It's supposed to be an investment into your future. You take the loan out to get the education you need to get a job and pay back the loan. You should have a goal when you choose to pursue a higher education.

It's not a handout. I took out student loans to go to tech school. The school went bankrupt in the middle of my education. I still had to pay the loans back.

Far more complex issue than just that, but that is one of the negative fall outs. It's sort of like credit card use: they have their purpose but if you can't afford to pay it off quickly -- ideally within a month before the usury interest rates that used to be illegal kick in--they can be a death spiral. But for adolescents and young adults, it feels like free money so they tend to binge for the immediate gratification.

I was fortunate. I and my family could never have afforded me getting a college education if it wasn't a period when taxpayers were still investing in public education as a way to build an educated workforce that would attract employers into the state. There was no tuition. I still had to work two, sometimes three part-time jobs, while going to school to pay for room & board, books, and incidental costs. But it was doable.

Then public funding largely dried up, the public universities had to start charging tuition and could charge foreign and out of state students more so in-state residents took a back seat. The Federal student loan program was supposed to be a solution, but became part of the problem. While it is guaranteed by the government, it is run by the private sector. Financial institutions and for-profit educational institutions are rife with predatory practices, fraudulent promises, atrocious interest rates. And when it gets turned over to collection agencies, it gets even worse.

The other alternative new since my era are 529 accounts. But again, those in poverty and living paycheck to paycheck can't afford to put much, if any, into such accounts so it is back to your original premise of it being a poverty tax.

It's a loan to pay off from your wages I guess.

I have a car loan for 4 yrs (less than 3 now) and redundancy at my w/p been announced. My job can go but this loan will not stop. Good news, many many employees volunteered to be made redundant so I MIGHT not get the bullet. However, this year and all of next year will be filled with dread and uncertainty.

I can’t afford an Audi R8 so I’d haven’t gone into debt to buy one. Who forced you to go to college? Who forced you to go into debt to pay for it? Why didn’t you learn a trade? Electricians, plumbers, carpenters and HVAC mechanics make great money and get paid during their apprenticeship.

They would pay more if the repayments are with interest.

The only schools in the UK that charge are the public ones - by British definition, meaning fee-paying private. (The term is historical, referring to how they originated.)

Universities charge but students can take loans repayable only once they start earning above a certain threshold - I am not sure what that is now. Though it is likely to be at a time when they are also trying to save for the deposit and mortgage on a home.

It's life -- some people have trouble living with life. But if we want to "forgive" student debt, I think that forgiveness should be based on the person's income AFTER graduation. Got a good job making a couple of hundred thousand a year after college, you should be paying off your debt. Unemployed, no income after school, forgiveness might be in order.

Tax is obligatory, a loan is a choice. Many people who take trade jobs, like electricians, earn more than many university graduates and don’t have student debt.

If you are smart enough to go to university you are smart enough to do the math on salary uplift compared to other careers.

It can be.

The people most affected by it were the students who attended for-profit institutions, some of which used lies as inducing conditions to get students to take out loans which would ultimately ruin them.

Outlawing for-profit schools and for-profit medicine would help the country a lot.

Going to college isn't a human right. If you take a loan out to pay for it you need to pay it back. I didn't go to college and don't want my tax money going to pay off loans for those who did .

Nope, I personally know of someone who had the ability to pay. Racked up a bunch of student loans and then sat there and told me with an attitude of entitlement that the government was going to forgive all her debt.
Who ultimately gets to pay that debt?
The working taxpayer.

It can be regressive and it can penalise disproportionately students who set their sights on low paying professions such as school teaching or nursing.

In the UK you do not start making repayments until you are earning an average graduate entry level wage. All unpaid debts are written off after 25 years.

Sort of.

It is a con if you were sold the idea that "whatever the cost, you need to find a way to survive a college education for your employment prospects.

It's estimated that most graduates don't survive long in their chosen field simply because starting salaries are so low most seek better paid jobs elsewhere

You COULD choose to work and save the money, and THEN go to college. OR, you could take up an apprenticeship in HVAC, plumbing, electricians, or any of the lucrative trades, and end up earning MORE money than most college grads.

That’s one way of looking at it. In my case, going to college opened the door from poor to rich.

We also had better financial aid through the gov't.

When we went to mostly private loans, the costs of borrowing went up.

Incorrect

It's a punishment for believing in Education and getting lured into it for life and unable to get a job to payback. So the university must pay minimum wages during the unemployed period. And a graduate will then borrow from hookers and loan sharks who make more money without any student loan...

Instead if they start going for jobs and not take loans, the fees will start to come down and they can study after a few years with some good savings, rather than entering an university with loan and no savings and having to depend on parents.

Wrong, a person chooses to take out a loan to go to school just like choosing to take out a loan to get a car

It’s not a form of punishment . Having the funds is a form of privilege. You are not being punished , you are merely underprivileged.

Student loan lenders charge students 10x the interest they charge to banks to borrow money.

Voting blue is how you make it forever!
No socislists. Just this. Only war, genocide and inequality. Lotsa poverty. You're a bipartisan country with no commies!

The main issue is that education costs just continue to rise exponentially, but the quality of the education stagnates or drops.
And then, whose fucking hiring for that degree? No one.

It's a racket.

No

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