Student Loan Forgiveness Rant
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@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
This is something that is often overlooked. People often site Finland as having free college - and they do - but they don't tell the whole story. Finland's department of education realized that if any more than 69% of the population goes to college, they won't have enough blue collar workers, so they have national entrance exams. If you don't do well there, you don't go to college.
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@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda no it is not taxed as income. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/questions
Even worse! Meaning they are just giving you an extra $63K over the term. Go find a job that pays that extra money per year and pay your debts.
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The other thing about the Finnish system is the taxes it takes to pay for that. The two things that I think Americans would have a hard time with is the 100% automobile tax and the tax brackets that increase exponentially. So cars cost twice as much. You can't earn more to pay for it since it gets to the point where if you work more hours, you get taxes so much higher you end up with less in your pocket.
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@mike-davis said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
This is something that is often overlooked. People often site Finland as having free college - and they do - but they don't tell the whole story. Finland's department of education realized that if any more than 69% of the population goes to college, they won't have enough blue collar workers, so they have national entrance exams. If you don't do well there, you don't go to college.
But you also have to realize that not everyone in a "college for everyone" approach would go, even if offered. You'd also have grade maintenance programs to ensure that the people attending public funded college are actually going to be valued individuals in the future.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
Why / when did this become an acceptable practice?
Discharging of debts as a government mandated process? 1787 when the constitution mandated Congress to write uniform bankruptcy laws. Reorganization of unpayable debts? (Chpt 11) 1930's.
The limitations on discharging of education loans in bankruptcy or through the courts or law is actually a relatively new thing.
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
Sorry people, pay your debts! Don't be one of the millions of assholes who say "not my problem" it is your problem and it's why this country is royally screwed.
An old proverb. If you owe someone $100 he controls you. If you owe him 100 Million dollars you control him.
I'd argue the problem isn't people not paying back debt, the problem is LOANING people 90K in debt who are statistically speaking unlikely to pay it back (Masters in professional dance). I blame the person extending the loans that were unlikely to be paid back, and collectively (as this is a republic) that's all of us.When LBJ created student loans, it was originally for STEM, Education, Business, and law degrees. Loan amounts should be weighted based on historical payback rates for a school, major or program.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.Spending on education is fine, spending to remove debt that someone agreed to is that individual persons responsibility. Not the public's responsibility.
I understand what you are saying. I get where you are coming from. I have set myself and family up to have my loans paid off in the next 5 to 7 years. Without the forgiveness. I have been eating a lot of ramen and pb&j for lunch. We have been watching our money closely. Whether or not the government should do this is one thing. I would be stupid not to take it though when it is available to me.
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@mike-davis said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
This is something that is often overlooked. People often site Finland as having free college - and they do - but they don't tell the whole story. Finland's department of education realized that if any more than 69% of the population goes to college, they won't have enough blue collar workers, so they have national entrance exams. If you don't do well there, you don't go to college.
I don't know about you guys, but where I live there are PLENTY of people who have no desire to go sit in a classroom for another 4-5 years. Many of the men just want to go to work in blue collar fields. This may not be the case everywhere though.
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@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.Spending on education is fine, spending to remove debt that someone agreed to is that individual persons responsibility. Not the public's responsibility.
I understand what you are saying. I get where you are coming from. I have set myself and family up to have my loans paid off in the next 5 to 7 years. Without the forgiveness. I have been eating a lot of ramen and pb&j for lunch. We have been watching our money closely. Whether or not the government should do this is one thing. I would be stupid not to take it though when it is available to me.
My stance isn't with you. It's with the system, how it's rigged and royally helping 1 and screwing over 1000.
You said your self that this 63K debt is tax free. That's insane.
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The fact that this is Tax Free, means 10's of thousands of positions like this are filled across the country.
Of which no taxes are being paid on. That's a lot of money to just ignore and not collect taxes on.
Hell if I fart in a public office there's a 25 cent fee!
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I think one of the solutions to this is private businesses being able to set up schools and get compensation for it. or just go back to apprenticeship type programs. In NY right now, it's illegal to have an unpaid intern. That's crazy. There are lot of jobs where you could let someone job shadow and then intern from there, they could learn everything they need to be valuable to an employer in a couple years.
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Hell in NYS if you claim unemployment and collect an unemployment check, you're forced to pay income taxes on it.
We pay taxes to pay for unemployment benefits, and pay taxes on it if we need it.
Why should this benefit of giving away money not extend in that case then? Tax it, it's income. Period.
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TL;DR - It doesn't work out for everyone.
It's not quite as simple as how @PenguinWrangler may be explaining it. I work for the gov't (state) and have looked into this (I have way more student loan debt that I'm willing to admit, unfortunately)...
You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.
If you leave the public sector that clock resets, so you must work for the public sector for the entire 120 payment stint.
You must also be on an Income Based Repayment plan. In my case, because I have so much friggin' student loan debt, my IBR payment was astronomical. And, for some reason I could never understand, the calculations for my IBR payment made it so that I'd have the loan paid off in ~120 payments anyway. so there would have been minimal, if any, money to be forgiven. I think it was due to not having any dependents at the time (wasn't yet married nor had any kids). This was in 2010.
I did have, however, a substantial (to me) mortgage that I valued more than paying my student loans off early (which worked out well for us fortunately).
Fast forward to 2013 where I was happily married and had newborn twins. Oooh, great, time to look into the student loan forgiveness plan! Nope. Given the 3 years of payments I had already put in (which did not count since it wasn't on an IBR plan), the calculations still balanced to where I'd have the loans paid off within the ~120 payment timeframe.
It would've been a nice perk, but I have to think of it in terms that I'm lucky to be able to afford to pay off my student loans and still live a somewhat middle-class life.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.Spending on education is fine, spending to remove debt that someone agreed to is that individual persons responsibility. Not the public's responsibility.
I understand what you are saying. I get where you are coming from. I have set myself and family up to have my loans paid off in the next 5 to 7 years. Without the forgiveness. I have been eating a lot of ramen and pb&j for lunch. We have been watching our money closely. Whether or not the government should do this is one thing. I would be stupid not to take it though when it is available to me.
My stance isn't with you. It's with the system, how it's rigged and royally helping 1 and screwing over 1000.
You said your self that this 63K debt is tax-free. That's insane.
Depends on which tax schedule you use.
The tax on 63K at long-term capital gains rate (it's a long-term payback, and it's not THAT much money) is 12% or ~7.56K note a huge amount.Also, lots of stuff is tax-free. I didn't pay taxes on the money I put into my 401K. That's $5940 (or $11,880 joint filed, as I'm maxing out my wife's account) worth of taxes I'm not paying every year! The earnings in my Roth IRA are tax-free (I put in 11K last year, and the 8% gains for the year on it are tax-free!)
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@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dashrender said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
What torqued my wife and I off was that a new program was put in place for teachers to have gov't funded loans forgiven, but she didn't qualify because she was before the start date they picked. But of course all the teachers since then.... HUGE reduction in student loan fees.
All of that said - I'm with Dustin in that the government shouldn't be using public money to put people through college. The government, often requiring college degrees, just furthers a system of waste and control.
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
So you're saying all education should be paid, and I'm saying after HS it should not be paid by the government at all - meh... Really I don't give a shit as long as it's equal either way, which clearly today it's not.
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@storageninja equating 401K investments to private loan debt forgiveness aren't the same.
You're investing that money (pre tax) from the job you are working today to retire.
It could completely tank and you could lose all of it. Or it could go great during your life and you could retire a millionaire.
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@anthonyh said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
TL;DR - It doesn't work out for everyone.
It's not quite as simple as how @PenguinWrangler may be explaining it. I work for the gov't (state) and have looked into this (I have way more student loan debt that I'm willing to admit, unfortunately)...
You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.
If you leave the public sector that clock resets, so you must work for the public sector for the entire 120 payment stint.
You must also be on an Income Based Repayment plan. In my case, because I have so much friggin' student loan debt, my IBR payment was astronomical. And, for some reason I could never understand, the calculations for my IBR payment made it so that I'd have the loan paid off in ~120 payments anyway. so there would have been minimal, if any, money to be forgiven. I think it was due to not having any dependents at the time (wasn't yet married nor had any kids). This was in 2010.
I did have, however, a substantial (to me) mortgage that I valued more than paying my student loans off early (which worked out well for us fortunately).
Fast forward to 2013 where I was happily married and had newborn twins. Oooh, great, time to look into the student loan forgiveness plan! Nope. Given the 3 years of payments I had already put in (which did not count since it wasn't on an IBR plan), the calculations still balanced to where I'd have the loans paid off within the ~120 payment timeframe.
It would've been a nice perk, but I have to think of it in terms that I'm lucky to be able to afford to pay off my student loans and still live a somewhat middle-class life.
You are correct. I didn't dive into the deep details. I worked for the State of Missouri for 6 years and none of that counts. I am paying more than my income-based repayment plan requires each month, which I will probably just pay the IBR amount now, however, I still have to make 120 on-time payments which are 10 years of payments. This all supposes they don't end this program before I work for 10 years as well.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dashrender said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
What torqued my wife and I off was that a new program was put in place for teachers to have gov't funded loans forgiven, but she didn't qualify because she was before the start date they picked. But of course all the teachers since then.... HUGE reduction in student loan fees.
All of that said - I'm with Dustin in that the government shouldn't be using public money to put people through college. The government, often requiring college degrees, just furthers a system of waste and control.
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
I'm not against fully funded community college for everyone. I'm against forgiving debts that people have promised to pay back because a person is unable to find a higher paying job.
You agreed to the terms of the loan, now pay it back. Sorry you can't get/find a better job. Not the public's issue.
I'm just not picking up what you're putting down. The loan came from the government, so the government has that as a benefit for working for them...
If the loan came from Wells Fargo, and you went to work for them, then they would have that as an option to offer you.
Question - do you think it's BS that people that work for Cox Communication get free free cable/phone/internet because they work there? The loan forgiveness as a government employee is really no different.
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@anthonyh said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.
If you make 120 payments for most people on IBR you are going to have paid the base balance (or most of it). IBR penalizes you for being married (My income is added to my wife's and they don't divide by 2) so because of my earnings even if we did the 10-year plan (She's eligible) I'd still end up paying almost as much as just paying it down early (What I"m doing). You have to pay interest all that time on IBR, and 10 years of interest on a reasonably high interest loan is a thing.
Now I'm hoping (Fingers crossed) My wife gets a K grant from the NIH (which will pay off something like 35K a year). This helps offset the fact that researchers make basically 1/2 to a 1/3 what they could get on the private market. The point of these mechanisms is to make sure smart people (from a poor background) actually can go into government service, education, or research. While she could go into private practice we all benefit more from her doing research into Vaccine development for virus's that kill small children.
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@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@anthonyh said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
TL;DR - It doesn't work out for everyone.
It's not quite as simple as how @PenguinWrangler may be explaining it. I work for the gov't (state) and have looked into this (I have way more student loan debt that I'm willing to admit, unfortunately)...
You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.
If you leave the public sector that clock resets, so you must work for the public sector for the entire 120 payment stint.
You must also be on an Income Based Repayment plan. In my case, because I have so much friggin' student loan debt, my IBR payment was astronomical. And, for some reason I could never understand, the calculations for my IBR payment made it so that I'd have the loan paid off in ~120 payments anyway. so there would have been minimal, if any, money to be forgiven. I think it was due to not having any dependents at the time (wasn't yet married nor had any kids). This was in 2010.
I did have, however, a substantial (to me) mortgage that I valued more than paying my student loans off early (which worked out well for us fortunately).
Fast forward to 2013 where I was happily married and had newborn twins. Oooh, great, time to look into the student loan forgiveness plan! Nope. Given the 3 years of payments I had already put in (which did not count since it wasn't on an IBR plan), the calculations still balanced to where I'd have the loans paid off within the ~120 payment timeframe.
It would've been a nice perk, but I have to think of it in terms that I'm lucky to be able to afford to pay off my student loans and still live a somewhat middle-class life.
You are correct. I didn't dive into the deep details. I worked for the State of Missouri for 6 years and none of that counts. I am paying more than my income-based repayment plan requires each month, which I will probably just pay the IBR amount now, however, I still have to make 120 on-time payments which are 10 years of payments. This all supposes they don't end this program before I work for 10 years as well.
I'd hope I'm correct given I've worked in the public sector since 2006 and have looked into this multiple times really really hoping to benefit from it.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I as someone who's paid every penny of my student loans haven't received a government benefit from paying my bill.
Why should you get a benefit for working for a government agency receive a benefit that isn't / wasn't available to me?
@dustinb3403 It could be available to you. You are not barred from working for a non-profit or the government. How is it any different than a company saying if you work for 'x' amount of years we will pay off your student loans or a company saying we will pay for you to go back to school?
Because the tax payers are the people are paying off your bad choices.
I chose to bust my ass and get a good paying job so I could pay my debts, because I don't want to be in debt forever.
You / me / and anyone else with college loans agreed to the terms on the loan. You can't go and change them after you get dealt a shit hand at life.
Hold the phone - the government paying you a lower salary than you can earn in the private sector, and instead that money going to the loan is the same as you a private citizen paying the loan, just the middle man is removed. Please lower taxes for the employee, because income used to pay the loan would be taxable..
