Grading Student Loans

[gangsterdorothy]

Grading Student Loans

Meta Brown, Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Maricar Mabutas,*
and Wilbert van der Klaauw

Student loans support the education of millions of students nationwide, yet much is unknown about the student loan market. Relevant data are limited and, for the most part, anecdotal. Also, sources tend to focus on recent college graduates

Comments

[celtic_thistle]

If my student loans were forgiven I would probably cry in joy. They're not bad, and fortunately I can make my payments, but lord, to not have that $25,000 hanging over my head for the next several years would be amazing.

[deathchibi]

Yeah. :( And here I am eyeing grad school when there's not much for Master's aside from loans or hope I can get a TAship. I already have about 23k as it sits.

[romp]

They won't forgive people who can't make payments tho', right? So it seems like those who most need it won't get loans forgiven.

[roseofjuly]

Right now, under IBR, if you make under a certain income you are not required to make payments, but I believe those months still count towards the current 25-year requirement. So if you make under $20K for 25 years and can never pay, the rest of your loan (all of it, basically) is forgiven. I think.

[purple01_prose]

I'm firmly in the camp that the govt should write a law essentially saying all student loans need to have a fixed interest rate between 6-8%, no matter if the lender is private or not. Otherwise, there's far too much predatory lending, and isn't predatory lending one of the (many) factors that led to the recession in the first place?

[maenads_dance]

I would support that. I also support what President Obama mentioned in the State of the Union - namely, cost control at the university level, so that the federal gov't isn't essentially subsidizing universities to increase tuition and associated fees faster than inflation.

[roseofjuly]

This is what we need the most - if universities know that the feds are simply going to raise Pell and loan amounts in response to rising tuition, they are just going to raise tuition. My alma mater's tuition was $11,000 when I entered in 2004; now, it's over $19,000. In just 6 years it went up 72%.

[doverz]

I don't even know how much I owe in student loans after 4 years of my undergrad, nor do I want to think about how much more I will owe after I eventually go for my PhD in Clinical Psych.

[roseofjuly]

Most good clinical psychology PhD programs are funded - the program pays your tuition and fees, plus health insurance, plus give you a stipend for 5 years. In fact, I would strongly suggest that if you do NOT get a funded offer for a PhD program in clinical psychology, you should try again next year - do NOT take an unfunded PhD/PsyD offer in psychology.

And although it's scary, you should probably find out from your lender(s) how much you owe.

[mrasaki]

The student loan system needs a massive overhaul, imo, but it needs to start with the soaring cost of education. You WANT your young graduates, your highly educated, to start out with as little of a burden as possible to maximize their contribution to the economy.

At least have student debt not count against your credit score (it counts as debt, which hurts if your income is still starting-salary or ZERO) which inhibits a person's ability to buy a car, get a mortgage, all kinds of things. I mean, it counts as an investment towards the future, doesn't it? jeez. I have more than triple the national average of student debt because I went to grad school (yay) and thank god I have a good job now (I SHOULD be paid off in 20 years); my cousin was musing the other week that if he died all of his student loan debt (which is in the six figures b/c he's in medical school) would be forgiven.

This entire situation has gotten out of hand.

[kyra_neko_rei]

I've heard that the cost of education is in part enabled by the availability of student loans . . . they raise tuition because they can, because they've got a reasonably-sized market of students who are willing to take out ever-larger loans.

Dunno what to do about it though; these things rise slowly and steadily but they don't come down without some kind of crash.

[katie_g_lynn]

I have heard that too. When student loans first became available back in the day, tuition costs immediately went up, and I feel it's been that way ever since. It really is quite a scam.

[kyra_neko_rei]

And now colleges price their courses under the assumption that everybody can access them.

[maenads_dance]

As of three days ago, I have 3.49 in my checking account and .49 in my savings account - and 9,005.38 owed to one lender, and 15422.93 to another. I completely cleared out all the money I had to cover both of my loans due this week. Luckily, because I've just started school again my loans are going to go into deferment, but I have no idea what I would have done as someone who's unemployed and living with family to pay off my combined loan payment of 382 dollars a month. I mean, I've totally wiped out all the savings I had accrued from the seasonal work I had this past summer; I probably won't be employed again until this coming summer. Debt and the kindness of my family is the only thing that's keeping me going right now.

Hate this. Hate hate hate.

[romp]

I'm sorry. This article at least made me feel we're in with a lot of other people.