Parent Plus Loan information and experiences

Spring4
Mon, 24 Jul 2023 17:36:32 +0000

I did get around to reading your responses, and I do understand that not endorsing unsecured debt and holding the opinion that financial aid is a debt product that requires more regulation due to the rampant problems surrounding it is not going to be popular with college employees or most Americans.

The idea that student loans are necessary and are a blessing to people who seek education has been thoroughly refuted by other posters on other threads; one post comes to mind on the thread about keeping college costs down for everyone, which morphed into a Why? thread quickly.

Anyone who is not willing to accept that there is a student loan crisis is choosing to live under a rock. I don’t have student loans any longer, but I accept that I am fortunate. Yes, I chose to pay them off. Yes, I didn’t enroll at a school that I could not afford. I also ignored a LOT of terrible advice that would have sunk me financially from people employed by colleges, all well-meaning, who were tone deaf at the time to this looming crisis and were giving me advice based on what benefitted them first. And all of this occurred before whoever dreamed up the idea of Parent Plus loans had started marketing it to people who didn’t know any better and weren’t skeptical enough.

I have enough humility to recognize that my own choices only play a small part in what will make my situation very different from the subjects of this article. Some of it was being born to a family that could teach me to be reasonably skeptical of exaggerated claims. Some of it was being wise enough at 14 to recognize that I didn’t have what other 14-year-olds had, and to capitalize on my situation as best I could.

If any of us are better off than the people in this article, then yes, luck played a role. I feel sorry for anyone who can’t see that. That sort of ego problem is sad.