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There are multiple issues at play here, but it all comes down to mis-management of available funds. 1. Parent's (or grandparents) and student's not appropriate

There are multiple issues at play here, but it all comes down to mis-management of available funds. 1. Parent's (or grandparents) and student's not appropriately preparing for debt that a student will incur. If you know there is going to be a large debt in the future, stop buying and save. No one need's x-mas presents, no one need's that $30k car, no one need's to go on vacation. We as a culture are in the habit of spending and then complaining about our college debt. 2. Paying for college tuitions that we really don't need. If you don't have the available fund's to pay $20k a year for your undergrad, then don't. Go to a community college and pay 1/3 of the cost. Or better yet, take half the classes, live at home, create a budget, and pay for your school (or at least books) as you go. I have never heard of anyone being turned down for a job because of their undergrad being from a no-name college. Usually it's because the students want the "college experience" and then have to reap the cost of it later. 3. Mis-management of available fund's after college. College debt is debt. It may be a little more flexible than a credit card, but debt is debt. Live in the smallest house you can find, buy older cars, no vacations, no eating out. Pay off the debt that you agreed to, and then move on. I've seen too many people buying large homes, new vehicles, buying junk, and then complaining that they still have student debt. 4. Only go to college for a purpose, not because you feel the "need" to. Stop going to college just to go. Go to college with a purpose that will impact your life later in your years. So many people begin college no knowing at all what they want to do, change majors, and end up doing nothing related to their education. 5. Spend on your degree based upon your expected return. If you are getting your degree in liberal arts, do not spend $80k on your degree - you will not receive a balanced return on your investment. Now, this article really has to do with parents and grandparent's co-signing for students and how the parents/grandparents are now on the hook for this debt. If there were required curriculums in high schools on how to manage money and how to manage debt, a lot of these types of articles would disappear. Or better yet, if people were not allowed credit until their student loans were paid. Some just can't afford to pay off loan's quickly, and I feel for them. But if you are making $70k a year and cannot pay off your loans, you are mismanaging your money. In regard's to the elderly in this article that are on the hook for this student debt, I have no remorse. They have lived long enough to understand money management and debt. If they allowed their grandchildren free access to debt using their credit, then they should either have a plan in place for repayment or been willing to bankroll the debt themselves.

mywittyname 10y ago
> r better yet, take half the classes, live at home, create a budget, and pay for your school (or at least books) as you go. I have never heard of anyone being turned down for a job because of their undergrad being from a no-name college. This was possible in 2004, but it hasn't been possible since ~2014. Back in 2004, community colleges were like ~$100/wk (~$1500/semester) in tuition, which is somewhat affordable out of pocket by a working student living at home. Those costs have gone up to like $250/wk ($3750 semester) which is a lot more than I suspect most part time jobs would pay. But the underlying message is apt. This is probably your best college strategy if you didn't end up with some sort of scholarship to another school (and come from a stable home).
- soulnothing 10y ago
  I can attest to this I did community college in 08 -> 11. I was averaging about 1500 a semester. With books being low hundreds. A friend started community college Jan of last year. It was 5000 for the semester. In addition the books for the first semester were ~850, if I recall. Then for the culinary program a cook kit was required. You could only use the school licensed one, which I think was another 400. The worse thing was they had custom published core text books for the school. I.E. community college of Philadelphia Algebra 101. I checked with my old community college and they did the same. You could no longer save money by grabbing a used book.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
Why are you placing all the moral blame on the heads of borrowers, and not lenders? The simple fact of the aging baby-boomer generation demands national and generational scale saving. The only way saving works on that scale is by making promises to provide something of real value later - infrastructure breaks down, capital becomes obsolete, consumer goods get consumed, but debt will remain. The end result of people getting better at saving for college is that there's more pressure to make riskier loans in other sectors of the economy. Advertising budgets for 0 down 0% interest auto loans go up. Banks are more willing to loan out money for remodeling your house. Credit cards get issued for greater limits and to more people. At a macro level, the existence of pension funds and retirement savings means that as a whole, we are going to exchange current goods and services in exchange for promising to take care of the elderly in the future. If we tighten our belts, all it means is that interest rates go down until it balances out again. The only question is what sort of things we get today, and at what terms. Is a higher education experience the best thing to mortgage our society's future for? Cars? Houses? Health care? Ipads, televisions, and expensive lunches? tl;dr - savings and debt are counter-parties to each other. If we want to have retirees live comfortably by drawing down their savings, we necessarily have to have current workers paying off their debts. If current workers as a whole set their lives up to shovel less money into student loan debt, it'd kick off systematic processes that increase how much of their other debt they end up paying off.

mywittyname 10y ago

> r better yet, take half the classes, live at home, create a budget, and pay for your school (or at least books) as you go. I have never heard of anyone being turned down for a job because of their undergrad being from a no-name college. This was possible in 2004, but it hasn't been possible since ~2014. Back in 2004, community colleges were like ~$100/wk (~$1500/semester) in tuition, which is somewhat affordable out of pocket by a working student living at home. Those costs have gone up to like $250/wk ($3750 semester) which is a lot more than I suspect most part time jobs would pay. But the underlying message is apt. This is probably your best college strategy if you didn't end up with some sort of scholarship to another school (and come from a stable home).

soulnothing 10y ago
I can attest to this I did community college in 08 -> 11. I was averaging about 1500 a semester. With books being low hundreds. A friend started community college Jan of last year. It was 5000 for the semester. In addition the books for the first semester were ~850, if I recall. Then for the culinary program a cook kit was required. You could only use the school licensed one, which I think was another 400. The worse thing was they had custom published core text books for the school. I.E. community college of Philadelphia Algebra 101. I checked with my old community college and they did the same. You could no longer save money by grabbing a used book.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

Why are you placing all the moral blame on the heads of borrowers, and not lenders? The simple fact of the aging baby-boomer generation demands national and generational scale saving. The only way saving works on that scale is by making promises to provide something of real value later - infrastructure breaks down, capital becomes obsolete, consumer goods get consumed, but debt will remain. The end result of people getting better at saving for college is that there's more pressure to make riskier loans in other sectors of the economy. Advertising budgets for 0 down 0% interest auto loans go up. Banks are more willing to loan out money for remodeling your house. Credit cards get issued for greater limits and to more people. At a macro level, the existence of pension funds and retirement savings means that as a whole, we are going to exchange current goods and services in exchange for promising to take care of the elderly in the future. If we tighten our belts, all it means is that interest rates go down until it balances out again. The only question is what sort of things we get today, and at what terms. Is a higher education experience the best thing to mortgage our society's future for? Cars? Houses? Health care? Ipads, televisions, and expensive lunches? tl;dr - savings and debt are counter-parties to each other. If we want to have retirees live comfortably by drawing down their savings, we necessarily have to have current workers paying off their debts. If current workers as a whole set their lives up to shovel less money into student loan debt, it'd kick off systematic processes that increase how much of their other debt they end up paying off.