Hey students, you stressed yet? Let me pile it on.

[Jesda]

Full size: http://rehabstudents.com/wp-content/upl ... scheme.jpg

[audtatious]

Would be interested in getting Cold_Zero's comments as the above show Sallie Mae getting lots of money and lots of profits which is not what I have been hearing.

Ahh..didn't go down enough.....Sallie Mae is misrepresented as it shows "how it works" when that may be "how it worked" at the most since Obama has taken them out of the picture.

You know, if the gov had never intervened in this then a college education would probably be much cheaper than it is now.

[frapjap]

All of this makes me want to punch myself in the face over and over. Bettering yourself has a very different meaning if you flub this crucial part of life up. I believe anyone can get some job with a college education- regardless of what it is. True, it may not pay enough and you may not ever make enough, but the alternative is that these crackheads make it so you'll never keep more than a few dollars above the poverty line if you default. You hear plenty of people say "the system is messed up," and they usually aren't very sure of what they're referring to; but IMO, this is one of the most effed up systems ever built.

The original intent of government loans was to build a populace of higher intelligence, capitalization, and financial wealth in order to have a smarter, more logical thinking, and taxable citizen. It made sense, but is wavering wildly all over the freggin place! But as mentioned in the article and every so often in the news- tuition is out of control at those schools that are the pinnacles of education. Sure, you could choose not to go to those Universities, but how about that promising kid that gets into Tufts for a doctorate as an MD and a possible life changing surgeon but can't get accepted because of their (and their parents) financial state? You can argue that there are plenty of grants, scholarships, etc but at the end of the day, creating your own free ride is a VERY dedicated task that not all are capable of. I wish more states had programs like Florida's Bright Futures; which could pay 100% of your tuition at state schools. In brief summary, a 3.5+ GPA in high school earns you 100% of tuition at State schools as long as you keep a 3.3+ GPA during college. If you manage to do said act, you're eligible for 4 years of college education at a state university for free! Understandably, if you mess up and drop below, you get academic probation and either get kicked off or you receive possible renewal at a lower rate of compensation (50% or so). Perhaps the best thing about this program is that it is funded by the STATE LOTTERY! There is always money available! Even if you earn a 3.0 in high school, you're eligible for 75% of your tuition. Its a win-win IMO. Study hard, get heavily discounted education, earn profit!

But I digress. Life is a challenge, and it isn't always going to be perfect and work out according to plan, but man- something needs to be fixed. I'd hate to end up a successful, profitable doctor, get into an auto accident that would cause me run into financial difficulty, default on my loans, owe medical bills, and lose my license to practice (aka my source of INCOME!) all because of something out of my control. Granted, there is probably a case by case basis, but the red tape and fighting you'll have to do are likely unsurmountable.

I have no way to end this because I could probably write a book, so I'll fade away into the background and come back to debate another day.

[MinisterofDOOM]

The original intent of government loans was to build a populace of higher intelligence

And that original intent was THE mistake. Stop confusing education and intelligence. The two are entirely unrelated.

[Dattebayo]

If you ever go into default, the best thing you can do for yourself is to be there at the hearing to make sure they don"t just pass a summary judgment on you that will make you cry!

[frapjap]

The original intent of government loans was to build a populace of higher intelligence

And that original intent was THE mistake. Stop confusing education and intelligence. The two are entirely unrelated.

Not for nothing, but I didn't state an opinion that they were related. Only the intent of what I figured the government was trying to accomplish.

My belief of intelligence loosely follows the intro to Idiocracy.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Not for nothing, but I didn't state an opinion that they were related.

Oh, I know. That comment wasn't directed at you, but rather at the same people your post was referring to.

[biggie]

Students aren't stressed (drinking and hot chicks relive stress), its us that are paying on the loans that are about to break.

Still a year and a half to pay mine off (10 yrs).

[Cold_Zero]

I suspect the vast majority of people that appeal to this ad probably think that lending should be free and it is usury to charge anything to borrow money. It should be pointed out that lending requirements (which were a joke), loan limits, rates and fees are all set by Congress under the Re-Authorization of FFELP each year. Effectively, this was a Federally Regulated program. What was noticeably missing from this flowchart and is almost never brought up in the discussion is that the cost of going to school keeps going up each year. No one talks about how much the Universities are charging for tuition and boarding. Lenders are neutral to this factor because either way, if tuition goes down, more people will go back to school. Tuition goes up, people will seek out cheaper forms of education/training or forgo college all together.

Here is my question,
Why are they bitching about this now? FFELP no longer exists as of 7-1-10, student lending effectively is run by the Department of Education. The DOE apparently keep extending loan limits, repayment periods and loan forgiveness. So who pays for all this? You do as a tax payer. If you have a beef with this process, talk to President Oh-Bummer. His Health Insurance Reform Bill changed the whole scope of this market.

[Urabus GodofTraction]

Suck it, debtors.

[Encryptshun]

My only true opinion on the whole big mess is that I would like to see a system where the needy can get subsidized student loans (because I was one of those people) and where refinancing those loans is not limited to just the one time where you consolidate. That latter piece is criminal.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

I hate Sallie Mae with a passion. They have ABSOLUTELY no consideration for those of us who have extraneous situations. I've applied for deferments and forebearances because I was laid off and either they lost paper work or just flat didn't care, so I file over and over again and it seems to always get lost. Oh and they harrass me and my family and make threat after threat, you know what I could care less. I've tried to refinance and my payment goes up and up and up. If they think I'm paying $500 + a month for my unsubsidived and $350 + for my subsidived you can go eat a d!ck. THey have a headquarters in Wilmington DE and I keep wishing for a plane to fall out of the sky and blow it up everytime i drive past it. I will file for deferment and forebearance until I die, you want to give me the run around and threaten me and my family even though my name is the only one on the loan. I pay $600 a month in child support which is an injustice unto itself, if you think I'm going to pay you a mortgage payment an live in a box you can go f*** yourselves.

Seriously, I hate them. The DOE isn't any better, if they would put a cap on the $ amounts of monthly payments to a reasonable amount I bet the number of defaults would go down. You pretty much are paying off your student loans until you retire so why not just make it a 30 year fixed rate loan of 2.5% . I think more people would be willing to fork out sub $150 a month payments than payments in excess of $300 + a month. That's a freaking car payment, and in my case it's a mortgage payment and mine is only for $36-40 K.

[Cold_Zero]

There is always someone who wants something for (next to) nothing. The terms you proposed is something the Government [with the ability to print money (debt) or tax the nation] can't do...2.5% are you smoking crack or something.

[audtatious]

Then you should dislike any lender and not focus solely on Sallie Mae. Additionally, if the education you paid such high rates for was worthwhile then the resulting job would easily pay for it. Sometimes people simply have to look into a mirror to determine the cause of their woes.

[Urabus GodofTraction]

Seriously, I hate them. The DOE isn't any better, if they would put a cap on the $ amounts of monthly payments to a reasonable amount I bet the number of defaults would go down. You pretty much are paying off your student loans until you retire so why not just make it a 30 year fixed rate loan of 2.5% . I think more people would be willing to fork out sub $150 a month payments than payments in excess of $300 + a month. That's a freaking car payment, and in my case it's a mortgage payment and mine is only for $36-40 K.

Lulz that you'd have less issue paying $300 a month for a freakin' car over an education.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Lulz that you'd have less issue paying $300 a month for a freakin' car over an education.

I have far fewer cars let me down than schools...

[Urabus GodofTraction]

Lulz that you'd have less issue paying $300 a month for a freakin' car over an education.

I have far fewer cars let me down than schools...

Never had a car provide the ROI school has, though...

[nissangirl74]

You know why students are $829 billion in debt? It's because it is easy money. Many lenders don't send the check to the school, they send it to the student. What does the student do? They go out and spend it on s*** other than school. If student loan money went straight to the school, there'd be a lot less people in college, guaranteed.

[jrad240sx]

AMEN....that is 100% true....yeah the system is f*** up to a certain point, but there wouldnt be a system if it didnt work sometime or another for some people other than the wealthy!!! I mean it aint a perfect world and never will be so just do the best you can with what you got and live life! If something is governing "the people" no matter what kind of program or system it is there will ALWAYS be faults. The government, for a better lack of words, is trying to "control" 530 million people just in north america alone...dont you think s*** is going to hit the fan with education, jobs, war, diseases, crime rate, economy, and supply and demand sometime or another????? if you work your a** off and it still dont work out in your favor i mean what are you gonna do??? b**** to a couple people and if you some how manage to talk to someone who can do something by him talking to people its still only a couple thousand that know out of 530 million...unless its the president...people are so caught up in so much s*** that they forget to look at the things that are going to actually make them successful in life. you make mistakes yes and sometimes they might be too big but hell it all comes down to in a nutshell.."s*** happens, then you die" and in this case s*** can be good and bad!

[Chaotic_Warlord]

Then you should dislike any lender and not focus solely on Sallie Mae. Additionally, if the education you paid such high rates for was worthwhile then the resulting job would easily pay for it. Sometimes people simply have to look into a mirror to determine the cause of their woes.

I went to ITT Tech, so my education is worthless, I have a degree that I can't even use. I have student loans to a school that didn't teach me much of anything. my degree is so vague that I can't even go get a better degree in a more specific field, worse yet college my transcripts and credits aren't even really transferable to a different school. I have an Associates in Multimedia Technologies, guess what, I have never used anything I learned. had I gotten a degree in Networking or their CEET program I might actually be able to make money off of my education, but I didn't. So I'm just as bitter towards ITT Tech as I am towards Sallie Mae. As far as disliking any other lender I can't get any sort of loan or credit card because my credit report says that I have not enough credit or bad credit so I can't pass judgement on them

You know why students are $829 billion in debt? It's because it is easy money. Many lenders don't send the check to the school, they send it to the student. What does the student do? They go out and spend it on s*** other than school. If student loan money went straight to the school, there'd be a lot less people in college, guaranteed.

I never saw a dime of my student loan or grant money, it went directly to ITT Tech's Finance Department, I had to use my GI Bill money in conjunction with what was left of my pay checks after child support took there giant chunk to pay living expenses (rent, food, bills) while I was in school.

Lulz that you'd have less issue paying $300 a month for a freakin' car over an education.

When you add full coverage insurance on top of your monthly car note bill, $300 is actually pretty damn good for a car payment.

There is always someone who wants something for (next to) nothing. The terms you proposed is something the Government [with the ability to print money (debt) or tax the nation] can't do...2.5% are you smoking crack or something.

I'm not saying I don't want to pay for anything, what I'm saying is that a college education can cost just as much (if not more in some cases) that a home loan, and home loans are generally 30 year fixed APR loans and unless your credit is horrible or you put next to nothing down as a deposit your interest rate generally isn't any higher 6 or 7%. So why can't a student loan be set up the same way, after all it's going to take you almost that long to pay it off depending on how much you borrowed. When you take into consideration that not everyone can get scholarships or anything more than a Pell Grant and they go to your standard 4 year college with room and board you're looking at a student loan in excess of 90 - 100K, that sir, is a home loan.in most places in this country. So no I am not smoking crack.

[IBCoupe]

You know why students are $829 billion in debt? It's because it is easy money. Many lenders don't send the check to the school, they send it to the student. What does the student do? They go out and spend it on s*** other than school. If student loan money went straight to the school, there'd be a lot less people in college, guaranteed.

Also, schools seem to have nothing against raising tuition. Probably because banks have no problem handing out easy money.

College tuition rises at twice the rate of inflation. Watch these for the next recession-inducing bubble. If you thought housing loans were bad (where banks handed out more money than the house was really worth), just wait 'til we see what student loans turn into (banks handing out more money than the jobs available are really worth).

[EvoTyler]

You know why students are $829 billion in debt? It's because it is easy money. Many lenders don't send the check to the school, they send it to the student. What does the student do? They go out and spend it on s*** other than school. If student loan money went straight to the school, there'd be a lot less people in college, guaranteed.

I agree with this to an extent. Definitely a bad move to hand out money and expect it to be used solely for education.
A lot of schools have the money sent directly to them which solves part of that problem. I think a bigger part of the problem lies in stipends, where the student can request money for living expenses and educational supplies (books, computer, etc). Basically a student can request as much of this money as they want to get wrapped into their loans until they reach the maximum loan amount set by the Dept. of Ed.
So you might be thinking "Well why doesn't the school just advise the student to not take out this money b/c it's going to put them ridiculously into debt?"
It is actually ILLEGAL for a school to counsel a student against taking additional loan money.

[audtatious]

Then you should dislike any lender and not focus solely on Sallie Mae. Additionally, if the education you paid such high rates for was worthwhile then the resulting job would easily pay for it. Sometimes people simply have to look into a mirror to determine the cause of their woes.

I went to ITT Tech, so my education is worthless, I have a degree that I can't even use. I have student loans to a school that didn't teach me much of anything. my degree is so vague that I can't even go get a better degree in a more specific field, worse yet college my transcripts and credits aren't even really transferable to a different school. I have an Associates in Multimedia Technologies, guess what, I have never used anything I learned. had I gotten a degree in Networking or their CEET program I might actually be able to make money off of my education, but I didn't. So I'm just as bitter towards ITT Tech as I am towards Sallie Mae. As far as disliking any other lender I can't get any sort of loan or credit card because my credit report says that I have not enough credit or bad credit so I can't pass judgement on them

Hmmm...See, I went to a little tech school in GA for Cobol programming. I have yet programmed cobol. What it did was allow me to start a stepping stone process to get where I am today. It's unbelievable how many people today think they can go straight from college into some high paying job. For most careers those days ended in the 80's.

[idahotuner]

i think college is the biggest rip off. it starts right off by getting them in debt. and most kids have no direction and are just racking up debt for nothing, it be better that money be invested in a house or something of that kind.

[Razi]

So you're saying college is a rip off because the students that go there have no idea what they are gonna do?

That's like saying going to the track is a rip off because you don't know how to drive.

It's all worth if it you know what you're doing.
If you don't, stop wasting your time and money and gtfo elsewhere.

[Urabus GodofTraction]

Lulz that you'd have less issue paying $300 a month for a freakin' car over an education.

When you add full coverage insurance on top of your monthly car note bill, $300 is actually pretty damn good for a car payment.

Maybe you missed it because you blew a student loan AND the GI Bill on ITT tech, but you missed my point...

You call $300 pretty damn good for a car payment. You're telling me you're ok with $300 a month for something as completely f*** retarded as a loan for a car, but you're not ok with paying $300+ for a loan for your education?

You have some seriously f*** priorities. If your so tight on money, why would you even have a car payment at all? $300 a month saved from driving a $1500 beater would go a good way toward curing your "I can't pay my loans" bitchfest scenario.

[AZhitman]

^ Harsh? Yep.

Correct? HELL yeah. Right on the head.

[Urabus GodofTraction]

^ Harsh? Yep.

Correct? HELL yeah. Right on the head.

Clearly you've seen my business card.

[AZhitman]

Lemme give you MY rant on student loans:

It's a racket. Know why? Because the greatest percentage of student loan money does NOT go towards the furtherance of one's education. Know where it goes? To buy car parts. To buy diapers. To buy flat-screen TV's and Xbox's and pizza and beer.

QUIT giving big fat checks every semester to these idiots. Pay it directly to the school for tuition and books, and base the interest rate on the GRADE they receive in that class.

Make better use of community colleges, too. FAR cheaper than university, same credits, and you can live at home.

I'm not sympathetic.

CW, I love ya, brother, but knocking boots is a luxury, not a right. You don't go getting some chickie knocked up unless you're DONE with your education and you HAVE a job. Unfortunately, lesson learned too late. Instead of b****ing, try educating others so they can avoid your situation.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

Hmmm...See, I went to a little tech school in GA for Cobol programming. I have yet programmed cobol. What it did was allow me to start a stepping stone process to get where I am today. It's unbelievable how many people today think they can go straight from college into some high paying job. For most careers those days ended in the 80's.

I'm not saying that i expected to get a high paying career, what I'm saying is that I have a degree i can't use from a school that is more about making money than actually teaching anything useful. Did you get a degree or a certificate of completion and was your initial college credits transferrable to another school? ITT Tech is kinda like The Chubb Institute or Devry, only worse. At least with a degree from Devry you stand a chance of actually getting somewhere once you finish. As I said in my last post had I gone for Networking or CEET I might be better off, but I went for Multimedia with full expectations to go get my Bachelors in Game Design or something more specialized, that was until I had several school reps (from different schools like Art Institute International, U Penn, and Drexel to name a few) tell me that my credits couldn't be transferred so I would have to start all over again. So instead of doing an extra year and a1/2 to 2 years to get my Bachelors in Computer Animation I would have to do a full 4 years. So instead of acruing a debt of 80-90K I would have a debt of 120-140K to pay off, no thanks, I'll just suck it up as a lose lose experience and try to make do with. An associates in something trumps a high school diploma on a resume even if it has nothing to do with what you are applying for.

Those commercials you see for ITT Tech are absolute crap and show, at best, 1% of all their graduates combined. Can't really pay off my student loans when I can barely scrape by. I'm not saying I want or need a pity party, I'm saying that every student, past, present, and future, has a different situation and as such Sallie Mae should have more consideration for each person as an indivdual case and not as a collective that can be threatened into compliance. After all we're not all doctors, lawyers, or bankers, so we all can't be viewed as such, most of us will easily choose to put a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs if that means we have to use the the money set aside to pay off those student loans.

Sallie Mae is also notorious for breaking your student loans into little pieces and selling them to the highest bidder, so while you think you're paying off your whole loan at once, instead what is happening is that your payment is also getting broken into little pieces so 10 bucks goes to this guy who puts it towards your interest on their piece of the pie, 20 bucks goes to this guy who puts it towards the physical loan but not the interest of their piece and so and so forth, and of course Sallie Mae keep a large chunk because frankly they can even though they have absolutely no share in your loan anymore except by name alone. I have seen this happen to several of my friends and have been told this by a Sallie Mae rep herself when I tried to consolidate my student loans in hopes of making it a smaller monthly payment.

Cold Zero, I understand that you work for Sallie Mae, hey that's cool, glad you have a job, but frankly unless you're upper management and know by first person account exactly what is going on in the whole company and every account you can't really fight much of a battle for them because frankly you don't see the full picture. If you are in fact upper management and know what is going on with every account in collections then shame on you for letting your collections reps talk to people the way they do. I've been threatened of legal action which is fine, I understand I'm past due, but to threaten legal action against my mom and sister when they aren't even on my account is where I draw the line. But hey, maybe I'm a fluke and my account has been represented by Sallie Mae wrong, oh wait, no, I have talked to a lot of people who have had the same thing happen to them.