[Xcelerate]

I agree completely with her grandmother:

> Grandmother: “Why did you borrow money you could not repay?”

> Her: “I thought I could repay it until the bailouts happened.”

> Grandmother: “That is no excuse. You need to repay them.”

For some reason, a lot of people my age lack any sense of personal responsibility. It's not the author's fault she couldn't repay her loans. It's everyone else's. Lately I hear more and more people blame all of their problems on everyone but themselves and it's starting to get really annoying. My (recent) ex-girlfriend was (is?) failing her history class and blamed it on the professor for not making the attendance policy more prominent in the syllabus. It wasn't her fault she was skipping class and getting points deducted.

You know what the author could have done? Not gone to college. Get a vocational position and save up until you have enough to go if that's really what you want. Apply for scholarships. There's plenty of options.

[InclinedPlane]

I agree that those things are part of the problem. People take too cavalier of an attitude toward college and its expense, and they over value the education they receive as well. I agree that more people should consider vocational training, it's a shame that our culture denigrates such jobs so much that people are discouraged from pursuing them.

But on the other hand college costs are becoming more and more unsustainable even as college is becoming more and more a requirement for well paying jobs. It's easier for her grandmother to say that one shouldn't borrow money that can't be paid back with utter certainty, she lived in a different era in every way. An era where it was not only possible but easy to find well paying work if one was reasonably smart, capable of being educated on the job, and a hard worker. Even two decades ago it was reasonable for a middle class family to pay college tuition for their children out of pocket without going into debt.

[MaysonL]

Calling family members and telling them you owe money is illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and the collection agency knows it. The author however is probably mistaken that no interest is accruing.

[ars]

You missed her point completely.

She IS paying the debt. By defaulting she is stopping the interest from accruing, but she still pays the principal.

[pdonis]

But having interest accrue was part of the original agreement she made. The fact that she has exploited a loophole in the system to avoid paying that interest does not make it right. If nobody paid interest on loans, there would be no loans, and she would not have been able to get one to pay for her education.

[ars]

I think she feels that the agreement was two ways: She would pay interested, but in return she would get a job.

I'm not entirely convinced on the ethics, but there is something to the argument.

[rakoo]

No one promised her a job (as in, no actual employer told her "I've got that job here, as soon as you show me your diploma you come and work for us"), but she did promise to pay the loans.

Ok, it's easy for me (or for any non-US) to look down on her because of the ridiculous loans that go with US education, but she still is in the wrong to me.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>No one promised her a job (as in, no actual employer told her "I've got that job here, as soon as you show me your diploma you come and work for us"),

Actually, high schools in the US often hold events where employers and college recruiters show up and give motivational talks where they do precisely that. No contracts are ever signed of course, but young minds somehow wind up with the impression that the way to achieve success in life is to get a college degree at practically any cost.

People in better circumstances can squeal all they want to about "responsibility" but, if you are a businessman whose profit is predicated upon convincing 18 yr-olds to mortgage their lives for a chance at the job-lottery don't expect a lot of sympathy from me when it all goes south. The failure of this student-loan scheme shouldn't surprise any one. It is dependent upon having a supply of well-paying jobs waiting for graduates. If the jobs aren't there, the students won't get (gainful) employment, and without gainful employment, what method do you propose that students repay their loans?

[tlrobinson]

You missed Xcelerate's point. They're complaining about her attitude. Of course she's paying off her loans, she has to. Student loans typically can't even be wiped away by bankruptcy. If she could I'm quite sure she would.

[Xcelerate]

Oh, I realize she is paying it. It's just that she shifted the blame of the problem.

[taeric]

This is just dumb. One of the great freedoms of our country is that we can default on debt. Any moral grandstanding that tries to prevent people from doing so is shortsighted and counter productive.

Consider, where was the responsibility of the lending office that gave out the loan? Do you honestly think they should have guaranteed returns on all loans? That there should not be some expectation that some will go belly up?

Don't get me wrong, I don't encourage people to just look for a chance to default. But to try and claim it is a lack of personal responsibility is an attitude that causes far more problems than a healthy number of people defaulting.

[siegecraft]

Doing something merely because of a sense of "personal responsibility" is irrational, especially if it makes more financial sense to do otherwise. Suggestions that the author go back in time to make different decisions are also ridiculous.

[calciphus]

This is a toxic sense of "If you can get away with it, you should" that damages society as a whole.