[panzagl]

Not GP, but the tone is that everyone else is stupid and emotional, especially those who want to pursue non-STEM (for a very narrow definition of STEM)/finance degrees, and that everyone obviously had the same advantages the average HN poster had.

Unfortunately I'm old enough that I'm now looking at putting my kids through college, and the answer of 'you have to stay in town and take CS' seems ridiculously narrow. Even state schools run around $40K a year if you're out of state, and unfortunately my state college system is overrun with trust fund stoners. I was lucky in that I went to school before higher education in the US was turned into a money tit, and it kills me that I cannot offer my daughters the same opportunities I had.

[drivebycomment]

https://www.bustle.com/profile/kaitlyn-cawley-1912533

"She has a bachelor's and a master's in comparative literature from The American University of Paris and Trinity College Dublin, respectively."

My daughter's in college, so I know personally how expensive college is in the US. I know of many kids who did have to make tough choices due to financial constraints, even for middle-class families.

And you simply don't choose comparative literature as a major and study in a private school in Paris and then Dublin, if you can't afford. There are clearly cheaper (but possibly inferior) options. This person clearly chose more expensive option and now complain that the choice was too expensive. It's like buying a Mercedes and then complain that auto loan payment is too high.

[anoncoward111]

In theory, the Mercedes can be reposessed if she starts missing payments, and she can file bankruptcy to protect herself from spiraling debts.

In this situation, "a degree can't be repossessed", so the IRS and banking system will squeeze every penny they can out of her since she can't declare bankruptcy to get rid of these loans (that she's paying!)

What she really should do is negotiate a refinance, put the loans on a credit card, and then go bankrupt. She won't have good credit for 7 years, but she will also lose the $65,000 worth of debt hanging around her neck too.

[panzagl]

Unfortunately we don't know what her overall tuition was- $95000 would be cheap for BA&MA pretty much anywhere. And that's another part of the problem- the universities price themselves like airlines. You hand the school all of your financial information and they set a tuition price just enough out of reach that a loan seems reasonable.

And while comparative literature seems extravagant, she could have gotten her degrees in physics and be facing basically the same problem.