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Let it burn down. No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. This is a scheme in which they've fucked over a large portion of the pop

Let it burn down. No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. This is a scheme in which they've fucked over a large portion of the population with the skyrocketing prices of education. Further, this education is the regularly accepted means of increasing your production. Society says you have to do this, and then continuously increases the price, without reason. The gist of this is; some shithead, many years ago decided to increase his bottom lines by fucking with future generations and our ability to output... when they started this whole fucking problem, and you know what? Let it burn to the ground. You know who's not gonna lose a bunch of money? The people in student debt, we already fucking have.

grawprog 8y ago
Yeah...honestly student loans make the future feel bleak and pointless anyway. The amount of interest that gets put on every month makes paying it back fucking pointless as it is. Unless I like starving and not paying rent so I can do more than just stop the loan from getting bigger while paying it. Meh...I figure maybe society will just collapse at some point and it won't matter anyway. Either that or a bunch of people are going to start going crazy because of this and things will get interesting.
- indentured 8y ago
  You’re being downvoted for some reason, but you’re saying what I and other Millennials are feeling. Don’t feel bad. I too have an insane amount of debt. I can’t buy a house until my late 30s, if ever (why would I want another money sink, though?) We were just doing what everyone told us to do to be successful, and we got fucked. At least we’ll all go down together.
pxeboot 8y ago
This would be beautiful to see. Considering the scope of the population affected, there would be little to no recourse if everybody collectively decided to stop paying at the same time. If you trash every millennials credit score, the scores would become worthless.
- AlkurahCepheus 8y ago
  And then the government will step in. They will tell everybody that these companies are too big to fail, and hence the market rules don't apply to them. And eventually the government will bail them out--with tax payers money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2wNKlVRzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2wNKlVRzE
  - twoodfin 8y ago
    “These companies” are the US Federal government, at least for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education took over all federally guaranteed loans (the vast majority of undergraduate loans) almost a decade ago. They’re only serviced by private companies, who wouldn’t need a bailout; it would only be the taxpayer on the hook.
- ianai 8y ago
  If it were ever going to be possible to orchestrate at scale, now’s the time. It would take a vast amount of people acting as a bloc. I wonder if some sort of cloud sourced banking could be worked out to make it feasible. Trying to float a startup bank with student loans, for instance - but that’s clearly outlawed. Maybe some crowdfunding of a bank start up through small monthly contributions. Instead of needing a good credit score to be able to purchase things, buying into a monthly alternative to the credit market. Flying by the seat of my pants here - Maybe sell gamified returns for appropriate length investments. So the customer signs up at cost X. Every month they contribute X dollars. The company stores those funds in cash equivalents. At any time, the customer can pause or cash out their payments to that point. After a year, the company stores those funds in instruments that pay out in a year, maybe, or the company just keeps them in cash equivalents. After a year, the customer can qualify for a loan of 12*X+Y through the company. Y being 0 or some present value of the customers promised future payments.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
>No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. Sorry. But you took a debt, you pay it back. Integrity isn’t outdated. I agree that the idea and industry behind “13th grade” is dumb. Obviously not every kid should be encouraged to take on debt to go to college. But “stop paying your debts” is a bad message imo.
- wrong_variable 8y ago
  > But “stop paying your debts” is a bad message imo. Not really. - Do you own a debt to your parents with a interest rate of 25% because they gave birth to you ? - Do you own rent to planet earth for living in it ? Debt can be unreasonable, just like wealth can be unreasonable. Its why governments intervene to destroy large amount of concentrated wealth and Egyptian pharaohs used to periodically clear everybody's debt. The culture of " Paying your debt " is created by the small number of creditors who historically have controlled information flow, because they understand that society in aggregate has strong bargaining power.
  - Sir_Vival 8y ago
    You don't choose to be born. You choose to take out the loan. You sign forms telling you exactly how much it will cost you in the end. It's a decision. I can't imagine anyone saying "Let's all stop paying our Auto loans! They were unfair and predatory." You made the decision. Own up to it. If you can't do the math at 18 years old you shouldn't be going to university anyways.
- arbitrary_name 8y ago
  Let's take the morality out of it. It's been injected in there for the benefit of the lenders. They charge an interest rate to cover their risk. Right now, with the fact that debt holders cannot default, they are getting an unfair deal. Defaulting on the debt and refusing to pay effectively triggers the risk that they were charging interest on. Like strikers refusing to work until better working conditions are provided, so too are debtors withholding payment doing something noble.
asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
That would be the end of poor people going to college in this country, at least under the current legislative regime. The only reason anyone loans money to poor people to go to college right now is because they know the recipients can't get out from under the loans. A no-collateral loan to someone with few assets or prospects just wouldn't happen if that provision in the law didn't exist. Or the interest rate would be enormous. But if the interest rate were high then defaults would be high. So you'd probably have some sort of death spiral. No, I doubt such lending would happen any more. Now, the legislative regime could change. But it would have to change quite a bit to get significant increases in funding for college. Or maybe it's better if poor people just don't go to college? That's questionable at best. I think this problem is a lot harder than people on this thread are making it out to be. Making student loan debt bankruptcy proof is within the Overton window in this country. I guess not making it bankruptcy-proof with no other changes is also within that window. Free or reduced price college tuition for the vast swathes of people who need it to attend is just outside, so it's definitely a foreseeable outcome, but if we don't get there in the next two decades that wouldn't surprise me either.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  Yeah we'd have to do something crazy like say fund it....like we do K-12...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    That's an option, but not one that most Americans would support today, and probably not tomorrow either. At least not after you tell them what it would mean for taxes. All the pithy internet retorts to the contrary won't change this fact.
    - nickthemagicman 8y ago
      "Not one Americans would support" "Taxes would increase" 100% bonafide baseless claims. Have some vision friend. There are alternatives even though you can't think of them.
bronco21016 8y ago
It sounds great but good luck. I’ve been struggling with my $97k student loan debt for 9 years and I’m finally on the downhill slide. There’s no way I’m wrecking all the work I’ve already put in at this point. I suspect many others would feel the same way.
viraptor 8y ago
This may happen automatically with another recession or X market collapse... But it's not like the borrowers will be completely unaffected in that case.
booleandilemma 8y ago
Or, you know, you could just pay your debt, like any self-respecting person would.
- pyrophane 8y ago
  When companies can't pay back a loan they declare bankruptcy without a second thought and face little societal judgment for doing so, but when individuals do the same thing is labeled not just as a financial shortcoming but as a moral weakness as well. I think that attitude causes a lot of harm. People subject themselves to a great deal of suffering to avoid having to say "I can't pay this back," when sometimes that is exactly what they should do.
  - will4274 8y ago
    > When companies can't pay back a loan they [...] face little societal judgment for doing so Citation needed. At least where I'm from, the stereotype of the corner grocery store that declares bankruptcy every 7 years is still shared as a negative
    - indentured 8y ago
      If the worst I could do is get a bad reputation I would gladly discharge the $100,000 I owe... Because at the end of the day, maybe that store is viewed negatively, but guess what? They’re still not in debt anymore.
      - will4274 8y ago
        That's a different topic than the thread you replied to, but the answer is that you could never have gotten the loan if you could have gotten it discharged for free on graduation day.
- davesque 8y ago
  Useless comment. I paid all my student debt and I don't feel like I gained any self-respect from it.
YaxelPerez 8y ago
A little hyperinflation would go a long way.
- masonic 8y ago
  It's doing wonders in Venezuela.

grawprog 8y ago

Yeah...honestly student loans make the future feel bleak and pointless anyway. The amount of interest that gets put on every month makes paying it back fucking pointless as it is. Unless I like starving and not paying rent so I can do more than just stop the loan from getting bigger while paying it. Meh...I figure maybe society will just collapse at some point and it won't matter anyway. Either that or a bunch of people are going to start going crazy because of this and things will get interesting.

indentured 8y ago
You’re being downvoted for some reason, but you’re saying what I and other Millennials are feeling. Don’t feel bad. I too have an insane amount of debt. I can’t buy a house until my late 30s, if ever (why would I want another money sink, though?) We were just doing what everyone told us to do to be successful, and we got fucked. At least we’ll all go down together.

pxeboot 8y ago

This would be beautiful to see. Considering the scope of the population affected, there would be little to no recourse if everybody collectively decided to stop paying at the same time. If you trash every millennials credit score, the scores would become worthless.

AlkurahCepheus 8y ago
And then the government will step in. They will tell everybody that these companies are too big to fail, and hence the market rules don't apply to them. And eventually the government will bail them out--with tax payers money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2wNKlVRzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2wNKlVRzE
- twoodfin 8y ago
  “These companies” are the US Federal government, at least for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education took over all federally guaranteed loans (the vast majority of undergraduate loans) almost a decade ago. They’re only serviced by private companies, who wouldn’t need a bailout; it would only be the taxpayer on the hook.
ianai 8y ago
If it were ever going to be possible to orchestrate at scale, now’s the time. It would take a vast amount of people acting as a bloc. I wonder if some sort of cloud sourced banking could be worked out to make it feasible. Trying to float a startup bank with student loans, for instance - but that’s clearly outlawed. Maybe some crowdfunding of a bank start up through small monthly contributions. Instead of needing a good credit score to be able to purchase things, buying into a monthly alternative to the credit market. Flying by the seat of my pants here - Maybe sell gamified returns for appropriate length investments. So the customer signs up at cost X. Every month they contribute X dollars. The company stores those funds in cash equivalents. At any time, the customer can pause or cash out their payments to that point. After a year, the company stores those funds in instruments that pay out in a year, maybe, or the company just keeps them in cash equivalents. After a year, the customer can qualify for a loan of 12*X+Y through the company. Y being 0 or some present value of the customers promised future payments.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

>No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. Sorry. But you took a debt, you pay it back. Integrity isn’t outdated. I agree that the idea and industry behind “13th grade” is dumb. Obviously not every kid should be encouraged to take on debt to go to college. But “stop paying your debts” is a bad message imo.

wrong_variable 8y ago
> But “stop paying your debts” is a bad message imo. Not really. - Do you own a debt to your parents with a interest rate of 25% because they gave birth to you ? - Do you own rent to planet earth for living in it ? Debt can be unreasonable, just like wealth can be unreasonable. Its why governments intervene to destroy large amount of concentrated wealth and Egyptian pharaohs used to periodically clear everybody's debt. The culture of " Paying your debt " is created by the small number of creditors who historically have controlled information flow, because they understand that society in aggregate has strong bargaining power.
- Sir_Vival 8y ago
  You don't choose to be born. You choose to take out the loan. You sign forms telling you exactly how much it will cost you in the end. It's a decision. I can't imagine anyone saying "Let's all stop paying our Auto loans! They were unfair and predatory." You made the decision. Own up to it. If you can't do the math at 18 years old you shouldn't be going to university anyways.
arbitrary_name 8y ago
Let's take the morality out of it. It's been injected in there for the benefit of the lenders. They charge an interest rate to cover their risk. Right now, with the fact that debt holders cannot default, they are getting an unfair deal. Defaulting on the debt and refusing to pay effectively triggers the risk that they were charging interest on. Like strikers refusing to work until better working conditions are provided, so too are debtors withholding payment doing something noble.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago

That would be the end of poor people going to college in this country, at least under the current legislative regime. The only reason anyone loans money to poor people to go to college right now is because they know the recipients can't get out from under the loans. A no-collateral loan to someone with few assets or prospects just wouldn't happen if that provision in the law didn't exist. Or the interest rate would be enormous. But if the interest rate were high then defaults would be high. So you'd probably have some sort of death spiral. No, I doubt such lending would happen any more. Now, the legislative regime could change. But it would have to change quite a bit to get significant increases in funding for college. Or maybe it's better if poor people just don't go to college? That's questionable at best. I think this problem is a lot harder than people on this thread are making it out to be. Making student loan debt bankruptcy proof is within the Overton window in this country. I guess not making it bankruptcy-proof with no other changes is also within that window. Free or reduced price college tuition for the vast swathes of people who need it to attend is just outside, so it's definitely a foreseeable outcome, but if we don't get there in the next two decades that wouldn't surprise me either.

nickthemagicman 8y ago
Yeah we'd have to do something crazy like say fund it....like we do K-12...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  That's an option, but not one that most Americans would support today, and probably not tomorrow either. At least not after you tell them what it would mean for taxes. All the pithy internet retorts to the contrary won't change this fact.
  - nickthemagicman 8y ago
    "Not one Americans would support" "Taxes would increase" 100% bonafide baseless claims. Have some vision friend. There are alternatives even though you can't think of them.

bronco21016 8y ago

It sounds great but good luck. I’ve been struggling with my $97k student loan debt for 9 years and I’m finally on the downhill slide. There’s no way I’m wrecking all the work I’ve already put in at this point. I suspect many others would feel the same way.

viraptor 8y ago

This may happen automatically with another recession or X market collapse... But it's not like the borrowers will be completely unaffected in that case.

booleandilemma 8y ago

Or, you know, you could just pay your debt, like any self-respecting person would.

pyrophane 8y ago
When companies can't pay back a loan they declare bankruptcy without a second thought and face little societal judgment for doing so, but when individuals do the same thing is labeled not just as a financial shortcoming but as a moral weakness as well. I think that attitude causes a lot of harm. People subject themselves to a great deal of suffering to avoid having to say "I can't pay this back," when sometimes that is exactly what they should do.
- will4274 8y ago
  > When companies can't pay back a loan they [...] face little societal judgment for doing so Citation needed. At least where I'm from, the stereotype of the corner grocery store that declares bankruptcy every 7 years is still shared as a negative
  - indentured 8y ago
    If the worst I could do is get a bad reputation I would gladly discharge the $100,000 I owe... Because at the end of the day, maybe that store is viewed negatively, but guess what? They’re still not in debt anymore.
    - will4274 8y ago
      That's a different topic than the thread you replied to, but the answer is that you could never have gotten the loan if you could have gotten it discharged for free on graduation day.
davesque 8y ago
Useless comment. I paid all my student debt and I don't feel like I gained any self-respect from it.

YaxelPerez 8y ago

A little hyperinflation would go a long way.

masonic 8y ago
It's doing wonders in Venezuela.