How many have a retirement fund setup? How many think you need one?

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

Because the originator of this thread is an American college student who, like many others, has had to take financial aid to complete his education, I thought the following might be of interest to him, as well as others in similar circumstances:

* * * * *

"Public service work can wipe out student loans


"A new law will make it possible for student debt to be forgiven for people who choose public service jobs.

"June 29, 2008

"If you're facing years of student loan payments but aren't making much money because you're working in public service, the federal government has some good news for you. A law that takes effect Tuesday could allow you to have some of your college debt forgiven."

* * * * *

For the entire article, go to:

Public service work can wipe out student loans - Los Angeles Times

TaoJones

My tax dollars at work again!

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Therapy

My tax dollars at work again!

Yeah, but those student loans were just predatory lending, same as the recent loan scandal.

They pedaled loans with terms a high school graduate couldn't possibly understand well to prospective college students with a dream of higher education. There was no other way to pay for college for most of us, and we had no choice but to sign. The loans seemed legit, since a University was offering them.

Many people I know are $50K to $100K in debt starting out in life and are making dirt wages compared to past generations.

So... *something* has to be done about these predatory loans.

(I speak from personal experience)

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Yeah, but those student loans were just predatory lending, same as the recent loan scandal.

They pedaled loans with terms a high school graduate couldn't possibly understand well to prospective college students with a dream of higher education. There was no other way to pay for college for most of us, and we had no choice but to sign. The loans seemed legit, since a University was offering them.

Many people I know are $50K to $100K in debt starting out in life and are making dirt wages compared to past generations.

So... *something* has to be done about these predatory loans.

(I speak from personal experience)

I don't want to belittle your personal experience, but I have never been bailed out of any mistakes I made even when I was "misguided". So it just kind of bugs me that I have to pay for others bail out. I spent time in school. I see it a lot like cruising. You work till you can pay and then you go and while you are going you work too. That is my experience.

[one_day35]

Hi Casey, and wow, what a great topic, and some very very sound advice given in virtually every reply I`ve read here! It appears as though there are some very wise people getting around on this site. Personally, given my less than perfect personal and family medical history, chances are at 35 years young, my middle age is not looming, but has passed. Not to drag the topic down at all, my advice is simply that no-one is guaranteed `tomorrow`, and without being silly with it, remember that money is a tool, not a collectable. Debt is your toolboxes arch enemy, so avoid it if you possibly can, and where you can`t, either through the need to purchase property, or other true `must haves`, manage the debt wisely. Focus on having enough `tools` to keep you afloat (pun intended), but don`t stress too much as I have never met anyone who says they have enough.

In a nutshell, I guess I`m saying `Plan for tomorrow, but LIVE for today`, because that`s all there may be!
There are many other proverbs, quotes and words of wisdom in this thread from other members, and all are great, so I won`t repeat them, I`ll just go back and read them again and hope they sink in to my thick head!

Cheers, and all the best

[anotherT34C]

To the original post, yes we have a retirement fund. We dump 20% of our salaries in, and hope for the long-term best.

These days we only sail short weekend (or long weekend) hops, but I made sure to choose a job that has sabatticals (six months 100% salary, or 1 year 50%).

Best we can figure to do, is to live cautious, eat right, drink wine, excercise, and hope medical science makes 60 the new 30 in 2035. Oh yeah... and no kids!

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Many people I know are $50K to $100K in debt starting out in life and are making dirt wages compared to past generations.

So... *something* has to be done about these predatory loans.

(I speak from personal experience)

Sorry to be rude Sully but you pressed a button of mine.

So what?

I paid my way through college and worked 80+ hours a week to do it.

No one ties you up and makes you sign a loan paper. Ignorance of interest rates is also no excuse.

In a certain dimension college separates the haves from the have nots. No one (especially US taxpayers) owes anyone else an education or any other damn thing. Forgiveness of government backed student loans is stealing from my pocket.

I worked damn freakin' hard to get here and I never whined a bit.

I'm also tired of hearing about dirt wages - As you know from other posts - I lived in a cab over camper while I was in college. I lived in a 3 BR house with 6 roomates after college. I made something like $185 bucks a week take home pay in 1981.

I know you are still pretty young and you (probably in partnership with a bank) own a boat that I am yet to afford.

You are doing what you want and I respect that, as I have posted many times, but please knock off the life's so unfair crap.

It's as fair as we make it.

[anotherT34C]

The forgiveness mentioned above comes at a price... working in public service. Just another job benefit, really, and nothing new. Teachers in my area, for as long as I know, have had the option of teaching in the lower-paying inner-cities in exchange for some debt forgiveness.

[exfishnz]

G'day Ex-Calif,

Not wanting to inflame your US loans debate thread, but am a bit curious of your comments.

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

I paid my way through college and worked 80+ hours a week to do it.

That averages to 11 hrs p/day (7 day week), am I correct?

No one ties you up and makes you sign a loan paper.

So a US college student can either a) work 11 hrs p/day or b) take a loan, am I correct?

Ignorance of interest rates is also no excuse.

I would normally agree. Interestingly though (& this is in OZ), I saw a doco about 6 weeks back that showed bank "whistle blower's" claiming that the bank's were lending to persons whom they knew were at significant risk of default.

Forgiveness of government backed student loans is stealing from my pocket.

I too would be peve'd. Interesting thing is, back in NZ, its being discussed of the same thing happening, why? Because all the educated students (future workers) are leaving & not coming back

I know you are still pretty young and you (probably in partnership with a bank) own a boat that I am yet to afford.

No one owns anything that is financed.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Therapy

I don't want to belittle your personal experience, but I have never been bailed out of any mistakes I made even when I was "misguided". So it just kind of bugs me that I have to pay for others bail out. I spent time in school. I see it a lot like cruising. You work till you can pay and then you go and while you are going you work too. That is my experience.

Therapy: Thank you. I respect your postings and you as a person. I sure don't like paying to bail people out either. They should let the student loan holders and anyone who signed up for the recent scam mortgages hang - I agree. I just wanted to point out that the predatory techniques were exactly the same. To keep things based in reality for the postings, college recently broke $30K a year (average cost!), so that's $120K in loans when you leave school.

To Dan: I also respect your posts and opinions, but... bashing me was a little harsh. I'll let it slide.

Just be aware... that $120K debt to start out life is a *tad* different than what you had. Please check facts before launching an attack like that one. Your generation had it completely easy compared to mine and those behind me.

College prices keep*rising for 2006-07 school year - Oct. 24, 2006

[anotherT34C]

College pretty much always pays off for the professional class.

From the above link;

Originally Posted by cnn

The benefits of a bachelor's
In an accompanying survey, "Education Pays 2006," the College Board analyzes the benefits in lifetime earnings trends of those who've earned a college degree.
The data showed a big earnings gap between high school and college graduates. In 2005, women aged 25-34 with bachelor's degrees earned 70 percent more than those with high school diplomas, up from 47 percent in 1985. For men, that gap was 63 percent, up from 37 percent in 1985.
Full-time workers aged 25-34 with college degrees make an average of $14,000 a year more than those with high school diplomas.

Study law or engineering. It'll almost certainly pay off.

edit: just underlining the age bracket mentioned. $14K gap for 25-34 y/o. The gap increases with age.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by exfishnz

That averages to 11 hrs p/day (7 day week), am I correct?

No one owns anything that is financed.

He he... I was wondering about that one too. Maybe if you went to clown college... you might be able to pull 80 hours a week (16 hour days?? 11 hour days??).

Me? I have a BS in Physics. You could work 20 hours a week tops with the course load I had - and I worked that 20 hours plus every summer and break full time, 40+ hours.

Dan: Still enjoy discussing things with you, but... 80 hours a week? How can I believe anything else you're posting? (honestly no offense intended... just looking at that and wondering how to take the rest of the post)

ExFishNZ: You got that right. The bank owns this ENTIRE boat. I own a piddly little 10% of it. No cruising for me in the near future!

One last thing, Dan:

Not accounting for increased costs of housing, fuel and taxes relative to your 1981 time period, your $185 take home pay, adjusted for standard inflation is equal to a salary of $28,704. This is quite close to the average salary for the average American today. This is a good job out of college. How much was your student loan debt and annual tuition in 1981 when you graduated?

I ask because if you look at the figures honestly, you will see there are stark differences in the way these things work now, as there were stark differences between boomers and the silent generation.

It used to be that an average married man could make enough money to cover an entire household, bringing up kids and paying for everything while retiring comfortably - without a college education to pay for.

How many people these days do you know that can do that? (ok, scratch that... it's yachting forum, so it's obviously full of people who can... ha ha

Average Jane and Joe, however, must now both work to float a household. It wasn't always that way. What caused this shift? The stagnation of wages with respect to cost of living.

If you took the time to dig up the data (I have spent too much time doing so to do it again for this post), you'd see that the same trend that caused both spoused to have to work to float a household continue today. Those same trends, coupled with predatory lending and economic shifts have caused a virtural "perfect storm" for those my age and younger, when compared to baby boomers and silent generation people of the respective age (as in - when baby boomers were 20-35yrs old).

These are simple socioeconomic facts bore out of hard data. If I'm "whining" because I didn't get the same breaks other generations did, which allowed them to cruise, own real estate (2 homes often!), travel, etc... then I'm sorry. I simply feel it would be nice to have the same opportunities the generations before me had. I know I won't, but I'd like to.

Lastly, those younger than me often don't care at about this. Why? They don't have the expectations that hard work would be rewarded by financial success at the level the baby boomers had. Being a member of Gen X, I have those expectations built in. Gent Y and younger are more content to enjoy life. We were raised to "succeed", but put into an environment where the odds are stacked squarely against it.

[scallywag]

College does not mean a person is set for life. Taking the data supplied; the $14K gap between college and high school is an average. Some make way more and some make less, but using that average and the $30K a year figure for college for 4 years, it would take 10 years to pay for college not counting any interest that would accrue. One father's advice to his child was not to go to medical school. Why? The father pointed out that the cost of tuiton for schooling approached 1/2 million dollars. The cost of liability insurance was around $100K a year.
Other data suggests that people in the USA that retired in the mid 1980's retired with retirement packages that future retirees would not recieve. Just take a look at General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, steel mills, and the airline companies. These companies can not afford retirement packages that they paid out in the past. Jobs are being outsourced to areas that pay very low wages. The Cape Kennedy Space Center is getting ready to down size because of closing out the space shuttle. I do believe the workers planned for their future but I do not believe they could have planned for any of the accidents that happened over the past 28 years. How many of the workers became sanitation engineers and rode on the trash trucks in New York City in the late 1970's. Things happen and people were taken advantage of in the area of home loans. I just heard of a case today, where a couple did not find out that their home loan was a variable rate until at closing. You can say they could of walked away but they would have lost their hard earned deposit money. The realtor provided a home loan, so the realtor fulfilled his end of the contract. Walking away at that point the young couple would have lost the deposit. Life is not always a smooth path and people can not plan for everything. Accidents happen. Illness occurs. All the insurance in the would can not make things better.
John

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Therapy: Thank you. I respect your postings and you as a person. I sure don't like paying to bail people out either. They should let the student loan holders and anyone who signed up for the recent scam mortgages hang - I agree. I just wanted to point out that the predatory techniques were exactly the same. To keep things based in reality for the postings, college recently broke $30K a year (average cost!), so that's $120K in loans when you leave school.

To Dan: I also respect your posts and opinions, but... bashing me was a little harsh. I'll let it slide.

Just be aware... that $120K debt to start out life is a *tad* different than what you had. Please check facts before launching an attack like that one. Your generation had it completely easy compared to mine and those behind me.

College prices keep*rising for 2006-07 school year - Oct. 24, 2006

I am a boomer.

I will have two in college in August...........I kinda know.

I don't have a boat......well.........the Gheenoe and the Jon..............

I know wages earned by them now are worth less than when I was their age. I lived in a crappy apartment with no car and no phone for years, but I was on my own. I know one commonly can't do that now.

So I am paying for the college.

And I don't have a boat.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by exfishnz

That averages to 11 hrs p/day (7 day week), am I correct?

Sorry to mislead - With school + work it was an 80 hour week. Add to that study time and "many" people in 1975 were working pretty damn hard.

I also got laid off from my first job shortly after I hit the job market. TYook me 6 months to get reemployed.

Depating which generation "had it tougher" however is a fuitless exercise.

I'll stop here...

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Me? I have a BS in Physics. You could work 20 hours a week tops with the course load I had - and I worked that 20 hours plus every summer and break full time, 40+ hours.

Sully I did Junior college, was a transferee and did engineering. I worked full time.

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Not accounting for increased costs of housing, fuel and taxes relative to your 1981 time period, your $185 take home pay, adjusted for standard inflation is equal to a salary of $28,704. This is quite close to the average salary for the average American today. This is a good job out of college. How much was your student loan debt and annual tuition in 1981 when you graduated?

I didn't owe anyone anything when I finished college. As for tuition, I'd have to go back a long way to get you accurate numbers.

Relative to my $185 dollar wage it was proportional I am sure.

Sully - You have a heavily leveraged boat. Prior to that you had another heavily leveraged boat. You must have put thousands of dollars into the Gulfstar. You maybe got it all out, I don't know.

If you are still heavily in debt from college then you should understand that it is because of choices you are making every day.

If you have a degree in physics and you are working as a charter operator, then I suggest you sorted wasted a whole pile of tuition. I can't see a physics degree much use to you in your current endeavors.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not judging you or the choices you make. However there is a consistent, "Woe is me." tone to many of your posts, blaming the "previous" generation for your struggles.

Anyway, I'll cut it off here. Once again I think it is awesome that you are trying the path less travelled and I hope like hell you get cruising someday.

Oh - Final thought...

Regarding the economy? We had gas lines, stagflation, we had to pay to support every little dictactorship in the world in the interest of fighting communism. We had to pay for vietnam and we funded star wars, simply to spend the soviet union out of existence.

We didn't have a tidy little Iraq war, we finished the cold one. A war of economics that fundamentally bankrupted us.

I doubt you have sat in a gas line for 3 hours for the privilege of buying your limit of 10 gallons...