[Lanny_McDonald]

This is getting unwieldly, but is a good discussion. Hopefully we can keep this together as it becomes a little fragmented.

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Why would I? At the time, I wanted to be a lawyer. Your question really doesn’t make any sense to me.

Ah, so you understood there was a means to an end and it was beneficial to stay in school, take out the loans, and complete the degree. You recognized the lift it would provide to you and your future, so you did the smart thing and completed the degree, accepting the cost of education and compared to the lift that education would provide. Because had you quit because of the cost of education, like you have recommended here, you would have been saddled with that debt and then a burger flipper's salary to rely upon. There was benefit to completion.

What are your degrees in? I ask because I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t pay for a masters or doctorate in any science program, and getting a PhD in a humanities program might, well, not be the wisest idea.

Psychology. The terminal degree afforded me the opportunity to teach, then the opportunity to the executive suite, and leadership roles in multiple areas in government. Education, especially humanities, are transferable to many industries and open doors that most people would not have opportunity to even knock on.

If you want to get specific and really want to be educated about such things, no, not every lawyer has to pass the bar exams to practice law. See the Wisconsin diploma privilege.

Yes, but most states require you to be a member of the bar to practice law. You don't just to get to hang a shingle out and start providing legal advice. There are accrediting bodies that regulate many professional jobs. Law is one of those, just like psychiatry.

I’m having trouble following your argument. You claim that you have been the victim of what your institution made you do and suffer as a result of their inaction, but then say that both parties are responsible. I’m not getting much of a sense that you think that you are responsible for much of what happened to you.

I am responsible for what happened to me to a point. My responsibility as a student is to complete my work in a timely manner. Part of the contract you engage in with an institution is they will have their faculty grade your work in a timely manner. I absorb information very quickly and work through assignments just as quickly. The faculty played rope-a-dope with me and held back final grades for KAs, preventing me from moving on to the next, then comprehensives, and then dissertation. So the amount of time wasted waiting for faculty to assess my work and provide feedback equated to a year of required content, then another year in dissertation. To me, the institution did not live up to their end of the contract and made it such that I had to stay in school for an extra 18 months, meaning an extra two years tuition. This was unnecessary and punitive IMO. Never should have been allowed and I should not have been saddled with that debt.

Can you please just answer the direct question that was asked?

It's a gotcha question. You seem to think that debt is negative regardless of its use. If you can't see the larger benefit of someone buying a home rather than paying for loans they can't even re-negotiate the interest rate on, then that's on you and no one else. The major difference to the over all economy is obvious. No one gains a larger benefit out of this except the predatory interests (and this includes Sallie Mae and Navient) who hook these people, promising a better life, but saddling them with crippling debt. I’d rather forgive those federally backed loans and have that money channeled into the pockets of consumers who drive our consumer-based economy. You want to fix social security, get more people in the workforce who pay into social security. You want to fix unemployment, drive up demand for products and services by making sure there are more people with more disposable income. You want to keep America a leader in the world, get people educated to level that puts our standard above all others.

You sound rather angry about all of this.

Angry isn’t the right word. A point of frustration or annoyance? Yes. The government has really helped in a Ponzi scheme and accepts no responsibility for it. They let lenders set their interest rates, multiples of that for mortgages, and then set unreasonable rules for payment. When the government is borrowing money at less than a quarter percent, they should be able to provide similar relief to those who have loans. Instead they hold the line firm and force borrowers into non-negotiable terms which makes the situations worse. These loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy and terms never change unless you go to private lenders, whose programs are even worse.

What really annoys me about the student loan Ponzi scheme is the promise of loan forgiveness in specific programs. The government entered into a contract with individuals to forgive those loans should they meet 120 continuous payments as defined by the program. Even when people meet the requirements of the program, living up to the contract they signed, those loans are not getting forgiven. That ain’t right. These people went into jobs servicing the public on the promise that they would get benefit after 10 years. But the government is not following through on that promise. Those people that have worked hard to keep the government functioning for all of us are getting screwed. The vast majority of them took less in salary because of this benefit. This is a wrong that needs to be righted, at minimum, or the whole system needs to be burned to the ground.

You’re right, I don’t know your situation directly, but I do know the way the schools have used funding and abuse the student loan programs to their benefit.

Respectfully, it really does seem to me that you are.

I’m not complaining about my particular circumstances. I'm lucky enough to be very comfortable and can pay my loans even though they would be oppressive to most freshly graduated students. I’m complaining about the overall system and how it has been abuse (and continues to be abused) by schools around the country.

One of the latest schemes is to go after student athletes from high school and give them a fractional scholarship for their sport, forcing the student to take out loans to cover the rest. They are preying on the dreams of athletes who never seem to weigh the potential outcomes. The vast majority of these athletes have no potential to turn their sport into a career, and because of the time commitment to practice and compete, they turn into crappy students who are at the bottom of their classes, if they pass at all. If these students come out with a degree, it is a useless one and they are at the bottom of class lists, making that degree all but useless. Ah, but the kid got to “play” for another two to four years. This Peter Pan stuff needs to stop. This is the type of stuff that should halted immediately and institutions that use these practices be sanctioned or put out of business.

And I just completely disagree that student loans are “forced” on people.

Going to school is generally a voluntary decision. If you want to go to school, you take the risk that it will take longer than you anticipated to get the desired degree. Making these voluntary choices and then turning around and saying that something was forced upon you is just difficult for me to accept.

Education is the surest way to upward mobility. For people who live in poverty or depressed economic conditions, education is the only way out. So yes, if these people want to better their lot in life, they are forced to take out loans to better themselves.

People always have options. They may not like them, but the options are there.

That sounds like someone who has never had never come to realize their privilege or the state of others. I try and look at the issue from the condition of others. After working at an HSI I got to really understand the problem from a very different perspective. I got to understand how transformational education was to entire communities, not just individuals, and also how predatory and punitive these programs can be. For people that really have choice for upward mobility, the system is clearly stack against them and is designed to keep them where they are, or locked into long-term poverty.

If, in your case, you had the option of bailing on a Phd (and perhaps the masters too?) or taking out $50k more in loans than you originally anticipated, you apparently decided that taking out the loans was the more advantageous decision. But no one truly forced you to make the decision the way you did, did they? And if they did, how did they do that?

Seriously? You do know that you only get benefit from a degree if you complete that degree. Come on. You understand this. You only get to use certain degrees or become a member of a profession if you complete those degrees and meet ALL requirements of the degree. So yes, the schools have on the hook and you can’t get off. If you choose not to complete the degree you still carry that debt, and you get marginal benefit from that degree. So yes, you have to complete or you just waste your money and don’t get ahead. Not much of a choice there. You have to play by their rules. It’s their game.

Look, I don’t think that we are ever going to agree on this issue. I think that most people who are advocating for student loan forgiveness are doing so because any such forgiveness would benefit them and because they don’t want to take responsibility for their previous decisions. Maybe you don’t fit into either of those categories, but, regardless, that is my view of the matter and it is unlikely that I can be persuaded to see it differently.

I don’t disagree that there are SOME who would use this dodge. But these people will find a dodge no matter what. These are the type of people would just say #### it and then go on welfare. The vast majority of people aren’t like that. They want to be good contributing members of society. They want to go on and start their lives. But the way the system is setup is punitive ad prevents those people from doing just that. So while Wall Street continues to get theirs, Main Street continues to take it in the tail pipe and pay for the already rich’s expansion of their share of the economic pie. I want to see what the economic power of 42 million Americans spending that disposable income looks like. We’ve already tried trickledown economics, its time to try giving average Americans the break and watch the economy spring to life.