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> "Their loans are mostly paid off" I'm not sure what bubble you're living in, but some of my tech colleagues (making six figures) have enough student debt tha

> "Their loans are mostly paid off" I'm not sure what bubble you're living in, but some of my tech colleagues (making six figures) have enough student debt that they'll be paying it back for the rest of their working lives. For less well-off people, a single misstep (or illness) can throw them into insolvency. This is an insane price for individuals to shoulder just to get on a level playing field (aka getting an education).

gamegoblin 10y ago
I don't know how it's possible for someone making six figures to have so much student debt they'll spend the rest of their career paying it off. Say you take home 6K/mo after taxes and 401K contributions. This is reasonable for a dev making 100-150K. 2K to rent. 1K to bills, groceries. 1K to entertainment. You can now contribute 2K/mo to your loans. Even with a massive loan of 200K you could pay it off in 10 years.
- shiftpgdn 10y ago
  10% interest that doesn't go away. At 10% interest it would take 18 years to repay a 200k loan at $2,000/month if you never missed a payment or had any penalties.
  - mixedCase 10y ago
    200k loan? What in the everloving f... If you were to move to my country, Uruguay, and pay for rent, normal expenses and private education for 7 years (Comp. Sci. being 4-5yrs) you still would barely be above half that amount of money. Why do you guys pay that much for a degree? Just haven't considered moving (and I don't mean here, I'm pretty sure there are many other countries in a similar or better situation) or is it something else?
    - gamegoblin 10y ago
      Most public universities will be 20K on the low end and 60K on the high end for a degree. It's when you get to private universities that you see 200K+ degrees.
      - x0x0 10y ago
        20k on the low end? Where is charging $5k/year only? Berkeley is $14k, ucsd is $13.5k, UW Madison is $9k, georgia tech is $10k, ohio is $10k, minnesota is $10k (all costs in-state.) I think a more reasonable budget is $25k/year on the low end: tuition, books (often $500-$1k/semester in engineering or similar programs), food, rent, etc. In CA if you live close to a community college, you can do the first two years for much less money and live at home, but we have perpetual budget crises so you will probably have to waste an extra year because you'll have a hard time getting into classes.
        gamegoblin 10y ago
        I was only describing tuition, not cost of living. And took into account taking advantage of community college for all the prerequisites you can. That said, my undergrad in Arkansas was probably only 15K/year with cost of living included. I had friends who paid < $200/mo for rent. Location, location, location.
        x0x0 10y ago
        The numbers I posted are tuition only. Even U Arkansas tuition/fees are $8.5k/year. Two more thoughts: 1 - whether you have access to inexpensive public education also wildly varies depending on where your parents live; 2 - Universities w/ better rep makes it far easier to get those first 1-2 jobs. After that it matters much less, but a great univ will open doors for the rest of your career.
        phil21 10y ago
        > minnesota is $10k Do you have a source for this? Considering I've been looking at in-state MN costs for a couple years now, that's absurdly low. Current costs for in-state attendance including everything reasonable you would expect (aka fees) is more along the lines of $25k/yr then of course add in your daily living expenses on top of it. This of course assumes you will be living on-campus. Even if you assume free rent and free food, you are talking $15k/yr for tuition and books alone.
    - damptowel 10y ago
      I fell out of my chair when I heard what US students pay. It's pure predatory ponzi finance really. Worst, people spin morality plays out of it, without ever doing the math or looking at systemic flows and going... 'hmmm maybe all this talk about personal responsibility and fortitude is completely irrelevant in the face of systemic unsustainability'
tropo 10y ago
They are "making six figures", yet "they'll be paying it back for the rest of their working lives"? How did they end up with over $2 million for debt? (half of $100,000 times 40 years is $2 million) Suppose they took about 7 years to get both BS and MS degrees. (the PhD is normally "free") This would amount to about $300,000 per year. That is overpaying for school by a factor of 6 to 100, depending on the school.
- x0x0 10y ago
  You know, if you make $100k, you don't actually get $100k. In the US, you'd be happy to get low 60s. And if you live in an area like sf, you may reasonably spend $2k/mo after tax to share an apartment.
- iskander 10y ago
  $100k - taxes = ~$65k. Now subtract rent, which in most tech hubs is at least $1500 / month. Now you're left with ~$47k. After the cost of food, transport, and a little travel let's say you still have ~$35k. So each year of working pays for one semester of NYU. Not "the rest of their working lives" but even a generous salary takes a while to chip away at the loans students are currently taking out.
  - tropo 10y ago
    Living within your means could involve Texas. No, I don't mean Austin. I mean real Texas. Actually, it seems the better deal is Florida. (for example, Palm Bay is an easy commute to companies like Harris) You can eat non-organic food, including beans and rice. Do not travel. Carpool with your spouse. Do not buy furniture. Consider the tax advantage of buying a home and having kids. Your taxes plunge. You can end up paying nothing, even with a 6-figure salary. Kids and houses are way more affordable than you might think.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      Sure, you can live in rural tx, but good luck getting a job that pays $100k there. Remote employees can do it, but you're almost certainly not going to get that straight out of university. And this is the first time I've seen someone claim kids net save money =P . That would be, ah, different from the experiences of everyone I know. Also, your calculations ignored interest. Even 5-8% interest on private student loans adds up in a hurry.
mywittyname 10y ago
The typical state school runs $10k/yr (for just tuition); $40,000 of student loan debt should be no problem for a person making $100k/yr to pay down in five years. My partner managed to do that on less than 50k/yr ($800/mo over five years, about 1/4-1/3 of take-home pay at that salary). So, a person making $100k/yr that can't manage to pay for their college education either spends too far too much of their income, or horribly overpaid for school.

gamegoblin 10y ago

I don't know how it's possible for someone making six figures to have so much student debt they'll spend the rest of their career paying it off. Say you take home 6K/mo after taxes and 401K contributions. This is reasonable for a dev making 100-150K. 2K to rent. 1K to bills, groceries. 1K to entertainment. You can now contribute 2K/mo to your loans. Even with a massive loan of 200K you could pay it off in 10 years.

shiftpgdn 10y ago
10% interest that doesn't go away. At 10% interest it would take 18 years to repay a 200k loan at $2,000/month if you never missed a payment or had any penalties.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  200k loan? What in the everloving f... If you were to move to my country, Uruguay, and pay for rent, normal expenses and private education for 7 years (Comp. Sci. being 4-5yrs) you still would barely be above half that amount of money. Why do you guys pay that much for a degree? Just haven't considered moving (and I don't mean here, I'm pretty sure there are many other countries in a similar or better situation) or is it something else?
  - gamegoblin 10y ago
    Most public universities will be 20K on the low end and 60K on the high end for a degree. It's when you get to private universities that you see 200K+ degrees.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      20k on the low end? Where is charging $5k/year only? Berkeley is $14k, ucsd is $13.5k, UW Madison is $9k, georgia tech is $10k, ohio is $10k, minnesota is $10k (all costs in-state.) I think a more reasonable budget is $25k/year on the low end: tuition, books (often $500-$1k/semester in engineering or similar programs), food, rent, etc. In CA if you live close to a community college, you can do the first two years for much less money and live at home, but we have perpetual budget crises so you will probably have to waste an extra year because you'll have a hard time getting into classes.
      - gamegoblin 10y ago
        I was only describing tuition, not cost of living. And took into account taking advantage of community college for all the prerequisites you can. That said, my undergrad in Arkansas was probably only 15K/year with cost of living included. I had friends who paid < $200/mo for rent. Location, location, location.
        x0x0 10y ago
        The numbers I posted are tuition only. Even U Arkansas tuition/fees are $8.5k/year. Two more thoughts: 1 - whether you have access to inexpensive public education also wildly varies depending on where your parents live; 2 - Universities w/ better rep makes it far easier to get those first 1-2 jobs. After that it matters much less, but a great univ will open doors for the rest of your career.
      - phil21 10y ago
        > minnesota is $10k Do you have a source for this? Considering I've been looking at in-state MN costs for a couple years now, that's absurdly low. Current costs for in-state attendance including everything reasonable you would expect (aka fees) is more along the lines of $25k/yr then of course add in your daily living expenses on top of it. This of course assumes you will be living on-campus. Even if you assume free rent and free food, you are talking $15k/yr for tuition and books alone.
  - damptowel 10y ago
    I fell out of my chair when I heard what US students pay. It's pure predatory ponzi finance really. Worst, people spin morality plays out of it, without ever doing the math or looking at systemic flows and going... 'hmmm maybe all this talk about personal responsibility and fortitude is completely irrelevant in the face of systemic unsustainability'

tropo 10y ago

They are "making six figures", yet "they'll be paying it back for the rest of their working lives"? How did they end up with over $2 million for debt? (half of $100,000 times 40 years is $2 million) Suppose they took about 7 years to get both BS and MS degrees. (the PhD is normally "free") This would amount to about $300,000 per year. That is overpaying for school by a factor of 6 to 100, depending on the school.

x0x0 10y ago
You know, if you make $100k, you don't actually get $100k. In the US, you'd be happy to get low 60s. And if you live in an area like sf, you may reasonably spend $2k/mo after tax to share an apartment.
iskander 10y ago
$100k - taxes = ~$65k. Now subtract rent, which in most tech hubs is at least $1500 / month. Now you're left with ~$47k. After the cost of food, transport, and a little travel let's say you still have ~$35k. So each year of working pays for one semester of NYU. Not "the rest of their working lives" but even a generous salary takes a while to chip away at the loans students are currently taking out.
- tropo 10y ago
  Living within your means could involve Texas. No, I don't mean Austin. I mean real Texas. Actually, it seems the better deal is Florida. (for example, Palm Bay is an easy commute to companies like Harris) You can eat non-organic food, including beans and rice. Do not travel. Carpool with your spouse. Do not buy furniture. Consider the tax advantage of buying a home and having kids. Your taxes plunge. You can end up paying nothing, even with a 6-figure salary. Kids and houses are way more affordable than you might think.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    Sure, you can live in rural tx, but good luck getting a job that pays $100k there. Remote employees can do it, but you're almost certainly not going to get that straight out of university. And this is the first time I've seen someone claim kids net save money =P . That would be, ah, different from the experiences of everyone I know. Also, your calculations ignored interest. Even 5-8% interest on private student loans adds up in a hurry.

mywittyname 10y ago

The typical state school runs $10k/yr (for just tuition); $40,000 of student loan debt should be no problem for a person making $100k/yr to pay down in five years. My partner managed to do that on less than 50k/yr ($800/mo over five years, about 1/4-1/3 of take-home pay at that salary). So, a person making $100k/yr that can't manage to pay for their college education either spends too far too much of their income, or horribly overpaid for school.