Forum Post: @ Student Loans and such

I feel very sorry for today's college graduates. Both of my parents were the children of immigrants and started with nothing. My Dad started as an accountant and worked up to VP of a multi-national. He took a sack lunch to work until his last day at work. We only went camping for vacations, had a big garden. He was extremely careful with his money so that he could pay for his 4 kids college.

He only drove dorky company cars, never bought a nice one, even when he could have. He wanted all of us to get degrees in business, would not hear of anything else, because he wanted us to be able to get good jobs. I quit because I couldn't hack the math, so I've had a career in the trades.

In those days, the early eighties, nobody took out big college loans except doctors. Nobody would give you a big loan to go to college, the idea was ridiculous. You either worked and went to school, got a scholarship, or your parents paid for it.

The people who have sold young adults and their parents the idea of a $100k-200k college loan are the same people who sold gullible people home mortgages. The exact same people. Colleges and Universities are businesses. College advisors and Loan Officers sell these people loans because the College has another student for whom they can charge tuition, and the loan officer keeps their job. Same at the bank.

Would you believe that when a bank makes a loan to you of 100k, they get to turn around and lend almost that amount (the Fed prints the cash) to someone else, based on the promise you have made to pay them back. It's called the fractional reserve system.

Basically, unless you got a degree in engineering, computers, business, math, or something very practical, you got scammed.

Twenty years ago if you had any college degree, you could still go get a manufacturing job, but many of them have gone to China, India, Mexico, etc.

You could get a admin. assistant, (secretary) job, or some kind of office job. But those jobs do not pay enough to pay back a student loan of 50-200k, unless of course you are very frugal.

I don't think their parents have taught young adults how to be careful with their money. Even if you are making$25/ hr, the idea of spending 2.50 of that on a cup of coffee would have seemed absolutely crazy to people 30 years ago, and the same with paying for water and eating out.

I think my Dad took us out to dinner once a year. Once a year! The rest of the time my Mom cooked.

I'm not sure if today's college graduates feel that they should be able to eat out once a week or more. Do they feel that everyone in the World should have a college education and a "good job" ? i've read many blogs and tweets where the students are upset that the only jobs available are trade or construction or labor jobs. I don't think they realize how many people who have those jobs have college degrees. They take those jobs because when they were majoring in Greek Literature, their parents, teachers, advisors and friends all told them that it would be very hard to get a good job with that degree, and they made that choice.

I have a friend who got a degree in History. He lived with about 5 guys and did odd jobs for a year or two until he landed a minimum wage job answering phones in customer service for a small local software company call Microsoft. He got low wages but also got stock options. 20 years later he was a millionaire.

I also work for a guy who has been a carpenter for 40 years. He and his wife were very careful with their money. She styed home and worked very hard to make sure the girls got good grades. He is paying for their college education.

But he never expected that, he never spent or spends a lot of money.

Anyway, there are huge changes to be made to the financial system. But I do want college grads and college students to know that the loans they have taken out are the same kinds of loans that were given to people who could not afford the houses they bought. They were gullible, and were preyed upon by the mortgage lenders. The exact same thing is happening to students. They tell you what you want to hear, because they are making money from you.