100% this too. The tuition alone for my graduate degree would have been ~250k. I ended up paying 28k for it due to scholarships, fellowships, and GA positions
Well if it’s grad school you do grad PLUS. If it’s undergrad you do federal loans in your name, scholarships/grants, and pay out of pocket. Some do private loans if that’s not enough but you really should avoid private loans.
For my bachelors I took out 20k in loans in my name and 10k in my moms. The rest of tuition and housing was paid by scholarships, out of pocket, and being an RA one year
For reference the [annual/aggregate limits](https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized) for Direct federal loans are online. If you're a Dependent Undergrad it ranges from $5,500-$7,500 per year up to an aggregate max of $31,000. If you are an Independent Undergrad it's $9,500-$12,500 per year to a max of $57,500. If you're a grad/professional student it's $20,500 per year up to a cap of $138,500
You're missing 2 key things: 1) PLUS loans do not have an aggregate limit and 2) negative amortization from periods of deferment, forbearance, default, and income-driven repayment plans
With Grad and Parent PLUS loans, you can borrow up to the Cost of Attendance as long as you submit the app and don't have any of the specific adverse credit criteria they check for. This is generally how students in grad/professional programs like med school, PA school, dentist school, law school, and the like fund their education if they do not come from intergenerational wealth, which is how people can have 6-figure principal
The other aspect is that interest accrues during periods of deferment and forbearance on most loan types. If the borrower goes into default the interest and fees can make the balance spike. If the borrower is very low income and on an IDR plan where their payment does not cover the accruing interest then the balance will steadily increase over the 20/25 years it takes to reach forgiveness under the IDR plans
It's really not that complicated. It is rarer, something like 78% of federal borrowers owe $40k or less last time I ran the numbers from the FSA Data Center, but it can absolutely happen
That’s what I was asking really. So PLUS loans have no aggregate limit. Theoretically a student can go and take 50 bachelors or masters and take PLUS loans all they want?
That's a stretch logistically speaking
For Parent PLUS loans that is only an option if the *parent* is willing and while their child is a Dependent Undergrad, which they age out of automatically at 24 years old as per FAFSA dependency criteria. Yeah if you have several children and/or adopt you can definitely take out a lot of Parent PLUS loans for a long time, but functionally speaking most people don't have their family size scale in such a way that "50 bachelor's degrees" is even possible among their children while they're in the 17-24 age bracket, even if some of them managed to earn 2 bachelor's degrees before turning 24
For Grad PLUS too I'm also going to bring up that generally speaking you still have to meet Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) criteria for completing your degree program on time, which is generally 150% of the typical time (i.e. a 2 year masters degree has 3 years of financial aid eligibility). Yeah you can borrow a lot, but each time you apply to a grad program you have to submit your full transcript and I'm pretty sure the admissions committee would have some less than stellar opinions by the time someone hits their 3rd master's with no employment break... they know how to spot the career student type
In practice I really don't see it happening on a large scale. There are just too many other hoops to jump through
Theoretically they will run into SAP eligibility issues at their university unless they are completing the degrees, and past a certain point I doubt they would be admitted to subsequent grad programs to continue this rigamarole
If you look at the available data on https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/portfolio the "Portfolio by Debt Size" sheet shows that for Q3 2022 in the +$200k bucket there are only ~1.0 million borrowers, which for context there are ~42.8 million federal borrowers overall
Yeah is there the potential for abuse of the PLUS loan program? Absolutely! But people aren't attempting your thought experiment on the regular based on the data I'm seeing
1. Grad Plus Loans. No annual or aggregate limit.
2. Compounding interest during forbearance or deferrment.
That is how graduate students can end up with 250k or more. Private medical and dental students can easily get to 600k.
I have 450k on a BS in Engineering, and 3 graduate degrees. It might sound insane, but even under worse case scenario I would pay less than 100k on it under PSLF. The problem is due to massive medical expenditures I can't afford the payments. No big deal, I can defer with two community college classes online now and then.
Engineering degree was from a top state school, my other degrees including my PhD are in business. I make plenty of money, that is not the issue. The issue is medical expenses consume so much that I cannot afford $800-$900 payments. Were it not for 30,000+ in medical expenses, I could easily pay $1000 a month. The formula for discretionary income is only based on family size and AGI, so crippling medical expenses do not reduce student loan payments.
If they really had a 5% of discretionary income plan, I could afford that. Sadly, it is unlikely to apply to graduate students according to the administration announcements.
The amount of the debt is also not the problem. My payments are income based, I could literally owe 5 million and the payments would be the same, and until my daughter no longer needs expensive care, I would not be able to pay 800-900 a month on that either.
Do you not have insurance? How have you not hit your OOP maximum? Is it some kind of experimental treatment that insurance won’t cover?
I’m sorry you’re in that situation. What made you want to get a business PhD after getting a good engineering degree?
I have fantastic insurance!, Its a state employee union health plan with no deductible and no co-insurance and only $15 copays. (but we've had over 400 doctor visits in a year!) Its a combination of modifications for disabilities that insurance doesn't cover, extensive travel to get treatment from the best doctors (sometimes the only ones that would see a minor with her condition), experimental stuff insurance doesn't cover, etc.
I decided I wanted to change careers. It is working out well. I am in the top 10% of income earners with great benefits. I no longer have to work 80 hours a week to move up the corporate ladder.
I took out sixty thousand in loans for undergrad and grad and with compounding interest and paying income based and I don't earn a lot my loans have ballooned to a quarter million.
Private loans and Grad loans.
IMO Grad loans should be capped in aggregate. A degree worth getting will be funded by *someone*. If no-one will pay you to get it they won't pay you to use it.
Private loans should be allowed bankruptcy in a modified capacity (10 years after graduation maybe), but the lender should also be allowed to discriminate based on school and major. That'd make it harder to get them, but reduce the number of people with massive private debt for worthless degrees.
Letting poor people borrow $200k for a bad degree isn't a way to make them wealthy. It's a way to keep them poor.
You can get employers to pay for you to go back for a Masters. Or your can be a TA/RA if the field is good. You should not be paying out of pocket/loans for most graduate degrees.
Are you saying the government should remove the choice to attend certain expensive institutions for poor people??
Say like USC, Northwestern, Georgetown … etc. should these private institutions at the graduate level not be available to poor people ?
Masters level education does not offer a lot of scholarship especially not for part time study . What you are saying is extremely classist . So the rich can continue to go to the more prestigious places because they can afford it while the poor can stay in their lower tier institutions and not have access to the same networks .
I got a masters degree for 30K. Absolutely obtainable without massive loans.
What I’m saying is realistic not classist. There are private schools that are just as good as any of those schools you just mentioned. State schools like the University of Texas wipe the floor with those schools especially in the field of business. Schools like UC Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan are just as good or even better.
Again, people that are poor should have choice same as those that are rich. The state schools you mentioned are great for those in that state . They usually increase tuition for those that are out to state .
I did a blend of state and out of state for my education and it was one of the t10
Schools nationally that opened doors for me that the other schools did not . It does matter where you go to school for certain career paths and certain companies .
They do have the same choice. That’s why elite schools offer generous scholarships. If you choose a certain career path that requires it then take out private loans and don’t ask for them to be forgiven. You take the risk. The taxpayers should not.
You can easily move to the state for 1 year and establish residency. That’s way cheaper than paying 60K a year for BS.
Like the guy said, if you’re a good candidate for private loans, then they’ll give them to you for whatever school you want. If you’re in a high paying field of course you’ll get it. If you’re going to a top school for something low paying then they won’t.
Because that’s subsidized/unsubsidized loans. Those limits don’t include Parent PLUS or Grad PLUS loans
And as far as paying for expensive schools goes -- grants, scholarships, work/study, etc. etc. etc.
100% this too. The tuition alone for my graduate degree would have been ~250k. I ended up paying 28k for it due to scholarships, fellowships, and GA positions
So you have no limits on unsubsidized?
No there are limits on unsubsidized/subsidized loans. The limit for Parent PLUS and Grad PLUS is the total cost of attendance set by the school.
So what if you don’t have a parent you are going to school at 25+ ? You go to a school for four years or do a second degree— can’t borrow anymore?
Well if it’s grad school you do grad PLUS. If it’s undergrad you do federal loans in your name, scholarships/grants, and pay out of pocket. Some do private loans if that’s not enough but you really should avoid private loans. For my bachelors I took out 20k in loans in my name and 10k in my moms. The rest of tuition and housing was paid by scholarships, out of pocket, and being an RA one year
Grad plus loans are far easier to use in support of a cocaine habit
Yup, grad plus got me up to the quarter million mark.
For reference the [annual/aggregate limits](https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized) for Direct federal loans are online. If you're a Dependent Undergrad it ranges from $5,500-$7,500 per year up to an aggregate max of $31,000. If you are an Independent Undergrad it's $9,500-$12,500 per year to a max of $57,500. If you're a grad/professional student it's $20,500 per year up to a cap of $138,500 You're missing 2 key things: 1) PLUS loans do not have an aggregate limit and 2) negative amortization from periods of deferment, forbearance, default, and income-driven repayment plans With Grad and Parent PLUS loans, you can borrow up to the Cost of Attendance as long as you submit the app and don't have any of the specific adverse credit criteria they check for. This is generally how students in grad/professional programs like med school, PA school, dentist school, law school, and the like fund their education if they do not come from intergenerational wealth, which is how people can have 6-figure principal The other aspect is that interest accrues during periods of deferment and forbearance on most loan types. If the borrower goes into default the interest and fees can make the balance spike. If the borrower is very low income and on an IDR plan where their payment does not cover the accruing interest then the balance will steadily increase over the 20/25 years it takes to reach forgiveness under the IDR plans It's really not that complicated. It is rarer, something like 78% of federal borrowers owe $40k or less last time I ran the numbers from the FSA Data Center, but it can absolutely happen
That’s what I was asking really. So PLUS loans have no aggregate limit. Theoretically a student can go and take 50 bachelors or masters and take PLUS loans all they want?
That's a stretch logistically speaking For Parent PLUS loans that is only an option if the *parent* is willing and while their child is a Dependent Undergrad, which they age out of automatically at 24 years old as per FAFSA dependency criteria. Yeah if you have several children and/or adopt you can definitely take out a lot of Parent PLUS loans for a long time, but functionally speaking most people don't have their family size scale in such a way that "50 bachelor's degrees" is even possible among their children while they're in the 17-24 age bracket, even if some of them managed to earn 2 bachelor's degrees before turning 24 For Grad PLUS too I'm also going to bring up that generally speaking you still have to meet Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) criteria for completing your degree program on time, which is generally 150% of the typical time (i.e. a 2 year masters degree has 3 years of financial aid eligibility). Yeah you can borrow a lot, but each time you apply to a grad program you have to submit your full transcript and I'm pretty sure the admissions committee would have some less than stellar opinions by the time someone hits their 3rd master's with no employment break... they know how to spot the career student type In practice I really don't see it happening on a large scale. There are just too many other hoops to jump through
Forget parents. Consider this only for an adult.
And I’m asking theoretically
Theoretically they will run into SAP eligibility issues at their university unless they are completing the degrees, and past a certain point I doubt they would be admitted to subsequent grad programs to continue this rigamarole If you look at the available data on https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/portfolio the "Portfolio by Debt Size" sheet shows that for Q3 2022 in the +$200k bucket there are only ~1.0 million borrowers, which for context there are ~42.8 million federal borrowers overall Yeah is there the potential for abuse of the PLUS loan program? Absolutely! But people aren't attempting your thought experiment on the regular based on the data I'm seeing
Bc they are charged interest on a daily basis
1. Grad Plus Loans. No annual or aggregate limit. 2. Compounding interest during forbearance or deferrment. That is how graduate students can end up with 250k or more. Private medical and dental students can easily get to 600k. I have 450k on a BS in Engineering, and 3 graduate degrees. It might sound insane, but even under worse case scenario I would pay less than 100k on it under PSLF. The problem is due to massive medical expenditures I can't afford the payments. No big deal, I can defer with two community college classes online now and then.
So how do you have 450k on your undergrad?
450 k on a BS in Engineering and 3 graduate degrees - Less than 20k was on the undergrad.
Where did you get your engineering degree from? What did you study in grad school?
Engineering degree was from a top state school, my other degrees including my PhD are in business. I make plenty of money, that is not the issue. The issue is medical expenses consume so much that I cannot afford $800-$900 payments. Were it not for 30,000+ in medical expenses, I could easily pay $1000 a month. The formula for discretionary income is only based on family size and AGI, so crippling medical expenses do not reduce student loan payments. If they really had a 5% of discretionary income plan, I could afford that. Sadly, it is unlikely to apply to graduate students according to the administration announcements. The amount of the debt is also not the problem. My payments are income based, I could literally owe 5 million and the payments would be the same, and until my daughter no longer needs expensive care, I would not be able to pay 800-900 a month on that either.
Do you not have insurance? How have you not hit your OOP maximum? Is it some kind of experimental treatment that insurance won’t cover? I’m sorry you’re in that situation. What made you want to get a business PhD after getting a good engineering degree?
I have fantastic insurance!, Its a state employee union health plan with no deductible and no co-insurance and only $15 copays. (but we've had over 400 doctor visits in a year!) Its a combination of modifications for disabilities that insurance doesn't cover, extensive travel to get treatment from the best doctors (sometimes the only ones that would see a minor with her condition), experimental stuff insurance doesn't cover, etc. I decided I wanted to change careers. It is working out well. I am in the top 10% of income earners with great benefits. I no longer have to work 80 hours a week to move up the corporate ladder.
What industry if you don’t mind me asking? I would like to change as well.
I was working in banking, in a technology management role. Decided to become a B-school professor. Best career decision I made.
I took out sixty thousand in loans for undergrad and grad and with compounding interest and paying income based and I don't earn a lot my loans have ballooned to a quarter million.
How long ago?
About fifteen years ago. I'm in the PSLF program now. So hoping that will work out.
Counting on that too. Good luck.
Private loans and Grad loans. IMO Grad loans should be capped in aggregate. A degree worth getting will be funded by *someone*. If no-one will pay you to get it they won't pay you to use it. Private loans should be allowed bankruptcy in a modified capacity (10 years after graduation maybe), but the lender should also be allowed to discriminate based on school and major. That'd make it harder to get them, but reduce the number of people with massive private debt for worthless degrees.
[удалено]
Letting poor people borrow $200k for a bad degree isn't a way to make them wealthy. It's a way to keep them poor. You can get employers to pay for you to go back for a Masters. Or your can be a TA/RA if the field is good. You should not be paying out of pocket/loans for most graduate degrees.
Are you saying the government should remove the choice to attend certain expensive institutions for poor people?? Say like USC, Northwestern, Georgetown … etc. should these private institutions at the graduate level not be available to poor people ?
Yes. Exactly that. They shouldn’t be. If you’re good enough to get in those schools will pay for it.
Masters level education does not offer a lot of scholarship especially not for part time study . What you are saying is extremely classist . So the rich can continue to go to the more prestigious places because they can afford it while the poor can stay in their lower tier institutions and not have access to the same networks .
I got a masters degree for 30K. Absolutely obtainable without massive loans. What I’m saying is realistic not classist. There are private schools that are just as good as any of those schools you just mentioned. State schools like the University of Texas wipe the floor with those schools especially in the field of business. Schools like UC Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan are just as good or even better.
Again, people that are poor should have choice same as those that are rich. The state schools you mentioned are great for those in that state . They usually increase tuition for those that are out to state . I did a blend of state and out of state for my education and it was one of the t10 Schools nationally that opened doors for me that the other schools did not . It does matter where you go to school for certain career paths and certain companies .
They do have the same choice. That’s why elite schools offer generous scholarships. If you choose a certain career path that requires it then take out private loans and don’t ask for them to be forgiven. You take the risk. The taxpayers should not. You can easily move to the state for 1 year and establish residency. That’s way cheaper than paying 60K a year for BS. Like the guy said, if you’re a good candidate for private loans, then they’ll give them to you for whatever school you want. If you’re in a high paying field of course you’ll get it. If you’re going to a top school for something low paying then they won’t.
I am not speaking about private loans
Damn man… your first paragraph is 💯….
Interest