Dave, my favorite bike messenger and beer drinker, complained to ME than *I* am not complaining ENOUGH on my blog and considering that his statement will probably be the first and last time I ever hear something like that, I figure I’ll appease him with a small rant.
I already kind of had this rant earlier today, so I’m being lazy and copying and pasting a 5-hour old rant, but whatever.
So, lots of people get really excited over the prospect of the government forgiving student loans – GASP -. There’s a petition right now to support some bill that will do as much. Which hey, hello, if you know me, you know: a) I’m a nonprofit professional with a master’s in social work and b) I got hella loans! Like, I never even use the word “hella” because I think it’s weird, I’m not from California, nor is it 1998, but there I just used it because I can’t even describe to use the insane loan-to-salary ratio I got going on.
So you’d think I’d be all about getting the government to forgive my loans. Well, if I even thought there was a smidgen of a chance that this would actually happen (lol), I am against it! WHYYYY?!?!??!
a) Federal student loan debt is basically the easiest debt to have. Can’t afford your loan payments because you are under or unemployed? Forebeeear. Can’t afford them because you spent too much on dresses last month? Forebeeear. (I really haven’t done that, for the record, but I could).
b) There is such a thing as income-based repayment. Income-based repayment caps your payment at 15% of whatever you make above 150% of the poverty level. So, right now, the “poverty level” is $11,170/year (sidnote: LOL, so if I made $11,500/year, I’d not qualify as in poverty…& depending on the social service program or whatever, this can be either net or gross I think…if my LSW memory is working, which who knows….& remember this is nationwide, so it doesn’t account for cost of living in expensive cities). So your payments are affordable, or at least, they should be unless you have shopping addiction, o_O
c) How is forgiving student loan debt going to stimulate the economy? Still ain’t gon’ have a job if you don’t have one already or more opportunities for a job. Probably even less of an opportunity since there would be likely cutbacks elsewhere.
d) And when we think about it,I don’t know the exact numbers, but wouldn’t the government, like, lose a LOT of money and have to cutback elsewhere? And ideally they’d cut back in things like military spending and the war on drugs and salaries for people like richard mourdock but alas, who KNOWS what cuts might actually fill that deficit.
e) We voluntarily take out student loans, use them smartly or stupidly, and thus we pay them back.
xoxo,
krissie
As an indebted student, it’s appealing. As an economist, I think it’s a terrible decision.
I think people miss the part of income-based repayment that has built-in loan forgiveness (ten years of on-time minimum payments). There is a caveat though: you must be full-time at a public service organization. It’s a very fair way to do it. Dedicate ten years of your life to public service to not bay back 3/5 of your loan amount.
I hope I don’t sound too much like my Republican counterparts when I say this, but I dislike that widespread student loans eliminates a certain amount of personal responsibility, and I’m glad you brought that up.
*widespread student loan forgiveness