At a very young age my parents, teachers, and guidance counselors have ingrained in my head that going to college was the “next step”after high school and what was expected of me.
Now here I am, 1 year out of school, with $120,000 worth of debt in a job with a mediocre salary. After half of each monthly paycheck goes directly toward paying loans I have the other to live off of.
The debt situation among students is a vicious cycle of people who are taught that to get a decent job you must go to school, but then come out to pay it off for 20 + years.
It is a frightening thought to think how long I will have to work JUST to get out of debt…Not to mention save some money, buy a house, or start a family.
Stupid me, trying to go for some higher ed!
I owe $145k (now. It was $120 when I graduated)
I’ve got no job, no interest in practicing in the field I studied (counseling psych) and really, no prospects.
I can’t believe they’ll bail out criminals, but not us.
PS - My long term plan is to stay well below the poverty level so I never have to pay the loans back, yet not default. I’ll die one day, right?
After attending community college to earn my AA, going to in-state schools for my BA and JD, my starting balance was approximately $180,000 when my payments came due. I had private loans totaling $50k that will wind up costing me at least $150k to pay back. And, of course, this doesn’t include the federal loans.
I was lucky enough to find a job upon graduation working for a tiny firm, but I am paid approximately $30,000 per year, with zero benefits. I am anticipating paying about $500,000 toward my education over my lifetime, never owning a house, never owning a decent car, and possibly not having children. All because I came from a lower-middle class family and a mentally ill mother that literally could not help me with ANY living expenses. I worked at least 20 to 30 hours per week throughout college. Some days, I could just die.
I have been reading the argument on how people sign the contract and should be liable for their debt they are incurring from their student loans. How many actually read the document and how many were encouraged by television ads and other media or even friends and counselors at school that getting a higher education is the way to go. I realize now that higher education was a wonderful thing, however not worth the cost of it. Education in this country should be free, then we would not care as much how terrible our politicians are today and how worthless our government is as a whole. People need to stand up for what they believe and wake up to what is happening.
Years ago I went to college to study accounting, and like millions of other Americans I took out loans to pay for it. A few years later I got a temporary job in the accounting department at Bain & Co., and after 6 months of reliable work I was thrilled to be offered a full-time position.
However, just a few weeks after starting in my new position the company fired me because my debt-to-credit ratio was too high. I later learned that 60% of employers now check credit reports, which typically include student debts. How are you supposed to pay off your student debts if you can’t get (or keep) a job BECAUSE of your debts? And what do my student debts have to do with my ability to do a job well anyway?
25 states have debated bills in the last year to restrict this practice, and in a number of these states one company has fought hardest against these efforts: credit reporting company TransUnion.
What’s ironic is that Penny Pritzker, TransUnion’s Chair and part owner, sits on President Obama’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council, which advises the President on putting Americans back to work. How can someone advise on national job creation when her company sells products that may keep qualified people out of work?
Please join me and 25 national civil rights organizations in calling on TransUnion to stop its sale of credit reports to employers. As the only one of the “Big 3” credit reporting companies that’s privately held, TransUnion has the ability to stop this practice overnight.
It was recently announced that in the coming weeks TransUnion will be sold to two private equity companies, including Goldman Sachs. If Penny Pritzker is serious about job creation, she should do what she can to ensure that her company stops this abusive practice before the company is sold.
Click HERE to sign Latoya’s Change.org petition
Pls RT: what does my student debt have to do w/ my ability to do my job?
#StopTransUnion #OccupyStudentDebt #UniteHere
http://www.change.org/petitions/transunion-stop-selling-credit-reports-to-employers
“I didn’t become a clerk right away because I had to work. I just had too much debt!…To this day it is one of the biggest regrets of my career.”
I walked into the Supreme Court building today for a Phi Beta Kappa event, expecting to hear Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor give some non-answer-answers about things I would care little about. Instead, I encountered one of the most powerful women in the United States opening up about a topic so very personal to millions of Americans: student debt.
Justice Sotomayor didn’t just talk about having debt, but how her debt almost prevented her from being the third female and first Latina supreme court justice in history. As an activist and advocate for student loan reform, I hear a lot of stories from a wide array of people. I hear about people who are putting off buying homes and starting families because of their debt load. I hear about people on the verge of being evicted because they can’t pay their rent because they had to choose to pay rent or pay Sallie Mae and the latter just seemed more threatening to them. I had never heard of someone so powerful and influential opening up about how their student debt has affected them so deeply, to the point that it could have changed the entire course of history.
Recently, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) announced to the world that she couldn’t understand why students are graduating with astronomical debt figures. She explained that working as a janitor helped her pay for college without taking on our any student loans. She said that she had “no tolerance for people who graduate with $200,000 or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no need for that.” Rep. Foxx failed to realize that the cost of college has increased, in some cases, nearly 1,000 percent since the 1960’s, making it virtually impossible for someone to pay for tuition on a janitor’s salary today. Source
I’d like to say to Rep. Foxx: you are absolutely right. There is no reason why millions of Americans are saddled with $1 trillion dollars of student loan debt. There is no reason why it costs upwards of $30,000 a year to attend small colleges in the middle of nowhere. There is no reason why students with nearly perfect GPA’s receive virtually no grants or scholarships even though they have been told their entire lives to work hard and college will be the next natural step. There is no reason why fat cats like Albert Lord are never late for tee time at their local country club while victims of his company’s predatory lending practices are told they must pay a fee of $50 per loan up to $150 if they can’t afford to make their monthly payment.
And there is most certainly no reason for someone as accomplished, educated and ambitious as Sonia Sotomayor to have had to make the choice to delay her career path in order to begin paying on her mountain of student debt. Student debt is not a new problem but it is most definitely one that is completely out of control and needs a solution now.
For more information on HR 4170, click here.
By: RaeAnn Roca
Founder, Loan Reform Now
From Global Montreal:
An outline of tuition fee increases in Quebec from the 1970s to the present day.
1970-1985
Tuition fees: $500
1985
Tuition fees: $500
The Parti Quebecois wanted to increase student tuition fees by $47. The students threatened to strike and the PQ gave up their attempt.
1986
Tuition fees: $500
The Liberals proposed an increase in tuition fees by $47. Students went on strike for two weeks and Premier Robert Bourassa kept the tuition freeze.
1990
Tuition fees: $500
The Liberals proposed an increase of $280 each year over four years. Students protested in Montreal and Rimouski for a month. Bourassa held his position and the increase went through.
1994
Tuition fees: $1668
1996
Tuition fees: $1668
The Parti Quebecois tried to increase tuition fees. After a month of protests, Education Minister Pauline Marois kept the tuition freeze, but imposed a fine on CEGEP students who failed more than five classes.
2005
Tuition fees: $1668
The Liberal government changed $103 million worth of bursaries into student loans. The students protested for eight weeks.
2006-2007
Tuition fees: $1668
The Liberal Minister of Education, Jean-Marc Fournier changed $103 million worth of loans back to bursaries.
2007
Tuition fees: $1668
The Liberals announced a tuition fee increase of $500 over a period of five years. The students responded with a relatively week protest lasting a few weeks and the increase was confirmed.
2012
Tuition fees: $2168
The Liberals proposed a tuition fee increase of $325 each year for five years. Student protests started February 14, 2024 and are ongoing.
2017
Tuition fees: $3793
