I Will Die With Student Loan Debt

[noamnety]

162. Oddly, I agree with both sides here.

Hillary's buddies the Waltons alone could be taxed enough to cover public education through the associates degree at public schools, and they would still be disgustingly filthy rich enough to scrape by. I am definitely in favor of public schools actually being open to the public.

Given that this is NOT the current state of affairs, it makes sense for people taking out the loans to do a risk analysis before signing up for that much debt, and in many cases make better choices, living frugally while incurring the debt instead of having their head in the sand and acting shocked that when they graduate, they have to pay back the loans.

The media is part of the problem, because they try to drum up sympathy for the people living beyond their means - perhaps under the theory that this is who we all relate to. I am really sick of news stories about people who decide to take out student loans not just for the cost of tuition, but for the perk of living in their own apartment or dorms when their parents offer free housing in the same town, buying meals out instead of cooking for cheap, buying big screen tvs with their loan money (I saw that in an article recently that was supposed to make us sympathetic!), then whining about how unfair it is that they have to eventually pay for the tv. It's up there with another media theme, people with $200k+ salaries whining about how hard it is to make ends meet when they can barely pay for their twice annual overseas vacations and their nanny, etc.

I wish instead the media would put out more of the stories of people with student debt who lived frugally during and after college and still can't get ahead of their debt. There are plenty of people who made reasonably sound financial decisions and still can't get past the obstacles to success, whether because of medical reasons, day care costs, etc. Those are the stories that would help promote progressive plans for free tuition, not the sob stories of people who have excess money but can't figure out a budget that prioritizes paying down the loan principle over eating out.