Thank you all for the sanctimonious responses and universal blanket condemnation to anyone with a student loan who might benefit from the idiotic decision of President Biden.
You know it wasn't ME who did this to you, right?
But you sure are angry with me, aren't you?
I should have picked a better school?
I should have picked a cheaper school?
I should have worked more jobs so I could skip the loans?
I should have gotten better and more jobs when I graduated?
Please explain how any of those choices keeps President Biden from doing this.
Go on.
Nothing?
For the record:
I picked a good school with an excellent reputation. It was cheaper than the land-grant university AND had better placement.
I went to college because I did not have the skills to get more than the job I had, it wasn't a matter of not working hard enough it was a case of there not being enough hours in the day to gather the funds.
I started college when the great expansion in government aid and exponential increase in tuition happened. If I had managed to save a bundle for tuition, it would no longer have been enough to make it to graduation.
Especially hard since I no longer had the hours from before because I was now a full time student.
But graduated I did.
I needn't have bothered.
You see, while I was attending a solid school when I started, it wasn't when I left.
The Department of Education allowed investment places to purchase and consolidate independent colleges. So my school was purchased by one of those and then resold and then resold.
You might have beard of Corinthian Colleges? It was in the news.
Because it was in the news, my degree is radioactive.
Thanks!
The DoE offers forgiveness for people in my plight, we just have to pay the taxes on the "profit" from the forgiveness. All at once.
If I could shit that wad of money I would never have wanted a degree to get a better job!
Being a victim of timing matters.
Graduating at a moment when my son took a turn for the worse and needed someone to be here full time meant that I couldn't get job experience before the degree became completely worthless and by the time I had time... The economy was in recession and my degree was radioactive.
Are you aware that there's a short window to get a job in your degree before the time since graduation and having no experience keeps you from talking to someone you can explain WHY you've been graduated so long without a job?
In a buyer's market for labor, that means you don't get interviews.
Extra bonus round! My previous career was now either extra work for a degreed engineer or simply offshored.
Putting my job prospects in the minimum wage range.
Yes, we made decisions, but luck is a factor to consider. Neutral decisions become bad choices when bad luck happens.
If you think you can completely avoid bad luck by making only good choices, you're a fucking fool.
Worse, you're a fool without compassion.
Even more fun is listen to the people who nattily talk about doing things to get their job because they had the freedom to do it when they were single, young and the economy was going gangbusters.
What did we do with the time and bad luck with my worthless degree?
We kept a roof over our heads. We ate. We did without.
AND IT TOOK EVERY SINGLE DIME WE HAD!
There wasn't a penny left over for those loans for years.
And we've been paying on them, not ever going to pay them off, the interest took over and they're simply unserviceable with any conceivable wage we could hope to earn.
But it's MY fault that President Biden put some of my loan on your ass?
Actually OUR ass because we're paying taxes too. I get to make my insufficient payment AND have my taxes pay for the forgiveness! I think I should be more pissed off than you are!
It's not even much compared to the other sops they hand out that you don't mention. What makes this so much worse for you?