This may be true, however his actions since graduating show a lack of character. If Galperin was striving to do his utmost to pay off his debt I’d have respect for that. Paying $35 per month and sticking his parents with $600 in monthly payments with no intent to relieve their burden, or make a bigger payment himself in the future, is appalling IMO.
There is so much wrong here I don’t know what to think. Why do some people act as if educational debt is somehow less real than the debt backing a car or a home? Is it because the asset (a degree) is less tangible (property)?
Re: #40
The parents made bad decisions too. The obvious one was cosigning the large loans or taking large parent loans.
What is also hinted at is that they may have had spendy habits (since they had no cash to contribute despite a decent income). If so, then the student followed their example, and the parents were happy to enable.
No, the Plus loans do not go to another party. In fact, they are forgiven on the death of the party (only one parent signs on a loan) or the student.
They might be but only if he’s followed the plan for that loan, and I don’t believe this guy WILL follow the plan. No one has had their loans forgiven under the current plan(s) since it hasn’t been 20-25 years yet under the post 2008 plans.
Just s propaganda piece for student loan forgiveness. No tears here.
News outlets find the most ridiculous examples, either outliers, emotional tugs having little to do with reality, or just make things up. For example, the fellow in Toronto city life could not possibly afford the ‘experiences’ he is talking about after the ridiculous taxes and cost of living where he lives, even with free housing from mooching off his parents. He’d need an income 3-4x greater.
@gouf78 You’re wrong - it’s a propaganda piece by people who are AGAINST student loan forgiveness, like you. They take a caricature of a case, and try and paint all of the kids who are in debt because of college in the same wide, unsympathetic brush.
Most kids took much lower loans, and, as the jobs for which they were trained dried up, were sent overseas, or had stagnated salaries, they were unable to pay back the $35,000 loan which seemed pretty reasonable at the time. However, even though wages have been stagnant, the loan interest rates have not been. So kids who have been paying back a $45,000 loan for 10 years still owe $30,000.
While wages have been stagnant, real estate has been climbing in price, utilities have been getting more expensive, as have food and gas.
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I meant to type “away” regarding PLUS. A benefit of those loans is that upon the death of the borrower or student, the loan goes away unlike those co-signed loans that can remain payable as long as one signee is alive.
There are contracts out there regarding repayment that do end the repayment after a set number of years. There have been disability and other settlements that have happened too, but the circumstances are not ones that are favorable to relating the loan IMO.
Fortunately wages are no longer stagnant, and opportunities abound for young people. They just have to be willing to move and live where the jobs are, which might not be in their preferred location. Utility costs continue to rise largely because of the green initiatives that young people are all in favor of (welcome to the real world!). Gas has been fairly stable in price on a wholesale level - it’s gas taxes that have increased in many states - largely because politicians lack the will to remove depression era (and racist!) prevailing wage laws.
@TooOld4School So, kids are supposed to spend tens of thousands to move to where jobs may or may not be. They will receive no support for the move, nor will they receive any tax credits, and the salaries are not really high enough to pay for this move. This will help them pay back debt, somehow.
You think that fossil fuels are cheaper, because you ignore the resulting healthcare costs as well as the costs of global climate change. Kinda like somebody who thinks that drinking from a polluted water source for free is saving money instead of buying clean water or cleaning up the water source. Gas taxes are a way to make sure that the environmental and health costs of fossil fuel are incorporated into the price
Exactly how you connect gas prices to wage laws I do not know, but its likely that it will be that somehow laws which keep employers from paying even less, somehow are forcing wages from rising. So I guess that allowing employers to pay their workers even less will cause those wages to go up?
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Anyone who has only managed to pay back $15k of principal over 10 years grossly mismanaged their finances.
My kids and a lot of their friends moved to where they found the best job opportunities. My recent graduate is going through this now, as are most of his friends. These are the kids who can get living wage jobs. Those who cannot, come back home to live with parents. Some stay near their college because of familiarity in terms of finding affordable living arrangements.
Of course, I’m talking about those kids who went away to college. The vast majority of students do not and for most of them, post college is a continuum of how they were living while in college with full time work rather than part time. Those with majors and certifications that are in demand will have s step up, but many still don’t leave the immediate area.
I split my time between two diametrically different environments when it comes to post college transitions. Here in my NY suburbs, the former scenario is more common. In the other more rural area, few graduates leave They segue into other jobs, usually gradually.
If I were friends with the journalist’s partner, I would say “run!” Not just due to the total amount of debt, but to the attitude about paying it off and the view of the parents’ role.
@MWolf Yes, kids are supposed to move where jobs are, just like every other generation.
Gas prices have two components - fuel and taxes. Road taxes are diverted for public transit, subway systems, etc. none of which have anything to do with fixing roads. And prevailing wage laws - essentially paying union wages for every road project - drives up the cost of labor 30%+. Fewer roads get fixed , and politicians raise gas taxes rather than make better use of the money they receive. This is not a good value for the taxpayers. More people would be employed with more projects.
Healthcare costs (how?) and climate change costs (uncertain) have nothing to do with fuel pricing. I won’t get into a debate about it, but over 99% of US vehicles run on fossil fuels, so that is the solution for the near term.
In any case, it is sad to see a (presumably) healthy young person make such poor financial decisions. Undoubtedly the taxpayer will be on the hook for the debt in the future.
Depends on the interest rates, and on how much they are being paid.
At a median entry level annual income most non-STEM fields of $36,000 a year, or less, before taxes, it’s easy to calculate that some students cannot pay more than $250 a month. At 5% interest rate for student loans or higher, you can easily end up paying only $15K of the principle in the first 10 years of work.
I think people really have no idea as to the actual salaries for kids with college degrees, and the cost of things like housing. You can live in a city and save a lot on transportation, but end up paying half your salary on rent, or you can live in a suburb, or a cheaper city, and require a car, which would either cost a lot for payments, or cost a lot for repairs and lost work days. You could either live in a state with low taxes, and get paid less and pay more for basics because of sales tax, and generally have higher healthcare costs.
For the first 5 years or so after college, most kids are barely able to pay the minimum payments on their student loans.
Of course, the kids who graduated between 2009 and 2014 also were likely unemployed for a large amount of times since graduation, and unable to pay back loans, but the interest kept on mounting.
Of course, when they actually found jobs, they had difficulty finding places to live, since most rental agencies want to know your credit score. You cannot easily finance a car, for the same reason, so paying down cash also meant that you do not have money to pay much to student loans.
Student loans were traps for so many kids, because they were promised, by society, meaning all of us, that they would find decent jobs, and have no problem paying them back, because jobs for college graduates are, evidently, numerous and high paying. That is what people are still insisting on CC, despite so much evidence to the contrary.
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By 2008, unrealistically optimistic and aggressively marketed housing loans left many borrowers bankrupt. Some might have had the knowledge to know better, but I can’t blame those following the advice of so-called experts.
Here we go again. We can focus on this individual’s irresponsibility towards his parents, or we can look at the big picture. Why were he and his parents able to borrow so much? Who is making money here?
… oh and credit card debt…
I am pretty sure it used to not be possible to be in so much debt to socially acceptable and respected institutions
A story like this focuses our attention away from the big picture. Even if we all agree to blame and shame this man, it would be a lot better for most of us if this situation wasn’t possible. Because it has a negative societal impact. That’s the problem. imho.
This is really not about the student loan debt issue. It’s about a selfish individual who doesn’t want to let financial reality stand in the way of his dreams.
In order to rack up the kind of debt he had he had to borrow the full amount of his Rutgers and CUNY educations without paying anything toward the COA with part time or summer work.
This is from his personal website:
This is not someone who was doing the best he could to pay off his loans.
There will always be irresponsible individuals who rack up debt. My SIL got in over her head with credit card debt as a new college graduate. She’ll tell you it was no one’s fault but her own. It took her a few years to work it off but she did so by reigning in her costs and working some crappy jobs that put money in the bank.
He is “taking back his power” and “doesn’t want to participate in the system” by changing his lifestyle at all to take responsibility for his debt? And wants to pay only the minimum and dump the responsibility on his parents? What an entitled, self focused jerk.
This guy certainly exhibits selfish, entitled behavior. Publishing this piece probably has hurt his chances of getting a real job (should he ever choose to go that route). As someone who has hired many people, if I were to come across this article while doing candidate research, I would not pursue him as an employee. I probably wouldn’t have anyway because of the spotty work history, but reading this would seal the deal.
I have seen it in real life – a friend of ours has a girlfriend that went into 100K debt for her masters in social work at an online college and still has the same low wage job at a facility for troubled girls. WHAT is a person thinking on practical terms doing this kind of thing? It doesn’t even seem like she is trying to find a better job, or maybe it isn’t possible – so then WHY take on that debt.