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YouTube is such a fine resource for learning things. It\u2019s only drawback (beyond the way how it supports pedophilia and censors counter-narrative views) is the one common to any learning tool: if you don\u2019t know what you should know, you\u2019re unlikely to learn it. Today I\u2019ll highlight a couple stories which strike me as fairly typical.<\/p>\n
A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic<\/strong><\/em> Student loan debt in this country is now around $1.5 trillion. When I started this blog 5 years ago, it was under a trillion dollars, but it can only head up, because these loans, in many cases, simply cannot be paid back. Trouble is, numbers this large are just statistics, they don\u2019t register for most people.<\/p>\n YouTube to the rescue, as it has individual testimonials, \u201csingle deaths\u201d of people from student loan debt. I want to highlight a few, because what we\u2019re doing to our next generation with these debts is positively criminal\u2026though in today\u2019s generally lawless society (at least for those at the top), no charges will ever be filed.<\/p>\n My first story is from an art student<\/a> who ran up over $100,000 in student loan debt.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was my lack of experience, and my naivety, that put me in this position\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In order for a student to qualify for student loans, the student must go to an accredited school. Accredited schools certify, in writing<\/em>, that they will act with integrity\u2026but many accredited schools regularly exploit lack of experience and naivety in kids as they come out of high school, signing them up for a mountain of debt.<\/p>\n So, yes, there are those who point and laugh at this art student for foolishly getting so much debt for an art degree\u2026but I find this as unsettling as pointing and laughing at a baby for crying when an adult rips candy from the baby\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026I owe over $100,000, and that number will continue to grow\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It didn\u2019t start out this way for her. She graduated with a \u201cmere\u201d $16,000 in debt, and even got a job. So what happened?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026in 2009 I went back to school to get an MFA in art so I could be an art professor\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The above is how many get smashed by student loans. After they get their bachelor\u2019s and see that there\u2019s not much available, they go back to grad school. Now, yes, at this point perhaps the schools are no longer taking advantage of kids right out of high school but we still have a problem. The schools know full well they\u2019re offering graduate degrees in fields that can\u2019t pay back what they\u2019re charging, as only the schools are hiring those graduate degrees (and moreover the schools flood the market with people for these scarce jobs)…they set the pay, you see. There\u2019s an obvious conflict of interest here as the schools once again knowingly engage in hurtful behavior.<\/p>\n By 2011, she graduated with over $90,000 in debt, got another job and started making payments. Trouble was, the payments were too much based on what the school was paying her, so she asked for help.<\/p>\n She got reamed.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026I got in an IBR repayment plan\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Most student loans are in default, or would be if they were being honestly accounted. One trick is \u201cIBR\u201d repayment, \u201cIncome Based Repayment,\u201d which lowers your payments based on your income. There are many variations on IBR, but they all screw you. Even if you\u2019re not being paid much, you\u2019re making payments, so it\u2019s all good, right? Nope:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026my loan hadn\u2019t gone down\u2026my loan went up $4,000\u2026I\u2019ve been paying every month\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, you\u2019re making payments, but you\u2019re not covering the interest, so your loan goes up, now there\u2019s more principal on the loan, so you owe more interest you can\u2019t pay. It\u2019s a death spiral. She didn\u2019t know what she was signing up for.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026you shouldn\u2019t have to get a degree in finance to get a degree\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n She had no idea how she was being screwed, but she\u2019s not alone, there are 40,000,000 people with student loans now. Many of them are being tricked into this abyss.<\/p>\n Our schools have millions and millions of dollars to pay the coach of even a badly losing team, and millions more to pay the coach after he leaves the school. But they have no money at all available to stop this, even though these scams have been screwing over their students for years now.<\/p>\n She\u2019s already figured out her job as a professor will never pay back the system that indebted her to become a professor, and she\u2019s learned, too late, that even though she\u2019ll be effectively bankrupt forever, she can\u2019t clear her student loan through bankruptcy, even though she was taken advantage of every step of the way to her mountain of student loan debt.<\/p>\n I assure the gentle reader, this particular student is very far from alone. She has some good advice, too late to help herself with it\u2026but I doubt any prospective student will ever hear her words of wisdom freely available on YouTube, because how would they find her?<\/p>\n My next student accrued over $200,000 in debt, again getting suckered into the \u201cgo get a graduate degree\u201d trap.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026at the community college it was like, here, take this free money\u2026I was not fiscally wise\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So many kids are cheated like this in community college, it\u2019s pathetic. Some 28% of students with loan debt don\u2019t even know it<\/a>. How could that possibly happen in a system acting with integrity? Doing the math that means well over 10,000,000 of our kids with student loan debt had no idea they signed up for it until after school. The vast majority of community colleges should be shut down, plain and simple.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026undergrad, I accrued about $45,000 in\u2026debt.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n She immediately went back to grad school, spending another 6 years getting her Ph.D. She didn\u2019t have to make payments while in grad school, and thought that was great\u2026but once again the interest on that loan simply compounded.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026over $200,000 accruing at 5.8% every month\u2026I just don\u2019t think about it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n When she finishes paying this off (if she does), she\u2019ll have paid over $750,000 for this loan. The actual cost to the school for educating her was probably around $10,000. How is this not exploitative? She wasn\u2019t dealing with a sketchy fly-by-night loan place, either:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026this is Sally Mae. They just got handed billions of dollars!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It really is demented how our country\u2019s system creates money from nothing, and uses it to enslave, rather than help, the citizens. I sure look forward to a time when I\u2019m not so alone in wondering why we have such an evil system.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026work in a field where I make nothing\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I again point out: the schools charging so much for graduate degrees know they\u2019re trapping the students into a deadly system, because they know how much professors will make.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026how ridiculous higher education has become\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Well, at least she learned something in her ordeal. Too bad finding these types of videos is too tough to expect kids to see them before stumbling onto campus.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026the thing that makes me the saddest\u2026I wanted to be a parent\u2026.the more we make the more we pay in student loans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n She\u2019s now heading towards her late 30s, and is doomed. By the time she pays off that debt, assuming she can, she\u2019ll be close to 60. So, theoretically, at the age of 60, she\u2019ll be able to afford to have a child. Higher education didn\u2019t just enslave her, they\u2019ve effectively sterilized a generation, and in many cases they\u2019re taking the most intelligent of our population out of the gene pool.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026they sell you this dream world with no intention of following up.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The schools have a very bloody hand in the carnage they\u2019ve wreaked on a whole generation. I shouldn\u2019t be alone in seeing that higher education has a real problem here.<\/p>\n More importantly, I shouldn\u2019t be alone in seeing how to fix it: end the student loan scam.<\/p>\n www.professorconfess.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n–attributed to Stalin.<\/p>\n