Reply to Financially hobbled for life- elite masters degree that don’t pay off

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Is society supposed to provide a level playing field for everyone that has bad luck in life?[/quote]

.... Yes?

I don't think you can ever totally level the playing field, but I absolutely think we all benefit from helping those less fortunate, whether it's someone born into poverty or someone too disabled to work or someone being crushed by student debt. When we help those who are not in a position to help themselves, we maximize the efficiency of society, channeling resources to those who can best use them. [b]It's also morally the right thing to do.[/b]

The alternative is to just hope you get lucky and to be okay with living in a world surrounded by pain and suffering that you are in a position to help but don't. Does that actually sound preferable to you?[/quote]
LOL.. it's not "morally a right thing to do" to dig people out of debt because they chose to take out stupid amounts of loans.

It's immoral to take out that loans and not pay it back and expect others to do it for you.[/quote]

It's immoral to tell young people that the only way for them to get a good job that will enable them to own a home and have a family is to go to school, and then price that education so high they have no choice but to take out loans, and then when they are crushed by those loans to tell them they made their choices.

Most people with education debt took it on because they believed it was the path to a higher income and more self-sufficiency. And don't ignore the fact that they actually put in the work to get their degree as well -- they earned their degree the same way everyone does, by going to class and studying and getting sufficient grades to graduate. I'm sure some tiny percentage of student loan borrowers have degrees in experimental theater from Columbia or whatever. But most of us have degrees in professional fields and simply have never found jobs that paid well enough to justify the cost of our education, a fact compounded by economic crises.

Our entire education system is immoral. [/quote]

I don’t totally disagree, but there are a ton of options for school other than a 4 year vanity degree at a 70k per year private school. 18 yr olds today don’t want to do 2 years of community college or join the military. It’s not right to suggest that there are no options and that these new adults couldn’t make better financial decisions. [/quote]

Sure but what percentage of people asking for debt forgiveness have "4 year vanity degrees at a 70k per year private school"?

I went to public school for undergrad (for free because I had good grades and was in-state) and then a private grad program that I was reassured by everyone (the school, my parents, my college advisor, etc.) was worth the cost of borrowing because of my job prospects. It wasn't, and now I'm going to spend my entire life paying off this debt.

I'm tired of being lumped in with kids who borrowed 150k to go to Oberlin and major in French history or whatever. I did all the "right" things. I even turned down admission to a small private liberal arts school specifically because I would have had to take out loans and was worried about debt. I wanted to major in English but instead got a more "practical" degree and pursued a career path specifically because I thought it would be more stable and lucrative. It has not been.

I'm just sick of the people highlighting the most entitled people as evidence of why we shouldn't forgive student loan debt when many of us tried to follow all your rules for living frugally and responsibly and we are still struggling with our student loans, but no one cares because some orthodonist has a 50k car and poor financial sense? I don't get it.[/quote]
Life isn't fair.

What happens if you get your loan forgiven, then 10 yrs later get a windfall because you got lucky?  Why shouldn't you have to pay the taxpayers back?

Fine to restructure the debt, but it's not fine to completely forgive the loan with zero expectation of you ever paying it back.

A lot of people chose a cheaper college, and/or went to community college, worked three jobs to pay for it, and still may have taken a small loan to help pay for college, and then paid it off after graduating.  How is paying off your loan fair to these people?  Will you tell them that "life is unfair..that they should've just taken out a bigger loan"?[/quote]

The issue is that the unfairness in this case is built into the system in order to exploit people without power (young people from less advantaged backgrounds who are trying to get into a good career) while enriching powerful entities (lenders, graduate programs and their well-paid administrators). This isn't a "oh, life is unfair" situation. This is a decades long con by grad programs, including many law schools, to charge astronomical tuition knowing it can be financed by a student loan system that is solely interested in profit, completely divorced from whether there is a market for those graduates or whether that market will produce salaries that will justify the high cost of law school.

Did you know law students are not allowed to work their first year of school because it will detract from their studies? The legal industry is STILL premised on the idea that it is the option of choice for wealthy second sons. It is not a system designed for people to work their way through -- it is designed to force you to take out large loans on the promise that you will soon make a lot of money, and law schools are not honest about how many of their graduates wind up doing things like working temp document review positions with no benefits and no security, or taking jobs that start at 50k and have a ceiling of 75k, all while trying to repay 100k in loans.

Did you know many prominent law schools are used by their university to fund med schools and other far less profitable but still prestigious programs? Which means the 100k in debt that many law grads rack up is helping to educate physicians. That's not something most law school students know or understand, and should probably be disclosed up front, right?

It's an exploitative system. It's not about individual choices -- far too many people wind up in this situation for it to simply be a case of some people making "better" choices.

I know a couple people who wanted to go to a law school and 100% would have, but didn't get in anywhere. They didn't make a "smart choice". They just got lucky![/quote]

I didn’t go to law school nor grad school. This comment was incredibly insightful. Wow.[/quote]

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