Damn Student Loans

Barring that type of spartan existence, the easiest way of making the debt end is to die, since student loans are dischargable on death. Generally, student loans are not dischargable in bankruptcy, although I am aware of one case where they were discharged because the debtor was mentally ill. A few years ago, there was a big problem with people defaulting on their loans -- specifically, doctors and lawyers. I believe this trend has subsided, but I'm not sure about that.

Because student loan debt has become so outrageous in recent years, it's very easy to get loan forebearances now, at least from the William D. Ford program. Plus, as has already been stated, the interest is tax-deductible - my payment is about $380/month, $300 of which is interest. That's primarly due to the graduated repayment plan I'm on, but it's not entirely unusual either.

I'm just planning on paying the off debt forever, and I consider it a cost of doing business. It's not so bad. And someday, I may get lucky and be able to wipe a bunch of it out.

Nobody should feel bad for law school students and their massive loans; they make plenty of money from the get-go, and the top tier of firms will pay off the loans entirely after a few years. (If they're public defenders or something, then yes, please feel sorry for them.)

My personal consolation is that the typical first-novel advance is, at present, way way bigger than my total debt could possibly end up. These advances are ridiculous and sinking the publishing industry, but I hope they keep handing them out for at least three or four more years.

If you can get away with it, lie about your age (no matter what it is). Young Authors are all the rage now :)

...which, in this day and age, is a completely bullshit statement. Obviously my ire is not directed at you, because you're right, that IS their excuse. You can get any fucking aid at all if you are under 25, unless you are in graduate school, because they think your parents should pay for you. My parents have no money whatsoever and I ran away from home--yeah, they're really gonna pony up the $15-20k, especially with ALL THREE OF MY SISTERS being in school too.

There's just no way around it. I had a long chat with the girl at the financial aid office, and basically she told me, yeah, you should be independent even under their own rules (extraordinary situations include run aways, regardless of whether or not I speak to my parents now), but I'd have to involve psychologists and social workers and the police reports from my past to get this done! I'm like, this just isn't worth it, I got a year and then I'll be declared age-independent...

It's just bullshit. As I've said many times previously: surely I am not the only person under 25 in the entirety of the United States who does not live off mommy and daddy. I know quite a lot of people in my age range who entirely support themselves! It's a system that seems hellbent on keeping the less-wealthy classes (ie those whose parents can't afford to pony up educational costs) down and the borgeouise up, and it seems totally counterintuitive to our much vaunted "American Dream" crap.

< /end annoyance>

fletrejet, I did the straight into work thing and am smashing my head badly against a glass ceiling. This could just be my company but I don't think it is. In this economy, they look for excuses not to hire people or to let them go...*sigh*

Preaching to the choir, believe me. As an undergrad, they took my father's income into account; he's a millionaire who, per the divorce agreement, has no financial responsibility for me, who set up a (small, gone the first year of Hampshire) trust fund in lieu of such, and who stopped filing taxes in the 80s, and from whom I haven't seen a dime since he stopped paying my allowance when I was 13. My mother is a civil servant who was making under $20K at the time -- two-thirds of Hampshire's tuition. I got no aid except a $300 loan.

Over a lifetime, it results in $1 million less in income -- Time quotes that every year when they do their "go to these schools" article. Very few people don't end up making up for their loans, and then some.

It's still bullshit anyway, this responsibility/non-responsibility. Say some deadbeat dad is legally required to pay, but doesn't. WHAT is the kid supposed to do to get the money out of the guy? It should just be the parent who lives with you. WHICH IS ALL IRRELEVANT BECAUSE 18 YEAR OLDS SHOULD NOT BE LIVING OFF THEIR PARENTS ANYWAY. I mean you can go to war, vote for president, and buy cigs, per the government, but you are still considered a child to the same government if you need help from them.

Ugh, it's disgusting.

Yeah, for federal aid, it is. For Hampshire, not so much. That's how they hang on to their money: they exclude whoever they can, give tiny amounts to most, and then pile on full scholarships to a small number, so they can talk about those kids during the open houses. That's why I got the $300 loan -- it was federal. The following year, and until I turned 23 or whatever it is, I didn't even get federal because of my father's lack-of-filing-taxes (they required that even though they didn't take his income into account; somehow they just didn't notice, the first year, that they didn't have his info.)

The main reason I kick myself about Hampshire is, shit, I blew my trust fund in a year. Granted, it wasn't very big, it's not like I'd be rich, but it would have been nice to have.

So yeah, it was a ... great school :)

Ah yes, the special breeding of the spoilt fuckwad.

To over-recycle an over-recycled phrase, Hampshire is spoiled on Hampshire students. But it's really so very very true.

(Ally and I cannot talk very long without bringing up either Hampshire or urinals, I think.)

Time assumes you will make more money from your degree - not a guarantee with many degrees. And school costs you money at the very begining (time value of money), when you should be saving and investing it. Of course this assumes that a 18 year old will actually be doing this, which is actually a silly thing to assume.

But the real problem is that the educational system is fundamentally fucked up. What is now "college"-level education should start in high school (and therefore be paid for by the gov). I got my bachelors in three years by taking advanced placement classes in high school for college credit.

I don't think it assumes that, per se, it's just based on statistics: people with college degrees, on average, make more money. On average, if all you have is an undergraduate degree (and so automatically doctors and lawyers are out of this), you make the same amount of money regardless of what that degree is in (of course, that should practically go without saying; if you're really going to pursue high-paying work in the field of your degree, you're probably going to go to graduate school.)

And nabisco -- Hampshire's scholarship money is, if not entirely need-based, need-based enough that I'm not aware of anyone who received merit-based scholarships from them, beyond the few little things like "this money is earmarked for students of American-Asian descent pursuing a career in sociology," and the usual very-specific funds like that which are set up by alumni.

Fletrejet: a college degree -- in any discipline, a degree period -- raises your earnings. Dramatically. Look through entry-level job listings sometime, and note how many simply require a college degree. Note how many art-history majors from good schools are able to pack up upon graduation and become consultants.

My dad makes less than I do for a family of 5 (6 according to FAFSA), 4 of which (5 according to FAFSA) attend college. He has no money. However, considering his income means my "income" doubles on the financial aid forms, ie I apparently now have $100k of income on hand, and the fact that I am "dependent" means that my rent or living expenses are not of consequence, because my ENTIRE SALARY is "disposable income", since my parents are "supporting me". Basically, according to the way financial aid works, my job is the equivalent of working at the local Best Buy afterschool for cigarette money. My "expected family contribution" is something like $30k--more than half of my salary.

Merit-based scholarships aren't helpful if you aren't already attending the school and have grades for them to base merit on (ie the GS scholarship at Columbia).

Why would you need to be already attending a school to draw merit-based scholarships? My entire college career was funded by merit-based scholarships.

OH my god, Ally, you are so OTM!!!! I have always been upset by this. Most of my friends in college not only had their tuitions paid by their parents, but also got checks in the mail to spend as they pleased. (and didn't have to pay for their first cars, but anyway) Meanwhile, I was poor then and poor now and will owe lots and lots of money forever and ever amen. Bah Humbug! Hallelujah! aMen!

So some of the phrasing strikes me as a little weird: I mean, say what you want about the details of federal aid, which is administratively wonky in a thousand ways, but the basic idea remains that it'll provide loans to cover the amounts the family can't be expected to. My parents don't have that much money = I got lots of loans; I can't really sneer at the many people I know whose families just paid their tuition outright, cause it's not like that had anything to do with that.

The basis for independence, per FAFSA: military member, orphan, graduate student, or over the age of 24. Tax status doesn't enter into it. "Extraordinary situations" are granted forebearance over the rules--mine counts, BUT they won't just accept my word for it (I suppose for obvious enough reasons, such as the high rate of lying in society and all).

Heh, nabisco, the general studies school is for unusual instance students, ie people who probably don't have the strongest academic backgrounds but who have shown ability to succeed otherwise (good essay + strong resume etc). It has a completely different criteria for admission than the other schools at Columbia. I'm a high school drop-out=merit-based scholarships outside the realms of college-grade-based have absolutely zippo interest in me. I have no high school grades to base a merit scholarship on because I left at the end of junior high. Hampshire, to tie in that discussion, has a similar "unusual student background" instance in a lot of them--an inordinant amount of home schoolers go there, for example.

I mean, merit-based scholarships are great and all in general, I'm definitely not knocking them, but there are certainly plenty of instances that don't involve being-not-good-enough-to-merit where they wouldn't work out for someone.

What I don't understand is why this system is set up this way anyway. There are more than enough other countries where schooling IS considered a right and not a privledge.

Sarah, that's the same thing I see a lot too. I mean, cool, good up on them, but jesus christ, it's kind of to the point of making it nearly 100% exclusionary of other people. Yeah, sure, you poor people can go to state college, it's practically free...um, good up if you live in Amherst, Mass., since UMass is one of the top 30 (?) ranked undergrads in the US, bad news if that means you have to attend Hunter Fucking College.

Let's face something here: who is more likely to be living off their parents at the age of 24, a person with well-off parents or a person from the working or poor classes?

Quite honestly this discussion ties directly into the ones from during the "war" in regards to whether or not people should support the troops and their motivations for being in the military: note that you CAN get federal aid if you join the armed forces.

And yes, state schools should receive more funding.

Anyway. I'm just pointing out that there's a difference between "I deserve your aid to complete a college education" and "I deserve enough of it to attend a highly-selective private school" -- the same difference between "I deserve a car" and "I deserve a Ferrari." The problem, as I see it, is more that a car and a Ferrari are both going to get you where you're attempting to go, whereas that selective private-school education confers substantial benefits not as available from the other.

That said, I think people seriously underestimate what a good student can do coming from an affordable college -- whether by transferring to a more selective school after developing the sort of track record that would entice scholarships, or by making that jump when moving on for a graduate degree. This isn't at all to deny that there are giant and often unfair advantages to having a big name on that undergraduate degree, but you'd be surprised how many people do well enough at state or small private colleges to do their graduate work someplace name-y. My own brother did his undergrad at a tiny and not exactly hot school in Missouri and then went to Harvard Law.

Your "fact" completely ignores the instances that both me and Tep brought up of other students. This is just playing semantics with the way we phrased our discussion at this point. I think it is rather clear from what has been said that the issue is that students whose parents have enough money that said students can be paid for and don't need more than a typical "afterschool job" can get more aid than someone like me or Tep. Is this really that hard to comprehend? Example: Take two 22 year olds, for example myself and a boy (who I happen to like a lot, he's very nice) in my English class. He comes from a middle class background, and his parents help him significantly. He does not work, because of this. This is all good and well for him. I haven't got this support, and my living expenses (and I'm talking boiled down rent-food(which I barely eat to begin with expenses, not my frivolous ones)-utilities are thousands a month. I'm not complaining, I live a good life. HOWEVER, the fact that we are the same age ad no other mitigating factor means that we are getting the same support to attend any school.

And I wouldn't still be tight paying for state school without the help, as well, so it's kind of silly.

Like I said, there are plenty of examples of other countries who have set up their system in a more evenly balanced way, and it works marvellously.

Feel free to go read the FAFSA guidelines on independence/dependence and the way disbursement works, they're online. If you are under 24, you can get more money out of them by quitting your job and living off your parents. Which happens to only be a viable option if you happen to have decently well-off parents.

It's Friday afternoon, nabisco. And I'm not an argumentative person. I'm sorry if I upset you. I suppose I do get a bit jealous of the very wealthy. As my mom always says, 'Life's not fair.'

Sarah: I should also probably explain where I'm coming from with this. I was lucky enough to finish high school in a state with good public schools: I could have gone to the University of Michigan for free, saving myself and my family loads of money and coming out without an ounce of debt. I often think I should have done that. But I went to an expensive private school instead and have come out saddled with debt. I try not to complain too much about that debt because I made, at some point, a decision that it was worth it for the benefits of attending that expensive private school, a decision I'm hoping will turn out looking like the right one. And yeah, half of the people I know from school just had their tuitions paid flat-out by family and don't have to worry about any of this, but if I let this bother me very much I'd have put a gun to my head before I was done with my freshman year.

In my case, the benefits of going to the expensive private school aren't actually that huge, name-wise: the University of Michigan is a good enough school that having Northwestern on my diploma instead actually isn't conferring that huge of a boost to my prospects. (Not like, say, Indiana vs. Harvard or something.) I do think the federal aid system needs to move in the direction of recognizing that an education at a selective school really is substantially more valuable than the equivalent education at a state school, which it does in part now but not nearly as much as I think any of us would like. On the other hand, making sure everyone who merits admission to an Ivy can afford it doesn't actually correct this problem. What would correct it, as mentioned, would be a much greater investment in raising the standards of state schools and the numbers of good ones. People wouldn't need or even want to beg for enough aid to afford a luxury school if the bulk of them had decent state schools available to them. (Move to Michigan, everyone!)

If anyone does have some good advice for me on how to get any help with this, please email me? I mean, I reckon I can get through the year-of-dependence, as I've decided just now this is called, but it's just looming over my head, the fact that I don't really know how to do anything at this point, I feel my hands are tied. Any non-govermental loan pointers or tips, etc. would be appreciated muchly.

I was apologizing to keep this a discussion rather than a catty insulting argument, but hey, no luck there. "Heaven forbid" you take a fucking apology in kind.