[malux85]

Student loans.

I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc.

Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a developer. I was paid more than the university graduates they were hiring.

I know that university is largely to force people who don’t have enough discipline to self teach AND make social connections, but is that worth hundreds of thousands in debt? No.

There’s going to be a bunch of hate replies to this by people rationalising their debt, who are largely lying to themselves about its worth because they are in too deep, but this thread is about “things to avoid” and my vote is student loans.

Nullius in Verba - think for yourself, make your own decisions

[titanomachy]

I loved learning math and physics with motivated peers and experts to guide us. I'm quite sure I would not have been able to learn the things I did on my own. I'm not sure what I would have done if I lived in a country with education as expensive as you describe.

I hope that the US can find a way to help bright and motivated young people have a similar experience without taking on crippling debt.

[c0restraint]

Some community colleges in the US are $100-300 per course, and they offer most of those same core math & physics courses, without the crippling debt.

[grawprog]

>I know that university is largely to force people who don’t have enough discipline to self teach AND make social connections

To be fair, going to school was a lot more than that, at least for me. I know my schooling wasn't exactly typical, but I learned a ridiculous amount in a short time, many topics were things I didn't know existed before I went to school, or things I wouldn't even know where to or would be unable to begin alone.

Our teachers were professional biologists and ecologists with years and years worth experience and knowledge, my math teacher was a literal rocket scientist. I got to travel around my province and even down to Yellowstone. We worked on local, provincial an federal projects, worked with actual field biologists, trapping and tagging. We were in the field regularly.

We learned how to communicate and work with government and private organizations and manage large projects with multiple stakesholders. We learned how to play the 'get grant money' and 'get published' games.

Just the sheer amount of things I did and the people, equipment and honestly the school's vast amount of connections to a huge number of organizations are things I couldn't have done myself.

Through work we did in school, a class mate and I were even able to get grant money to start up a non-profit conservation/research project, that as far as I know, is still somewhat active, though both of us left years ago.

But, to finally get to the point, despite all of this...

>is that worth hundreds of thousands in debt?

To echo you..

>No.

Not even the tens of thousands I ended up with. School's not worth it unless you have the money.

[baron816]

I submitted this earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211654 Lots of misconceptions about student loans out there. Half of all debt out there is for graduate school, and most of those students don't have too much trouble paying it off.

Yes, you can make a lot of money without a degree, but not for every profession. And not everyone can teach themselves do to the thing they want to do. You're not going to be able to become a veterinarian, or a psychologist, or an economist without going to college and probably incurring some debt.

Edit: I personally never had any student loans, and while I am a developer now, I didn't study that seriously in school (I took one CS course that I did poorly in). I still think college has made me a better engineer.

[malux85]

I was very interested in chemistry, and thought I would study that - because you can’t be an organic chemist without a degree.

Then I saw the loans, and switched interest to computer science and programming.

Nobody is forcing you into a particular career, just switch, the definition of intelligence is general adaptability.

Shouldering yourself with hundreds of thousands in debt when you’ve never even had a job before is stupid. Period.

You might say, “are all doctors stupid?” And I would say they are not stupid, but the action of crippling yourself with debt is stupid.

I have friends who are doctors, who are 30, still laden with debt, living in tiny apartments and working 70 hours a week, and they hate it. If you ask them now “is it worth it” the answer is a resounding no. But they are in too deep now, they are a slave to their debt.

[baron816]

OK, don't take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. Very few people will ever be forced to consider doing that because 1) they can choose to go to a cheaper school or 2) even very "expensive" private schools offer generous financial aid packages that should make debt manageable.

If you choices are 1) take $30K in student loans to pursue a career you're interested in/go to a school that will set you up for a promising future, or 2) teach yourself how to become a software engineer even if you're not interested in it or well suited for it, then I'd advise people to go for #1 every time.

[glofish]

Correct,

it is not the debt itself but the size of it and expected payoffs.

If you were coming from an average financial background in America then

a 30K student loan to go to an excellent school that sets you up for life would be most certainly worth it, 300K would most likely not

[decasteve]

A big student loan is a terrible consequence for someone who’s looking to figure out what they want to do in life. There are better, less expensive, ways.

On the other hand, if you know what you want to do in life, and you can’t stand not pursuing it, don’t let a student loan stand in your way.

[glofish]

As always the problem is not so much the debt but the size of the debt.

Don't take on debts that you cannot readily pay back.