4% forgiveness is pretty good if you ask me

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

4/24/2012 12:48:21 PM

So basically the interest.

Congrats, you've just discovered what a subsidized stafford loan is. We do that already.

4/24/2012 12:49:28 PM

you should be more intelligent (or athletic i guess) and have received a full ride to school

4/24/2012 12:53:44 PM

you should be more intelligent (or athletic i guess) and have received a full ride to school

4/24/2012 12:53:44 PM

you should be more intelligent (or athletic i guess) and have received a full ride to school

4/24/2012 12:54:51 PM

She actually looks like she'd make a good porno lol.

4/24/2012 12:55:33 PM

everyone reaches their potential by age 18. If you aren't clearly successful by then, you are going to always be a failure so GO WORK AT MCDONALDS LOSER and don't waste MY money on school.

*returns to making a D in all their business classes*

4/24/2012 12:56:08 PM

There are many ways to pay for school without being super intelligent or athletic.

4/24/2012 12:56:51 PM

well, if you did it, everybody should be able to do it.

why aren't you a millionaire yet?

4/24/2012 1:01:42 PM

4/24/2012 1:03:30 PM

you're really presenting a very convincing argument

4/24/2012 1:05:19 PM

I am not a millionaire because I have not earned a millionaire dollars yet. It is not the government or society's fault I am not a millionaire.

4/24/2012 1:09:24 PM

I know, it's your fault. Some people have done it, and some have even become billionaires. Since some have done it, everyone can do it, and you can do it. Since you haven't, it's because you're lazy. Stop being lazy and try harder.

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 1:12 PM. Reason : ]

4/24/2012 1:12:05 PM

Do you see me complaining to the government or demanding that I become a millionaire magically?

Your argument and analogy are flawed.

4/24/2012 1:13:42 PM

nobody cares what you say, you been brainwashed by tha military

4/24/2012 1:16:32 PM

Serious question: Are you okay with America quickly falling behind other countries in education? Are you okay with America's decling economy? As someone has mentioned, many people who got student loans but went into low-paying but necessary jobs are hard-working and responsbile, but live pay-check to pay-check because of the debt they accrued to get through college. They'd be contributing much more to the economy if they could alleviate this debt. But without help, they're never going to. They're going to live pay-check to pay-check, because they're not going to make more money at their job.

Do you not think our government should place the education of it's citizens as one of it's top priorities?

4/24/2012 1:21:52 PM

Serious question: Are you okay with America quickly falling behind other countries in education? No Are you okay with America's decling economy? No As someone has mentioned, many people who got student loans but went into low-paying but necessary jobs are hard-working and responsbile, but live pay-check to pay-check because of the debt they accrued to get through college. They'd be contributing much more to the economy if they could alleviate this debt. But without help, they're never going to. They're going to live pay-check to pay-check, because they're not going to make more money at their job.

Do you not think our government should place the education of it's citizens as one of it's top priorities? [b]I think the welfare of our nation should be highest priority[b]

Forgiving loans is treating a symptom, not the disease. This should not be nation where we decide to give handouts for people to get degrees in whatever they want, take out loans without thinking of the consequences etc. We need to place more emphasis on vocational training rather than attaching a negative stigma on it. College isn't for everyone, you don't need to go there to be successful. Not everyone can be a lawyer, doctor, astronaut, etc.

Yes, some people like teachers, go into debt...they should be paid more, they provide an invaluable service. However, some people like this man http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/random-thoughts/nyc-teacher-spends-35k-getting-his-masters-degree-in-puppetry-at-uconn-now-occupying-wall-street-because-he-cant-get-a-job-as-a-puppeteer/ Who spends 35k on a masters in puppetry? Uh, yeah, you enjoy that debt buddy. There are plenty of degrees out there where people accumulate massive amounts of debt...that are worthless. Sure someone might enjoy the hell out of early 16th century French Poetry, but to expect to get a job with it that will pay for their massive debt? They should know better.

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 1:32 PM. Reason : a]

4/24/2012 1:29:17 PM

i mentioned earlier there should be stipulations. they should be using their education in some way, they should be productive members of society, they should be making some regular payments...

same with welfare. i think it's necessary. of course it's abused, but people that truly need it shouldn't be denied it because others take advantage of it.

geez, you think so black and white: "this guy is whining that he can't get a job as a puppeteer, therefore no one should be helped to pay off their student loan". I'm not talking about someone who got a degree in puppeteering.

i feel like i'm repeating myself over and over, but i'm talking about people who are doing necessary jobs, like a speech therapist for young children. they are productive members of society, many are living very frugaly, and it's still practically impossible for them to pay off their student loans.

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 1:37 PM. Reason : ]

4/24/2012 1:34:32 PM

^Gov't welfare is not necessary.

Quote :

"UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp: what better place for Obama to speak than UNC, which invented public higher education? "

4/24/2012 2:04:11 PM

Quote :

"How can she slap?!!"

4/24/2012 2:09:31 PM

^^yes, speak at a place about student debt where a 2 yr MBA costs $92k

4/24/2012 2:10:37 PM

Quote :

"^Gov't welfare is not necessary"

you present a very convincing argument. but i argue that it sometimes is, or innocent children suffer because of their parents.

4/24/2012 2:30:12 PM

Obama is right, all we need is more education and more student loan debt and our problems are solved!!!

Quote :

" 1 in 2 new grads are jobless or underemployed The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work. A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge. Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes that a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans. An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees. While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, graduates in the arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating mid-level jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages. Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade. "I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative-writing degree. Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four résumés a day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a résumé once every two weeks or so. Bledsoe, who makes just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now deciding whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. "There is not much out there, it seems," he said. His situation highlights a widening but little-discussed labor problem. Perhaps more than ever, the choices that young adults make earlier in life — level of schooling, academic field and training, where to attend college, how to pay for it — are having long-lasting financial impact. "You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it's not true for everybody," says Harvard economist Richard Freeman, noting the growing risk of a debt bubble with total U.S. student loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. "If you're not sure what you're going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college." Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor's degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. "Simply put, we're failing kids coming out of college," he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. The study is based on an analysis of 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers and supplemented with material from Paul Harrington, an economist at Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor's degree-holders under age 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields. Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year."

4/25/2012 4:14:03 PM

Quote :

"The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative-writing degree."

Quote :

"But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major."

yah don't say!

4/25/2012 4:18:28 PM

Exactly... I'm not sure why people are allowed to get loans to get non practical degrees.

I can't just go request $100,000 mortgage loan without proof of employment, why would they be able to get $100k for pursuing hobbies?

If I enjoyed fishing in my free time, could i get a boat loan?

4/25/2012 4:26:05 PM

Yes, that's called a Boat Loan.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 4:41 PM. Reason : ed]

4/25/2012 4:28:06 PM

4/25/2012 4:40:34 PM

I bought golf clubs with my first college loan. to be fair, I did take golf like 7 times in college though

4/25/2012 4:44:24 PM

College is all about motorboating.

4/25/2012 4:45:05 PM

Quote :

"Exactly... I'm not sure why people are allowed to get loans to get non practical degrees."

because engineering, computer science, natural science, and math are the only acceptable majors

I think we should socialize higher education in the same way that the UK does. If you aren't college material by mid-high school, you should get pushed into a trade school or technical school route so that by the time you're 19 or so you'll be employable. The ones that go to college should do so on at least partial scholarship according to ability to their ability to pay and you could even have the "less valuable" degrees be more competitive and/or less assistance. this would help to balance the economy as labor self regulates to meet the demands of the market, and it would also help to reduce the crime rate as more people would be employed, and employable for that matter, and less people would have debt.

the problem we have is that there are too many damn colleges so that no matter how shitty of a student you were in high school, some school somewhere will take you. now, this is becoming even more prevalent in graduate education (read: law school). the college degree has become the high school degree and now you need a master's or higher in several fields to separate yourself from the pile. not everyone is meant to go to college, and all of these shit schools and online schools that are happy to charge you $texas for a worthless degree and continually pump out thousands of students a year into an already over saturated job market and load them with debt that they don't have a realistic chance of repaying in many cases.

back in the day not everyone was able to get into college. they either went into unskilled labor, went to trade/tech school, or joined the military and our country was much better for it.

4/25/2012 4:52:42 PM

But even non-shit schools cost a lot. College in North Carolina is really fucking cheap. Meanwhile, the 2 main schools from my home state, Penn State and Pitt, are expensive as fuck. It is literally cheaper for me to go out-of-state to NC State than to go in-state to Pitt or Penn State.

NCSU Tuition - IS $7018, OOS $19852
UNCCH Tuition - IS $7008, OOS $26834

Penn State Tuition - IS $15124 and tuition gets a raise when you go above 60 credits.
Pitt Tuition - IS $15272 to $19226 depending on major

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 5:05 PM. Reason : .]

4/25/2012 5:05:19 PM

Quote :

"I can't just go request $100,000 mortgage loan without proof of employment"

Well, not anymore at least.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 5:21 PM. Reason : ...]

4/25/2012 5:20:06 PM

Quote :

"because engineering, computer science, natural science, and math are the only acceptable majors"

It's not that they're the only acceptable majors, it's just that they're more likely to pay for themselves. In other words, the value of the degree outweighs the cost.

There exists a very small percentage of students that can make a living as musicians, for instance. A good friend in high school is now a professional musician, and he was very good. He was significantly better at his instrument than anyone his age group in the school, the district, and arguably, the state.

Other people from the same school went to school for music and wasted a lot of money on it. Some of them will make a modest living as a band teacher. Most others will have a useless degree with nothing to show for it.

Ultimately, supply and demand should be determining which degrees are viable and which are not. Exceptional students will be able to get loans to go to school, if they're able to convince a private lender that they're worth the risk. All things equal, though, a loan to a student planning to major in engineering should have a lower interest rate than a student planning to major in history. Why? The value of the degree is more likely to exceed its cost in the case of the former.

If interest rates are allowed to float and students are able to default on student loans, the bubble will burst, tuition will come back down to earth, and students will begin moving into vocations that are in demand.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 5:34 PM. Reason : ]

4/25/2012 5:33:49 PM

Quote :

"because engineering, computer science, natural science, and math are the only acceptable majors"

way to take it to an extreme!

4/25/2012 5:37:01 PM

http://admissions.unc.edu/Academics/Majors/default.html
Degrees offered by UNC

African Studies, American Studies, Art History, Art Studio, Classics, European Studies, Creative Writing, Dramatic Art, French, German, Medieval Studies, Peace War and Defense, Playwriting, Religious Studies, Slavic Languages, Womens Studies, and Writing for the Screen are all degrees I don't see the point in accumulating massive amounts of debt for.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 5:44 PM. Reason : a]

4/25/2012 5:44:10 PM

you know you want a Master's in Puppetry degree. come on!

Quote :

"If interest rates are allowed to float and students are able to default on student loans, the bubble will burst, tuition will come back down to earth, and students will begin moving into vocations that are in demand."

this. 1000 times this. 1000000 times this. Simply allowing student loans to be discharged and modified through bankruptcy would literally fix the entire system. literally. Every problem regarding the expense of higher education is 100% attributable to this simple fact. It's incredible that commentators talk about this every day and even mention that student loan debt can't be removed in bankruptcy, but can't or won't make the connection.

If you've got a type of loan you provide where the borrower literally can't get rid of or modify it under any circumstances, and if they get behind and default you can slap a 25% fee on top of it, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DENY IT TO ANYONE WHO ASKED FOR IT? Think about that. At least the Mafia will eventually kill you if you don't pay them.

Change this one simple parameter, and so many things are fixed. College tuition prices will begin to fall. Debt loads will fall, and those who are too fucked to ever be able to pay can get a modification to something reasonable via the courts and begin contributing money into the actual economy again. Student loan servicers will have to actually treat people with respect. For-profit colleges will be put in their place. jesus, what the fuck are we waiting for?

4/25/2012 7:22:57 PM

PWAD could be useful for someone going into politics and the foreign languages could be useful for any number of professions but i agree with the rest being not that great for jobs

4/25/2012 7:59:45 PM

We should not give out loans to people who can't pay them back. This is fucking basic.

The fact that people can't understand this is the reason why we have a credit problem in this country.

Some studies are not as valuable as others. Deal with it instead of trying to destroy the country.

4/25/2012 8:11:48 PM

Quote :

"back in the day not everyone was able to get into college. they either went into unskilled labor, went to trade/tech school, or joined the military and our country was much better for it."

That was back in the day. Those jobs are gone. No more easy manufacturing jobs, no more easy military and no more easy service/industry. All that has been replaced by technology, robotics, and the developing world's low-wage workforce. So we are faced with a choice. education or no education.

Education is always better than no education and then if jobs come up later at least we will have partially educated people that can learn them instead of a nation of uneducated fools.

The real source of this rhetoric is the establishment. The real secret is that mass education is the kryptonite to capitalism's stranglehold on the people.

4/26/2012 12:27:39 AM

Quote :

"no more easy military"

What does this mean? I mean yes combat missions have gone up considerably in the Post 9/11 world, but it's still fairly easy to get a non-combat role.

[Edited on April 26, 2012 at 12:51 AM. Reason : a]

4/26/2012 12:47:11 AM

^^ methinks you are grossly overestimating the value of a creative-writing or Master's of Puppetry degree. Education is great, if you get a worthwhile degree. Unless someone creates a vastly important machine that only takes input in the form of a puppet show or a short story, then the putative worth of those degrees will always be damned near zero in the scenarios you describe. The fact that student loan debt can't be removed in bankruptcy is why people are able to get worthless degrees in the first place. Otherwise, maybe they'd go to a trade school and learn something that will actually land them a job.

4/26/2012 10:08:42 AM

Quote :

"The real secret is that mass education is the kryptonite to capitalism's stranglehold on the people. "

wow

4/26/2012 10:29:37 AM

he's not entirely wrong. frankly, that's why gov'ts and businesses and religions alike strongly want to control the curriculum in public education

4/26/2012 10:31:07 AM

^ yeah exactly look at economics.

The government decided they liked keynesian economics because it told them to spend money they don't have.

So they only appoint people who have been brainwashed or are willing to shill. In turn all professors follow suit with because that's how you play the game. No one ever debates any alternatives because the government controls the curriculum. Buck the trend and you lose your funding.

Now the internet has gone a long way towards restoring intellectual thought back into society, but rest assured the government won't go down without a fight.

4/26/2012 3:31:46 PM

^since when does everyone in government like Keynsian economics? You might want to reread the history of economic policy since Reagan.

4/26/2012 6:50:23 PM

um, are you familiar with every Fed Chairman, economic cabinet member, leader of the Treasury, etc over the past 20+ years? It's been quite the slippery slope for the past 100 years but particularly since the 70's.

Paul Krugman?


And Reagan may have SAID he wanted smaller government but he still increased government spending overall by leaps and bounds. Maybe not Obama disaster level but still increased it.

[Edited on April 26, 2012 at 6:56 PM. Reason : a]

4/26/2012 6:55:48 PM

an interesting take.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/26/opinion/kamenetz-obama-higher-education/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I am inclined to agree. The debt being non-bankruptable has also allowed private lenders to loan out more without using good discretion.

4/26/2012 10:07:07 PM

wow, someone in the media is actually saying what the answer is. fuck, we might be able to actually get it done

4/26/2012 10:18:05 PM

The reason you can't discharge a student loan in bankruptcy is because the day after graduation every student would file for bankruptcy.

They'd have to have some kind of protection for the lender or the loans flat out wouldn't get made.

4/27/2012 4:43:09 AM

Quote :

"^^ methinks you are grossly overestimating the value of a creative-writing or Master's of Puppetry degree. Education is great, if you get a worthwhile degree. Unless someone creates a vastly important machine that only takes input in the form of a puppet show or a short story, then the putative worth of those degrees will always be damned near zero in the scenarios you describe. The fact that student loan debt can't be removed in bankruptcy is why people are able to get worthless degrees in the first place. Otherwise, maybe they'd go to a trade school and learn something that will actually land them a job."

How many people are getting those degrees? Arts is worthless to you? Entertainment is worthless to you? I actually think society doesn't have enough artists so people come up with bland, uncreative ideas for everything. These degrees have some value.

Quote :

"What does this mean? I mean yes combat missions have gone up considerably in the Post 9/11 world, but it's still fairly easy to get a non-combat role. "

I believe if we had an educated military instead of sending the nation's scoundrels into combat, we'd have a lot less incidences like posing with dead bodies and such. Everyone in the military should know history, political science, and science.

4/27/2012 7:10:36 AM