Ms. Eastman said she had told him early on in their relationship that she had over $100,000 of debt. But, she said, even she didn’t know what the true balance was; like a car buyer who focuses on only the monthly payment, she wrote 12 checks a year for about $1,100 each, the minimum possible. She didn’t focus on the bottom line, she said, because it was so profoundly depressing. But as the couple got closer to their wedding day, she took out all the paperwork and it became clear that her total debt was actually about $170,000. “He accused me of lying,” said Ms. Eastman, 31, a San Francisco X-ray technician and part-time photographer who had run up much of the balance studying for a bachelor’s degree in photography. “But if I was lying, I was lying to myself, not to him. I didn’t really want to know the full amount.”
At a time when even people with no graduate degrees, like Ms. Eastman, often end up six figures in the hole and people getting married for the second time have loads of debt from their earlier lives, it should come as no surprise that debt can bust up engagements. Even when couples disclose their debt in detail, it poses a series of challenges.
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A lot of people use this program like free money without caring about paying it back. Perhaps everyone should have a mandatory counselling before they are eligble for these loans.
ReplyDeleteSeems like the same tactic the IMF uses ... get a country into unpayable debt then force the country to give away resources and other things they normally would never do.
ReplyDeleteMost Americans are being taken into unpayable debt with the wars and bailouts. Maybe all Americans need mandatory counseling to teach them about the Federal Reserve System and fractional reserve banking and compound interest.
8.47
ReplyDeleteThe smug pretence here ,is that those trying to improve their lives by getting a diploma ticket to a job and the middle class were being iresponsible.
"Without caring about paying it back."
(Can these debts to government government guaranteed student loans really even be escaped ,or just like taxes debts , the owner of the debt is hooked up for a lifetime sentence to debt servitude )
In a different time these students would have been applauded for their grit and determination in working hard to improve their lot.
As American heroes ,not as cheating american scumbags needing counseling .
in fact they were already counceled and advised to take on these debts as a reasonable way forward in their lives.That the american dream economy was a stable thing .
Just as others were told that housing values aleays go up and that mortgages debt were a great investment and not simply property speculation.
In americas economy there is no way now to earn a decent living than to take out student loans.
They are not an option but a necessity for getting a decent life .
Perhaps even joining the middle class property owning class .
But as the economy can no longer provide the job to match the diploma , the attempt is made here by apologists for the system, to blame the holder of the diploma or of the debt, as if they were some sort of criminals out for a free ride.
Education has become the business of usury finance capitalists, the holders of the student loans are backed by government supply of cheap finance guarantees to the holders of the usury tickets in student loans.
Financed at the taxpayers expense.
These students have become debt peons enslaved to capital with little prospect of easily getting a job as in the past.
Many face years of unemployment or underemployment in any burger flipping low waged type job they are lucky enough to find.
They join the debt peons with underwater mortgages of the middle class who are attempting to extend the life of their mortgages to say 30 year loans.
America is now a nation of heredity debt peons enslaved to capital ,including to those bondholders of the Public debts ,treasury bonds created by government.
Including for deficit spending for student loans and wars, who have captured the future tax revenues of government for decades to come as their private incomes paid by the debt peons.
Everywhere I look today...I see a house of cards, towering, swaying violently with the slightest breeze. The definitive answer to all these problems is t...
ReplyDeleteDidn't notice the time...Dancing with the Stars is on...Got to go...........
I can't even imagine, how one can rake up close to 170k in student loans while getting a BS degree in photography!!! I was an international student in the US in late 90's, so we are almost same age, I had to pay three times the in-state tuition and yet I came out quite ok, I had scholarships and two jobs.
ReplyDelete9:31pm Brother...You maybe kinda be full of it or verrrrrrrrry naive.
ReplyDeleteHow do I know?...Sadly enough I must have gone through about $85,000 in grants, scholarships and loans...Most of it I spent like a drunk sailor on leave.
Or like Bush Jr. drunk at his initiation for Skull & Bones society spent it...You know before masturbating in a coffin while telling the frat brothers his secrets (For you repubs).
Or how Obama probably spent it while in Kenya smoking pot and learning Marxist anti-American manchurian candidate ideology (For you democrats).
Errrm sorry was going "Stream of Conciousness" on you...Anyways the point is I misspent money at 7 different schools...Possibly drinking some of it, eating with some of it, buying tires and a stereo system with it etc etc...Basically being a big old fool.
Believe it or not I was actually one of the good kids who went to class and did study...Most kids I did go with were horrible...Drugs, whores and alcohol...God I miss college!
Anyways, in retrospect kids 18-25 cannot be trusted with huge amounts of money...If they were like me they DON'T understand...They KNOW but they DON'T understand.
I know there's a few exception but as a whole before someone starts ranting how they were a "Walking Saint" in college.
I say go European style...Take a test at the end of HS...Those who are smart go on to college...Those who aren't so clever go to vocational school...Saves money, debt ANNNND some of these guys actually make more money in a real job than as a paper pusher.
I'm almost sure the lil lady in the article was told to "Follow her dreams...Reach for the stars" so she took a fun major...With little to no chance of working in her field.
She probably bought very expensive materials, camaras and equipment...Took expensive field trips to start her portfolio and doesn't sound like she worked during her time in school.
Plus why didn't she take her GE classes at a Junior College or State School...I dare say she did all her time at a very expensive university...Who's to blame?...The girl.
By the way I paid off all my loans.
10:36: That's because you got your degree in the late 90s. Tuition is now about $40k a year, and living expenses will run you $10-15k in most cities. Remember, everything is getting more expensive, except wages generally haven't gone up.
ReplyDeleteHigher education and student loan lending are the two worst industries in our country. Everyone is fed the lie that education will improve their chances at getting a good job. But these schools blatantly lie about employment statistics and salaries. After the suckers graduate without any hope of paying back their loans or having improved their lives in any way, the baby boomer generation simply blames the victim and refuses to call out the charlatans that are screwing over our nation's future.
We are not in the same land scape of the 90s, and definitely not the 80s and 70s when jobs were available, and things were fairly priced.
You have people like 10:36 that take the mentality that because they had it easy it should be easy for everyone else and it's their fault if things don't work out.
And so the injustices continue and the core of this nation rots. After the roots rot what do you think happens to the top of the tree? It will come tumbling down with a simple nudge. That's why we have to take care of problems like these.
Incidentally, all the loan companies are owned by Jews, and they are the ones that set these usurious rates that are prohibited in Christianity (and actually even Islam, just not Judaism). They have a sweet deal set up with the fed and the schools, where the fed just guarantees the loans and prevents discharge through bankruptcy. So the schools lie and then inflate tuitions, students get suckered, and the oligarchy continues.
It's truly a disgusting scam. This is something the mob would have come up with in the past, and they'd just break your kneecaps over it later.
Everything of the Old World is death. It is insane, it is destruction, and quite literally it is being destroyed.
ReplyDeleteI feel ill whenever I go near people who are that attached to the old world. I feel ill just reading about it.
I'm going to sit back now and help formulate the New Education that is being offered now to those of virtue. Anyone else who wants to help build the Ark just ask the Great Spirit what you need to do.
Little time remains, the fallen world is about to be extirpated with the Gnosis.
The SWHTF big time when those of the current lot of suckers who took out student loans for education while they waited for the GFC to go away in a great recovery,find that the jobs they paid for training for, on loans are not available now either.
ReplyDeleteSoon many millions of these student loan debt peons will be desperate as they are forced to eke out a living on food stamps in the american way.
These loans like the underwater mortgage loans of debt peons in housing cannot be repaid.
the government will pick up the tab bailing for the usury .
Expect some radical x students in the coming years.
I have read of one student who did not have to take out student loans because 'foreign" scholarship grants were arranged by the CIA for courses in staring at goats ,arranging micro finance and arms for Pakistani anti communist Muslims, of the bin Laden school
ReplyDeleteand the like top secret courses.
As this is all top secret the actual details of the students courses ,the work done or how it was financed , or the real details of the students nationality have still not been released.
They are national secrets of the education system.
Still , the propaganda skills learned have proved very useful as a community organisor and when reading from a Telepromter to an audience of goats about hope and change.
Bush showed the way how it could be done as a president on 9/11 by demonstrating his own skills by reading to schoolchilden from a kids picture book on goats.
So cool man .
It would be interesting to see student loan debt statistics for those that graduated with degrees in Economics.
ReplyDeleteAll these stories point out is the ignorance of the sheeple. Too dumb to handle money or any aspects of their lives other than watching tv and shoveling crap fast food into their fat bodies.
ReplyDeleteOnly the government can manage their lives.
Gawd you people make me sick.
The government shouldn't be in the business of loaning money for students to go to college. A large part of the dramatic increases in college tuition is the government loans. It is a symbiotic relationship where the school raises tuition and the government raises the limits of the loan amount. If the schools were competing the costs would go down. There is no reason to borrow $20k a year. Go to a community college for the first two years and a four year college for the last two years. Go to a state school not an ivy league school. Take a program that is likely to translate into a good job so you can pay off your debts not photography. If you spend $170k to pursue a hobby you are insane.
ReplyDeleteIt is too little too late for me. My parents are upper middle class, so when it came time to decide on a school my mother’s yearly full take home pay was supposed to help me through school. This is what I was told. I wanted to be, and became an engineer. So I applied to a private school that had a CO-Op program[added an additional year] and was known for engineering, and you could start taking core classes immediately. Due to my parents salaries I received next to nothing in grants or help. I did work a full time Job while in school. This coupled with a severe family problem. It turned out my mother pissed away most of the money set aside for my education I was on my own. I accumulated about $124K in undergraduate federal and state backed loans between 2 and 5% with no accumulated interest. I was paying the interest while in school with little principle. After graduating(2006) this greatly weighed on me, and limited where I could land a job. While interviewing in my mind i knew my monthly payments would be high and my yearly salary had to start near 50K. I consolidated these loans into a 30 year loan, and my monthly payment is $744.00 a month. I basically have two mortgages to account for every month now. I am very fortunate that I found a job right out of school and picked a major that could afford these loans. My plan has been to pay more then the minimum payment each month as my salary increases throughout my career. This though limits how I can live my life, and causes me to make sacrifices. Looking back on it if I knew this was a possibility I would have gone to a public school.
ReplyDeletescary site http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/student-loans-08242010/?display=wide
It turned out my mother pissed away most of the money set aside for my education
ReplyDeleteBitches. LOL
WTF "marriage" in itself is going into debt.
ReplyDeleteand if she's really slick, she could latch some saver type working stiff, divorce and make up her loss with alimony.
She reminds me of the people who try out for American Idol who think they can sing, but can't. She thought a degree in photography would get a job to pay off a 100K-170K loan? Is she delusional? I can see why the guy dumped her. She is terrible at making good choices.
ReplyDelete7:39 I would never blame my mother for not giving me her paycheck for my education. It's hers and there are cheaper public schools that a student could go too. You get no sympathy from me. I paid my own way through UofAZ a few classes at a time while holding down two jobs during the school year and 3 during the summer. Grow up and thank the woman for giving you a roof over your head. Did you pay for your own car or did someone pitch in for that too?
ReplyDelete7:39 I would never blame my mother for not giving me her paycheck for my education. It's hers and there are cheaper public schools that a student could go too.
ReplyDeleteWell put, and I wrote the 7:57 comment.
I put myself through school, commuting to save money, but that is how my family helped--putting a roof over my head and feeding me. Found a good job; company paid for my masters degree; I'm now in the top 3% of earners and did not need a top-school education or $100,000 in loans. I use a lot of that top 3% to acquire gold, silver, guns, ammo, food, etc, and there is still a lot left over for anything else. Return on Investment.
At 10:02. I specifically asked my parents while in the application process if they were going to help me. The answer was yes. I was looking at public schools in case the answer was no to pay my own way. So because she pissed her money away on alcohol she lied to me. Do not tell me to grow up. I have bought all three of my cars used, and at the age of 18 started paying my parents rent, and paying for my own food. So do not talk about something you do not know about, or make assumptions.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to take 10 years for the university/student loan hydra to finally collapse. What happens then? It gets ugly.
ReplyDeleteGo to school, learn nothing, come out and get no job. All that for a mere 170k. Walmart and The Big Mac jobs for a lifetime of debt.
ReplyDeleteYeah that's the other thing, these schools don't teach you any worthwhile skills. But everyone is pressured into going this route because otherwise they are considered lazy or delinquents.
ReplyDeleteThe truly smart of course aren't pressured. Most of the top 100 earners only had an HS degree before they made their money. Many would later go on to get degrees. Most of them also came from money though, so maybe those aren't good examples either.
It seems you need to either be born rich, attractive if you're female, or as a genius. That is also in order of usefulness, there are plenty of intelligent people that get nowhere as well.
to 11:01--the biggest loan company in the U.S. was Countrywide Mortgage, which was responsible for a huge number of sub-prime and reset mortgages that tanked our economy. It was run by an Italian-American Christian. So don't make blanket statements about any group because it's never true.
ReplyDeleteAs for college tuition, the cost is outrageous and most Americans can't afford it without a loan. Congress made it possible for corporations and credit card companies to charge as much as 30% interest. And there are no state laws regarding payday loans--those can have interest as high as 500%!
The managers of a mortgage finance company like Country wide represent the interests of a particular group of major shareholders and moneylenders and companies like that
ReplyDeleteare rarely owned by one individual using his own personal capital.
Country wide may have had a manager/front man claiming to be of Italian –American extraction. Such a manager may even have represented -slander –slander- now respectable Italian Mafia loan shark Capital.
Who Knows?
In any case , Countrywide used “Cheap” government backed Mortgage money ,this money may have been money invested from another set of finance capitalists of Non-Italian-American descent or all those holding treasury Fannie or Freddy Bonds and shares with and Fed created debt Money.
No matter, There was a lot of Fraud at Fannie and Freddie and together as well as Countrywide , the finance capitalist were clearly all a corrupted gang.
The “Italian – American” was simply the front man, the face of that gang at Countrywide but all were knowingly active in sub –prime fraud ,property bubble speculation and fraud.
Victim creation.
That Italian American is no longer the front man and the dud mortgages and losses have been passed over to ownership by the taxpayers .
And Countrywide was passed over to a respectable bunch of banksters not seen as Christian Italian –American.
It is a waste of conspiracy time looking for “ Italian mafia” or “Jews” to see who benefited.
The Usury gangs and banksters were ALL there, in partnership ,in collusion for Fraud , whatever their ‘racial” or “religious” business cultural origin .
They constituted the finance sector of America , scratching each others back in ponzi scheme creation.
They all made huge profits and managers got huge bonuses.
But , the US taxpayer will now get the bill as their losses are socialized in a bailout system organized by the privately owned Fed bank, run or fronted by another group of finance capitalists , who are also not usually seen as Christian Italian American mafia –but a Finance mafia gang of mutual backscratchers.
This must simply be an accidental thing.
Anyway, It is considered bad form to point at the organization of that other Banking gang by Sharonj who correctly wants to point out the involvement of a leading Christian- Italian –Americans in Countrywide too .
Sharonj has correctly Identified a big one to prove it.
“It was run by an Italian-American Christian. So don't make blanket statements about any group because it's never true.”
So do not just point at the names of prominent people of one other particular religion that seem tobe congregated in the center of the banking sector of usury capitalism -now casino bailout capitalism.
This is not only politically incorrect but economically off the mark too ,despite surface appearances, as sharonj points out.
Dont ask dont tell!
11:01 and 7:28 (I presume the same person) - go fuck yourself.
ReplyDeleteImmorality, criminality, stupidity, greed, and a host of other bad characteristics know no bounds in terms of one's religion or ethnic background. Same for good characteristics. Give me a large enough group of people who share a religion or ethnic background, and I'll show you both saints and sinners enough to last you a lifetime. You, yourself, are a perfect example within your own ethnic and religious group of an ignorant, prejudiced asshole - but I'm sure that there are plenty of smart, open-minded and decent people in your group (maybe even in your family)...but clearly you don't qualify. How you can pretend to be a decent Christian is beyond my understanding.
Go crawl back under that rock where you live, and don't come out again until you've finished your psychotherapy and can demonstrate that you are actually taking your meds.
Just for the international student who wrote in about how you could pay your fees- the US government negotiates lower fees for international students because they understand people coming from other countries could never afford the debt load of a standard US university/it will be a moot point anyway because they won't be obligated under US law to pay the government for the rest of their lives after they default as it is impossible not to do with the early start and non-negotiable payment plan on federal & private loans.
ReplyDeletestudent loan debt, regardless of major, is becoming a serious issue and all of the money is going straight to the government and the soulless troglodytes who run Sallie Mae. Think about how our economy would be rejuvenated if they discharged student loans or even renegotiated repayment terms?Can you imagine how the economy would BOOM with educated young people with no kids having money in their hands again? why do you think there are no jobs? no housing markets? its because the young buyers who traditionally have supported the economy are in debt up to their necks thanks to the arbitrary college fees that they were promised would be easily repaid with fabulous jobs outside of school.
i know myself, I was an art major (frivolous, right?) and with that art degree got a job at an architecture firm paying 35$ an hour.Then theh ousing market crashed and 50% of the firm was laid off because there were no houses to build, no work coming in.
people who call photography a "fun major" don't know what they're talking about. its a lot of work, its incredibly hard and competitive but the salaries and opportunities used to be great. maybe there would be more work for photographers if there were more young people not plugged into drone jobs with less than 20$ a month of discretionary income.
put the money back in the hands of the young and watch this country recover. as it is we are all just little money batteries plugged into a government that pays out to special interests and has no problem burning its youth out and collecting its futures with interest.