[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', '[')u]There are a few majors that can escape the exploitation. These include mathematics, chemistry, and physics. If you get good grades in these you may qualify for fully funded graduate study. Chemistry graduate students, for instance, earn $25K a year while in graduate school. If you're conservative with money, that's enough to live and pay off undergraduate loans all while attending graduate school.

Granted, many students aren't interested in such majors.

It's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[graham]

Which way does she spin?
[/quote]

Clockwise?

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[Pretorian]

I did talk ab your bro. You are obese too?
Anyway, what about those that weigh 500-700 pounds and cant walk-- do they have jobs, relatives, something else?

[vision-master]

Those ppl usally get 'other' chronic diseases.

I'm 6'2" weighing in @ 200 lbs.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'O')K, here is the way out for those of you who own nothing more than your home and one car per adult.

Default and get your wages garnished. They can take a maximum of 15% of your wages.

Most are paying more than that, making the payments.

There is a pecking order in regards to that 15%. IRS gets first dibs, followed by Dept of Education. By defaulting on your loan it goes back to the Dept of Education.

Any and every other creditor in the world must stand in line behind the Dept of Education to get a crack at that 15%.

In other words, until that student loan is paid off through the garnished 15%, no other creditor can touch you. That student loan gives you debt immunity.

Once you are garnished by the Dept of Education, your income tax returns will not be levied as you are making payments.

The worst thing they can do to you, may be the best thing that can happen to you.

We figured this out trying to help the daughter of a friend of ours who had nothing and was never going to have anything. Now she actually has a life. She was paying far more in student loan payments than they could legally take if she defaulted.

(I know they came to me hoping I would bail her out, but I'm not that easy.)

[AdTheNad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '
')frankly, i believe it's society's duty to educate its citizens to the full of their potential without placing a burden on them as individuals.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '
')
frankly, i believe it's society's duty to educate its citizens to the full of their potential without placing a burden on them as individuals.

[Cog]

Confiscating my wealth to educate your brats doesn't makes any sense. If you made bad decisions like sitting around drinking beer and watching NASCAR instead of saving for your kid's education, that is on you and not me.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��If you think education is expensive, try ignorance”
quote: Derek Bok

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'C')onfiscating my wealth to educate your brats doesn't makes any sense. If you made bad decisions like sitting around drinking beer and watching NASCAR instead of saving for your kid's education, that is on you and not me.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'C')onfiscating my wealth to educate your brats doesn't makes any sense. If you made bad decisions like sitting around drinking beer and watching NASCAR instead of saving for your kid's education, that is on you and not me.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Student loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion this year
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
Students and workers seeking retraining are borrowing extraordinary amounts of money through federal loan programs, potentially putting a huge burden on the backs of young people looking for jobs and trying to start careers.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what's owed on home loans and credit cards.

... "Students who borrow too much end up delaying life-cycle events such as buying a car, buying a home, getting married (and) having children," says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org. "It's going to create a generation of wage slavery," says Nick Pardini, a Villanova University graduate student in finance who has warned on a blog for investors that student loans are the next credit bubble — with borrowers, rather than lenders, as the losers.

Full-time undergraduate students borrowed an average $4,963 in 2010, up 63% from a decade earlier after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. What's happening:

•Defaults. The portion of borrowers in default — more than nine months behind on payments — rose from 6.7% in 2007 to 8.8% in 2009, according to the most recent federal data.

•For profit-schools. The highest default rates are at for-profit schools that tend to serve lower-income students and offer courses online. The University of Phoenix, the nation's largest, got 88% of its revenue from federal programs last year, most of it from student loans.

"Federal student loans are like no other loans," says Alisa Cunningham, research chief at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. "The consequences are so high for making a mistake."

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daniel_Plainview', 'H')ow different would the picture look if students were given FULL INFORMATION and FULL DISCLOSURE regarding peak oil, peak energy, peak resources, etc., (together with the inevitable decline in economic growth and future job prospects resulting therefrom) BEFORE they signed onto $100K in student loan debt.

Instead of FULL DISCLOSURE, the government hides the truth, and willingly allows students to enter into perpetual debt slavedom, knowing that there will be no hope of debt repayment once the steep decline of peak oil ensues ...

[Ibon]

Neither of my daughters have spent or are spending their post high school higher education in the USA. Not only will they have no debt but they will be far more competitive than their peers graduating from US universities. Perhaps some of the US IVY league schools still provide a worthwhile education but the debt loads for either of my daughters were unsustainable at any of these higher priced options.

In the US my oldest daughter was on the national honor society with a GPA of 3.9. She enrolled in the top university in the Philippines her freshman year and she only got 9 out of 100 questions correct on her entrance level math exam. That was a most humbling experience as she was competing with local students who had been tutored since in junior high to get into this competitive school.

She is learning a work ethic, studying habits and international perspective that will make her competitive upon graduation. Academics is not the only thing you learn in higher education. The cultural environment you are exposed to has a great impact on how mature you are upon graduation. The student body of comparable universities in the US are basically still graduating immature adolescents.

I know of what I speak because I was one of these relative immature graduates 33 years ago when I graduated in 1979. My oldest daughter by comparison is so way more mature for her international education. She has no sense of self entitlement for a job and is quite well positioned culturally for adapting to a post peak oil world thanks to her higher education in a university in a developing country. Her younger sister is currently following her footsteps.

I am not tooting my horn here although I am immensely proud of both of them. Just pointing out that anyone, and I mean anyone could make this choice. Australia at the moment is offering advanced degrees for 1/8 the cost of a US higher education.

If I was a graduating high school senior in the US I would look for foreign learning institutions not only for the price tag but for the tangible and intangible benefits that a higher education outside the US can provide.

You don't have to be an exploited debt serf.

A great alternative for those not adventurous for overseas higher education is a two year community college followed by work and study that can spread out over several years so that you graduate debt free.

There are a percentage of families who send their children blindly into higher education without questioning the costs and benefits, similar to how they bought homes they couldn't afford.

There is the exploitative nature of the banks as this opening post so well illustrates but there is also those so willing to allow themselves to be exploited.

We live in times when young people and their parents must be courageous enough to think out of the box and find creative ways to complete their post high school education instead of mindlessly allowing themselves to be herded into this debt serfdom.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') great alternative for those not adventurous for overseas higher education is a two year community college followed by work and study that can spread out over several years so that you graduate debt free.