Question: (Let me climb up here on my soapbox a minute)

1. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. 2. A little hard work never killed anyone. 3. Nobody owes you anything. 4. You’re only a doormat if you lay down for it. 5. If you want an education, pay for it. 6. There’s nothing wrong with taking 8 or 9 years to obtain an Associate’s degree if that’s all the faster you can come up with the money to pay for it. 7. Nobody said you had to learn now, pay later. You can pay as you go – one class at a time or one class a year. 8. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. 9. Don’t spend $450,000 to get a PhD in insect ethics and wonder why you can’t find a job in that field to pay for that education. 10. If you have lobster cravings on a tuna budget, buy Chicken of the Sea instead of going to Red Lobster. 11. We all make our own choices in life so we should have the courage to withstand the consequences of those choices. 12. You don’t HAVE to live beyond your means to keep up with the Joneses. They’re not paying your bills.

(getting off the soap box & going back to work)

Answer: I believe you’re right. Taking out student loans is, for many people, simply too much of a risk to endure. Instead, people increasingly face the prospects you describe. The fiscally conservative young person without substantial financial backing should look on higher education as something that belongs to other people — regardless of how brilliant that young person may be or how badly the workforce needs him/her.

As you say, the safe option is to count your blessings and keep on delivering those pizzas until you’re 30, by which time maybe you’ll have the so-called “two-year” A.A. degree and can begin planning for another eight-year stint to complete the B.A. or B.S. (not counting additional delays due to the expenses and distractions of raising a family, getting injured or laid off, or trying to keep up with tuition rates that continue to increase faster than your wages). Of course, as previously noted in a study analyzed in this newsgroup, your grades as a self-supporting student will suffer, on average, as compared to those of your classmates who have the luxury of being able to study full-time.

Or, if you’re not willing to wait 10-20 years for a Bachelor’s degree that may be based upon a transcript full of mediocre grades, the alternative is to take out student loans and endure the risk that you may become one of those people who is unable to repay them because of recession, debilitating illness, the expenses of raising a family, unanticipated debts for care of a dependent or relative, the costs of losing in divorce court, changes in the job market that eliminate a field that once seemed like a sure thing, the inferior quality of your education, or any other vagaries of life.

In any such event, you will join those of us who are saddled with student loans we cannot repay. The next step after that is to watch the amount of the outstanding loans increase by 25-50% or more with interest and inflated collection costs, as the collection agents begin to hound you. Then maybe you’ll become one of those people who talk about lawsuits, violence, depression, even fleeing to Canada or Australia — all of which may seem like overreactions until you find yourself branded a pariah — you, who may once have been the smartest kid on your block. For a collection of some of these discussions, see my page at http://www.geocities.com/student_loans_bankruptcy/ng_main.htm.

What’s surprising is that, as we’ve seen repeatedly in this newsgroup, this happens not only to people with Ph.Ds in bug morality, but also to some who have earned degrees from highly rated universities in law, medicine, and other seemingly practical fields. The student loan program, as presently structured, says simply that life had better work in the same reliable fashion for everyone, and that if it doesn’t, well, that’s the fault of those borrowers for whom the student loan program turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but within this newsgroup, I don’t remember hearing any debtor critics — any of those many participants who have found fault with hypothetical students who earned Ph.Ds in absurd fields like “insect ethics” — ever asking whether there would be something dishonest about a college charging tens of thousands of dollars for such a commodity!

But perhaps I needn’t have provided all this commentary. As I say, your various points lay out the grim reality pretty clearly. Increasingly, the very people who most need student loans are those who probably should avoid them. The program grinds on, but there is no longer anything generous or encouraging about it. The government gets its money back, or it holds you under its thumb for the rest of your life.

Related posts:

1. Student loans the lifetime debt.
2. Excessive Student Loan Debt — Looking for Your Stories
3. Student Loan Debt.
4. Immigrate to avoid student loan debt
5. STUDENT LOAN DEBT
6. What is the best way to handle a defaulted student loan?
7. Emigrate to avoid student loan/consumer debt
8. Can one Really Do This To Lower Student Loan Debt?
9. Private “Alternative” Student Loan Rehabilitation?
10. College Student Loans Program
11. Defaulted Student Loan Help Needed
12. Student Debt? New org. is forming to lobby Washington to forgive debts