http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opi...rrer=&_r=0

Some quotes from the article:

Quote:By the end of my sophomore year at a small private liberal arts college, my mother and I had taken out a second loan, my father had declared bankruptcy and my parents had divorced. My mother could no longer afford the tuition that the student loans weren’t covering. I transferred to a state college in New Jersey, closer to home.

Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.

As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example.

It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.

Quote:Am I a deadbeat? In the eyes of the law I am. Indifferent to the claim that repaying student loans is the road to character? Yes. Blind to the reality of countless numbers of people struggling to repay their debts, no matter their circumstances, many worse than mine? My heart goes out to them. To my mind, they have learned to live with a social arrangement that is legal, but not moral.

Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.

Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.

I highlighted a few things that jumped out at me, but DAMN! The entitlement just oozes out of this piece. There are a lot of people who would rather be doing something different than they are today. It doesn't mean that we should blow off our obligations just because we made choices that give us a benefit up front. Anyways, here is a good response article below.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015...about.html

regardless of the selfishness, default is going to become an increasingly popular solution to the student loan problem. Many are positioning a college degree in a manner similar to a high school diploma; a necessary credential to achieve success in America and as such not be a financial burden.

lol. so basically

"I chose to go to a very expensive private school that I couldn't afford, to get a degree that wouldn't allow me to make enough money to make it worth going to said college, and now I am broke and can't pay off my loans"

If he was metaphorically inclined, he could have added a some literary flair as follows:

Quote:When we finished, the banker, a balding man in his late 50s, congratulated us, as if I had just won some kind of award rather than signed away my young life. Yet at the time, I considered his congratulations as a mark of success, not unlike the participation trophies I had been awarded for soccer or the honor society certificates that line my bedroom walls.

I've highlighted my additions.

(06-09-2015 10:45 AM)QuestionSocratic Wrote:  If he was metaphorically inclined, he could have added a some literary flair as follows:

Quote:When we finished, the banker, a balding man in his late 50s, congratulated us, as if I had just won some kind of award rather than signed away my young life. Yet at the time, I considered his congratulations as a mark of success, not unlike the participation trophies I had been awarded for soccer or the honor society certificates that line my bedroom walls. As I was always told, I was special and college would unleash the greatness I possessed.

I've highlighted my additions.

The writer does understand that defaulting doesn't make the debt go away and that it still accumulates interest? It is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Instead, it will haunt him forever in the form of wage garnishments and asset seizures.

(06-09-2015 10:45 AM)NCeagle Wrote:  lol. so basically

"I chose to go to a very expensive private school that I couldn't afford, to get a degree that wouldn't allow me to make enough money to make it worth going to said college, and now I am broke and can't pay off my loans"

Except in his case, he could easily repay his debts today considering he's written 5 books plus lives in an upper middle class neighborhood.

Defaulting when you can pay back the loans out of some moral principle is pretty ******.

But, are student loans a serious problem that needs to be addressed? The answer is most certainly yes.

I LOLed at his comment that he had amassed crippling debt...not because of reckless borrowing or spending. News flash....Borrowing huge sums of money to get a useless degree in which you can't make a living IS reckless borrowing.
Fck that guy. I hope his haunts him until he dies.

and with his mom cosigning, won't this hurt her credit as well?

(06-09-2015 11:37 AM)NCeagle Wrote:  and with his mom cosigning, won't this hurt her credit as well?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/colu.../14501901/

After publication, Siegel told Yahoo! News, “I had my full tuition paid all my years at Columbia,” and implied that he was borrowing for living expenses while at the school. “If I had worked full-time, I never would have finished," he said. So, while it seems accurate to say that he took out loans in order to attend grad school, it's not fair to suggest that he paid out for one of the world’s most expensive universities. The article has been revised elsewhere to reflect that he received scholarship money.

his official speaker’s bio states that he eventually went on to earn a B.A., M.A., and masters of philosophy from Columbia University. All of this was financed in part with the help of scholarship money, but also seemingly with a mountain of student debt. Later, Siegel concluded that he wouldn’t be able to pay off his obligations if he wanted to keep working as a writer. So he chose to shirk them instead. Thirty years after taking out his last loan, he notes, “the Department of Education is still pursuing the unpaid balance.”

When that guy was at Columbia tuition was in the low to mid teens. Also,
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/...rt.culture
US critic Lee Siegel got into trouble for posting flattering replies to his own blog under a false name. Here he reveals why he has no regrets

This guy was also a columnist / critic, and he would post wonderful things about his articles using a fake name in the comments section.

What a jerk

yeah. dude just seems to be a straight up tool in every way.

Remove the bankruptcy law, limit the max a student can take out per year without a credit check and require a credit check or co-signer to get more. Problem solved.

(06-09-2015 02:30 PM)firmbizzle Wrote:  Remove the bankruptcy law, limit the max a student can take out per year without a credit check and require a credit check or co-signer to get more. Problem solved.

Who teaches these 18-year old idiots that it's somehow okay to accumulate this type of debt without a solid plan to repay it?

Me thinks the public education our tax money funds should prepare them to find ways to pay for college if they choose to go that route.

not only that, but there is also i believe a false stigma about state schools and community colleges.

I coaches a kid this past year that didn't know what she wanted to do in school. She works at a cross fit gym, so she is going to go to school part time while she works, pay for school up front and wait until she figures out what she wants to do.

Unfortunately it gets jammed down kids throats that they need to go directly to a 4 year school and take out loans, or else they won't be successful.

Well, every 2.75 GPA, no extracurricular-activity-doing Joe-Schmo high school senior.....for whatever reason.....believes he is entitled to at least 4 years of college and a degree no matter how much debt he piles up.

This mindset can be classified as a few things: Stupid, Entitled, and Spawn of Parents Who Didn't Teach Him about the Real World

true.

we as a society need to get away from trying to tell every kid they can be whatever they want to be.

I'm sorry, but little Johnny who sits in the corner and sniffs glue all day will not be a doctor. The world needs ditch diggers. Nothing wrong with that.