Congratulations to all of you who are $10,000 (or $20,000) closer to being out of student loan debt!
I'm here to tell you why you have been a part of one of the biggest scams of our lifetime.
I'm not here to talk about how its not right that people who didn't choose to go to college will be forced to pay for people who chose to go, even though its not.
I'm not here to talk about how some people think this is a great idea because we need to help people in need, even though this isn't the way to help the people who need it most.
I'm here to talk about how no one should be praising the government for rescuing us or solving a problem they single handedly created.
We were duped, folks.
A lot of us fell for the lie that the only way to be successful was to go to college, even if we couldn't afford to pay for it. Some people went into it with eyes wide open, and a plan for a career that would make student loans a good investment. Knowing that they had signed on the dotted line with the intention to pay back every penny. They knew that they couldn't even bankrupt their way out of the loans. It was a serious commitment.
This is the story of our family and student loans.
First, with the help of work study, pell grants and insanely cheap (relatively) tuition, work, work and more work, I was able to finish my associates degree with no student debt.
Immediately after I graduated my husband began his studies. About the time he started school was when we started seeing tuition costs rise. The president of Utah State even said “we need to raise tuition to attract a higher caliber student." Huh??
But, seeing that Bryan had goals that required lots of higher education, we moved into a basement apartment, sold one car, both got minimum wage jobs, and scrimped and saved to make ends meet. He still had to take out student loans. We didn’t make that decision lightly. We knew it was a big decision and we knew we were signing up to pay those loans back when school was over. He finished at a state university and we jumped at the opportunity for him to attend graduate school at Notre Dame. Let me say here that he was not studying art history, or gender studies. He was studying accounting with the plan to attend law school and become a tax attorney.
We made decision to take out more student loans at Notre Dame with our eyes wide open. Knowing how much more expensive it was, he worked hard and we hoped it would pay off. Our experience at Notre Dame was worth every penny.
When he graduated from Notre Dame, (with a good job) in 2003 we consolidated our loans with a public, Utah company and our interest rate was around 1.75%. When we gave them our bank account information for automatic payments, it went down to 1.25%. After a year of making on time payments, our interest rate went down to .85%!!! This didn’t mean it was easy to make these payments on an new graduate salary, but it was doable to pay our bills and the thought of someone else paying off the loans we willingly took on was never a thing we considered or expected.
During our time at Notre Dame and beyond, tuition costs continued to rise. No one wanted to talk about how to solve that problem. Universities continued to increase the amount of administrators they hired and the amounts they paid them. They continued to spend money and used tuition raises to build their posh offices, purchase fancy conference room tables, and give themselves raises.
In 2009, we made the decision that Bryan would pursue a PhD. With a fellowship that would supplement our cost of living, and 4 kids in tow, we moved across the country, again knowing that the student loan balance would increase and that we would be paying it back.
While we were there, under the guise that they would solve the tuition problem, the Obama administration took over the student loan program. They made a couple of huge and devastating decisions. Eliminating their competition, people were no longer able to consolidate these loans with private companies. Second, they increased interest rates. Higher than rates for home mortgages or cars.
When we left South Carolina our interest rate was 6.3%! Higher than our home loan. Since we couldn’t consolidate, we took every penny of extra money we had to pay off those loans as fast as possible.
Fast forward a few years and we hear all this talk about the government paying off student loans. Was it hard before they took over and increased interest rates? Yes. But now it was back breaking and burdensome to most people and they were searching for help.
The first reason I see a problem with what is happening is because the government created this weight people are carrying on their shoulders. No matter what degree you chose, you got hit with a huge interest rate. Government could have addressed the real problem which was the increasing tuition. But they didnt. And now we are all praising the government for "solving" this problem.
"Never let a crisis go to waste" - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals. This is textbook for how the government works.
Second, is explained perfectly in this quote.
“The governmentalization of charity, affects not just the donor but also the recipient. What was once asked as a favor is now demanded as an entitlement...a transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced donors without love and recipients without gratitude" Justice Anthony Scalia
This is exactly what happens when choice is removed and people are forced to participate in something they aren't ok with. People without loans who will now pay higher taxes will resent those whos loans are being forgiven. People with loans being forgiven or, even future college students, will begin to expect that they should always have their debts forgiven if life gets hard or they just don't feel like paying them.
Its a chaotic way to run a society and not only plunges us further into debt but pits people against people creating more division and further turmoil in our country.
I know its been happening for a long time, but government needs to get out of the business of creating crises so they can be the heroes. We all know they're just making things worse.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" - Ronanld Regan
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