Big banks enjoy government interest rates as low as 0.75 percent. Meanwhile, student loans are set to double if Congress doesn’t take any action. How will your future be affected?
The website http://democracyforamerica.com/studentloandebt shows you exactly how the new Senate school loan bill will effect you. For me, I better pick a higher monthly payment … read it and weep.
Just a few days ago, this website linked up an NBC news article about how punishing debt is weighing down a generation—the generation of people who cannot find jobs in their majors, cannot keep jobs they have in an uncertain economy, and cannot make enough to pay their debt without defaulting on other loans and lines of credit.
If someone asked me today, “Would you go back to school for a degree in business administration?” I would absolutely say NO!
If I was asked for advice on what a major should be, I’d respond: Languages. And not just Spanish. But any language you can get, including Farsi and Chinese. Mandarin wouldn’t hurt either. No matter what your future skill or job may be, most companies will be global and will need multi-languaged (is that a word?) employees. Not business.. not education.. nothing else.
Oh, and apprenticeship and training programs wouldn’t hurt either. There is no shame in being a plumber or craftsman, a pipefitter or sheet metal worker. Not one bit of shame in being an electrician, a baker, or a cook. Don’t limit your true potential just because the ‘mainstream’ tells you that going to get your college degree is a must.
There is a commercial always on the SPROUT TV network *(my son watches it not me)* of a group of couples sitting around a table as their children play in the background, as they discuss college educations. At the end, the dad jokingly tells his child “because you’re going to college” as the rest of the fake parents chuckle. Well… maybe that child isn’t going to college. And maybe there will be no college.
Think about this: With the amount of people defaulting, there may soon be a limit that for profit colleges and schools meet. If their ratio of dropouts to success stories goes awry, they could even lost funding or ratings.
We are seeing an emerging bubble.
When I graduated with my BS (and it was BS) in 2010, I was proud of my achievement. Graduating with a business degree during the Great Recession. Good choice Coal Speaker. Nonetheless, my graduating class also had a few hundred people completing with a degree in education…. Education that is being cut throughout the nation as cyber schooling and home schooling expand in popularity. There are too many teachers now for not enough teaching positions. My state of Pennsylvania has gone through years of budget cuts throughout all counties, forcing districts to slash teaching staff and janitor positions. Somehow those luxury administrators stay put.
There is something quite wrong with this picture. The people ‘in the field’ know it. There is a foreboding sense that this college bubble not only cannot last forever but is soon ready to burst.
Then what?…that is the scary question.
Then what?
Lots of people may have let out an extended sigh of relief when Hollywood Video closed.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t good at all to see that part of our modern American life turn into a scrap heap of shredded videotape—we will probably look back in years and lament the death of video stores just like generations grew melancholy over the lack of drive ins. And it sure wasn’t nice at all to see the thousands of people who lost jobs as stores all over closed down.
But regular customers of Hollywood would ‘bring home the entertainment’—and have the late fees to prove it. Remember those days when people rented videos fromstores!? Remind the fees if you didn’t rewind, you were not kind—and got socked with a couple bucks extra of money?
When Hollywood closed, it was clearly apparent that the Netflix, internet, and RedBox era had finally taken over. By this point my own personal late fees had been paid (something I maybe would not have done were I to know the store would be closing!) But lots of other folks who didn’t pay late fees thought, ‘Phew! don’t have to worry about those now!’
Not so fast, skippy.
Today, you can read the RED TAPE CHRONICLES ON NBCNEWS.COM, and be alarmed like I was: Hollywood Video debt collectors are harraassing past customers of Hollywood Video, assessing fees that maybe aren’t true, threatening to ruin peoples’ credit scores, and plain out bullying consumers who answer the phone.
The NBC report named Universal Fidelity as one of the debt firms trying to rake in late fees that were never paid to Hollywood Video when it was alive. NBC reports this:
The drumbeat became so loud that Hollywood Video’s bankruptcy trustee,First Lien Term Lenders Liquidating Trust, reached a settlement with all 50 states’ attorneys general under which it would drastically alter its collection tactics. It promised to remove any credit blemishes it had placed on consumers’ reports and never to threaten consumers’ credit reports in the future. It also turned to a set of new collection agencies, including Houston-based Universal Fidelity, which promised to clean up the process.But within the past two months, a pile of fresh complaints has arrived from around the country, raising new questions about the collections process. In Houston, 430 of the roughly 1,000 complaints filed against Universal in the last 12 months have arrived since June 1.
In some instances, when former customers of Hollywood say they paid their bills before the store closed, the debt collector is insisting that unless a receipt is produced, the bill is still owed.
Really, a receipt?
So if you were not kind, did not rewind, you’re credit score can be ruined unless you produce a receipt that the $2 fee was paid?
Of course you can also reach out to governmental agencies and lawyers that may be able to assist you in fighting off the threats of intimidation.
All for late fees.
Interesting stuff.
The news from Pennsylvania’s Crapitol just continues to befuddle all who watch it..
Republicans walk out on budget talks.. Raise the roof? … raise the debt ceiling? How about just good old fashioned talking!
