yourself through the eyes of others. Think about that, because there is much wrong with it.

You absolutely do and are blaming people who are harmed & hampered by a large and demonstrably broken system. That is the definition of blaming poverty on the poor. Faint praise you have for the poor, wholly hollow when put against your support for a corrupted portion of the system.

I’ve known some wealthy plutocrats to praise them that way while setting up further challenges for them.

What happened to you?

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I consider myself a classical cynic in the tradition of Diogenes and Crates, which is actually a very fulfilling lifestyle compared to being jaded and pessimistic, although those attitudes aren’t entirely unhealthy.

Since the creation of the Education Index, the United States’ index has been trending upward, and I greatly dread a decline in the availability of educational attainment. The US is actually doing surprisingly great by that standard, but having a .9 or .92 index or higher would give me a lot more hope for the future.

Again, thank you for the respectful discourse.