Comments about ‘Grieving borrowers told to repay student loan’

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Published: Tuesday, April 22 2014 5:45 p.m. MDT

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Liberal Ted
Salt Lake City, UT

Why on earth do we have $1 Trillion in outstanding student loan debt? C'mon people. Get a job and work through your undergrad years. Instead of 4 years, graduate in 5 and pay as you go.

Their a just a few professions, where taking out a loan would make sense. But, those programs take 10+ years before you enter your profession. For example a doctor, dentist...if you had a profession that actually will hire you such as an Engineer. Then maybe it makes sense to take 5 classes a semester and live off of loans....

But, for the 95% of the other students; the schools lie when they tell you that you're starting pay for any degree is $60,000-$80,000. They're very misleading.

My undergrad professors kept telling me the median wage for my degree. I did some fact finding, since I know median doesn't mean starting wage. Yep, the starting wage was closer to $15,000-$20,000. But, I paid cash to complete the degree.

At least they were honest in saying, if you really wanted to do something with the degree you'll need a minimum of a masters and move on to doctorate.

george of the jungle
goshen, UT

Who hasn't became accustomed to use credit, [other peoples money]. I had to wake up and grow up and go through the mind boggling experience of rearranging my brain on how I use money.

Salt Lake City, UT

I think of Shakespeare's advice something to the effect "..neither a borrower nor a lender be...". Too many young people think a loan is some kind of "free money" and the future in which the debt is to be pain will never come. Others fail to read the fine print, only thinking of the money. Both philosophies are a hard way to learn a lesson in finance.

I and many of my classmates worked our way through college, and or earned GI Bill help.

Folks, College is not for everyone, regardless of what is being sold on capitol hill and from the board of regents. Vocational education can provide an education specific to a field with real time teachers and a better chance of a job in a field presuming the student puts in his/her effort and time. Good budgeting and a sense of frugality and independence will provide a comfortable life style.

No one has it all.

Looking on the bright side, once the in-debt students work their way out from their self imposed mountain of debt, they will have learned a good lesson in finance and life. All is not lost, hopefully.

Mcallen, TX

Not paying off your student loans is like stealing from the tax payers.

Our national leaders do the same thing with its seventeen trillion dollar debt, and all expense vacations.


Ed Grady
Idaho Falls, ID

Students from middle-class families need student loans and part-time jobs to attend college. In Idaho, the Republican-dominated legislature cuts college funding every year and the colleges raise tuition 4-6% every year. Middle-class parents can't fund the entire cost of their kids education, so students need student loans and part-time jobs to get a college education. It's the classic middle-class squeeze.

Fruit Heights, UT

I think Dave Ramsey's advice is solid to never get (or for that matter be) a co-signor for a loan. Why? Because there is a reason if a lending company is making you get a co-signor. They don't trust you to pay back the loan by yourself. And guess what? If the lending companies were wrong, they would have changed their policies a long time ago. Reality is, probably everyone who takes out a loan with a co-signor is confident that the co-signor won't have to bail them out but it happens. If you can't get a loan without a co-signor, you probably shouldn't be taking out a loan.

Salt Lake City, UT

@Liberal Ted

Everyone insists that no, we can't raise minimum wage, it's not meant to be a working wage, just something for teenagers to get their foot in the job market. Okay... but you all expect these people to then get enough to get by AND pay for college?

D. Jeremy
Spring, TX

Liberal Ted,
The reason we have $1 Trillion in outstanding student loan debt is that the federal government backs student loans. As a result, colleges can charge whatever they want and students will be forced to take out federally-backed loans. When/if the student defaults, the school still gets paid, but it is the taxpayers that are left with the bill.

The first step to resolving the student loan crisis is getting the government out of education - and that goes for ALL education (K-12 included).

By the way, I paid may way through undergrad with cash. However, I subsequently went to law school and was required to take out over $150k in student loans. There aren't too many people that can pay a $35k/year tuition fee as you go.

DN Subscriber
Cottonwood Heights, UT

WHAT? The fine print says they borrower has to pay off the debt if the cosigner dies?

Instead of whining about how "unfair" this is, the borrowers should (a) never have signed up for the loan if they could not live with the terms, or (b) avoided taking out a loan in the first place.

Sorry, no sympathy at all for these folks. But, I do have a LOT of sympathy for us taxpayers who will be getting hosed by having to pay off all the defaulted loans.

There is NO reason for the federal government to be in the student loan business in any form at all. Stop it now! If a person does not qualify for a student loan from commercial sources, then they need to work and save (foreign concepts to too many people) or perhaps not go to college at all. Plenty of "real jobs" that pay well and do not require college. See: plumbers, welders, car mechanics, etc.

CHS 85
Sandy, UT

Only the wealthy deserve to be educated.

Here, UT

I see the compassionate conservatives are out in droves today.

A Guy With A Brain
Enid, OK

I was prepared to comment negatively on students trying to get "off"/avoid responsibility of having to repay their student loans but then I see that is not what the article talks about. I agree 100% that if you take out a loan it should be repaid, in full, with interest. And, I also agree that way too many students simply revert to a loan and seem to have the attitude of the day of payment will never come. But....to be a college student and have a relative/co-signer die and be expected to pay it back NOW is a raw deal. It might be in the loan agreement but that's kind of cheesy. If the college student could pay the money back immediately they wouldn't be asking for the loan, would they?

Midwest City, USA, OK


Working a minimum wage job to help pay for school is better than not workign a job because your unskilled labor isn't economically worth minimum wage.

When I was really young, what seemed to be commonly portrayed was parents helping to pay for schooling. In news, stories, cartoons and TV, even families that weren't so well off would make sacrifices to help pay for children to go through school, and it never took spotlight-it was always an incidental part of normal routine.

My own preparing for a family has been with the assumption that I'm going to help pay for my children's schooling, because I've learned the importance of setting people up for success. I want them to have more than I did and to have skills and opportunities that I couldn't.

Now for some reason debt is seen as not only normal, but neccessary.

Alpine, UT

@ Ranch:

Your anti-conservative, ultra-liberal attitude is evidenced in your every article comment. Your sarcastic comment today about compassionate conservatives actually demonstrates something significant in this case.

Since most of the previous comments are about the need to repay the loans and are made by people who are not disclosing their political ideology, you are in essence indicating it's only conservatives who believe in fiscal responsibility... either paying as you go or having a workable plan to repay your loam once you graduate. It's called acting responsibly.

On the other hand you are strongly insinuating that liberals believe the opposite. That students who take out huge loans should not be held accountable and consequently should be given a free ride. That free-ride mentality is prevalent among liberal democrats today. It's also much of the reason our already huge federal deficit has risen over 40% since Obama came into office just over 5 years ago.

And it's also one the primary reasons I could never align myself with the democrat party. It lately seems to breed irresponsiblity.at every turn. Even a superpower nation is not too big to experience economic ruin.

Mcallen, TX

Make every employer pay thirty dollars an hour, and we won't have to worry about college.

Obama starts to make sense.

Deep Space 9, Ut

To "Schnee" right now if you have a part time job paying minimum wage that allows you to work full time during the summer, you can earn enough to pay for tuition and books at the U of U, BYU, Utah State, SLCC, and UVSU. I am sure the other state schools would be within that same price range too.

Salt Lake City, UT


That's fine, it's what I was doing when I was an undergrad. My point merely is just that college is expensive and minimum wage only pays so much (as my 36k in student loans can attest...good thing I started at a cheaper satellite school, had some scholarships, and graduated a semester early...) so it's impractical to think it's simple to just work and somehow have enough to support oneself and pay for all of tuition/college expenses.

"When I was really young, what seemed to be commonly portrayed was parents helping to pay for schooling."

That was the mindset my parents had, they're covering half of the loans my sister and I end up with. The other half, 18k, I'd paid off within 4 years of graduation.

Far East USA, SC

"Not paying off your student loans is like stealing from the tax payers."

But refusing to pay to use federal land to graze your cattle is patriotic?
And NOT stealing from the taxpayer?

The hypocrisy is palpable.

Mcallen, TX


How many ranchers east of the Mississippi river pay federal tax for their grazing cattle?

You approve of government using armed men to take a citizens property?

Sorry, but the head of the federal governent taking hundreds of millions from tax payers for vacations, is worse than a Neveda rancher not paying the feds.


my two cents777

Here's an idea: when students are required to have a co-signer on their loans then provide life insurance, along with the loan, for the co-signor so that the debt is paid should they die. It's a win/win. The student is covered; the bank is covered and the insurance companies get to sell more insurance.

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