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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9hhe1r wrote

Reply to comment by YouAreStoopud in Many Americans need Wendy’s dumpster to afford student loan payments without Biden's forgiveness plan: Survey by TheFleshGordon

It’s kind of a bummer you think that everyone who cannot afford their college debt payments got some sort of shitty degree they can do nothing with.

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Poozle01 t1_j9hni62 wrote

If they didn’t, then why are they drowning in debt?

You know how much your college costs. You know how much you’re expected to make. Go somewhere cheaper or get a better degree.

Or lose your life savings to debt like a regard img

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Walla_Walla_26 t1_j9hqdry wrote

My first thought was what major makes the most money…. Engineering was a good choice

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9hzdam wrote

I have my Bachelors and MBA in finance. I’m doing fine. But it’s still burns paying $1k a month for student loans when boomers got to the same spot in their careers for free

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The_Dancing_Dolphin t1_j9ibfib wrote

You used to be able to get a part time job slinging ice cream in the summer to pay for your upcoming school year. Good fucking luck selling enough ice cream to pay nowadays

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9k4x7v wrote

Supply and demand drove the cost of education bonkers. There needs to be a rebalancing between manual labor careers and degree level careers.

My parents sent me to college because they didn’t want me to work as hard as they did, but they had no clue what that never meant or what it looked like or what their responsibilities would be. They just thought, hey, I send my kid here and I won’t have to worry about anything!

Today I keep hearing, “electricians make 6 figures” sure, but if you add a million more electricians to the mix to fill the gaps, salaries and job openings will plummet…supply and demand

The issue to me is, colleges are “no risk” meaning their debt is higher quality, it comes from the government, can’t be defaulted on or claim bankruptcy on, sure it’s not fool proof, but there’s a reason there was a huge spike in “for profit” schools.

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The_Dancing_Dolphin t1_j9kazsm wrote

At my university when I was there, the dean had an economics phd from an elite school. Tells you everything you need to know on what the schools main focus is. Money

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miso440 t1_j9kb6ps wrote

The thing about trades is that you can only do it until you fuck up your back in your mid-50s.

I can tell 20-somethings to round and un-round the corners of buttons well into my 70s.

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9kj08j wrote

“I don’t want to to have to break your back like I did”

  • every boomer to their children going to college
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dj92wa t1_j9ircmn wrote

My uncle just passed away last month from cancer, and he was churning high 6 figs as an aerospace engineer/inspector, being pulled into NASA and Lockheed Martin missions and whatnot. The guy never even had a college degree. There's absolutely zero chance you could do that today.

Meanwhile, I got an accounting degree a couple years ago, and it took me a year and a half after graduating to get a job that covered cost or living and loan repayments. At my age, my uncle was already at about the $100K mark....and that was in 1986....in today's dollars, he was making $241K at my age, while I'm at like a quarter of that.

We don't stand a chance.

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9k3vw0 wrote

This is my point EXACTLY. In order to make it today, you need to spend money on a degree. Sure yea you can be an entrepreneur and start your own business, but if it was that easy, everyone be doing it. You can farm, but that’s also highly subsidized. You can code, but those jobs are being farmed out to India. There are other means to make a living, but to become an executive at a firm today, the requirements are totally different than what they used to be

I tried to start my own business and failed, cost me $20k

I have my MBA from an M7, and pulling in 6 figures and now having a child. My first. At 40. And freaking out how to afford to pay for him. My boomer parents at this time had 4 kids, in and out of 3 houses, multiple cars, etc. both had union jobs working for 1 company their entire lives with a pension.

They’re anti-union, hate any talk of helping student debt relief, etc. they’ve created the world we’re in today and the hurdles for their kids to climb and are actively trying to make it worse while complaining we live in their basements still.

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jrolumi t1_j9kmy1a wrote

Sounds like we should fix the actual problem then instead of forgiving debt to push the can further down the road lol.

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9kofv3 wrote

"push the can down the road"

that makes no sense, how is this pushing the can down the road?

So today, you can claim bankruptcy on credit cards, million dollar mortgages and businesses, personal loans, business loans, vehicles, etc etc, but NOT student loans. Also, the same people who are hating on student debt forgiveness are the same people who have filed bankruptcy at some point in their life or had COVID loan forgiven.

You want to fix the problem?

  1. Allow bankruptcy and flush the system out of people who cannot pay
  2. Have a free public state education option to give colleges real competition so prices would naturally fall back to earth.
  3. Have more grants for free education for trade labor to further pull demand away from colleges
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jrolumi t1_j9kuuna wrote

I agree with your points. Community college should be free & federal loans no interest. What does forgiving 10-20k do right now? Nothing. Those with massive debt still have massive debt.

The next generation in 10-15 years is going to be wondering where their forgiveness is & it will continue on & on. They need to get to the root of the problem, not just forgive debt.

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9lzj9w wrote

The next 10-15 years of students are coming Into the college conversation much later than the students of 10-15 years ago. Back then, we were told we needed it. Students today and the future students of tomorrow have much more history to look back on to make an “educated” decision on whether it’s a good idea to go or not.

$10k could halve some borrowers debt, at the bare minimum it would lower payments.

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jrolumi t1_j9m02oz wrote

Got to be honest that’s not a good argument. People bought houses in 2008 because it’s “the American dream”. Then the market crashed & people lost everything. There’s risk in these things. Totally agree that there needed/needs to be way better education in what you’re getting yourself into with college debt & such.

The system is very broken. But why not solve the broken issues now? Even you’re saying let’s just throw money at it now & figure out the rest later. The issue is still going to persist

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What_Yr_Is_IT t1_j9m3qkv wrote

You can claim bankruptcy on a home and walk away. You can’t do that with student loans.

That same scenario, as of today, those same people are in a new home and a clean credit report

A student is fucked forever.

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jrolumi t1_j9m592u wrote

Touché. To play devils advocate, my argument would be do they take away your diploma if you file bankruptcy? Lol idk. Was good discussion

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DisAccount4SRStuff t1_j9htf33 wrote

Engineering sucks so much, I hate my job every day. The pay isn't even good unless you try to snipe management (know one engineer that likes people?) or get a masters and then get forced into management anyway because you're over qualified for anything else. Engineering has been a waste of a stem pursuit for me, finance would have been better. On top of that if your if you are not a software engineer you're probably working on some form of physical product or system making WFH less likely and feasible. Fuck even HR would have been a better bet, they often paid at least the same, they barely do anything, and the ladder in that field is super easy to climb. Engineering is all of the work, none of the respect. Fuck I hate Engineering I was told I was supposed to make money .

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YouAreStoopud t1_j9hw1i9 wrote

I have no idea what kind of engineering you got into, but a buddy of mine went into electrical and basically sat around playing videogames in a cube being the Maytag repair man for some auto manufacturer. Made damn near 6 figures for it, too.

He just had to move to where the work was. Kind of a downside, sure - but he did well for himself.

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DisAccount4SRStuff t1_j9hyr2t wrote

The cost of the degree and difficulty of the degree compare to other job prospects makes it suck. I have friends that went into trades, spent less on thier degree, and make more than me. Also people with similar undergraduates make about the same as I do with not nearly as much effort and the classes are not as rigorous, like finance and HR. Undergrad engineering is not the career path it use to be. Plus, you also get little respect, you're easily replaceable and are expected to work really long hours. It's not a good prospect comparatively any more in my opinion since other jobs are easier to do, easier to obtain, and pay the same.

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Walla_Walla_26 t1_j9htxqy wrote

Lol, yea damn you are having a hard time. I used my degree to get into the power industry as a system operator. Operations is where the money is. I’m going to be a supervisor after 12 years plebbing around making over $100k for most of it

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Poozle01 t1_j9ipsj3 wrote

Agreed. I got an 6 offers for co-ops at UW madison this year. I’ll be at Wolf/Subzero (expensive ass kitchen appliances) working in AI manufacturing.

My co op pays me 25$ an hour, housing covered, and OT plus really good job offer chance after according to a buddy of mine who works there and 70-90k starting out of college. Just gotta do my last semester after it then come back

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prettyprtyprtygood t1_j9jthlz wrote

I love how engineers think that everyone should be an engineer, but pretty much every engineer I've ever worked with is a miserable SOB that can't solve people problems and can't wrap their massive brain around the concept that their way isn't always the right way to do something. This screw might be the right screw to use for that rigid shaft coupling, but your life choices aren't the right life choices for everyone.

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timshel42 t1_j9i08of wrote

you know most are pushed into making this decision as 17 or 18 year olds right?

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Poozle01 t1_j9iewet wrote

I am 21 and I did the same at 18 and chose to be an engineer. Choose a better path next time around. It doesn’t take a genius to realize poly sci and history won’t pay off.

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