While I'm waiting for an Amazon package, I've read some gamedev threads and stumbled upon the usual "which university should I choose?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3rup0v/opinion_on_full_sail_or_the_art_institute/

Now, what always baffles me in this type of topic are the amount of student loan debts (like 100K$) and how it seems like completely normal in general in USA. So for the fellow Americans: did you graduate after high school? Got in debt? And how much (if it's not too intrusive)? Would you rather have done differently?

$100,000? Surely that is exaggerated.

High debt isn't a problem if it allows you to get a high-paying job, and that's how the whole package is sold. Capital-based systems are predicated on leveraging debt, and anyone who only takes like two semesters of econ (and that's most people who go to college, I believe) will have the ignorance to be unable to understand the cost of money, and the arrogance to think that phrase makes no sense. Plus of course the nature of student loans makes people who don't understand them think they're low-risk. [url= Principally, from what little I've seen, because a lot of people think that their student loans are entirely federal, but many of them are privatized enough that they can be repackaged and resold, so keeping track of your debt isn't easy. That's a huge problem, and a rather unfair part of the setup. Also, if you really do end up making poor enough choices, you can't discharge student loans in bankruptcy. so they can follow you forever. Being eternally in debt murders your credit score, which can make it very hard to find a new job, which makes you unable to pay your loans, which hurts your credit score. Scylla, meet Charybdis.][/url]

$100k isn't really a lot of money. A decent job will clear you that, after tax, in a year, so if you're smart about it and take on a low six-figure debt to pick up a $150-$200k job, you've spent wisely. The real risk is taking on 60-70k to become an elementary school teacher (which pays out a pre-tax $35-$55k in all but the most lucrative areas, for non-specialists) or something similar, and starting a family right away.

Employers like workers to have debt. When you *need* a paycheck, they feel happier about their control. That's not meant as some "we're all wage-slaves" Shadowrun rant - it's just that most jobs have a learning curve, and it's expensive to keep training new hires. So the student debt stacks with the home debt and the never-own-a-car-more-than-five-years-old debt to keep people in the red. But hey; that's capitalism. That's why we consider a 200 square meter home small for a family of four, and drive SUVs large enough to live out of. It's not all bad.

Me, I got a degree with a federal grant program called the Montgomery GI Bill. I also went to a community college for the gen ed stuff and paid just under seven thousand bucks for books and tuition for a two-year degree which transferred entirely to a proper four-year university. And in the end, I make enough each year to live modestly for ten years, and my college degree isn't worth a thing. My industry certifications are. ^_^ C'est la vie.

EDIT: typo, of course

Wow, once again I'm really glad I don't live there.

Those debts are quite believable these days; what is most unbelievable is that there was a stipulation to make these "student loans" unforgivable, like they could do with a person who files for bankruptcy.

My story of going to college was an interesting one; there was a close relative of the family who helped me with tuition the first year of college. However, I was a resident of the state where I went to college and I lived with my parents and commuted every day for several years before I graduated.

What I typically had to pay for was books and lunch up until my final year. I think the first year I was in school, it was roughly $640 per quarter (every three months) for up to 21 credit hours (it was around $820 per quarter my last quarter in school). Books were rather expensive, being anywhere from $250 to $300 a quarter depending on the class, book and if I could get it used or not. I figure about $480 per quarter went to lunch, snacks and the occasional Ben & Jerry's (that's estimating about $8.00 a day for 5 days a week for 12 weeks). Transportation was roughly $2 a day, bus with transfers and the train (roughly $120 a quarter).

Of course, there was also the $250 that I spent on my HP calculator (I actually went without eating lunch and selling back some books I wish I kept) to buy it.

Worst case scenario (including my calculator) was going the first four full quarters for one year, spending roughly about $6410.

Had I not been a resident of the state in which my college resided (which had considerable discount for residents), had to pay for rent and utilities instead of living with my parents, joined a fraternity, went out partying, etc. I would probably have had an extremely large bill.

I'm sure people who go to ivy league colleges, become lawyers and doctors (which are highly paid professions) probably end up getting either scholarships or these particular loans which are more or less guaranteed to the person who loaned the money.

Having worked with a person who went to law school and started out as a legal assistant, they were quite a bit in debt since the day they graduated... very close to the $100,000 and I certainly did not envy them.

It's bad enough I have a mortgage; however, I wouldn't want to graduate college knowing I would have the unforgivable debt about the size of a mortgage and still take on the debt of owning a car and home.

So.... my words of advice for anyone still in high school thinking of going to college: a) consider a school in your area of residency, minimize travel expenses if you can; b) if you still live with parents, get a part-time job and help contribute, I'm sure they will help you with room and board while you commute for your education; c) sell back any books and supplies you don't need (you might be able to find better return for investment online than selling back to the bookstore or hunting out those who need them at the last minute); d) organize your courses in such a way you can maximize your credit hours per dollar (I had 1 hour labs which took 5+ hours of my time and 5 hour courses which affected my grade more.); and e) turn over every stone to see if you qualify or can get any scholarship you can, even a little help goes a long way.

I have heard about and know people who have large outstanding student loans. Some of them catch that windfall one day; however, I wouldn't want it looming over my head when there are much more important things for which to be concerned.

Bla bla bla European nightmare bla bla bla free education.

It is hilarious that going to university is even a question in 2015, especially in a developed country like 'murica. #'muricandream

Get a disease drop out and move back in with your parents.

Worked for me! :D

It is cool if it truly works like that. In my land I spent many thousands of $ for graduating after high school, just because people without diploma were considered unintelligent. I could as well use that diploma as toilet paper now, as it never helped me to establish my income. And I slightly regret spending so much money, as it was really huge sum payed in periods of time, I could buy some land with it.

Wow, that's insane. I'm glad I have my options here.
I'm in a commonwealth supported place, so half of my debt is already paid. On top of that, I have a higher education loan that simply accumulates whenever I add courses toward my study. When I actually start earning over 50-something thousand a year, THEN money starts coming out for the loan.

Scholarships help, too. Even though I am only getting a little over $2k each semester, it was very helpful.

One thing that annoys me about it is there's one guy who I studied with last year, and he says he just keeps going back and finding new things to study and doesn't plan on working. Because he's not earning so much, he doesn't need to pay the debt off, regardless of its volume.

OK, but now one has to ask themselves, "why pursue an education?" It seems that for quite some time, people were conditioned to think that you needed to have a formal education in order to get a good job, make money, support a family, etc.

I can say with some certainty that having an education (and this is something one first has to choose to do) really opened my eyes to a lot of things that I wouldn't normally have thought about with just a high-school education. You could be a master of the art you've chosen without ever having gone to a institution of higher learning; however, you would miss several opportunities, experiences and "eureka" moments that tend to make a more well-rounded individual.

But sadly, my "American Dream" is a bit more modest than most. I dream of a day when I will have absolved all my debts and only owe the government rent on the land I own while they slowly pay back (if anything) I've been putting into forced retirement during my working years --assuming that I would be able to collect social security at the age they've pushed it up to, given all the factors that exist to decrease longevity.

I felt I received an adequate education for what I put in, I have a house (for which I pay a mortgage), a single car (which I completely own, and I've never had a 'new' car in my life, but hoping that will change with the Elio sometime next year) and a family that will not be able to support me when I retire, but will certainly benefit from my death.

Yeah, life is good. :) You know Van Wilder? :)

I guess there are ups in growing up even in such a backwater country like Romania. I haven't paid anything except for food and cheap student dorms. I usually had a scholarship (albeit small but enough to cover the rent). I never bought books, we fotocopied then (it was cheaper that way). And in my last year i started to work and had more money than i knew what to do with (450 euros/mth - compared to 150 euros that was about the monthly average back then).

After graduating high school I went off to college because that's "what your supposed to do." I didn't have a career choice in mind, didn't really want too spend more time in school and certainly didn't want to wrack up a ton of debt. But my parents and grand parents were wanting me to go and my school guidance counselor said that with my grades it didn't make sense to do anything else. Halfway through my first semester I realized that I was spending money I didn't have for someone I didn't like to lecture me on stuff I didn't care about; was this really the best use of my time?

I dropped out after one semester, focused on a career and never regretted it. I got a decent job and bought myself a brand new truck. After a year I decided to change things up by joining the military, initially I was thinking about the National Guard, but after talking to all the recruiters from each branch (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) I went into the US Army as a full time soldier. After 4 years I got out, went back to the same type of job I had before, got married and bought a house. Looking back, my brief time in college was a complete waste.

For the past 15 years I have been working at a bank, during that time I have been the minority as I was one of only a few people who didn't have a college degree. Even rarer however were those few people who had degrees in their work fields. We had just one person in our accounting department who had a degree in accounting and a few of the senior vice presidents had banking degrees. Most people had degrees in history, liberal arts, communications or political science. The head of our mortgage loan department had a masters degree in anthropology. Everyone of these people were on 10-20 year repayment plans for educations they never used.

There was one time in my career when I didn't have the proper education to advance, at which point my boss suggested I attend a specific college course in the evenings after work. I told her I had a better idea that would be cheaper, faster and could be implemented immediately instead of waiting two months for the next semester of college to start. I went to the local library, checked out a bunch of banking and accounting books and studied them for the following few weeks. So I do value education, but not necessarily college. In fact, I've come to believe that college is a waste of time and money for most of the people who attend. Unless someone is earnestly planning to become a brain surgeon or rocket scientist then they should seriously reconsider taking on that level of debt.

I don't have statistics to support this but I'm going to give a good guess: you are in the minority that managed to use an opportunity like that. I'm sure in many work places there's an arbitrary policy to have a formal education because reason.

That said, I liked your story. Did you learn any useful soft skills during your years in the military?

$100,000 in student loan debt isn't uncommon if you're talking about top universities (tuition there can range from $20k-35k a year, with people taking 4-5 years to complete their degrees). For a small number of degree and career choices this can be worth it, and the resulting career can allow the debt to be paid back pretty quickly. However, an unfortunate number of students take on this kind of debt without having a clear idea of just what kind of career they hope to get out of the degree they choose, with the results being about what you'd expect (a previous poster mentioned working with people with degrees history, liberal arts, communications, and political science in a job having nothing to do with those degrees, which is unfortunately a very common thing to see these days for those kinds of degrees).

Another big problem that's contributed to this is the nature of student loan debts in the US. First of all, they cannot be discharged (you still owe your student loan debts even if you declare bankruptcy), and second although they are typically issued by private lenders they are guaranteed by the government (meaning that if the person defaults on the debt the government pays back the private lender, then becomes the holder of the debt). The result is that there's pretty much no risk for lenders issuing student loans, so they're willing to hand out stupid amounts of money without taking any kind of look at whether the person getting the loan will have a chance to pay it back once they complete their degree. Also, the increasing college tuition rates are tied to this as well, as they've basically ballooned in response to the increased ability for people to pay (by taking out massive debts).

However, as crappy as this situation is, it's not something that people actually need to subject themselves to if they want a college education. Many colleges are much, much cheaper, and there is also a lot of financial aid available for these less expensive colleges. I went to a state university (around $5k-7k per year in tuition when I attended), and also got an academic scholarship that fully covered both tuition and housing for the 4 years it took me to get my degree. From there I went into a graduate program at a top tier university (for scientific grad programs, like the one I entered, the students are actually paid a stipend, rather than having to pay to attend the program). This let me get an interesting, well-paying job right out of the graduate program, and with no debt to speak of.

People who actually figure out what they want out of college and do a proper analysis of the most cost-effective way to achieve that can get their degrees with little or no debt. For those who plan to go into a graduate program the undergraduate institution they attend just needs to be good enough to get them into the grad program (the grad program is where they'll learn the vast majority of what they'll actually be putting towards their career, and the grad program they attended is of far more interest to employers than the undergrad school they went to). Many less expensive schools can also provide an education that will position a person for their chosen career just as well as an expensive, top tier school (this depends entirely on the chosen career- as I mentioned earlier for some careers those top tier schools are actually worth the cost). It's also possible for people to attend community colleges for the first one or two years of their college education (getting general education requirements out of the way at a much, much lower cost), then transferring to a higher tier university just for the last two years of their degree (for the actual degree-specific courses).

One of the largest problems is that people entering college are often poorly equipped to do a cost-benefit analysis on the various options available to them, and thus go with a very expensive education that doesn't provide them much benefit over what less expensive options would have provided them.

I thought the whole idea of declaring bankruptcy is to enable a new start after suffering for some time, but not suffering forever?

So would I have to repay a student loan for the rest of my life or could I get rid of it earlier even if I could not pay back completely?