In the time since my loan payments were paused they lost over 12% of their real value through inflation alone. It's hard for me to complain, but the longer the can gets kicked down the road the more taxpayers are already paying for it.
It's also incredibly regressive: the most well off are getting the biggest handout. A doctor with large medical student loan debt has easily received more then 20k in subsidies over this time
The government deferred enough of our law school loans during covid to buy a nice car. Then I used Fed Monopoly money to refinance them at 3%. I don’t think I’ll ever pay them off.
Sure, I certainly feel the pinch every time I have to pay for things I purchased. I have student loans too. Is this article implying we should feel bad for the top 30% most educated Americans because they had the pay for the privilege?
My college gf went to med school after undergrad. She maxed out every loan she ever could during med school. At one point she was living in a high rise of a hotel that would fetch her car for her at a predetermined time daily and have it parked out front, for a fee.
I dropped out of medical school after the first year and the misery that my then-peers face NOW is astounding (quarter million in student loans isn't even considered "that bad" to the doctors that self-funded, young). Fifteen years later and I still owe debt on that one expensive year!
If your doctor is under forty years old, you're probably doing better than (s)he is, financially (particularly less-specialized practitioners). IMHO, you cannot pay a person enough money for the sacrifices required to enter medical school within the past two decades (i.e. since computer-adoption revolutionized industries).
A friend went to med school and when he couldn’t afford it anymore he joined the Army, and got it all paid for. Turns out they need pediatricians too. Spent 15 years delivering service member babies at Tripler before “retiring” and going into private practice. Didn’t get rich, but never had to deal with insurance companies and got to shop at the Pearl Harbor commissary.
This was not common in my social circles in the early 2000s. More often than not, people would take as little as possible (to the point they were barely getting by) because they were scared of being unable to pay them back. But these were also people that couldn't imagine going to an out-of-state school because of the tuition costs.
Maybe a computer with a graphics card upgrade, but that was the extent of it.
Also, the idea that you could you student loans for non-essentials was a foreign idea. But some people I knew did take out more than they needed, but it was enough to get pizza once a week, not live in a hotel.
It makes me wonder, were loan limits much lower 20 years ago than now? It feels like this kind of over spending would have literally been impossible when I was in school.
and your anecdote and anecdotal evidence proves nothing. everyone i know took loans out, bought a computer, got jobs and still have a hard time paying back $10s of thousands
If my anecdote of seeing tons of students living large on their loans means nothing, yours means nothing too. Except logic, human nature, and statistics back my claims up too.
I suppose.. but then I hope to God we would have very strict enrollment requirements and expectations.
Should basically everyone be able to go to their local JC and take trade school like classes, or basically anything that's in demand in their county or state for free? Sure. Should a highschool dropout be able to study towards a degree in Asian art history at UC Berkeley on the tax payers dime? I'm not sure why. What's the point?
Who is relying on the cashflow from these loans that haven't been paid in 3 years? With every other loan or bond, someone's business model or ability to stay solvent relies on interest payments coming in.
Apparently student loans exist in the ether where pay or don't pay for 3 years, whatever, it won't make a difference?
I’m pretty sure it’s the fed who underwrites these loans, right? Can’t imagine they care too much about the lack of payments, they have a beautiful money printer.
i'm about to turn 47 and have maybe $4k left on my student loan. I bet the day i make hte last payment is the day they announce loan forgiveness for good hah.
You'd be able to get your money back in that case. The recent Biden plan was set up in a way that didn't punish people that kept up with them during covid.
I have the feeling this deferment will continue indefinitely because they can't forgive them because it's supposedly political suicide nor can they not extend it as it will cause too much of an economic impact.
I don’t think this is legally possible as the deferment was only able to happen via special powers resulting from the declaration of a national emergency around COVID.
Once the national emergency is declared over, I believe the clock starts ticking for repayment to resume.
