3 ms·

What I didn’t understand was how much it would cost to live

4 points by viburnum 6y ago

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The math in the viral Tik Tok doesn't add up at all. She claims to have paid $120,000 on an $80,000 loan with 7% interest over 10 years, with a remaining balance of $76,000. Worst case: If she had missed every single payment for 10 straight years with 7% compound interest and then paid that $120K lump sum, her loan balance would be $37K. If she spread those $120K payments out over 10 years, she would have paid the loan off already. There is no scenario in which she pays $120K and still has a balance of $76K, unless her interest rate was much, much higher than quoted. Any student loan with a rate of 7% or higher should be refinanced to a lower rate anyway. It boggles the mind that people are writing so much about this without bothering to fact check it with basic math.
- pwg 6y ago
  I think this quote from her sums up the problem: "I had no concept of money." Followed by this exchange: "So how much do you pay a month all together for loans?" "Just under $1,000" Which is probably where the 120k number came from. Ten years times 1k per month. But that is for plural loans, and we are never told the total balance of the plural loans, which is why the numbers do not add up.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    She said her starting balance was $80K. Paying $1000 per month would have paid off the entire balance before the claimed ten year period. The numbers don’t work at all. I think it’s more likely that she’s exaggerating for effect in order to go viral. She’s attempting to raise $30K to publish a zine, according to the interview. The author of the linked article is also trying to profit from the story by selling a subscription sub stack with these stories. These misinformation campaigns feel like a new version of Fox News or scary e-mail forwards from grandma, except these are targeted at younger generations. The worst part is that exaggeration isn’t even necessary. They could simply highlight the rising costs of education using normal, honest examples without burning their credibility in attempts to go viral.
    - simonblack 6y ago
      The numbers don’t work at all. She wouldn't have stopped spending, negating much (most?) of her payments. There is very likely a lot of missing information in the article. The figures aren't important per se, they're likely just for illustration purposes. She doesn't have to prove her point, she's just giving us her insights into the unexpectedly high costs of living. We've all been there, done that. As in "Right! Who's going to win this month's lottery to get my outstanding debts paid?"

4 points by viburnum 6y ago

The math in the viral Tik Tok doesn't add up at all. She claims to have paid $120,000 on an $80,000 loan with 7% interest over 10 years, with a remaining balance of $76,000. Worst case: If she had missed every single payment for 10 straight years with 7% compound interest and then paid that $120K lump sum, her loan balance would be $37K. If she spread those $120K payments out over 10 years, she would have paid the loan off already. There is no scenario in which she pays $120K and still has a balance of $76K, unless her interest rate was much, much higher than quoted. Any student loan with a rate of 7% or higher should be refinanced to a lower rate anyway. It boggles the mind that people are writing so much about this without bothering to fact check it with basic math.

pwg 6y ago
I think this quote from her sums up the problem: "I had no concept of money." Followed by this exchange: "So how much do you pay a month all together for loans?" "Just under $1,000" Which is probably where the 120k number came from. Ten years times 1k per month. But that is for plural loans, and we are never told the total balance of the plural loans, which is why the numbers do not add up.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  She said her starting balance was $80K. Paying $1000 per month would have paid off the entire balance before the claimed ten year period. The numbers don’t work at all. I think it’s more likely that she’s exaggerating for effect in order to go viral. She’s attempting to raise $30K to publish a zine, according to the interview. The author of the linked article is also trying to profit from the story by selling a subscription sub stack with these stories. These misinformation campaigns feel like a new version of Fox News or scary e-mail forwards from grandma, except these are targeted at younger generations. The worst part is that exaggeration isn’t even necessary. They could simply highlight the rising costs of education using normal, honest examples without burning their credibility in attempts to go viral.
  - simonblack 6y ago
    The numbers don’t work at all. She wouldn't have stopped spending, negating much (most?) of her payments. There is very likely a lot of missing information in the article. The figures aren't important per se, they're likely just for illustration purposes. She doesn't have to prove her point, she's just giving us her insights into the unexpectedly high costs of living. We've all been there, done that. As in "Right! Who's going to win this month's lottery to get my outstanding debts paid?"