Loan forgiveness programs
polycounter lvl 17
Just was reading about the IBR program. Was thinking might be of interest to some others here since I know of ppl with some hefty student loans.
I'm not sure what the qualifications are and how bad the taxes would be on it, but it seems like a nice helping hand in a recession.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/15/news/economy/loan_forgiveness/index.htm
http://www.ibrinfo.org/
I'm not sure what the qualifications are and how bad the taxes would be on it, but it seems like a nice helping hand in a recession.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/15/news/economy/loan_forgiveness/index.htm
http://www.ibrinfo.org/
Replies
I owe about $7000 myself. I'm at 6.4% interest rate right now for subsidized loans. The A-holes in congress said they were going to cut the interest rates down to 3.2% but I never saw nothing.
General rule of thumb is, never borrow money unless you absolutely have to to save your life. And if you do end up borrowing, don't ever fall for some kind of scheme of "cutting your payments" or "forgiving your debt", or "not paying for a year"
Nobody wants to help you, you'll have to pay every penny your borrowed back, and trying to get out of it will just get you into more trouble.
Gotta love how they'll give trillions to banks yet they can't help out the average person by reducing their rate.
Our debt-slavery system stinks.
the ibr program from what I read doesn't take the career thing into qualification. Its based on income as where the public service one helps out the people in military, education or med. type careers.
I'm still in excess of 100,000 in student loan debt. It's basically like having to pay for 2 houses.
I got my degree, and my employer hasn't done shit for me with it. No pay increases this year, and I'm still earning the same money I was making with my original degree. And I can't find someone new to work for to get what I SHOULD be getting paid for with my degree
I am thankful to still have a job, but I hate how close I am to destroying my credit while still trying to make good on things, all because of this damn banking system.
Not a ton of sympathy here for the government bailing out people who make poor personal financial decisions. As a taxpayer who budgets down to the nickel, I don't see why I should have to pay more to bail out people who didn't budget.
A wee bit harsh, Ryno. I agree that subsidizing stupidity isn't what I want to do, but circumstances vary. Student loans are generally taken by people in their late teens/early twenties (we all make mistakes at that age), and they're taken with then intent of pursuing an education (definitely a good cause.) Even if the decision isn't the wisest, I'm much more sympathetic towards a teenager trying to prepare himself for the future than I am some jackhole who's taken an adjustable-rate mortgage on a five bathroom suburban McMansion he can't possibly afford.
The other thing is the scope of what that would cost. I bet that if the federal government slashed every student loans' interest rate in half, the tax cost wouldn't even be a blip on the radar compared to what's gone into TARP and the 'stimulus' package. It'd probably help more people, too.
The military option will pay off quite a large loan amount if you enlist for 4 years. I knew one guy who was getting more than 120k paid off (not sure if that much is normal or not). The trick is that you have to enlist (officers dont get much/anything paid off), Army usually pays off the most compared to other branches, it only works on federal loans, and if you go for the loan repayment option you cant usually get GI bill money to go back to school again after you finish your 4 years.
Seriously tho, the Army sucks. If you can, max out your credit cards to pay the loans off and declare bankruptcy before even thinking about this.
The priciest schools in the Are between 40 and 50 thousand per year just for tuition.
Ryno: LOL sorry, but if you have some magically low cost and quality institution I'd love to hear about it. Out of state rates at my local "public" U are about $654 per credit hour for full time. And yeah, I'd be out of state at any quality college I wanted to go to, cause the local one is good for sports medicine and astrophysics and that's about it.
I always got the minimum amount I needed, which was about 3k a semester. But the government offered me as much as $15k per semester. All I had to do was type in the online form how much I wanted and I'd get a check for it in no time, no questions asked. They make it so ridiculously easy for you to borrow massive sums it's hard believe.
Plus I would also routinely receive letters from private lenders and credit card companies to also borrow as much money as I wanted.
College students are some of the most profitable customers for credit card companies. They've even started to aggressively market to high school kids, cause they know that even if they can't pay, the parents will try to cover the bill.
I'm sorry to be so snippy about this issue, but it's one that hits close to home. I went to a public university (U.C. Davis) and worked my ass off to get through college debt-free. My brother instead chose to go to Yale, putting my middle-class family under a lot of financial stress, and still ended up with $50,000+ in loans. It wasn't until he was in his thirties that he dug himself out of his debt.
He's a smart guy, and obviously went to a good school. He assumed that just by having a degree from Yale, and for being smart, he would end up quickly making tons of money. This was not the case. If he would have went to Cal, or Cal Poly Slo, or UCLA, he would have been much better off.
Just take into account that this can happen to someone who goes to Yale. If you think that some art/tech school is really worth this type of debt, you are wrong. Self motivation and hard work will carry you a lot farther. The debt that you can incur paying for expensive schooling can greatly impact your life for decades after you graduate. I would highly recommend looking at more affordable avenues if it is at all possible. Some of these paths will take you to your dream job much more easily, and a hell of a lot cheaper.
I'll be done with this piece of paper by mid June, so its a bit late at this point, and a large case of hindsight. A number of things which have looked like good decisions, including doing extensive research, have come out mediocre on the back end, but hey, life's like that sometimes and everything I could say otherwise just sound like excuses or whining. At least I didn't invest in the Madoff fund.
Hindsight is always easier than foresight. We all make choices that we could have made better. But I'm just hoping that others can learn from our mis-steps and not repeat them.