Student Loan (Repayment)

[Capm_Spaulding]

I’m repaying mine, and will be for a long time. If I had it to do over again, I would choose to take it out over and over again as it has provided me a great and lucrative career that I otherwise could not have. That said, I would also love for mine to be paid off with some of the trivial government spending as opposed to the BS it gets spent on anyway.

I also can’t help but find it terribly silly when someone who paid $100 per class 40 years ago starts to have an opinion on modern student loans. I’m glad you could pay for your schooling as you went with the money you earned at a part time burger flipping job, but that isn’t and hasn’t been the case for a long, long time. I see people mention over and over again amounts of 10k, 15k, 20k, and it shows how out of touch people are on this issue if they think that’s what a degree costs today.

 

[SlugSlinger]

Talk about an educated individual that makes some crazy assumptions about historical college education parameters. Any idea what you could buy for $100 40 years ago? And I’m not saying a college class were $100 40 years ago because that seems rather low and quite a few years before my college experience.

In my case, I was working full time building high end custom upholstered furniture during the day and taking 12 hours of classes at night through OSU. Never flipped burgers.

It’s the same today as when I got my first degrees. People choose what appears to be the easy route and then some whine about the consequences. Whether you pay for your degree as you are working through college or take out loans and pay it back later, the real costs are probably close to the same when the time value of money is considered.

Any idea what 20k would be worth today if you invested that in the stock market for the 40 years mentioned?
$1,596,689.99 - That’s a little perspective on the time value of money.

Edit - I used 11% return compounded annually.

 

[cowadle]

depends on what company you had investments with. i know people who lost their total investments and others who broke even and still others that made some gains. i have been in the stock market for over 40 years and the number you mentioned aren't realistic. still others win the lottery also?

 

[SlugSlinger]

depends on what company you had investments with. i know people who lost their total investments and others who broke even and still others that made some gains. i have been in the stock market for over 40 years and the number you mentioned aren't realistic. still others win the lottery also?

That’s the average S&P index return not an individual stock. Investing in individual stocks is more like gambling, it is a very high risk way to invest.

 

[cowadle]

thanks for the advice

 

[SlugSlinger]

I had lost a lot of money investing in company stock of the company I worked for, primarily WCOM. Since then I have gone the mutual fund route and have had some decent returns.

I started a spreadsheet 10 years ago and these are the last 9 years of returns from the mutual fund I am in within my 401K. The exponential growth of 30% is insane and like Buffet says is the most powerful force in the universe, lol.

 

[Capm_Spaulding]

Talk about an educated individual that makes some crazy assumptions about historical college education parameters. Any idea what you could buy for $100 40 years ago? And I’m not saying a college class were $100 40 years ago because that seems rather low and quite a few years before my college experience.

In my case, I was working full time building high end custom upholstered furniture during the day and taking 12 hours of classes at night through OSU. Never flipped burgers.

It’s the same today as when I got my first degrees. People choose what appears to be the easy route and then some whine about the consequences. Whether you pay for your degree as you are working through college or take out loans and pay it back later, the real costs are probably close to the same when the time value of money is considered.

Any idea what 20k would be worth today if you invested that in the stock market for the 40 years mentioned?
$1,596,689.99 - That’s a little perspective on the time value of money.

Edit - I used 11% return compounded annually.

I have a similar background. I worked all through college, sometimes two jobs “didn’t walk in the snow 5 miles each way though,” but it barely covered my living expenses, much less tuition. Tuition rates have also faaar surpassed regular inflation rates, I’m no stranger to economics. In contrast, my grandfather was the first in his family to go to college. He was able to rent a small house to raise my mom, pay his tuition and still have enough to eat by working 32 hours a week as a cop.

My point was that I just get tired of being on the defense from the holier than thou stone casters who try to convince people that they are comparing apples to apples in their critique. I hear many stories that come down to ”and if I did it this way, so can you.” And that is just a little naive of an assumption. Perhaps it’s because most of the people I work with are twice my age, so I hear this all the time, but it drives me up the wall.

Maybe these people are heated because they think it’s a bunch of snot nosed 20 year olds griping that they spent 60k getting a liberal arts degree from Berkeley and are complaining about having to pay back their loans on a 25k salary. But I’m here to say it’s not.

Freezing repayment kept a lot of good and honest people out of default when layoffs hit. You had a lot of people go from earning $20-$30hr to finding whatever you could just to stay afloat. This while also still having a student loan payment, which likely is the highest bill you’d have outside rent. That’s tough for most, much less the young people starting out.

Mind you, when this all went down, these same people were the first to be preaching that “well, you should have had at least 6-12 months of living expenses already saved, too bad.” This while they tell you that you’re also supposed to have maxed out your 401k contributions, started investing 20% in stocks, be on your way to owning instead of renting, etc etc before you turn 21 somehow. In what Utopia do these people think that’s all realistic? When you’re 55 years old and had your success in life, it’s easy to play financial arm chair quarterback.

Perhaps if you were 40 and just chose to be unprepared I’d be more empathetic to these critiques, but that isn’t who I’m talking about. For myself, I’m finally in my career enough now to where none of this really applies to me anymore anyway. I do thankfully have a mortgage, a savings account, a 401k etc etc, but I’ll tell you that if this was 5 years ago it would have been a different story, so who am I to deny that for someone else? We act as though the government doesn’t waste money on anything that couldn’t be easily reassigned to student loan debt; we all know that’s not true.

I get that some are mad because their loans have since been paid back and so it’s not fair. While I agree that it isn’t fair, why would you want to deny that to your fellow man? That’s a bitter and spiteful outlook, at least in my opinion. I am far from a liberal person, I just don’t understand why this is the hill so many people die on.

 

[Capm_Spaulding]

I had lost a lot of money investing in company stock of the company I worked for, primarily WCOM. Since then I have gone the mutual fund route and have had some decent returns.

I started a spreadsheet 10 years ago and these are the last 9 years of returns from the mutual fund I am in within my 401K. The exponential growth of 30% is insane and like Buffet says is the most powerful force in the universe, lol.

View attachment 243111

That’s some great growth. I’m not doing that well yet, but in time I’d love to see numbers like that,

 

[okcBob]

See post #84

 

[aarondhgraham]

17 years??? How close are you to being done?

13 more years of payments.

I figured that if they were silly enough to offer a 54 year old graduate a 30 year loan,,,
I would take it as I didn't think I would live another 30 years after graduation.

It did keep the monthly payments lower than normal,,,
I know I'm taking it in the shorts on interest,,,
But again, my payments are low.

Aarond

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