More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by issa on Thursday January 13, 2022 @11:14AM (#29922377)

If you are in the US and know people who are aged 30-50 and not software engineers, this is almost all that they talk about. Some people manage to pay them off, others (due to high interest) owe more than when they started. It is a huge problem.

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Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by cableshaft on Thursday January 13, 2022 @11:29AM (#29922616)

Yep, I'm a software engineer and just about to pay them off (I slowed down because of the deferred loans, could have had it done in 2020).

Meanwhile my wife only makes an appreciable dent in hers whenever she gets a gift from family members, and she's still paying $900 a month to not do much more than tread water. She did get it paid down a bit more thanks to the past two years of deferrals, but she still owes a lot more than I ever borrowed (two years of my school were paid for by a scholarship).

It's been a steady drag on our income since we've been together. At least mine is just about to go away, mine was $400/month as well... that $1300/month is almost as much as our mortgage payment.

I have multiple friends that have just given up on ever paying off their student loan debt in their lifetime and only pay enough to keep it where it is (or slowly increasing even). You wonder why people aren't buying homes and having children, there it is. I guess the solution to overpopulation is just saddle everyone with a bunch of debt, then.

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Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by samarama on Thursday January 13, 2022 @11:55AM (#29923115)

Do you have sources for this, because the numbers don’t reflect this.

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Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by issa on Thursday January 13, 2022 @07:16PM (#29928891)

Obviously I don't have statistics on the people I talk to at that age, but to get a sense of the scope of the problem, 6,100,000 people are behind on payments. https://educationdata.org/how-many-people-have-student-loans

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Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by samarama on Thursday January 13, 2022 @11:16PM (#29930532)

Sure but 85% of those have loans less than $50,000 and those that have more have entry levels salaries of $200,000 usually.

That seems rather small for such a huge debating point?

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Re:More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest nu... by issa on Monday January 17, 2022 @05:41PM (#29972525)

It would if it were true. But in reality, there are lots of people with $40k starting salary jobs (example: a librarian, which requires a masters degree!) paying off $50k loans with 8% interest rates.

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