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>student loan debt, which cannot be discharged via bankruptcy Apparently this isn't true anymore: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-06/you-can-get-s

>student loan debt, which cannot be discharged via bankruptcy Apparently this isn't true anymore: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-06/you-can-get-student-loans-forgiven-in-bankruptcy-but-its-far-from-easy http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-06/you-can-get-... Personal Opinion: People lack knowledge of how heavy a burden dept really is. Many of my classmates decided to go to college around 17-18yo, myself included. Many of these classmates never worked a full-time job, top students probably not a part-time job either, because their parents want them to concentrate on school. Example: There was an article about an NYU student suing the school because it was too easy for her to sign $50,000 loans each year. Students take loan "tests" now before being able to sign for loans, but they don't really show what this really means. The tests show examples of what a 10 year loan may look like for payment, but really it should show the percentage of your pay it will cost per month. A $100k-$200k loan can easily take away 50%+/month of net income from a person making $40k-$60k per year (hopefully your income will rise substantially over time, but most likely your cost of living too, e.g. apartment/car/family). Debt is crippling, and if you search online for examples you'll see huge lists of comments of life stories. EDIT: Adding this link to display spending power over time for Plumbers vs. Doctors vs. Teachers: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-09/study-hard-to-find-if-harvard-pays-off-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-09/study-hard-to-find-... Summary of article: Given everyone lives to 100 years of age, the doctor only has $423 more per year than a plumber. I know this doesn't account for if everyone became a plumber right now.

shaneofalltrad 12y ago
I have no doubt that this is beneficial for big business to monopolize and the continued suppression of competition. It is too bad, and a sign why programmers are still beating these odds, because we can get away without an education and still find opportunities to beat the larger corporations. That looks to be changing though, as they learn to just gobble up all the ideas in buy-outs or patents.
mercer 12y ago
It's both fascinating and horrifying to me how high the loans in the USA are, and the fact that they're 'proper' loans. Here in The Netherlands, I know quite a few people who didn't get any student loans because they wanted to avoid any debt at all cost. And the Dutch student loans are not even 'proper' loans. If you don't have a job, for example, you pay a monthly minimum of around 50 euro (I think). Of course, the fact that this is possible here in itself is a nice thing, and times are changing here too. But if I had lived in the US, I might've never gone to college just to avoid such staggering debts.
- withdavidli 12y ago
  >But if I had lived in the US, I might've never gone to college just to avoid such staggering debts. I think it would be hard to avoid college if you had lived here. We are told from a very early age that to be successful a person should go to college. Stats like a college graduate makes $1m-2m more over their lifetime than a person who didn't go to college. If DARE (Drug resistance program here in the states) ever taught me anything, it's that peer pressure works. If everyone else is doing it, you probably will too. Asch's experiment is a good example of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments I've known people from European countries that don't have to anything for college education, but their taxes are about 60% (they probably also have universal health care too). I think as long as we see the impact our tax money has, to provide for our basic needs, people are willing to pay these rates. But how governments spends money these days it's no wonder why no one wants to pay taxes.
  - mercer 12y ago
    Good point. Just the pressure from my parents would've probably been enough to push me to go to college anyways... Taxes here are pretty high, I guess, but realizing the costs in the US for health care and college makes me happy to live here. And from the brief time I spent in the US I didn't get the feeling that people in my 'class' (first-generation middle-class, white, educated) were living more comfortably than I was.
- vanderZwan 12y ago
bradleyjg 12y ago
>>student loan debt, which cannot be discharged via bankruptcy >Apparently this isn't true anymore: That's not a fair summary of the linked article. Student loan debt still cannot be discharged using the ordinary rules of bankruptcy. You still need to prove undue hardship, and that still involves a tough, three part test. What happened was that one court allowed a single mother on food stamps to discharge some student loan debt -- a fact pattern that struck observers as unusual because those circumstances are relatively mild as compared to most successful cases.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > You still need to prove undue hardship, and that still involves a tough, three part test. This understates the difficulty. It is so nearly impossible to discharge student debt, that out of the many thousands who try it, only a handful manage the feat in any given year. It makes the news when this happens, it's that rare.
  - withdavidli 12y ago
    Looking at the sourced paper, can be downloaded here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445 In 2007, 39% of the people who tried to discharge student loans were successful, 25% full discharge / 14% partial discharge. That is far from just a handful. The problem is, only .01% that could try to discharge students loans even tried. This may be because they didn't think it was even possible for them to win, advised against trying from counsel, or some other reason. The reason for why a person wouldn't try would be a good follow up study.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- withdavidli 12y ago
  It might not be ordinary procedures, but it's still possible. From word of mouth, all I have ever heard was that it was impossible to discharge, full or partial, student loans. The reason for linking the article was to provide evidence that some people are actually able to do it. Didn't mean to imply that everyone was capable of discharging student loans.
001sky 12y ago
"You Can Get Student Loans Forgiven in Bankruptcy, but It’s Far From Easy" Link title...

shaneofalltrad 12y ago

I have no doubt that this is beneficial for big business to monopolize and the continued suppression of competition. It is too bad, and a sign why programmers are still beating these odds, because we can get away without an education and still find opportunities to beat the larger corporations. That looks to be changing though, as they learn to just gobble up all the ideas in buy-outs or patents.

mercer 12y ago

It's both fascinating and horrifying to me how high the loans in the USA are, and the fact that they're 'proper' loans. Here in The Netherlands, I know quite a few people who didn't get any student loans because they wanted to avoid any debt at all cost. And the Dutch student loans are not even 'proper' loans. If you don't have a job, for example, you pay a monthly minimum of around 50 euro (I think). Of course, the fact that this is possible here in itself is a nice thing, and times are changing here too. But if I had lived in the US, I might've never gone to college just to avoid such staggering debts.

withdavidli 12y ago
>But if I had lived in the US, I might've never gone to college just to avoid such staggering debts. I think it would be hard to avoid college if you had lived here. We are told from a very early age that to be successful a person should go to college. Stats like a college graduate makes $1m-2m more over their lifetime than a person who didn't go to college. If DARE (Drug resistance program here in the states) ever taught me anything, it's that peer pressure works. If everyone else is doing it, you probably will too. Asch's experiment is a good example of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments I've known people from European countries that don't have to anything for college education, but their taxes are about 60% (they probably also have universal health care too). I think as long as we see the impact our tax money has, to provide for our basic needs, people are willing to pay these rates. But how governments spends money these days it's no wonder why no one wants to pay taxes.
- mercer 12y ago
  Good point. Just the pressure from my parents would've probably been enough to push me to go to college anyways... Taxes here are pretty high, I guess, but realizing the costs in the US for health care and college makes me happy to live here. And from the brief time I spent in the US I didn't get the feeling that people in my 'class' (first-generation middle-class, white, educated) were living more comfortably than I was.
vanderZwan 12y ago

bradleyjg 12y ago

>>student loan debt, which cannot be discharged via bankruptcy >Apparently this isn't true anymore: That's not a fair summary of the linked article. Student loan debt still cannot be discharged using the ordinary rules of bankruptcy. You still need to prove undue hardship, and that still involves a tough, three part test. What happened was that one court allowed a single mother on food stamps to discharge some student loan debt -- a fact pattern that struck observers as unusual because those circumstances are relatively mild as compared to most successful cases.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> You still need to prove undue hardship, and that still involves a tough, three part test. This understates the difficulty. It is so nearly impossible to discharge student debt, that out of the many thousands who try it, only a handful manage the feat in any given year. It makes the news when this happens, it's that rare.
- withdavidli 12y ago
  Looking at the sourced paper, can be downloaded here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445 In 2007, 39% of the people who tried to discharge student loans were successful, 25% full discharge / 14% partial discharge. That is far from just a handful. The problem is, only .01% that could try to discharge students loans even tried. This may be because they didn't think it was even possible for them to win, advised against trying from counsel, or some other reason. The reason for why a person wouldn't try would be a good follow up study.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
withdavidli 12y ago
It might not be ordinary procedures, but it's still possible. From word of mouth, all I have ever heard was that it was impossible to discharge, full or partial, student loans. The reason for linking the article was to provide evidence that some people are actually able to do it. Didn't mean to imply that everyone was capable of discharging student loans.

001sky 12y ago

"You Can Get Student Loans Forgiven in Bankruptcy, but It’s Far From Easy" Link title...