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For federal student loans, there isn't a life of indentured servitude. There are income based repayment plans that with fairly low costs per month. A single guy
by learc83 11y ago
For federal student loans, there isn't a life of indentured servitude. There are income based repayment plans that with fairly low costs per month. A single guy working at starbucks making 30k per year would only pay about $100 per month even with a 200k loan (if he had a wife and kid, he'd pay nothing). Then after 20 years the rest is forgiven.
- zardo 11y agoIn year 20 he pays income tax on the forgiven amount. He'd better be saving up for that.
- learc83 11y agoThat's never going to happen. Too many people are affected for congress not to act before the tax bill comes due. The economic effects are too large for them to ignore.
- s73v3r 11y agoMuch like the economic effects of not passing a budget, or the economic effects of a temporary government shutdown for petty reasons?
- learc83 11y agoMost people don't really care about government shutdowns because it doesn't directly cost most people much money. And, even then you'll notice the government never stays shutdown. If government shutdowns meant a huge chunk of the voting population (across both parties) was suddenly going to owe thousands of dollars in extra taxes, you can bet they'd never happen.
- macNchz 11y agoThat system exemplifies what seems to be a growing issue these days–people with too little income get programs like that to help them squeeze by, people making lots of money pay them back without a problem, and the people in between kind of float along paying enough monthly that they put off buying a house or having kids or starting a business because they have 10+ years of loan payments. The long term outcome of this doesn't seen like a healthy society to me.
- draw_down 11y agoA lot of the loans that people hold are not federal loans.
- learc83 11y agoThere's about $1.2 trillion in outstanding student loans. $1 trillion of that is in federal student loans.