If former students with good jobs wouldn’t keep taking deferments and consolidating their student loans into 20 or 30 years and then missing payments, they wouldn’t have this problem.
When a recent college grad gets a “good job,” it seems most of them immediately buy a new or newer vehicle at a high interest rate (because they don’t yet have enough credit established to get lower rates). Then they rent too expensive of an apartment/condo and/or don’t have enough roommates. This money could have been deflected every month to their student loan(s) while they take their old car to a garage and have it fixed to drive a few more years and keep their lower registration fee and cheaper insurance.
Employers very much DO want to hire college-degreed Gen Y and younger Gen X (the under-40 crowd)… that is, if they didn’t get a degree in art history or underwater basket-weaving. Employers SURELY don’t want to hire the “over-50 crowd,” regardless of experience, (unless they work as a “consultant” or “independent contractor” for whom they will issue a 1099). Often, the indebted former student has to be willing to relocate for that first (or second) “good job.” I don’t know about other states, but many, many CA natives in this group will NOT relocate, especially if they are living with parents or on/in their property (residence or rental property). After living in coastal CA all of their lives, they just can’t quite stomach the idea of Kansas City. But if that is what they have to do to get off the starting blocks of life, then they should do it, IMHO. It’s not for the rest of their lives but just to get them launched in their fields.
Eventually the young degreed worker finds an employer with whom they can have a “career.” By then, a lot of them have one or two “accidental” kids and their pay becomes ensnared for child support or daycare expense. Then they find their tax refunds have been levied for student loan defaults so they file a new W-4 claiming 9 exemptions.
Soon they are 40-45 with a family of five to support or help support and their student loans have barely shrunk from when they were fresh grads of 25-26. Some of their spouses had to buy a home in their name only so the family could have a home. Of course, it was a lesser house in a lesser area than if both of the buyers could qualify for a mortgage.
I’ve seen the above phenomenon with younger lawyers (Gen X) as early as 1990. It was just pathetic as these professionals worked their a$$e$ off every day and had VERY little, if any, discretionary income. They borrowed for college/law school in the ’80’s or very early nineties and their spouses bought houses in the early nineties for their families (when SD housing prices were down).
I can only imagine how hard it must be now. This is why NONE of my kids have ever or will ever take out a student loan.
If you have student loans, they come first, before new vehicles, partying every weekend, personal traveling, etc. The student should endeavor to pay them off as fast as possible, even if they have to get a second job to do so.
Lesson learned. DON’T BORROW FOR COLLEGE. If you can’t afford it and can’t get a scholarship or fee waiver, go to CC or ROP and get an associate degree or trade or join the military until such time as you CAN afford to go. It’s NOT WORTH IT for a young person to mortgage their lives away before they even get them started.
And don’t drag your evil student-loan baggage into a marriage or domestic partnership. It is not fair to an un-indebted partner. And if you are already married or are not but purchased (mortgaged) real property with your partner, then DON’T take out a student loan. Life happens and your responsibility now lies with helping your partner pay that mortgage every month.
That is my personal opinion. I’ve just seen too much. ‘Nuff said.
