Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
My Response to USA Today's Article Comments
Taking into account all that has happened in the past 10 years or so, there should be accommodations made to those of us up to our eyeballs in debt from pursuing a college degree. Accommodations can be made for most other types of debt including gambling, credit cards and medical bills. Certain people even go into “Voluntary Foreclosure” if their mortgage becomes too ridiculous. For those people, I must admit, I stand behind you in your decision to do that even if you are not having the same financial troubles as many of us are. You feel robbed! Paying on something that is decreasing in value is enough to make you pull your hair out! Paying on my loans makes me feel the same way except I am paying on something that keeps getting more expensive and have yet to even come close to reaping the benefits of it.
Student loans fall into the protected category of non-dischargeable debts along with taxes and child support. Not being able to pay back private student loans is enough to make lenders treat you like a criminal. Not having payment options when you are more than willing to pay what you can is a trap. So I can afford $500 a month but you want $800 a month. To pay that I would have to sleep in a box, I would get fired for not being able to shower and appear to be a properly groomed human being. I don’t want to be ‘granted’ forbearance. Screw adding thousands of dollars in interest to my already soaring principal.
We are not looking for a free pass or to simply walk away from our debts without consequence. The alternatives I push for have consequences that would benefit the economy. The article was about the Bankruptcy Law so that is the only one I am discussing here. When interviewed for this article I was asked for my opinion on the laws not asking for someone to discharge my debts. As I stand now I can still pay them, although it is hard. But hey, who in the shrinking middle class is having an easy time paying any of their bills?
Restoring bankruptcy protections would not be an easy out for the ones who are struggling. I hear people comment, “Why restore bankruptcy to student loans, I had to pay my way through college why should other people get it for free”. Seriously America, are you serious when you say that? Free? When in the world did declaring BANKRUPTCY become a free pass or an easy out??? When did you begin to think that YOU personally would be forking up the tax dollars to pay for my bankruptcy?? When did you begin to feel that it was ok for YOUR TAXDOLLARS to bail out Wall Street Corporations but not anyone on Main Street America like yourselves? Are you OK with your tax dollars being spent on illegal immigrant detainee centers that process border jumpers by providing them with free medical care (including surgeries), dental services (including root canals), recreation facilities, access to a law library before they FLY them back on private planes at $600 per illegal? I know that I AM SOUR about illegals having the opportunity to receive medical treatment that I couldn’t afford with insurance. I can’t even afford to go on a plane ride but MY TAXDOLLARS pay for them to fly back to Mexico. Ugh, I will stop that rant because it infuriates me. (This view is not expressing my opposition to the immigration laws, understand this, it is expressing my dissatisfaction with the amount of money spent on people who don’t live here and tried to get into the States in the wrong way.)
The bitter hostility towards other people JUST LIKE YOU, whether you want to accept it or not, is what makes the United States such a disorganized, chaotic circus to try and live in. Every generation experiences completely different living situations. 3 generations ago it was not necessary to go to college and be successful. 2 generations ago the importance of college gained speed and peaked in the past 10 years or so. Just as my parents told me “When I was younger getting my first job it took me all summer to save up for an 8 track” held NO weight to me because it was completely different for me. All the Baby Boomers are so easy to say how they worked 2 jobs to put themselves through college and didn’t take out loans because they had financial responsibility and my generation knows nothing of it, acts reckless and wants everything handed to us for free. Well guess what? Your parents said that about you as well. You worked 2 jobs to put yourself through college….really? If I was lucky and could even find 2 jobs in this economy it would take years of working and spending NOTHING to save up for tuitions, books, living expenses and so forth. That argument does not hold weight anymore because now-a-days things are DIFFERENT. The hourly wage, if you can manage the brainpower to look up info and do research, was more than double in the 70’s than what it is today. So not only did you MAKE more, your COST was less, INTEREST was lower and opportunities were far more available than they are today. I am not irresponsible because our economy is DIFFERENT than the one they grew up in.
Now that things are different we are urged to change what has always been the ‘American Dream’. "Not enough money to go to college, don’t go." Can’t afford a good college, then don’t live outside your means and go to a shitty community college and keep your fingers crossed that someone doesn’t overlook your resume because the next candidate went to a more notable and better accredited college. If you are passionately interested in something that may not be the most lucrative field of study then screw it and immerse yourself in a career that will bore you and make you miserable but hey, at least you may get a steady paycheck as long as the economy doesn’t lay you off first.
For me, I studied Psychology. I wanted to focus on Cognitive/Behavioral Psychology or Industrial/Organizational Psychology. This is a huge field but most dumb Americans think it is so limited and only deals with working in a clinic listening to people problems. Not so much. This field is for researchers, professors, Human Resources, Business Consulting and the list goes on and on. It is not up to other people to choose what field of study students should pursue. Graduates have never been bashed for following their passion like they are today. Today that the economy offers no jobs is the same day society decides which fields they think are ‘worthless’ to study. I am not even going to get into the history of America and how we acquired the wealth of knowledge we have today. I wonder what our predecessors would think of us telling students their field of study is ‘worthless’. Not good enough, go get a job in customer service and scrape by to pay bills, much more fulfilling isn’t it?
I am usually not the type of person to lash out at others because they are ignorant but I am going to make an exception. Due to the degree of hatefulness I experienced when reading comments posted to the article in USA Today that had me in it, I have decided to return the idiocy with just as sharp a tongue as the assholes who felt the need to comment on me and my personal life.
FIRST; for the worthless bitch that had the nerve to comment on my choice to ‘breed’ and who stated it was my decision to KEEP my daughter (no shit) I simply must disregard you as a waste of oxygen. If you are a self proclaimed addict to mafia wars on Facebook you could not have the time to stay updated on current events and have no clue of the situation I am in or what it entails. In all fairness I believe it is your parents who should have refrained from ‘breeding’.
SECOND; for the many males out there who made sexist comments about how I should just go and be a stripper. Well wouldn’t that just be lovely, so then you could have an opinion on how horrible of a person I am for having a 6 month old daughter as a stripper, accuse me of being on drugs because you people are the same morons who assume all strippers do drugs, insist that my daughter be taken away and then attacked because I have stolen money from the evil bitch’s husband who is looking for something better than his ugly wife at home. Didn’t your mother teach you to not say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say? I know my mother taught me to treat others as I would have them treat me, so I alter that in this case and choose to treat others the way they treated me in this case.
THIRD; and OMG on this one. For all you fuckers that said I am a deadbeat, you really need a fucking reality check before throwing that one out there. One ass-face said “my daughter was better off in government assisted daycare than at home with a deadbeat mother.” Were you born without a heart and brain damage happened as a result or were you just plain and simply born an imbecile? From my view a deadbeat doesn’t pay their bills or their taxes, doesn’t work 40 hours a week, doesn’t take care of their children and receives all of that fun government assistance you assholes so ignorantly assumed I received. Wake the fuck up and shut the fuck up because KARMA is a BITCH. There are so many financial crisis situations in the oven and I only hope the next will befall you, your family and your unfortunate offspring- may god bless THEIR souls. My daughter will never act like you, will never have the hate you do and will never be so ignorantly blind as you and THAT makes me a better parent than you could ever dream of being. Don’t use my language against me, this is big kid talk and she will never be involved in discussions like this unless the language is PG. (Nice try but I felt the dumb comments rolling in on that)
Student loans fall into the protected category of non-dischargeable debts along with taxes and child support. Not being able to pay back private student loans is enough to make lenders treat you like a criminal. Not having payment options when you are more than willing to pay what you can is a trap. So I can afford $500 a month but you want $800 a month. To pay that I would have to sleep in a box, I would get fired for not being able to shower and appear to be a properly groomed human being. I don’t want to be ‘granted’ forbearance. Screw adding thousands of dollars in interest to my already soaring principal.
We are not looking for a free pass or to simply walk away from our debts without consequence. The alternatives I push for have consequences that would benefit the economy. The article was about the Bankruptcy Law so that is the only one I am discussing here. When interviewed for this article I was asked for my opinion on the laws not asking for someone to discharge my debts. As I stand now I can still pay them, although it is hard. But hey, who in the shrinking middle class is having an easy time paying any of their bills?
Restoring bankruptcy protections would not be an easy out for the ones who are struggling. I hear people comment, “Why restore bankruptcy to student loans, I had to pay my way through college why should other people get it for free”. Seriously America, are you serious when you say that? Free? When in the world did declaring BANKRUPTCY become a free pass or an easy out??? When did you begin to think that YOU personally would be forking up the tax dollars to pay for my bankruptcy?? When did you begin to feel that it was ok for YOUR TAXDOLLARS to bail out Wall Street Corporations but not anyone on Main Street America like yourselves? Are you OK with your tax dollars being spent on illegal immigrant detainee centers that process border jumpers by providing them with free medical care (including surgeries), dental services (including root canals), recreation facilities, access to a law library before they FLY them back on private planes at $600 per illegal? I know that I AM SOUR about illegals having the opportunity to receive medical treatment that I couldn’t afford with insurance. I can’t even afford to go on a plane ride but MY TAXDOLLARS pay for them to fly back to Mexico. Ugh, I will stop that rant because it infuriates me. (This view is not expressing my opposition to the immigration laws, understand this, it is expressing my dissatisfaction with the amount of money spent on people who don’t live here and tried to get into the States in the wrong way.)
The bitter hostility towards other people JUST LIKE YOU, whether you want to accept it or not, is what makes the United States such a disorganized, chaotic circus to try and live in. Every generation experiences completely different living situations. 3 generations ago it was not necessary to go to college and be successful. 2 generations ago the importance of college gained speed and peaked in the past 10 years or so. Just as my parents told me “When I was younger getting my first job it took me all summer to save up for an 8 track” held NO weight to me because it was completely different for me. All the Baby Boomers are so easy to say how they worked 2 jobs to put themselves through college and didn’t take out loans because they had financial responsibility and my generation knows nothing of it, acts reckless and wants everything handed to us for free. Well guess what? Your parents said that about you as well. You worked 2 jobs to put yourself through college….really? If I was lucky and could even find 2 jobs in this economy it would take years of working and spending NOTHING to save up for tuitions, books, living expenses and so forth. That argument does not hold weight anymore because now-a-days things are DIFFERENT. The hourly wage, if you can manage the brainpower to look up info and do research, was more than double in the 70’s than what it is today. So not only did you MAKE more, your COST was less, INTEREST was lower and opportunities were far more available than they are today. I am not irresponsible because our economy is DIFFERENT than the one they grew up in.
Now that things are different we are urged to change what has always been the ‘American Dream’. "Not enough money to go to college, don’t go." Can’t afford a good college, then don’t live outside your means and go to a shitty community college and keep your fingers crossed that someone doesn’t overlook your resume because the next candidate went to a more notable and better accredited college. If you are passionately interested in something that may not be the most lucrative field of study then screw it and immerse yourself in a career that will bore you and make you miserable but hey, at least you may get a steady paycheck as long as the economy doesn’t lay you off first.
For me, I studied Psychology. I wanted to focus on Cognitive/Behavioral Psychology or Industrial/Organizational Psychology. This is a huge field but most dumb Americans think it is so limited and only deals with working in a clinic listening to people problems. Not so much. This field is for researchers, professors, Human Resources, Business Consulting and the list goes on and on. It is not up to other people to choose what field of study students should pursue. Graduates have never been bashed for following their passion like they are today. Today that the economy offers no jobs is the same day society decides which fields they think are ‘worthless’ to study. I am not even going to get into the history of America and how we acquired the wealth of knowledge we have today. I wonder what our predecessors would think of us telling students their field of study is ‘worthless’. Not good enough, go get a job in customer service and scrape by to pay bills, much more fulfilling isn’t it?
I am usually not the type of person to lash out at others because they are ignorant but I am going to make an exception. Due to the degree of hatefulness I experienced when reading comments posted to the article in USA Today that had me in it, I have decided to return the idiocy with just as sharp a tongue as the assholes who felt the need to comment on me and my personal life.
FIRST; for the worthless bitch that had the nerve to comment on my choice to ‘breed’ and who stated it was my decision to KEEP my daughter (no shit) I simply must disregard you as a waste of oxygen. If you are a self proclaimed addict to mafia wars on Facebook you could not have the time to stay updated on current events and have no clue of the situation I am in or what it entails. In all fairness I believe it is your parents who should have refrained from ‘breeding’.
SECOND; for the many males out there who made sexist comments about how I should just go and be a stripper. Well wouldn’t that just be lovely, so then you could have an opinion on how horrible of a person I am for having a 6 month old daughter as a stripper, accuse me of being on drugs because you people are the same morons who assume all strippers do drugs, insist that my daughter be taken away and then attacked because I have stolen money from the evil bitch’s husband who is looking for something better than his ugly wife at home. Didn’t your mother teach you to not say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say? I know my mother taught me to treat others as I would have them treat me, so I alter that in this case and choose to treat others the way they treated me in this case.
THIRD; and OMG on this one. For all you fuckers that said I am a deadbeat, you really need a fucking reality check before throwing that one out there. One ass-face said “my daughter was better off in government assisted daycare than at home with a deadbeat mother.” Were you born without a heart and brain damage happened as a result or were you just plain and simply born an imbecile? From my view a deadbeat doesn’t pay their bills or their taxes, doesn’t work 40 hours a week, doesn’t take care of their children and receives all of that fun government assistance you assholes so ignorantly assumed I received. Wake the fuck up and shut the fuck up because KARMA is a BITCH. There are so many financial crisis situations in the oven and I only hope the next will befall you, your family and your unfortunate offspring- may god bless THEIR souls. My daughter will never act like you, will never have the hate you do and will never be so ignorantly blind as you and THAT makes me a better parent than you could ever dream of being. Don’t use my language against me, this is big kid talk and she will never be involved in discussions like this unless the language is PG. (Nice try but I felt the dumb comments rolling in on that)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Capitalized Interest
When was the last time you pulled up your payment history, scrolled all the way to the back and looked at the amounts of capitalized interest that has been charged to your account? These are the things that I usually don’t like to look at but when I first checked it all out, I mean really really checked it all out, I couldn’t help but to smile. My payment history looks insane. Looking over it makes me wonder how in the hell could this be right. Better yet, how in the hell is this legal and allowed to be right. Just to touch on the capitalized interest issue check out what I have capitalized so far:
Think about it. When you buy a house, car or any other large purchase that needs to be financed there are payment plans and everything is understood (to a certain extent) before the agreement is signed and set in stone. Who would buy a house without knowing what their monthly mortgage would be? Perhaps people with money and no financial concerns wouldn’t, but I assume even most of them would want to be informed of their payment amount. So why is it that when you finance an education the same rules do not apply? Maybe it is because they know the amount you borrow has little to do with the amount used to determine your payments considering the principal grows like a weed.
November 19, 2007 $ 2420.68
May 11, 2008 $ 772
May 27, 2008 $ 6982.55
November 11, 2008 $ 708.72
November 27, 2008 $ 1441.16
November 29, 2008 $ 1041.35
December 31, 2008 $ 177.53
January 27, 2009 $ 441.84
February 11, 2009 $ 203.10
March 31, 2009 $ 357.95
June 16, 2009 $ 311.25
July 29, 2009 $ 1772.59
September 30, 2009 $ 164.56
December 31, 2009 $ 378.06
January 29, 2010 $ 1198.90
March 16, 2010 $ 313.35
In 2007-2008 I capitalized $ 13,543.99
In 2009 I capitalized $ 3,629.35
So far in 2010 I capitalized $ 1,512.25
Grand Total: $ 18,685.59
So why are my minimum payments getting to be too much? The balance that is used to determine what my monthly payments will be has continued to increase. I wonder if this is why they never sent any payment estimates when you take out loans. I know that my Federal Loans sent me statements with this information, my Perkins loans did as well. I actually like to pay my Perkins loan and check out the statement because that is the only balance I pay on and watch it go down.Think about it. When you buy a house, car or any other large purchase that needs to be financed there are payment plans and everything is understood (to a certain extent) before the agreement is signed and set in stone. Who would buy a house without knowing what their monthly mortgage would be? Perhaps people with money and no financial concerns wouldn’t, but I assume even most of them would want to be informed of their payment amount. So why is it that when you finance an education the same rules do not apply? Maybe it is because they know the amount you borrow has little to do with the amount used to determine your payments considering the principal grows like a weed.
Here is my story
I suppose the best way for me to start this would be by giving a nutshell of my student loan situation. I know that many people don’t even want to talk about the amount they borrowed or how much they owe now. I didn’t talk about it until I realized I was not alone and there was such a huge amount of people in the same, or much worse, situation as I am in.
By my calculation I received about $60,000 in private loans which comes out to around $70,000 after origination fees. I can’t get over how fabulous it is to pay a couple thousand just to get a loan and get charged interest on that money that I have never had in my possession. That is how the ‘system’ works so I will not waste much time on that ridiculous issue. My Federal loans come out to about $21,750. I was told this was all I was eligible for in terms of government loans and was not eligible for any grants based on my family’s EFC. That amount is now about $105,000 ‘Outstanding’ with an estimated payback of about $200,000. My monthly payment of $600 to my private loans is INTEREST ONLY. My federal loans have been put into Economic Deferment until April 2011. Before they were frozen my total loan payments were about $800 each month.
When I was in school I truly believed that investing in my education was going to be worth it. I was raised to think a college education was what I needed to be successful and to get a good job. In regards to loans, I assumed that Sallie Mae was a good company and would work with students on payments while they found their first career and began to make money. After I graduated I slowly came to realize this was not the case and the only ‘payment options’ available to me were to put my loans in forbearance, accrue and capitalize interest and watch my original balance grow at an amazing rate. Watching this happen changed my mind about wanting to continue on to grad school. The thought of adding to my debt any more made me ill. Good decision on my part, the economy shut down shortly after and has yet to recover.
Graduating into this economy can be ruthless. There are so many strikes against young adults entering the workplace to start their career. They find themselves competing for jobs against older, more experienced people who had been laid off at the start of the recession. Who wants to hire an assistant or someone for an entry level position with 1-2 years experience when they have seasoned professionals with 10+ years experience applying for the same entry-level position? To make matters worse, the Baby Boomers who would normally be retiring and leaving their positions to be filled by those of us entering the workforce are not retiring. The economy crushed retirement and 401k plans and many are working longer to re-stabilize their financial future.
That brings me to now where I currently work in a call center of a physicians practice making $13 per hour with no hopes of a raise. We were just told that our company will not be giving any employee an annual raise like we used to get at our yearly review. It doesn't make too much of a difference anyhow, we got a 3% raise if our performance was 'exceptional'. Oops, I lied, I make $13.39 per hour after my raise last year but after taxes my check looks the same as it did before my 'raise'.
I have a beautiful daughter who is 7 months old today! So on top of rent, electricity, gas, food, daycare, Nola's expenses and insurance bills I have a sky high student loan bill. Sour? A little. I am glad I have a degree and have an education but it is beyond frustrating, draining and difficult to pay for a degree with a job that doesn't even require a High School Diploma. But hey, at least I have a job, right???
If you have a similar story please share, there is strength in numbers. If you think I am wrong, a deadbeat or all of us in this movement are ridiculous then please post your response as well, I am always up for a good debate. Just a warning, please research this topic before you ramble off nonsense. Idiocy does not equal a good debate.
By my calculation I received about $60,000 in private loans which comes out to around $70,000 after origination fees. I can’t get over how fabulous it is to pay a couple thousand just to get a loan and get charged interest on that money that I have never had in my possession. That is how the ‘system’ works so I will not waste much time on that ridiculous issue. My Federal loans come out to about $21,750. I was told this was all I was eligible for in terms of government loans and was not eligible for any grants based on my family’s EFC. That amount is now about $105,000 ‘Outstanding’ with an estimated payback of about $200,000. My monthly payment of $600 to my private loans is INTEREST ONLY. My federal loans have been put into Economic Deferment until April 2011. Before they were frozen my total loan payments were about $800 each month.
When I was in school I truly believed that investing in my education was going to be worth it. I was raised to think a college education was what I needed to be successful and to get a good job. In regards to loans, I assumed that Sallie Mae was a good company and would work with students on payments while they found their first career and began to make money. After I graduated I slowly came to realize this was not the case and the only ‘payment options’ available to me were to put my loans in forbearance, accrue and capitalize interest and watch my original balance grow at an amazing rate. Watching this happen changed my mind about wanting to continue on to grad school. The thought of adding to my debt any more made me ill. Good decision on my part, the economy shut down shortly after and has yet to recover.
Graduating into this economy can be ruthless. There are so many strikes against young adults entering the workplace to start their career. They find themselves competing for jobs against older, more experienced people who had been laid off at the start of the recession. Who wants to hire an assistant or someone for an entry level position with 1-2 years experience when they have seasoned professionals with 10+ years experience applying for the same entry-level position? To make matters worse, the Baby Boomers who would normally be retiring and leaving their positions to be filled by those of us entering the workforce are not retiring. The economy crushed retirement and 401k plans and many are working longer to re-stabilize their financial future.
That brings me to now where I currently work in a call center of a physicians practice making $13 per hour with no hopes of a raise. We were just told that our company will not be giving any employee an annual raise like we used to get at our yearly review. It doesn't make too much of a difference anyhow, we got a 3% raise if our performance was 'exceptional'. Oops, I lied, I make $13.39 per hour after my raise last year but after taxes my check looks the same as it did before my 'raise'.
I have a beautiful daughter who is 7 months old today! So on top of rent, electricity, gas, food, daycare, Nola's expenses and insurance bills I have a sky high student loan bill. Sour? A little. I am glad I have a degree and have an education but it is beyond frustrating, draining and difficult to pay for a degree with a job that doesn't even require a High School Diploma. But hey, at least I have a job, right???
If you have a similar story please share, there is strength in numbers. If you think I am wrong, a deadbeat or all of us in this movement are ridiculous then please post your response as well, I am always up for a good debate. Just a warning, please research this topic before you ramble off nonsense. Idiocy does not equal a good debate.
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