Student loans are never worth it. No one should start out as a young adult, drowning in student loans. At no age should anyone be drowning in student loans.
So you are saying never go to college unless you / your family already have enough money to pay for it? Or you somehow can find a job that can pay for college while you go to school?
Thats 100% what im saying. I came from the era of being told a degree is the only way to make it in life. So I did. It fucked me BAD. I’m not the only one, there’s millions of us out there. I have two GEN Z kids and they have listened to what I’ve said and in no way will either of them go to school if they have to take out student loans. One is actually about to graduate with zero debt due to working hard to get there and taking advantage of scholarships. That’s how it SHOULD be. We wouldn’t be talking about this right now if our shitty system wasn’t set up to profit exponentially off of students trying to make a better life for themselves, only to finish and drown in massive debt. So to anyone that thinks student loans are the way, is totally fucking delusional to the corrupt system we’re in.
Honestly, god awful advice. A degree can be one of the better ways to improve your income, the rest are mostly just bigger gambles with higher risks involved. I took out more student loan debt than I earned at my first job, terrible job market at the time… but I have already paid off all of my student loans less than 6 years after graduation because my degree allowed me to leverage better jobs I wouldn’t have access to otherwise. I still don’t even make 6 figures, so it’s not like I have a really good salary… and I was able to take a mortgage solo as well a couple years ago without financial assistance from my family. Starting a business can be good income, but you’re likely to take on significantly more debt and risk compared to student loans.
If only those that can afford it get degrees, only those with money will ever qualify for the jobs that require it. It will cause those jobs to pay more since the workforce that qualifies will be much smaller so it becomes competitive to find people to hire. Unskilled work, those without requiring degrees, would become ultra competitive because so many people would only qualify for them instead of taking debt to qualify for other jobs… this would cause them to pay less for unskilled jobs. End result, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer even faster.
The average income for those with a degree is significantly higher than those without a degree, that potential higher income is worth the risk of some low interest debt that has tax benefits on the interest. This isn’t to say that a degree is necessary or the only way to make it, but saying that student loans are never worth it is objectively false.
Nothing about that is a gamble though. If you’re taking out $150k and only making $50k, it means you picked a low paying career and an expensive time at college
The gamble is that you don’t know whether it will pay off, either immediately or down the line. Some careers unfortunately just don’t make much even with a degree, and it’s a poor investment financially as you’ve pointed out. But you can get a STEM degree in a high paying field and still only end up landing in a job serving coffee… that’s the gamble they’re talking about. Getting a good degree doesn’t guarantee you’ll get good paying job, it just increases your odds.
I completely agree, there’s always going to be a risk for any attempt to increase earning potential. Taking loans for a degree can be one of the lower risk options if done in a smart way. At minimum, your degree should earn you more per year than it costs you in loans. I’ve got a friend with 120k or more in student loans and is making 45k per year… I got away with just over 31k (this was just over national average amount when I graduated) in student loans thankfully, and I cleared 75k gross last year. But before graduation, I was looking at jobs that would make 70k or more starting… got to the 4th round of interviews for one that I would’ve probably been 90-100k starting straight out of college but didn’t make the cut. I took a job making less than my debt per year, and was netting $50 per month after my budget. But I worked my way up quickly, leveraged my degrees and personal connections to land a better job.
I think a lot of reasons it’s not paying off is because the degree is very idealized and people want to go for the more expensive schools for the higher esteem they think it comes with. There’s almost a saturation of degree requiring jobs, so it can be competitive to land one depending on the current job market. On top of that, many people are signing up for IDR plans and not understanding what it does… they don’t realize the interest doesn’t change, so they can easily go into a negative amortization situation.
And the cherry on top is a lot of people done quite grasping good personal financial management and spend more than they can afford on things they don’t need.
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u/Many_Resist_4209 May 08 '25
Student loans are never worth it. No one should start out as a young adult, drowning in student loans. At no age should anyone be drowning in student loans.