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newmann
9/27/2018 5:54am
9/27/2018 5:54am
Edited Date/Time
10/8/2018 8:57am
Funny stuff here, great stories. Oh wait, all these people are the educated ones.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/millennials-lives-chan…
My husband and I bought our first home in 2004. By 2007 it was mortgaged at about three times what it really should have been. We refinanced three times between 2004–2007 — I think we thought, wow free money so we’d rack up our credit cards, refinance, pay them off, and start the vicious cycle all over again. Our house was mortgaged at $249,000 and we knew we were severely upside down. We attempted to work with the mortgage company to keep our home. l resolved to short sell it [for $89K] and eventually just walked away. What’s interesting is that as a member of the class of 2007, I feel like we were the canaries in the mines when it came to the impending recession. The class of 2006 got the "college graduate" jobs we’d been raised to believe in when we went to school. But with my graduating class, quite a few more of us didn’t. We graduated and went home and kept doing the same retail/restaurant jobs we’d been doing. And a lot of my friends, including me, still are. I work a service job I hate that pays $15 an hour, and that still isn’t actually a living wage, despite falling in the middle income range for where I live. I owe $38,000 in student loan debt for a degree I’m not using, and which I will likely never pay off, because thanks to income based repayment and my low income, I don’t make enough to even pay all the interest my loans accrue each year. I do have a house and a car, but only because my parents supplement my income each month. I never went to college, so I'm lucky enough to not have student loan debt. But I have plenty of other debt because I've had nothing but part-time job after part-time job. There is no work where I live without the insane credentials. "Entry level" around here (Midwest) requires at minimum an associate's degree and a couple years of experience — and that's for jobs that literally anyone can do: office jobs, school support staffing, etc. Nothing offers insurance, nothing offers dental or vision or vacation time, not that I could afford a vacation if I wanted to. Life is overall garbage, has been since 2008. There is no getting out of this hole; there is no moving up in the world. This is it. My husband was at Merrill Lynch on Wall Street in 2008 when it crashed... we lost everything and filed for bankruptcy. He left finance and went into education, but landed back in finance recently. We had to work so hard to get back on our feet with two kids, after going from six figures to food stamps and WIC [a federally funded nutrition assistance program]. We finally left NYC because we felt the city didn’t love us back, and we settled in the Bay Area, not realizing it would turn into the most expensive housing market in the country.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/millennials-lives-chan…
My husband and I bought our first home in 2004. By 2007 it was mortgaged at about three times what it really should have been. We refinanced three times between 2004–2007 — I think we thought, wow free money so we’d rack up our credit cards, refinance, pay them off, and start the vicious cycle all over again. Our house was mortgaged at $249,000 and we knew we were severely upside down. We attempted to work with the mortgage company to keep our home. l resolved to short sell it [for $89K] and eventually just walked away. What’s interesting is that as a member of the class of 2007, I feel like we were the canaries in the mines when it came to the impending recession. The class of 2006 got the "college graduate" jobs we’d been raised to believe in when we went to school. But with my graduating class, quite a few more of us didn’t. We graduated and went home and kept doing the same retail/restaurant jobs we’d been doing. And a lot of my friends, including me, still are. I work a service job I hate that pays $15 an hour, and that still isn’t actually a living wage, despite falling in the middle income range for where I live. I owe $38,000 in student loan debt for a degree I’m not using, and which I will likely never pay off, because thanks to income based repayment and my low income, I don’t make enough to even pay all the interest my loans accrue each year. I do have a house and a car, but only because my parents supplement my income each month. I never went to college, so I'm lucky enough to not have student loan debt. But I have plenty of other debt because I've had nothing but part-time job after part-time job. There is no work where I live without the insane credentials. "Entry level" around here (Midwest) requires at minimum an associate's degree and a couple years of experience — and that's for jobs that literally anyone can do: office jobs, school support staffing, etc. Nothing offers insurance, nothing offers dental or vision or vacation time, not that I could afford a vacation if I wanted to. Life is overall garbage, has been since 2008. There is no getting out of this hole; there is no moving up in the world. This is it. My husband was at Merrill Lynch on Wall Street in 2008 when it crashed... we lost everything and filed for bankruptcy. He left finance and went into education, but landed back in finance recently. We had to work so hard to get back on our feet with two kids, after going from six figures to food stamps and WIC [a federally funded nutrition assistance program]. We finally left NYC because we felt the city didn’t love us back, and we settled in the Bay Area, not realizing it would turn into the most expensive housing market in the country.
It's not my fault.It's not my fault.It's not my fault. It's not my fault.It's not my fault.It's not my fault.It's not my fault.It's not my fault.
The Shop
My counselors, my teachers, the University marketing, society at large; all of them basically guaranteed failure if you had no degree and who were we to question it at the time? We were a bunch of dumb kids who didn't know enough to question it. It was unfathomable at the time that they might not have had our best interests in mind.
I took responsibility for my choices though, slogged through getting my engineering degree, and was extremely lucky to land a decent job right out of school. I have mixed feelings still whether it was worth it or not. I'm extremely happy with my current life, and I have no idea if it would have been better or worse had I gone to trade school or something instead.
I still hold resentment for all the lies and misinformation presented to me as "unquestionable fact" back then though.
To my point the crash of the credit bubble has led to an increased questioning of the necessity of a college degree. Just one of many side effects.
I wouldn't worry to much about it though another decade or so it will all shake out with UBI's and an all AI workforce. That'll show the rednecks.
1. Everyone lied to me about the importance of an education.
2. I got an education.
3. I got a job.
4. I am extremely happy with my life.
Sounds to me like the "lies you were fed" paid off.
Colleges should also sit down with students after their first semester or year and take a look at the students viability to finish. So many people with lots of debt but no degree. Of course the colleges job is to sell their education, not help you determine if it's right for you.
The lie was that it was the only route to success in life. I'm not blaming other's for my decisions, nor am I suggesting I regret them now.
I am trying to point out to those that haven't live it that many people who go this route aren't even aware of an alternative because of the BS fed to them since early childhood until it is too late.
I do think that if you can get through college without a ton of debt it is worth doing for most people.
I did two years at community college and two years at a good state school and came out with $5k in debt in the mid-90s, which I thought was high then. Waited tables and washed dishes all through college.
Anybody that thinks a degree entitles them to a life of wealth and prosperity is in for a brutal shock, no matter what era you live in.
As bad as the economy is, I would hate to be out there without a college education. I understand the arguments, but not everybody can be an entrepreneur.
Most people want to sit at a desk, surf the Internet (read Facebook, Buzzfeed and Vox), take a nice lunch and make it home in time for Dancing With the Stars. The typical person who rides through college partying has zero idea how hard you have to work to run your own business. I had a friend who worked so hard in college that he slept in his Domino's pizza uniform because he worked so much he didn't bother to take it off. He ended up a multi-millionaire where the party boys....didn't.
As for the credit available, that’s just stupidity to think that any money borrowed whether it’s credit or re-mortgaging won’t have to be paid back and then some....NOTHING is free.
My only gripe with the current situation is the housing market which continues to go up and up based on borrowing from the future generation.
Pit Row
Yeah I can see how it sounds that way. I only meant it to mean: I don't lay the responsibility for my choices on anyone else and I've always made my loan payments myself (only a couple more years before their all done, for both mine and my wife's).
Still, China is leading by a Mile.
I could have chosen not to go to college initially, or to pick a better/different major. Absolutely. That's on me. But I was also spoon-fed fairy tales about the job market, college and the economy from my parent's generation basically my entire young life. The actions of their generation caused the economy to shit the bed. Then I graduate and the jobs I had been taught to expect, didn't exist.
My generation didn't create the dogshit economy from 08-14 or whenever the recession "ended". But it put us in a huge financial hole that we'll be dealing with for decades.
Just remember that all that was created by the "smart" and "educated".
Regardless, here is my honest take. Not only recent college graduates, but A LOT of people used their homes as an ATM since about 1990. Any bank would let any loan, because they also believed that home prices would never decrease. Issue a loan on ANY property, and if the buyer defaults, the banks then would see the profits that homeowners had been realizing.
Obviously, the pie is not always growing. It shrunk in 2008, and the world's economy reeled because of it.
As for the "smarter people"comment, college is not for everybody. I do see it as an investment in yourself though.
I cannot think of a job out there that having a college degree makes you unqualified for. "What? You have a college degree? Sorry, you cannot have this job."
But there are a MILLION jobs that having a degree (sometimes of any sort) is a minimum requirement of employment.
I struggled in high school. Not that I was not intelligent enough, but we were a poor family, and lived in a small rural town. What opportunities are there?
Not many.
I enlisted in the military, and thought that I would make a career of that.
2 years into my 4 year enlistment, I realized that a life that of that was not what I wanted, so I took the ACT test, and waited for my term to expire.
Back then, the GI Bill was not NEARLY as generous as it is today. I had to contribute $100 per month for the first year of my term (I was only netting about $1,100 per month back in 1989).
When I got out, I had about $14,500 available to me as long as I was a full-time student, and getting passing grades. That would get me a check for about $400 a month to off-set "expenses".
That was not going to "pay my way" to a college degree, so I also picked up a part time job working for UPS. I would get up at 3:30 am, work at UPS from 4 am to 8 am loading the trucks up, and then go to school. To keep that schedule, I had to go to bed at about 8 pm. I missed a lot of parties, but I knew I had one (1) chance to get a college degree, so I was very focused.
My classmates? They had not had a taste of "real life" that the military had provided me, so they were maxing out the student loans available to them, and taking any class they wanted. Parties all the time, and Spring Break trips to Mexico! No real motivation, and no real idea of "what they wanted to be".
But the student loans were easy to get, so what did they care?
Many went straight into Master's programs after the Bachelor's, just because it might have been easier than actually going out and finding a job.
My education has taken me places I never would have imagined, and provided me with financial security that NOBODY in my family has ever experienced.
Kick education, and the process, all you want. For some people, it is a great investment in themselves. For others, it is a time to shirk responsibility and have a good time.
There is not a single answer as to whether or not a college education is "worth it".
For some, it is. For others, it is not.
Many still think good old fashion hard work would fix things ha. The real question I think should be what exactly are we pursuing? Happiness?
Post a reply to: Smart people calling out the rednecks.