Anyone plan on not paying back student loans?
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Anonymous
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I was talking with friends after the latest extension was announced and was surprised to find that a few of them have no intention of ever paying them off.
One said even before the pandemic pause, they made the minimum payment every other month and didn't care about interest accruing. I'm baffled at how this is a good strategy. They seem to think I was crazy for having continued making payments throughout the pandemic. |
Anonymous
| thank all the moron politicians floating the loan forgiving, they are aholes, everyone should plan to pay their loans, don't lead people on |
Anonymous
| I think that's silly especially since people can pay them down while the interest is 0. |
Anonymous
| Your friends are stupid. As Suze Orman says - debt isn’t a pet. You don’t keep it around for as long as possible. And this whole wiping of student loan debt has been a supposed big focus since 2008 - it’s not happening. Not when we have other priorities in this country. |
Anonymous
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Doesn’t this mess up their credit? Will they be able to get a mortgage for a house if they’re delinquent on their loans or have too much debt compared to their income?
I was talking to someone just this weekend that has like an 8% rate and they are only paying the minimum every month in hopes that the whole thing will be written off in 20 years. They can’t refinance because that would eliminate the 20-year plan. Not familiar with this loan forgiveness program. |
Anonymous
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Your friend who doesn't even pay the monthly minimum is an idiot who is destroying their credit.
That said, it depends on what you mean by "pay them off" - plenty of people have good rates and pay as agreed and are not bothered by the debt. They may not think of making the agreed-upon payments as "paying them off" because people usually talk about that when they're trying to wipe out debt aggressively. It's only if you have high interest rates that you should prioritize paying them off early. I had some at high rates that I paid off ASAP, and I have one at 1.875% fixed that I see no reason to prepay. |
Anonymous
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Mine are consolidated at a very low interest rate. Even before forgiveness was on the table, it didn't make sense to pay them off quickly when I had other uses for that money. Minimum payments only. I intended to pay them off before I retired.
When payments were deferred during covid I made a couple big payments. But, then I became eligible for public interest forgiveness under the waiver last year. Now just waiting for them to be forgiven. For those who don't have the public service hook, I'm genuinely not sure what the plan is. I support forgiveness (among other things, it's great for the economy) but Biden has not seemed willing. |
Anonymous
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There was a debt strike recently in DC.
For federal loans, there’s no getting out of them outside of IBR or PSLF or BDR currently. They WILL garnish your wages and SS. For private loans, you can “settle” them, and in some cases, declare bankruptcy via the Bruner test. This ruins your credit though. |
Anonymous
It shouldn't happen. Many people took on this debt to have "the college experience" when there are many ways to reduce the load of paying for college--just something people didn't want to do. There's no reason you shouldn't pay it. |
Anonymous
Well if you can’t pay it, you can’t pay it. I have no dog in this fight; took out $20k for undergrad 7 years ago and paid it off 18 months after graduation. I went to a school most DCUMers would sneer at. |
Anonymous
NP. Eh, I have every intention of paying off my student loans, but my interest rate is currently 1.5%, and so I will pay the minimum until the debt is retired and no sooner. I did not pause my payments during the pandemic, nor do I plan to. But in my case, it is not smarter to pay off my student loans quickly, as I can invest that money elsewhere and get higher returns. Always some exceptions. |
Anonymous
| I got forgiveness through PSLF this year. I'd been paying since 2008 and my balance was 2k less than when I started. My plan B if PSLF had continued being so broken (I was notified in 2022 that I had actually completed all the requirements for the program in 2019 and got a refund) was to do a plan default. |
Anonymous
How out of touch you are some people or their spouses may have lost jobs during the pandemic. |
Anonymous
newsflash my college experience that I took loans for was when I was in my 40s and doing an MBA. Many my age and even undergrads of the last 25 years were gauged by inflated rates. I landed 0 income bump out of adding a Masters to boot. |
Anonymous
| Anyone holding federal loans is an idiot for paying now. Every extension is the last extension ever because the president is super serious this time. At least some chunk if not all will end up forgiven. The administration has backed themselves into a corner with the extensions and forgiveness is the only way out |