Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans

http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on...ty-council-votes-to-cancel-coyotes-arena-deal

 

Ragu doesn't care about those reputable council folks, only the "dishonesty" of a punk who gloats in the biggest rag in the land.

 

I think Alma pretty much nailed it.

 

I'd also agree with Alma.

But I think most of us would look at it first as preservation of our good name and good credit.

If we didn't have that -- if we had zero assets and all we had was $100,000 in debt that we weren't ever going to get out from under anyway, and if walking away from it was the clear best option -- I'd like to see how many would follow that debt. I can say with as close to absolute certainty that I would not. In that case, I could take the hit of people I don't know thinking I lacked integrity.

Again, this is not a lot different from the mortgage crisis. Generally speaking, the people who walked away ended up better off.

 

Read Dan Aielly's book, "Rationally Irrational." (I think that's the name and the author.)

Phenomenal set of experiments about human behavior, a lot of it showing how people really act when no one's looking.

 

The problem(s) I have with this guy aren't strictly the walking-away from the debt. There's the "dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better." There's the unwillingness to "take a job that I didn't want." And, finally, there's the whole glossing-over of his actual story: His "small, private, liberal arts college" was Columbia University. He took his undergrad/grad degrees (and therefore the loans to fund them) 30 to 40 years ago, long before the high education inflation people today so wring their hands over.

If you read his nonsense as some stickin-it-to-the-Man tale, as an instance of Joe Six Pack just doing what the big boys do, you've been conned.

 

He's just a garden-variety deadbeat who opportunistically tried to position his selfish, entitled actions as a political statement in an op-ed piece in the NY Times.

 

I don't care about that aspect of it, really. I'm just resigned to the fact that people act in their own economic self-interest. (Or what they think is their own economic self-interest.) I don't fuss too much over the morals. Alma believes that the giant sorceror in the clouds evaluates us according to a very rigid code. I think situations are more nuanced, and that the giant sorceror recognizes that.

 

You don't need a "giant sorcerer" to know right from wrong. All the nuance in the world isn't going to make that guy less of an asshat.

 

I'm surprised that people don't avail themselves of the many options available to pay back loans, particularly the income-based repayment plans available. I owe an ungodly amount of money, but I don't even think about it, really. When I think about the size of my paycheck, I just think about it without that amount in there.

 

His article is also a how-to for prospective deadbeats.

Aren't you worried about the ramifications of a large number of "Millennials who don't care about stuff" taking him up on this?

I think many of the same people who aren't concerned about this guy's behavior would be very upset if the result was that student loans became less available, more expensive, and/or with tougher penalties for those who didn't repay them.

 

Yes.

That's why I advocate stiffer penalties.

This a policy problem.