The next crisis. If I had a kid in high school now, I’d encourage him to skip college and become a tradesman.
As this writer points out, once college degrees became the social norm, they declined in earning power.
Student debt
7 thoughts on “Student debt”
Comments are closed.
What I’m seeing in the art department is that a lot of people who want to be artists are getting education degrees, so they can work in a low-income area and get their loans reduced or eliminated. The people who want to get a degree in studio or fine arts, have to go up to an MFA, because the more upscale galleries won’t even give you a cold look before that level. I don’t know about commercial art. I’d better go ask about that.
Har. I get a kick out of this because this is me:
English degree, 66K in student loan debt (original amount was 23K, since grown due to interest charges, but attended a private for-profit trade school for six months before I realized the loan trap in which I was caught), loans in deferral, two toddler kids, not working, partner is teacher. Chances I’ll pay that loan back by the time I reach “retirement” age?
Chances the economy will give me that opportunity?
Bwah-hahaha.
Looks like I’ll have to get a government job…
I’d recommend community college. When I went, I’d sit in class thinking, “Why are all these smart people here? Don’t they know this is community college?” At the very least, it’ll save you two years tuition at a four-year if you do eventually transfer, but maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll find something at a community college that throws you one of life’s little detours.
In this economy, finding those little detours is going to be essential for survival.
If your credits transfer, something that I suspect is another money trap.
A neighbor kept telling me I should look for a job as a medical biller. I began to look into it and found that, as with other jobs, they want you to have experience or a certificate. (Seems like no office/company wants to do on-the-job training anymore.) I don’t have that exact experience so I looked into online programs. One such school wanted $14,000 for a 10-month program. Entry level job salaries start at about $28,000. Now I’m in my late 50s, I have a B.A. (so no grant, just loans available I’m told) and 30-odd years of office experience. This all sounds very scammy and strange to me and I figure out that it will take forever to pay back such a loan at those salary levels.
It never occurred to me to ask this before, but does this have any correlation with more women getting degrees than men? Would there be any way to sort that chunk out?
Our recent grad hires have come with $100,000 in debt, but they’re only paying 2% interest for the next thirty years (rate is locked in when they consolidated their student loans). Yes, that adds up, but when they’re paying 6% for a house, 8% for their car, and 20% for their credit cards, the student loans are a very low priority.
This huge student loan debt becomes a much bigger problem if you can’t find a job in the first place, or five years from now the interest isn’t 2% but 6% or more and the debt isn’t just $100,000.