MemphisAg1 said:

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Neehau said:

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There is no way that wages today are less than 50 years ago.

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Quick google search says it is $1116 as of the end of July 2022.

Neehau said:

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For a multitude of reasons, student loan forgiveness was the right thing to do. This will take the handcuffs off of millions of borrowers to begin building their lives. The loans were pretty much forgiven anyways with the forbearance period

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If $10k of debt is handcuffing you for the rest of your life you are a ****ty worthless human being.

Neehau said:

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I you make kids earn their money mowing lawns and then auction off candy bars at the end of the week, the winning price will be a lot lower than if you gave them $1000 every friday for doing nothing and then held the auction. Putting unlimited funds out there for students to borrow to go to college without tying how much they can borrow to the value of what they are getting for it gives zero incentive for colleges to be frugal with their expenses. The price goes up when there is unlimited money available to buy. That is simple market economics. The same thing that explains inflation going through the roof with unlimited government printing of money also explains tuition and fees going up when students are loaned unlimited funds to pay for school.

txags92 said:

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MemphisAg1 said:

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Neehau said:

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There is no way that wages today are less than 50 years ago.

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Quick google search says it is $1116 as of the end of July 2022.

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More Google says average hourly wage today is roughly $27/hr compared to $4/hr in 1973.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages#:~:text=In%20the%20long%2Dterm%2C%20the,according%20to%20our%20econometric%20models.&text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20wages%20are%20benchmarked%20using%20average%20hourly%20earnings.

And we should be looking at salaries -- not hourly wages -- for college graduates.

The cheap twitter shot he posted apparently mixes real wages with nominal costs. That's not only disingenuous, it's deliberately deceitful to try and make a political point.

And what's magic about 1973 -- 49 years ago -- as a comparison point? Why not 10 years ago, 20, etc? I suspect it's because that's right before inflation took off big time, so naturally that's the perfect baseline to cherry pick data.

Typical Democrat view of life. Everything is somebody's else's fault, and they have no ownership for their situation. They speak one language: Victimese

MemphisAg1 said:

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txags92 said:

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MemphisAg1 said:

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Neehau said:

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There is no way that wages today are less than 50 years ago.

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Quick google search says it is $1116 as of the end of July 2022.

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More Google says average hourly wage today is roughly $27/hr compared to $4/hr in 1973.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages#:~:text=In%20the%20long%2Dterm%2C%20the,according%20to%20our%20econometric%20models.&text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20wages%20are%20benchmarked%20using%20average%20hourly%20earnings.

And we should be looking at salaries -- not hourly wages -- for college graduates.

The cheap twitter shot he posted apparently mixes real wages with nominal costs. That's not only disingenuous, it's deliberately deceitful to try and make a political point.

And what's magic about 1973 -- 49 years ago -- as a comparison point? Why not 10 years ago, 20, etc? I suspect it's because that's right before inflation took off big time, so naturally that's the perfect baseline to cherry pick data.

Typical Democrat view of life. Everything is somebody's else's fault, and they have no ownership for their situation. They speak one language: Victimese

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I didn't dig, but I bet that average weekly wage includes all the people not participating in the labor force as well...which would drag today's number way down with our historically low participation rate.

Let's say you make $15/hr (which is not the minimum wage nor is it an average of any kind but for argument's sake, let's say this is the mean hourly wage of someone working in College Station without a degree; i.e. a college student ). I just picked a random website (The Tax Calculator) in order to help calculate the "take home" pay, and found that to be ~$2320/month if you work 40 hours/week (which as a college student is nearly impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say you are superhuman like whoop02_2002 and are a savvy 18 year old that can handle this + the coursework of a 12 hour semester, the minimum needed to be considered a full time student).

Tuition at Texas A&M for the Fall Semester (according to Texas A&M Financial Aid) is $13,012. So that means you would have to work a little over ~5.5 months (13,012/2320 for those keeping score at home) in order to pay for the semester. So you would have to work from mid-July to the end of the year in order to cover this. This does not include housing/rent (Zillow Rental Prices in College Station has rentals at $535 - $3,800 with a median rent of $1,700), car payments, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, etc. Not to mention, you would not be able to do anything else outside of work and school, including getting involved in organizations, participating in traditions, playing sports, etc where many of us found our lifelong friends and what made the whole college experience worthwhile in the first place.

So you can understand why students feel the need to take out "extra $5-10k" with their loans. I won't sit here and tell you that none of it is being used for drinking and partying, because, frankly, some of it probably is (and I won't hold it against them either because they are ARE in college after all), but I would argue most of it is going just to survive.

I still think blaming the borrower is the wrong approach to all this. Predatory lenders, huge interest rates, universities being largely held unaccountable for their pricing and product, lack of education at the front end of what you are really getting into, etc are more at play here, in my opinion.

And those of you shouting "Pay your debts" from the rooftops (which, again, you most definitely SHOULD pay off what you agreed to borrow), but those of you acting like if someone came in offering you $10,000 off your mortgage, car payments, etc wouldn't jump at that opportunity are being cynical and hypocritical.

When someone uses terms like "predatory lenders" I instantly tune them out.

THAT'S what you've gotten from this post and this thread?

When someone picks out a grammar mistake or a couple words they didn't like from your argument, it's probably because they see the weakness in their own argument and that's the best they can do. So thank you for your contribution to this discussion.

Student loans involving the federal government fall into one of two categorizes I believe:
Subsidized - interest doesn't start until you're out of school
And
non subsidized - interest starts upon disbursement of funds.

Please give examples of verified "Huge" interest rates on either of these to support your claim that "predatory lending" is actually happening with loans backed by the federal government.

YNWA.2013 said:

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Let's say you make $15/hr (which is not the minimum wage nor is it an average of any kind but for argument's sake, let's say this is the mean hourly wage of someone working in College Station without a degree; i.e. a college student ). I just picked a random website (The Tax Calculator) in order to help calculate the "take home" pay, and found that to be ~$2320/month if you work 40 hours/week (which as a college student is nearly impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say you are superhuman like whoop02_2002 and are a savvy 18 year old that can handle this + the coursework of a 12 hour semester, the minimum needed to be considered a full time student).

Tuition at Texas A&M for the Fall Semester (according to Texas A&M Financial Aid) is $13,012. So that means you would have to work a little over ~5.5 months (13,012/2320 for those keeping score at home) in order to pay for the semester. So you would have to work from mid-July to the end of the year in order to cover this. This does not include housing/rent (Zillow Rental Prices in College Station has rentals at $535 - $3,800 with a median rent of $1,700), car payments, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, etc. Not to mention, you would not be able to do anything else outside of work and school, including getting involved in organizations, participating in traditions, playing sports, etc where many of us found our lifelong friends and what made the whole college experience worthwhile in the first place.

So you can understand why students feel the need to take out "extra $5-10k" with their loans. I won't sit here and tell you that none of it is being used for drinking and partying, because, frankly, some of it probably is (and I won't hold it against them either because they are ARE in college after all), but I would argue most of it is going just to survive.

I still think blaming the borrower is the wrong approach to all this. Predatory lenders, huge interest rates, universities being largely held unaccountable for their pricing and product, lack of education at the front end of what you are really getting into, etc are more at play here, in my opinion.

And those of you shouting "Pay your debts" from the rooftops (which, again, you most definitely SHOULD pay off what you agreed to borrow), but those of you acting like if someone came in offering you $10,000 off your mortgage, car payments, etc wouldn't jump at that opportunity are being cynical and hypocritical.

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Your starting assumption is that students are starting their first semester with zero dollars in their pocket. I started working a summer job when I was 16, and during the spring of my senior year in high school, I was working 32 hrs a week after school and on weekends at WalMart. For my first two years, I worked only during the summer, but after that I worked ~20-30 hours per week for most of the school year too. But to the rest of your point, I think the main complaint people have is that this completely ignores all the financial sacrifices made by non-college educated people in the work force. Presumably the college educated folks are the best positioned to be able to pay off their loans and they make more annually than the non-college educated workforce. Why are we focused on helping them out instead of helping tradesman pay off the debts they took out to buy tools or pay for specialized training? We are we not forgiving the SBA loans taken out by small businesses that have been struggling through all the government shutdowns due to covid?

This is a vote buying scheme, plain and simple. This is Brandon trying to keep the recent college graduates on the democratic plantation by making a huge payoff to the "predatory lenders". He just bought $300B of what are probably the worst performing loans in those lenders' portfolios and he paid face value for the debt. This was a payoff for recent college grads AND lenders. What do you guess the big guy's cut was for that buyout?

Teslag said:

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When someone uses terms like "predatory lenders" I instantly tune them out.

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That, and calling a loan initiated by the government with an interest rate set by Congress "unregulated".

txags92 said:

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YNWA.2013 said:

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Let's say you make $15/hr (which is not the minimum wage nor is it an average of any kind but for argument's sake, let's say this is the mean hourly wage of someone working in College Station without a degree; i.e. a college student ). I just picked a random website (The Tax Calculator) in order to help calculate the "take home" pay, and found that to be ~$2320/month if you work 40 hours/week (which as a college student is nearly impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say you are superhuman like whoop02_2002 and are a savvy 18 year old that can handle this + the coursework of a 12 hour semester, the minimum needed to be considered a full time student).

Tuition at Texas A&M for the Fall Semester (according to Texas A&M Financial Aid) is $13,012. So that means you would have to work a little over ~5.5 months (13,012/2320 for those keeping score at home) in order to pay for the semester. So you would have to work from mid-July to the end of the year in order to cover this. This does not include housing/rent (Zillow Rental Prices in College Station has rentals at $535 - $3,800 with a median rent of $1,700), car payments, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, etc. Not to mention, you would not be able to do anything else outside of work and school, including getting involved in organizations, participating in traditions, playing sports, etc where many of us found our lifelong friends and what made the whole college experience worthwhile in the first place.

So you can understand why students feel the need to take out "extra $5-10k" with their loans. I won't sit here and tell you that none of it is being used for drinking and partying, because, frankly, some of it probably is (and I won't hold it against them either because they are ARE in college after all), but I would argue most of it is going just to survive.

I still think blaming the borrower is the wrong approach to all this. Predatory lenders, huge interest rates, universities being largely held unaccountable for their pricing and product, lack of education at the front end of what you are really getting into, etc are more at play here, in my opinion.

And those of you shouting "Pay your debts" from the rooftops (which, again, you most definitely SHOULD pay off what you agreed to borrow), but those of you acting like if someone came in offering you $10,000 off your mortgage, car payments, etc wouldn't jump at that opportunity are being cynical and hypocritical.

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Your starting assumption is that students are starting their first semester with zero dollars in their pocket. I started working a summer job when I was 16, and during the spring of my senior year in high school, I was working 32 hrs a week after school and on weekends at WalMart. For my first two years, I worked only during the summer, but after that I worked ~20-30 hours per week for most of the school year too. But to the rest of your point, I think the main complaint people have is that this completely ignores all the financial sacrifices made by non-college educated people in the work force. Presumably the college educated folks are the best positioned to be able to pay off their loans and they make more annually than the non-college educated workforce. Why are we focused on helping them out instead of helping tradesman pay off the debts they took out to buy tools or pay for specialized training? We are we not forgiving the SBA loans taken out by small businesses that have been struggling through all the government shutdowns due to covid?

This is a vote buying scheme, plain and simple. This is Brandon trying to keep the recent college graduates on the democratic plantation by making a huge payoff to the "predatory lenders". He just bought $300B of what are probably the worst performing loans in those lenders' portfolios and he paid face value for the debt. This was a payoff for recent college grads AND lenders. What do you guess the big guy's cut was for that buyout?

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Making more annually...I think a big part of debt burden is from reasonably well off students, pursuing degrees of little value from prestigious Universities, most of which are located North of the Mason Dixon line...which is why those students can't pay off the balance...next thing we will hear is these whiny p###y hat losers complain that $10k is only 5%, and the $10k is 20% to those Southern scum who chose Southern Miss Univ...where is the equity in that???

The $300B has been escalated to $1 TRILLION, by some recent estimates...

A few things here, some of which have been said, but I will repeat

• A person shouldn't be starting at $0 and attempting to enter college. As an example, I and most of my friends worked 1-2 jobs during the summer before going to college to save
• In some instances, friends financial hardship opened doors for some non-loan based grants/assistance
• For basic classes, I and many of my friends took those classes at community colleges where it was possible to live at home, pay cheaper tuition, and save more money
• To that point, sorry to say, not everyone is entitled to attend Texas, Rice, Baylor, A&M, etc. You can attend a more affordable school, obtain an associate/bachelor degree, increase your earning potential and then go back to school in a better financial position
• I work with an individual who did just that. They were then able to use our company's tuition assistance to help pay for her bachelors degree
• There are many other options: GI bill, taking a semester off to work, etc. etc. etc.

I don't disagree with your financial assessment. Hell, this is what an individual looking to go to college SHOULD do before they sign any loan paperwork. Actually, this is the type of thing that should be done before doing anything ...buying a house, a car, taking a job, etc.

Then an individual can see what is or is not possible and change the variables accordingly. Not everyone is entitled to attend the school they want and live the lifestyle they want. It is just a fact of life. It doesn't mean someone cannot sacrifice, plan, and achieve that goal....it means they cannot have someone else pay the tab so they can do so without the effort.

The idea of writing a $10k or $20k check blindly is insane. (1) it doesn't address any of the problems of how we got here, and (2) it doesn't get the vast majority of people completely out of debt. As such, this is nothing more than a 'vote buying' scheme and/or 'wealth transfer' scheme that puts us further away from any legitimate fix.

YNWA.2013 said:

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Let's say you make $15/hr (which is not the minimum wage nor is it an average of any kind but for argument's sake, let's say this is the mean hourly wage of someone working in College Station without a degree; i.e. a college student ). I just picked a random website (The Tax Calculator) in order to help calculate the "take home" pay, and found that to be ~$2320/month if you work 40 hours/week (which as a college student is nearly impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say you are superhuman like whoop02_2002 and are a savvy 18 year old that can handle this + the coursework of a 12 hour semester, the minimum needed to be considered a full time student).

Tuition at Texas A&M for the Fall Semester (according to Texas A&M Financial Aid) is $13,012. So that means you would have to work a little over ~5.5 months (13,012/2320 for those keeping score at home) in order to pay for the semester. So you would have to work from mid-July to the end of the year in order to cover this. This does not include housing/rent (Zillow Rental Prices in College Station has rentals at $535 - $3,800 with a median rent of $1,700), car payments, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, etc. Not to mention, you would not be able to do anything else outside of work and school, including getting involved in organizations, participating in traditions, playing sports, etc where many of us found our lifelong friends and what made the whole college experience worthwhile in the first place.

So you can understand why students feel the need to take out "extra $5-10k" with their loans. I won't sit here and tell you that none of it is being used for drinking and partying, because, frankly, some of it probably is (and I won't hold it against them either because they are ARE in college after all), but I would argue most of it is going just to survive.

I still think blaming the borrower is the wrong approach to all this. Predatory lenders, huge interest rates, universities being largely held unaccountable for their pricing and product, lack of education at the front end of what you are really getting into, etc are more at play here, in my opinion.

And those of you shouting "Pay your debts" from the rooftops (which, again, you most definitely SHOULD pay off what you agreed to borrow), but those of you acting like if someone came in offering you $10,000 off your mortgage, car payments, etc wouldn't jump at that opportunity are being cynical and hypocritical.

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Looks like I hit a nerve. Maybe because what I described is exactly what you did and now you have a huge student loan balance b/c of those big mean predatory lenders.

I understand exactly why student feel the need to take out that extra 5-10K and it b/c they want to take the easy way and not work or work very little while going to college. Once again if a student is living in a $1700 per month apartment by them self and also has a car payment that's on them. Do you take any responsibility for anything you do?

YNWA.2013 said:

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Let's say you make $15/hr (which is not the minimum wage nor is it an average of any kind but for argument's sake, let's say this is the mean hourly wage of someone working in College Station without a degree; i.e. a college student ). I just picked a random website (The Tax Calculator) in order to help calculate the "take home" pay, and found that to be ~$2320/month if you work 40 hours/week (which as a college student is nearly impossible, but for argument's sake, let's say you are superhuman like whoop02_2002 and are a savvy 18 year old that can handle this + the coursework of a 12 hour semester, the minimum needed to be considered a full time student).

Tuition at Texas A&M for the Fall Semester (according to Texas A&M Financial Aid) is $13,012. So that means you would have to work a little over ~5.5 months (13,012/2320 for those keeping score at home) in order to pay for the semester. So you would have to work from mid-July to the end of the year in order to cover this. This does not include housing/rent (Zillow Rental Prices in College Station has rentals at $535 - $3,800 with a median rent of $1,700), car payments, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, etc. Not to mention, you would not be able to do anything else outside of work and school, including getting involved in organizations, participating in traditions, playing sports, etc where many of us found our lifelong friends and what made the whole college experience worthwhile in the first place.

So you can understand why students feel the need to take out "extra $5-10k" with their loans. I won't sit here and tell you that none of it is being used for drinking and partying, because, frankly, some of it probably is (and I won't hold it against them either because they are ARE in college after all), but I would argue most of it is going just to survive.

I still think blaming the borrower is the wrong approach to all this. Predatory lenders, huge interest rates, universities being largely held unaccountable for their pricing and product, lack of education at the front end of what you are really getting into, etc are more at play here, in my opinion.

And those of you shouting "Pay your debts" from the rooftops (which, again, you most definitely SHOULD pay off what you agreed to borrow), but those of you acting like if someone came in offering you $10,000 off your mortgage, car payments, etc wouldn't jump at that opportunity are being cynical and hypocritical.

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Your math is off as tuition for fall and spring combined is 13k not just for fall semester. I paid my kids tuition, meal plan and fees this current semester and it is $9k ish - he worked all summer for his year long rent.

Your link states fall and spring making total year 30-32k for all costs - tuition, room and board, fees and spending money.

https://financialaid.tamu.edu/Undergraduate/Cost-of-Attendance#0-CollegeStationUndergraduate

Your costs for a years at Texas a&m as stated above are

13k times 2 (fall and spring) =26k
Rent at $1700 per month for nine months = $15.3k
Food internet phone car etc…. Guessing a conservative 1k per month ( I don't know what your number would be) 9k for year
Plus the party money if 5-10k per year - let's split it at 7500

Total $57,800

So it Texas a&m that far off at 32k for the year? even subtracting the obvious error of the extra 13k your total would be $44.8k

YNWA.2013 said:

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Just genuinely curious on everyone's thinking/reasoning on this topic. (I know I am starting the umpteenth thread on this topic, but wanted to attempt to have a civil conversation in one place. Difficult with the Zoo, I know). Just quickly glancing through the multiple threads on here, it seems the vocal majority are against this and I am curious as to why. Apart from the "Biden is a communist" comments which have no real merit and comments that "Congress should be doing this," which is a different conversation, I am trying to find a reasonable argument as to why this is a bad thing.

It seems that many of those against this graduated many moons ago (I graduated in 2013) and went to college at a very different time when tuition wasn't what it is today. The total federal student debt has more than tripled since 2007 when it was about $500 billion to the $1.6 trillion today. In the years since graduation, including my own, states continue to cut funding towards public college and education. So what's been done to combat this? Skyrocketing tuition and mountains of student debt.

I don't think many 17-18 year-olds fully understand what they are signing up for when they apply for federal student loans. Interest alone can oftentimes be a killer. I have many peers who have never missed a payment and owe more now than they initially did when they graduated because of these interest rates and not being able to pay towards the principal. According to the US Department of Education, about 60% of people with federal student loans owe <$40,000. Which I know may not seem like a lot, but to those making under $80,000 (these include your nurses, your kids' teachers, their coaches, your physical therapists, your social workers, your reporters), it make take many years to get out of. And if you're spending so much time and money paying off these loans, you are not buying other goods and services and not investing your money which keeps you in this spiral for longer. Not to mention that this disproportionately affects minorities as they borrow an average of $25,000 more and make about $5,000 less (but we can save this discussion for another time.)

The other sentiment that I don't quite understand is "Well, I worked hard to pay off my loans, my wife's loans, my Cousin Joe's loans." This is a wonderful achievement and should be celebrated. But the thought of these high loans has deterred many people from seeking higher education. And isn't it in the best interests of our society as whole to be as highly educated as possible? I am of the belief that the more educated we all are, the more informed decisions we can make, and the better we can all move forward.

"But how will we pay for it" and "It is just going to add to the national debt." It's funny how these arguments only come about when trying to help the lower and middle classes. None of this gets brought up when we go to war, when multibillion dollar corporations get another tax cut, etc. I don't know about you, but I would rather my taxes go toward education, veterans' benefits, etc that actually helps my fellow Americans and pushes us forward.

None of this addresses the root cause of the problem, which I think is the increasingly high tuition that schools charge that is primarily taken on by individuals. Public schools should be primarily funded by the government. Your taxes pay for your local elementary, middle, and high schools. Why does this not include higher education too if it is basically mandatory to have if you want a decent paying job?

Now these are just the thoughts of a thirty-something millennial and proud Aggie who was fortunate enough to have financial and emotional support from his parents, scrapped for as many scholarships as I could, went to graduate school, and still had a lot of loans to pay. I was also lucky enough to be able to move in with my parents after graduation for two and half years to live rent-free and make a sizeable dent on my loans before venturing out on my own. My wife and I are on track to pay off all student loans by the end of the year. I worked hard and am proud of how far I have come, but it should not be this difficult or this expensive to seek higher education and make a better life for yourself. I want my kids to do even better than I have done, but I would like for the deck to not be stacked against them or anyone else trying to better themselves or society.

I hope my thoughts come across as reasonable and understandable as they did in my head. I welcome any and all discussion points as I would like to understand all sides of whatever argument you may have.

Thanks & Gig'Em

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Hope you're in a place where you can start making your payments, I expect many will lie about their income if no verifications are put in place.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/federal-student-loan-repayments-restart-education-secretary-confirms

The Education Department is "preparing to restart" federal student loan debt repayments after a three-year pause now that the COVID-19 pandemic emergency has ended, Secretary Miguel Cardona told lawmakers this week.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-education-secretary-under-fire-over-potential-for-fraud-in-student-loan-bailout-scheme

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) sent a letter to Cardona on Friday asking how the department planned to deter potential fraud since it was pursuing an income-based repayment plan without verification measures in place for income.

🤔 pic.twitter.com/gcrbyo8Oc4

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) May 13, 2025