Simple fact: about 85% of student loan balances are federally guaranteed, and over time that percentage is increasing.
With federally guaranteed student loans - the situation is a very clear zero sum game - what the student/borrower fails to repay, the taxpayer will repay.
Find that in the attached article. Nine yards of sympathetic treatment of folks who were smart enough to know what they were signing up for, but unwilling to repay the money they borrowed to attend school. And now the government and the servicers are the bad guys. Just listen to Elizabeth Warren get on her high horse and rail at servicers. Why those bastards are trying to collect on the loans taken out by the students! The temerity!
The fellow who has the $300k balance at age 61 may well die with it, and his estate will probably satisfy a small sliver of the debt then due. That's when the Treasury makes an accounting entry and the taxpayers pick up the tab.
Lazy journalists manage to present the details of the poor schmuck graduates who have large loan balances they cannot service, but they never find time to cover the poor schmuck taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for the degree in Women's Studies at Brown that didn't led to a productive job with enough disposable income to pay back the debt.
So very true. The government has to be gotten out of loan guarantees so the price of college can fall. It wasn’t so very long ago that a student could work their way through college-now it’s out of the question and most of that money goes to support left wing indoctrination.
Sounds like my erstwhile brother in law. Loser lawyer at 26 after failing the bar 5 times. A whole lot of nothing in between, two kids a Doctor Wife, divorce. Dropped from the bar for I guess is abandoning clients. Reinstated after psychiatric help, now 63, busted for Confidence scheme and embezzlement and living at home with my ex-wife. That is until jail time comes around.
While I realize that occasionally a debtor duffers some unforeseeable difficulties that can delay or compromise repayment ( therefore the lending provision for loan losses), that’s not the substance of the problem today. Rather, the problem is mostly that many students borrow funds imprudently - usually for courses of study that are patently useless or poorly needed in the job market. It is imprudent to lend large amounts of money to persons who have little or no serious plans to repay Obama created this problem by his unilateral seizure , takeover of the student loan market. He should be forced to repay these very very foreseeable losses to the American taxpayers. Put him in Guantanamo , give him a sledge hammer and a nice big pile of rocks.
Effin idiot, with no aspirations.
He went to law school and could never find gainful employment to pay off $55k?
Bow did be ever vraduate?
To be fair, apparently I kent speil.
Thanks to my public screwel education.
Still, $55K doesn’t seem like a lot of money.
Cars and trucks cost that much.
If the borrower then went through rehabilitation to take her loan out of default, a collection fee of 16 percent would be added to her new loan, increasing her debt to around $50,000.
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Predatory banks working hand in glove with the Federal government. What could go wrong.
There is something that all the commenters seem to have missed so far. He is now 61, and took out this loan in the 1990s. He was already at least in his mid-30s then and wasn’t smart enough to figure out the math!
Has he checked his credit score for free on Credit Karma?
Here’s a nickel,Rick....call somebody who cares!
The rational solution (there is only one) is to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy.
The universities have been promising a value they knew that they weren’t delivering for many decades.
He jus need a new Soc.
BTW, I graduated in 1976 with a BS in Engineering, and no debt. I have paid off my house, and retired early. Not rich, but doing OK.
The student loan debt problem was one created by a combination of corrupt politicians and greedy educators.
A partial solution would be to start taxing the multi-billion dollar endowment funds that the big money universities are sitting on. Use that to buy down the debt.
Then change the bankruptcy laws to let the debt, but not the principal, be discharged in a 7 or 13.
Then I tried for that Loan forgiveness because I was teaching in an inner city middle school in downtown L.A., and let me tell you, I was providing one hell of a social service, working with some of those kids. But due to a technicality, I also didn't qualify.
But in the end, I retrenched, and paid off all my debt. I made my last student loan payment in March, and 14 years after graduating, finally finished it off. It was a burden that I still don't feel quite free of. Like I have residual pressure still lingering in my chest. But it's gone, and once I've built up my savings to a respectable level, I think I'll finally breathe free again.
Clarence Thomas took a type of loan that required a long payout. He was actually an Associate Justice on SCOTUS and still paying student loans.
That said, I also believe that taking student loans for most degrees is pretty foolish.
On the flip side, one of my kids graduates Saturday with a aerospace engineering degree. He has about $15,000 in loans and owes us about $10,000. He had some decent scholarships and his college job actually had education reimbursement. He should be at a high enough income level that the loans can be paid off quickly.
I’m one of those weird Dave Ramsey sort of people. We rarely had any debt besides our house. We just took out a car loan simply because the interest payment is far less than the revenue we’re making on the investments. Plus, the engineer should be making our car payments for us
Hitler 2.0 is going to get elected in this country on a promise to forgive student loans.
Just sayin’.
Graduate from college and have no understanding of money, debt, work, Christianity, the Truth.
“The biggest reason Tallini’s student loan debt increased so much is because of his extended periods of nonpayment...”
“Nonpayment”? Isn’t that like...not paying back money that you owe? Money you agreed to pay?
I have no sympathy for this deadbeat.