• TheHottub@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Paycheck to paycheck and your payment is more than you spend on groceries. And your loan has doubled in size because of interest. And will continue to grow. Meanwhile your credit is garbage and you can’t get ahead. Bad credit? Crappy car, needs fixes. Higher interest rate. I’m 41 and trying so hard to get ahead of it.

    At the very least cap the interest for people. Or how about no interest. You can’t chip away at something that’s growing faster than you can swing at it.

    • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Best we can do is crippling debt in a dystopian shitscape to pay off the degree they lied to you about being able to get a good enough job to raise a family because you got that degree, taking on tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I agree with you here. I’ve always said, if you’re putting in work to get an education, the interest on the loan should be zero. Yes, zero.

      Over time it means the lender (read: govt) loses money, so what. The increased tax income for an educated employee more than accounts for that. Even if it didn’t, what’s the downside to an educated workforce for anyone but those in power?

      Education should not be a for-profit scheme.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        The government has no problem giving away 0% interest loans, often with principal forgiveness, for tens of millions of dollars to fund infrastructure. How is university not a similar investment in the future?

        • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, in fact it’s almost trivial to argue that education in something you’re interested in results in better/more efficient infrastructure.

          As an example, California uses loops of wire embedded in the asphalt at lights to sense if cars are there, meaning less delays for people because no light is green at an empty direction of an intersection.

          Though that’s only mildly high tech, some educated electrical engineers had to come up with it, and it makes life better for us all, saving gas, and reduces CO2 for idling cars as well.