Student Loans Debt

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by BaltoAlphaPsi

I think lowering the interest rates can help longer than forgiving student loans.

as always... just a damn good highschool GPA can do wonders for you!

Student loan interest rates are lower than they've ever been; I honestly don't think they can get any better. Mine were at just under 3%; my savings account has a higher interest rate! I figured it made more sense for me to pay that off and put the money I was paying for loans in savings.

Oh yeah...not everyone who does well in school will get scholarships. A lot of colleges do not provide merit aid; some private scholarship organizations look at need before they look at merit to prevent one or two students at the top from taking the most scholarship money. I was in the top 1% of my HS class with a ton of extracurrics, and I got exactly $1,500 in scholarship money. That money was actually connected to an activity I was involved in. Great considering 4 years of tuition was just about $150,000.

[BaltoAlphaPsi]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Student loan interest rates are lower than they've ever been; I honestly don't think they can get any better. Mine were at just under 3%; my savings account has a higher interest rate! I figured it made more sense for me to pay that off and put the money I was paying for loans in savings.

But most student loans have variable interest rates that change every 6 months... they could go back up to 8. And that sucks :-( I pay 15,000 a semester for 5 years... plus summer classes

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by BaltoAlphaPsi

But most student loans have variable interest rates that change every 6 months... they could go back up to 8. And that sucks :-( I pay 15,000 a semester for 5 years... plus summer classes

Most people get their loans consolidated after school; usually, after a few years of on-time payments, your interest rate will be lowered. Also, if you agree to do automatic debit, your rate could be lowered as well. My loans--federal and private--were NEVER as high as 8 percent; they hovered somewhere around 2.5-5% before I locked them in.

[UGAalum94]

I think one thing that's being left out of this debate is the cost of attending some schools versus others.

If you elect to attend a pricey private school you probably owe somewhere between four and ten times as much money as a public college grad, with no corresponding increase in your salary. (Sure there could be an increase in your salary, but it's probably much more field of study related rather than cost of school related.)

Why should this decision be subsidized by the government at all?

ETA: am I wrong in thinking of it this way? It's not that I want some system that keeps students who can't afford to write a 100,000-200,000 dollar check for their education out of elite schools, and yet, maybe the schools themselves should help the kids finance it? What was Havard's endowment?

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

ETA: am I wrong in thinking of it this way? It's not that I want some system that keeps students who can't afford to write a 100,000-200,000 dollar check for their education out of elite schools, and yet, maybe the schools themselves should help the kids finance it? What was Havard's endowment?

The schools with the largest endowments, and their peer institutions, do finance it for families who don't pay. Most of the Ivies, along with Stanford, MIT, and others, have essentially waived loans for families making under $100,000. If your family makes less than 60K or so, you're not expected to contribute at all.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

The schools with the largest endowments, and their peer institutions, do finance it for families who don't pay. Most of the Ivies, along with Stanford, MIT, and others, have essentially waived loans for families making under $100,000. If your family makes less than 60K or so, you're not expected to contribute at all.

Sounds great to me.

Maybe it's because I went to a downscale institution, but if a person wants to individually mortgage his or her future to attend Emory over UGA to study Art History at the undergraduate level, I'm down with that. Live your dreams and I hope it's worth the price difference.

But it is odd to think that we'd have federal programs that would help or regulate it.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Sounds great to me.

Maybe it's because I went to a downscale institution, but if a person wants to individually mortgage his or her future to attend Emory over UGA to study Art History at the undergraduate level, I'm down with that. Live your dreams and I hope it's worth the price difference.

But it is odd to think that we'd have federal programs that would help or regulate it.

But, you're not borrowing directly from the government. You're taking loans out from a bank; in the event that you completely default (which is next to impossible since they garnish your wages and/or reduce your income tax refund if you don't pay), the government backs it up. Also, since loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy anymore, it's not as if people are shirking their responsibilities. In my mind, it's no different from a VA or FHA mortgage except you can't foreclose on it.

Oh, most people who go to private schools don't "mortgage their future," either, unless they're going to law or medical school.