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WSJ -- 40 percent of Federal student loans behind in payments

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by The Big Ragu, Apr 7, 2016.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Free seat in the press box though, Dick. You can't put a price on that.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Except that my press box served up soggy, saggy, splitting, rancid, rotten, flaccid, flabby tubes of rotting animal flesh, languidly floating in a fetid bath of malodorous swill.TM
     
  3. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I bet you're hoping that ... seeing as how you'll get hit at your marginal rate then, which one would anticipate would be a lot higher than it is now.
     
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I didn't realize this. Market Watch has a student loan debt clock.

    Watch America’s student-loan debt grow $2,726 every second

    It's visually neat. ... and scary at the same time -- even if the current number is just an approximation (based on the current student debt tally having risen at a rate of $2726.27 per second b/w Q1 2006 and Q2 2015).

    With that insane rate of debt creation, it's really not that surprising that default rates are taking off. ... technically, or otherwise, because far more than 16 percent would be considered in default under the terms of just about any promissory note other than these loans.

    Even if the economy wasn't in a perma-stagnancy, it would still take something extraordinary to make that kind of debt creation a worthwhile investment of any sort.
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I wouldn't necessarily count on that. Hell, it's feasible I could just go ahead and take some kind of unpaid sabbatical for a year, if that's the best way for the money to shake out. I've got time to think about it.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    And so what?

    People pay the loans back knowing what the rules of default are. You are assuming that if the normal rules of default applied, the late payment rate would be the same. It wouldn't. People are gaming the rules, just like I did when I blew off my loans for two months to buy Christmas presents. In an alternate universe where it harms my credit to be 30 or 60 days late, I wouldn't have done that.
     
  7. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    You used to cover the Browns?
     
  8. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    As I recall, the reference was to a college football stadium.
     
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    This isn't a matter of millions of people gaming the rules of their notes -- missing a month or two to buy Christmas presents and then catching up, as you may have done. It's a matter of a large percentage of people not having the financial means to make their payments. Not only have the number of people behind in payments risen, but the number of people in forbearance due to financial emergency has seen a recent surge.
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    It's likely a matter of both. Like I said, I'm part of the evil 43 percent. But if I had any incentive - any incentive at all - to have paid it within 30 days, I would have. I didn't, so I didn't.
     
  11. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    FWIW, I looked.

    I owe $296,919.64 right now, and am current on my income-based repayment plan.

    My payment of $1,336.70 is due on April 14. I will make a $750 payment on April 20 and a $750 on May 5 - basically sending in half my wife's paycheck when she gets paid. So I'll still be within the 30-day grace period that typical lenders use, as opposed to the 90-day grace period here.
     
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I know you are the star of your world. But your circumstances are not most people's circumstances -- particularly the people with worthless cosmetology degrees and thousands of dollars of debt for it. 16 percent of people with student loans stopped making payments more than a year ago. That is a sign of serious distress in any lending market. We'd be in the midst of a serious financial crisis, for example, if credit card issuers (consumer debt) were dealing with charge offs even half of that.
     
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