[StarSlayer]

I don't know if it's really fair of anybody to say "well I did X and Y so I don't have any loans, so really I can't emphasis with these people/I disregard this as a societal problem and prefer to place the blame almost entirely on the individuals". There's a lot of pressure to get to the right school, to get the right degree, to get the right job. From 16 years old this is drilled into American kid's heads, that if they don't go to the right school or don't get to the right college, they're perma-****ed. The sad part is that's not even necessarily untrue; though on the flipside it's also way untrue.

This isn't a social problem.  Well, financial illiteracy is, but student debt is not.

If you want to get into the right school and get into the right degree, as you perceive them, be prepared to pay accordingly.  Post-secondary education isn't a right, nor should it be (because certain types of post-secondary are certainly not going to be helpful for everyone).  If that means you decide to take on debt, as seems to be the Western way instead of actually saving up [and I'm just as guilty], then be prepared to service that debt, take on as little as possible, and figure out a way to pay it off as expediently as possible.

The mere title of your thread says it all - "loans outpace credit card obligations."  Both of these are debt-servicing.  Neither of these is an absolute essential.  The mere fact that people keep balances on their 18%-interest credit cards makes my head explode, and the stupid things that kids do with their student loan money just floors me too.

If people can't spend, budget, and borrow within their means, that's their problem - not society's.  It's only a societal problem when your government is too partisan and ideological to figure that out too.  You think Congress is bad now, just wait until this generation's bunch of self-entitled want-now pay-later crowd get elected in there.  I really fear having a good chunk of my generation in politics, because as a group we have no self-control when it comes to spending.

Truths

[Astronomiya]

I also think, however, that the cost of higher education is highly inflated, exacerbating the going-into-debt-for-school problem.

It isn't, actually.  Go look at a public university's budget sometime; most of it goes to just keeping the damn lights on and other maintenance, and paying the people who do that maintenance.  A private university will have much the same stuff going on.  Public university tuition in the US keeps rising because the states keep slashing their budgets, and they don't have the enormous endowments that the private ones can (for example, the UC system has something like a $15 billion endowment for all ten campuses; Stanford has almost that much for its one campus).  Literally their only other source of revenue outside of research grants is tuition.

But what about the private universities, you say?  The stock market crash in 2008 kinda put a hole in most of their endowments, and that also put a big hole in alumni donations for everybody, so, we go back to the only other significant source of revenue being tuition.  Which means that tuition is going to go up, big time if you want the university to maintain their current level of education.  If you want tuition to go down (for the record, I do too), there needs to be pressure on the states/government to raise taxes and increase the money spent on universities.

[Mongoose]

That's unfortunately true.  I remember my school making a big deal that they cracked the $1 billion endowment mark at one point during my on-campus years, but it's dropped substantially below that since then.

[QuantumDelta]

I don't quite get it either, I went to uni, accrued a fairly low debt as a student due to sensible spending, and have already paid it all off and I'm 27, and not rich.
Everyone else must just be a failure.

[Mongoose]

I can't even really speak on the topic, since I was extremely fortunate enough to get an almost-full tuition scholarship to where I went, and doubly fortunate that my parents covered my room and board.  I was also very lucky in the timing, since said school has become significantly more expensive for out-of-state students in the few years since I graduated.  Hell, I don't even have a credit card debt, since I've never actually owned a credit card.  The downside to that is that I don't have any credit whatsoever.

[Kosh]

Where a lot of people get into trouble is the average Bachelors degree student will graduate with $40,000+ of debt and they can't find a good enough job to barely make their minimum payment all the while barely surviving. In Canada it might just be an issue of illiteracy, but in the US there is a very real problem of student debt being too large.

The real problem with universities in America is that tuition increases have significantly outpaced the inflation rate, and lot of that money gets wasted entirely on things like white elephant buildings and sports teams. 

[Scotty]

I can't really say anything for other schools, but K-State actually MAKES money off of our sports teams.  The football and basketball teams gross something like $30 million, while costs hover around $25 million.

[NGTM-1R]

The ugly truth is that's unlikely; most universities make that claim, and it's always through creative bookkeeping.

[Scotty]

State universities are required by law to release financial records.  I'd have to do some serious Googling to prove or disprove, but it can be done.

[WeatherOp]

The ugly truth is that's unlikely; most universities make that claim, and it's always through creative bookkeeping.

From living in Alabama, I really, really doubt that.

[Mars]

Found this after a couple minutes of googling, I haven't found the actual study yet.

[NGTM-1R]

Even UCLA and the local colleges teams here, like the Aztecs, are actually bleeding huge amounts of money via their athletics programs, but they creatively bookkeep that fact away so they can straight-facedly tell people they're making money, ignoring the fact that most of their athletics are actually losing it hand over fist.

[Kosh]

State universities are required by law to release financial records.  I'd have to do some serious Googling to prove or disprove, but it can be done.

Even public books can be fudged, a lot of public companies did this in the 90's. Has Enron/Tyco/Worldcom really been so long ago that we forget it can happen?

[Nuke]

cooking the books is an american buisness tradition.

[jr2]

The mere title of your thread says it all - "loans outpace credit card obligations."  Both of these are debt-servicing.  Neither of these is an absolute essential.  The mere fact that people keep balances on their 18%-interest credit cards makes my head explode, and the stupid things that kids do with their student loan money just floors me too.

Try 20-25% for the most part.  Especially if you have no / bad credit.

And don't forget, you have "finance charges" of $30-(maybe)$50 / month that add to your balance, plus if you are ever late, $50 more.  It adds up fast, I think the best way to pay off debt would be to

1) check and see exactly what your bills are, write them down (on separate lines, with total at bottom)

2) check the sum (add them all up) of your income (all your jobs, any other income you get on a regular predictable basis)

3) check and see where your money is going each month -- to find if your "occasional eating out" is really $10 meals 4x a week = $160 / month, $1920 / year, if it's on credit cards, then add 23% interest or w/e your rate is.  If you eat out for every meal at $5 / meal, let's see, $5 x 3 times a day x 7 days a week x 4 weeks a month x 12 months a year = $5040 / year  Plus interest if you use a credit card.

4) see where you can eliminate expenses (do you really need ALL of those TV channels?  How many of them do you actually use?  If you are in really big trouble, eliminate all unnecessary services (do you NEED unlimited everything on your phone?  You might already have unlimited calls to certain numbers... etc) and maybe keep one or two things (like maybe Netflix and eating out ONCE a week... otherwise, you might go crazy and sure, save money for 3 months but then blow it all when you are frustrated and bored

5) Don't forget to save some money if you can (so you don't have to put an unexpected car repair on a credit card, and get discouraged, for example) while you:

6) Either:

    a) Pay as much as you can to the credit card with the highest interest rate until it is paid off, then move to the next highest interest rate card (fastest I think)
    b) Pay as much as you can to the credit card with the lowest balance, to get rid of the finance charge and feel like you are getting somewhere (you can see bills disappearing) then move on the next highest amount debt
    c) Pay as little as you can on all cards (minimum payments), while saving the rest, until you can either pay off a good chunk of a) or b) method (or all of it, but I've heard that might not be so good for your credit score, I don't know)

7) If you have to, get another job / increase your income by working more hours

8) If you can, maybe consolidating all of your debt into a lower-interest loan (like maybe from a credit union, with perhaps 14-18% interest and no finance charges) might help you pay off the debt faster

9) But don't forget, self-control is needed, or when you get more money as you pay off your debt (by saving or by having available credit on your cards), you will just get a new TV or something and lose all of your progress!

Just some ideas, anyone care to discuss / refine / put forward their own ideas?

[Nuke]

The mere title of your thread says it all - "loans outpace credit card obligations."  Both of these are debt-servicing.  Neither of these is an absolute essential.  The mere fact that people keep balances on their 18%-interest credit cards makes my head explode, and the stupid things that kids do with their student loan money just floors me too.

Try 20-25% for the most part.  Especially if you have no / bad credit.

And don't forget, you have "finance charges" of $30-(maybe)$50 / month that add to your balance, plus if you are ever late, $50 more.  It adds up fast, I think the best way to pay off debt would be to

1) check and see exactly what your bills are, write them down (on separate lines, with total at bottom)

2) check the sum (add them all up) of your income (all your jobs, any other income you get on a regular predictable basis)

3) check and see where your money is going each month -- to find if your "occasional eating out" is really $10 meals 4x a week = $160 / month, $1920 / year, if it's on credit cards, then add 23% interest or w/e your rate is.  If you eat out for every meal at $5 / meal, let's see, $5 x 3 times a day x 7 days a week x 4 weeks a month x 12 months a year = $5040 / year  Plus interest if you use a credit card.

4) see where you can eliminate expenses (do you really need ALL of those TV channels?  How many of them do you actually use?  If you are in really big trouble, eliminate all unnecessary services (do you NEED unlimited everything on your phone?  You might already have unlimited calls to certain numbers... etc) and maybe keep one or two things (like maybe Netflix and eating out ONCE a week... otherwise, you might go crazy and sure, save money for 3 months but then blow it all when you are frustrated and bored

5) Don't forget to save some money if you can (so you don't have to put an unexpected car repair on a credit card, and get discouraged, for example) while you:

6) Either:

    a) Pay as much as you can to the credit card with the highest interest rate until it is paid off, then move to the next highest interest rate card (fastest I think)
    b) Pay as much as you can to the credit card with the lowest balance, to get rid of the finance charge and feel like you are getting somewhere (you can see bills disappearing) then move on the next highest amount debt
    c) Pay as little as you can on all cards (minimum payments), while saving the rest, until you can either pay off a good chunk of a) or b) method (or all of it, but I've heard that might not be so good for your credit score, I don't know)

7) If you have to, get another job / increase your income by working more hours

8) If you can, maybe consolidating all of your debt into a lower-interest loan (like maybe from a credit union, with perhaps 14-18% interest and no finance charges) might help you pay off the debt faster

9) But don't forget, self-control is needed, or when you get more money as you pay off your debt (by saving or by having available credit on your cards), you will just get a new TV or something and lose all of your progress!

Just some ideas, anyone care to discuss / refine / put forward their own ideas?

1: i would do that if i didnt have this uncontrollable instinct to throw them in the incinerator.
2: thats easy $0
3: $10 a meal for the family * 1 meal a day,  its ok because i repartition the remainder of those food stamps to fuel my soft drink addiction. and i try to bring home a buck and a large halibut every year. 
4: no phone free cable. the government pays for everything else.
5: save money? for what? the apocalypse? **** that, im just gonna be looting like everyone else.
6: paid off and canceled my credit card. as for student loans, they can go **** themselves.
7: last job i thew a coworker into the box crusher he promised not to press charges if i didnt press the red button. after that i decided that work was not for me.
8: this is a scam, they just buy up your debt, give you a nice number and impossible terms, and wait for you to default.
9: i use all my self control to stay off the crack, none left for the banks.
the economy can burn.

[Ghostavo]

Nuke continues to be an inspiration to us all.