Parents and student loans

[Slater]

This has been in the news rather frequently in recent years. It's natural for parents to want to give their kids the opportunity for a college education, but destroying their own lives in the process just doesn't seem worth it. A lot of these folks will literally be paying off these loans until they die:


Jay Rife was sitting in his pickup truck on the outskirts of Las Vegas when he answered a phone call that would permanently alter his life. A man from the federal government was on the line and told him that the loan he had taken out so his son and daughter could go to college had come due. The monthly payment was $1,200.

“I thought I was going to pass out,” said Rife, who was making $13 an hour as a maintenance worker. “I hung up the phone and just kind of set there for an hour trying to figure out what I was going to do.”

He didn’t want to tell his wife, Tina, hoping to protect her from the possibility of being plunged into poverty, but it wasn’t a secret he could keep.

“I think we both sat and cried for a while over it,” said Jay, now 64.

Jay and Tina Rife took out $40,000 in Parent Plus loans. With interest, they now owe more than $100,000.
Eighteen years after that phone call, the couple lives paycheck to paycheck, still struggling to scrape together the monthly fee.

“I feel like I’m stuck in it until I die,” he said, sitting next to his wife, whose face draws down in disbelief when they discuss it.

The couple’s original $40,000 loan to cover the cost of sending their son and daughter to public universities in Indiana, where the family lived at the time, has snowballed in those 18 years, with interest rates as high as 8.5 percent. Their bill now stands at more than $100,000.

The Rifes would have lost their house if they had been forced to make the original monthly payment, so they negotiated with the federal government to get it down to $733. Still, it’s more than their mortgage, and it doesn’t cover the interest, so the amount owed has continued to grow.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/stuck-unt...110209657.html

[just a scout]

College isn’t for everyone and not everyone needs to go to college. And the worst thing done to costs was having the Feds start giving loans. Colleges should be covering student loans, not taxpayers because then you wouldn’t see tuition rates skyrocket like they are.

And you can thank the Dems (Barney whatshisname with the lisp) that made it so you can declare bankruptcy with student loans.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[rero360]

College isn’t for everyone and not everyone needs to go to college. And the worst thing done to costs was having the Feds start giving loans. Colleges should be covering student loans, not taxpayers because then you wouldn’t see tuition rates skyrocket like they are.

And you can thank the Dems (Barney whatshisname with the lisp) that made it so you can declare bankruptcy with student loans.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Franks, Barney Franks was that fat f*ck you're thinking of.

[OH58D]

If your chosen path is college, and you want to serve as a Commissioned Officer, a bachelor's degree is required. In the modern Army, promotion above Captain, they like someone with a Master's Degree. I don't totally agree the Masters push is necessary, but that's the current trend.

For non-military, there are a lot of scholarships out there. My teenage daughter is going the Veterinary Medicine route and she has a lot of options. It starts with a degree in Animal Science and then acceptance to Vet school. For where we are in New Mexico, the Colorado State University Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program is popular. Not as many scholarships for that program, so student loans kick in. The Army will also pay for your DVM with a several year hitch.

[TomMcC]

And where is the son and daughter? Dead? If they are alive, are they working, and if they are working why are they not helping their elderly parents pay of the debt? Do these children love and honor their parents?

[WillBrink]

Some of that does not add up. Fed student loans are not 8.5%. Where did they take that loan? Many people have not been able to afford college, had to delay college, or found ways to cover it with grants, loans, scholarships etc as i did. I know several people who went the mil route to cover it also. A friend of mine went to med school via the national guard, and so forth.

I have nothing but respect for people like that couple giving everything they have to help their kids in college, but losing your home and such? Nope, I'd tell my kids they're gonna have to find another route.

The cost of college has gone into the silly territory to be sure and what the real cost drivers are of that - the more important aspect of the equation I think - does not seem to get the attention it should in my view. Why does college cost so damn much now and what can be done about it?

Let's solve that...

Finally, while I'm a proponent of an education (having gone to four different schools and all...), I'd make it clear that there's no lack of good careers out there that make a good living too.

[WillBrink]

Franks, Barney Franks was that fat f*ck you're thinking of.

The guy who ran a gay brothel out of his apartment in DC?

[SteyrAUG]

Jay Rife was sitting in his pickup truck on the outskirts of Las Vegas when he answered a phone call that would permanently alter his life. A man from the federal government was on the line and told him that the loan he had taken out so his son and daughter could go to college had come due. The monthly payment was $1,200.

How much did he think it was going to cost? Didn't he read the terms?

My brother was literally in medical school when a biological relation cleaned out his bank account (long story) and suddenly his GSL became due but WITHOUT any kind of medical degree. He dropped out and had to join the army. Because they covered his outstanding loan they wouldn't even let him OCS despite the fact that he would have otherwise qualified.

So he enlisted as an 11B and they made it clear that would be his job for a minimum 4 years. And of course almost as soon as it happened Persian Gulf I happened. He was smart enough to career and work his way up and came out as a flight surgeon with the rank of captain so he made the most of it, but he got to see lots of Iraq and other places that he'd have just as soon avoided.

The only really good thing he came away with are all the kids that are still walking around with interesting scars that might not have pulled through had he not been right there. So I guess what I'm saying is if you put your kids through college and they can't earn enough to pay off the loan, then it wasn't a very good investment.

[just a scout]

Franks, Barney Franks was that fat f*ck you're thinking of.

Yep. That fat prick. Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[rero360]

The guy who ran a gay brothel out of his apartment in DC?

Perhaps, I don't remember, nor have I been to DC or frequent those types of establishments. I do know that there's some rich Dem (white) out here in LA that has killed a few of his black gay lovers via O.D.