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Should anything be done for graduate/professional students?

Should anything be done for graduate/professional students?

  • Raise interest rates

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Raise tuition to generate revenue for the gov.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    22
Digs, you know that the only thing subsidized in a subsidized loan is interest while in school, right? You're still obligated to pay those back and interest does start accruing once you graduate.

Yes, I know this. 4 years of compounded interest is a lot of money though at 6.8% versus no interest or very minimal interest accruing.
 
True, for good reason too.
The interest rates and credit terms are very generous.



Stafford loans are still subsidized.
You would never, and I mean never, get a 6.8% interest rate for a student loan, in the private market.
Like I said, the government is not a private lender nor do they exist to turn a profit. They also impose much harsher repayment rules.
I can refinance the terms of a mortgage if, I have decent credit (which includes a whole bunch of other factors like, DTI, payment history, the pressence of negative credit items, etc.) and enough equity.
If someone makes lots of money upon graduation should they be allowed to refinance their student loan debt from 6.8% through the federal government?
If that's the case, no student should get any aid.
The taxpayer is picking up the slack of students.

Students like me will benefit the taxpayer by paying a net profit to the federal government. Depending on my payment plan they will may $70,000-$150,000 off of me in interest (not to mention money from my personal income taxes and whatnot).
 
Like I said, the government is not a private lender nor do they exist to turn a profit. They also impose much harsher repayment rules.

They should earn something off of lending money to high risk individuals.
6.8% covers the expenses of issuing the loans, among other operations of the education department of government.

If someone makes lots of money upon graduation should they be allowed to refinance their student loan debt from 6.8% through the federal government?

:sigh:
You can't refinance a loan, just because you make lots of money.
It's a lot more complicated than that.

You need to learn a lot more about the lending process, credit qualifications, etc. before expressing these opinions.

Students like me will benefit the taxpayer by paying a net profit to the federal government. Depending on my payment plan they will may $70,000-$150,000 off of me in interest (not to mention money from my personal income taxes and whatnot).

Maybe and maybe not.
There is no guarantee that you'll be making tons of taxable money.
 
Yes, we should all do something.........

We should stand back, & give them a resounding applause for their accomplishments, then shake their hands & wish them all the very best in their pursuit of a wonderful future. Remind them to take nothing for granted, that success is a byproduct of hard work, & perseverance coupled with good luck & fortune.

As far as should something be done, as in giving them special privilege, position, or financial assistance?

nono.gif Absolutely not.

Anything worthwhile in life should be gotten the old fashioned way-----they should earn it.

It will mean more if they do. good.gif
 
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Gina, if it wasn't for the loans some of us might not have a ship to anchor in the first place (I think I lost myself somewhere in the metaphor. :lol:).

LOL...I mix my metaphors too X. :)

I realize loans are necessary and for a good purpose. It's just the size that makes me wince. It would be nice if students didn't have a mortgage sized weight to start out their lives. Such was not the case back in my day.
 
Lol no.

It costs per student in this country in public schools 9,000 dollars

While on the hand, it costs on average of 2,000 dollars per student in private schools.
And you believe this ?
"If its too good to be true, then it is probably NOT !"
 
Other
and I am in the majority, as if this matters....lol...
The rates are high enough....we are reaching the point where our government should take over the banks..
The student loan rates should stay at 3.4; and they should not be subsidized.
 
Amid discussions of student loans many talk of aid and interest rates for undergrad students. My poll is asking do you think aid should be increased for graduate students? Graduate/professional school is extremely expensive, many times costing as much as a house. When I graduate pharmacy school I will be $150,000-$200,000 in student loan debt. The interest rate is 6.8% and accrues immediately (upon borrowing) with a 1% disbursement fee. Grad plus loans are put into play after a student has borrowed $31,000 through stafford and has a 7.9% interest rate accruing immediately with a 4% disbursement fee. There is no pell grant, state aid (at least in my state), or much of anything else outside of very small (and rare) outside scholarships for graduate/professional students.

Law school graduates have an average of $100,433 in debt Law School Student Debt Exceeds $100,000 Amid Jobs Shortage - Bloomberg

Medical school graduates have an average of $157,944 in debt. Background

The debt burden has become insane. Keep in mind that these are averages. People who do not come from wealthy families, like me, must take out the maximum number to essentially finance all school costs and most living expenses.

Should the government increase funding for grad students? Should they decrease it? What should happen with the student loans and interest rates? Keep in mind, the federal government is in charge of the loans and interest rates. Student loan debt has also surpassed credit card debt.

It depends on what sort of grad school you're going to. I went to grad school in physics and didn't pay for any of my graduate schooling. I had to teach for the first few years, and then I had to do research for the rest of the time. But essentially my tuition was covered and I made about 22K a year. Not a lot, but you can live pretty cheap as a grad student. Math, Physics, Chemistry, some Biology (depends on competitiveness of field) you basically won't be paying for grad school.
 
Get the government out of education, so that students don't have to pay for mistakes of politics. You go and try to make a better life for yourself and you got to pay tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Government involvement very rarely makes things better.
 
i was lucky enough to get an assistantship while obtaining my masters or i'd probably still be paying it off. or worse, my parents would have gone broke trying to help me.

i'll admit that a big part of the reason i haven't gone back for a doctorate is that the idea of being flat broke for the next eight years and horribly in debt for twenty years after that is incredibly unappealing. the current costs of many of these programs have limited basis in reality.
 
i was lucky enough to get an assistantship while obtaining my masters or i'd probably still be paying it off. or worse, my parents would have gone broke trying to help me.

i'll admit that a big part of the reason i haven't gone back for a doctorate is that the idea of being flat broke for the next eight years and horribly in debt for twenty years after that is incredibly unappealing. the current costs of many of these programs have limited basis in reality.

This is exactly why I am reluctant to pursue my Masters. I want to get to the highest pinnacle with a Ph.D. but I refuse to do it at the risk of being is monumental debt. What good is obtaining the degree if you spend the rest of your life paying for it?
 
This is exactly why I am reluctant to pursue my Masters. I want to get to the highest pinnacle with a Ph.D. but I refuse to do it at the risk of being is monumental debt. What good is obtaining the degree if you spend the rest of your life paying for it?

see what kind of help you can get from the institution. at the time i got my masters, a lot of masters programs were suffering from lack of enrollment (because most just wanted to go ahead and get the PhD.) my academic record and GRE scores were good enough to get me an assistantship, which helped immensely and even gave me a small stipend.

it was worth it in my case because when i was up against candidates with bachelors degrees, i had the extra level of education to put me at the top of the heap. if i had it to do over again, i might have more seriously considered a PhD, but maybe not. that would depend on how much it was going to cost.
 
When I graduate pharmacy school I will be $150,000-$200,000 in student loan debt.

Holy crap man....I thought I had a lot of debt. (80-90k for 2 degrees at state universities) Where do you go to school?
 
I think the cost of both undergraduate and graduate school, is far too high. Education should be available to those who can complete the courses with high competency. There should be less reliance on ability to pay tuition. The first year of college should be covered by government funds and students who maintain a certain GPA should be handed vouchers to continue attending the college of their choice.
 
The interest rate is 6.8% and accrues immediately (upon borrowing) with a 1% disbursement fee. Grad plus loans are put into play after a student has borrowed $31,000 through stafford and has a 7.9% interest rate accruing immediately with a 4% disbursement fee. There is no pell grant, state aid (at least in my state), or much of anything else outside of very small (and rare) outside scholarships for graduate/professional students.
Ouch! With interest rates where they are now you're getting 6.8%? That hardly seems fair. Is your school private or public?

You may get an opportunity to reduce that once you're out of school. I was able to consolidate my much lower debt to 2.9% - so low that it's a disincentive for paying it down (given that any extra money I might pay toward the loan will earn me greater than 2.9% return on investment, and every other loan I have or will have will likely take precedence).

Triple-digit debt numbers are a good incentive to get that education done early and quickly, so that you may make the best of what remaining years you have to earn income. Do you have any idea as to the typical age at which a pharmacist/physician hits the break-even point?
 
This is exactly why I am reluctant to pursue my Masters. I want to get to the highest pinnacle with a Ph.D. but I refuse to do it at the risk of being is monumental debt. What good is obtaining the degree if you spend the rest of your life paying for it?
Many PhD programs are state subsidized and therefore place no excessive burden on students. Master's programs are often paid by the student - to anyone out there who's decided on a Master's- but think you might want to earn a PhD - you may as well start with the PhD route. If it's not for you - you can still come out with a (much cheaper) Master's. The focus will likely be more academic than applied - something to think about. Apply to as many schools as you might wish to consider - if you're accepted, many/most are likely to fly you out, put you up in a hotel room, and do their best to try to woo you. Talking to those already in the program, you'll get an idea of what the school's like and what sort of burden it will place on you financially. If I remember correctly, our tuition was paid by the state, and we earned a stipend of roughly $17k working research or teaching assistantships. Still had to pay fees, books, professional dues etc.

I know students who were able to get through their PhD with very little or no debt - most through parental support or through internships (double bonus of being good for your career). I put myself through undergrad and graduate school and finished about $30k in debt - 8 or 10 of which carried over from undergrad. I could have made it through grad school without any loans, but decided to make things easier on myself so that I could focus on school. When I finally broke down and bought a car, I took out a low-interest student loan as quick as i could and paid it off - so if you discount the money for the car and the undergrad loans, I borrowed just $10k over the course of five years - not bad.

I actually had fun seeing how far I could stretch myself - no car, no tv, simple foods, and in the winter... no heat (to which my cat would vigorously protest)! I actually kind of miss it at times, but that ended as soon as I moved in with my future spouse.
 
I know students who were able to get through their PhD with very little or no debt

It would depend on subject matter, yes? The hard sciences and math you don't pay for grad school, they pay you. But on the flip side is law and medical school which is exceedingly expensive. I on some level think we should do with that as we do with the army. Right? Join the army, we pay for your college. Well we could have it be "Join the Public Defenders, we pay for your college". Or part of it. Where they receive assistance for their education and when they are done they spend X years working for government, public attorneys for law school, public hospitals and blah for med school. They get something, we get something.
 
It would depend on subject matter, yes? The hard sciences and math you don't pay for grad school, they pay you. But on the flip side is law and medical school which is exceedingly expensive. I on some level think we should do with that as we do with the army. Right? Join the army, we pay for your college. Well we could have it be "Join the Public Defenders, we pay for your college". Or part of it. Where they receive assistance for their education and when they are done they spend X years working for government, public attorneys for law school, public hospitals and blah for med school. They get something, we get something.

Yeah sure - that's a good example of a 'Contract for your Mortal Soul' - the government provides your education at the cost of your freedom, life and health - indeed they do!
 
Yeah sure - that's a good example of a 'Contract for your Mortal Soul' - the government provides your education at the cost of your freedom, life and health - indeed they do!

I don’t think it’s necessarily so dark as that. I mean people are getting an education and after 5 or so years are free to go off and do something else. It’s no different than a college loan of sorts wherein you have to pay back the money. Here it’s done via providing public service, and it’s not like they’re not paid. Of course people wouldn’t have to accept the contract, that’s one of the beauties of right to contract. People can still choose to pay themselves or if their mommy and daddy are rich enough, live off their parent’s dime. What it would do is give options to those who are qualified but unable to fund their education. Instead of being in debt for the rest of their lives, they are in debt for 5 or so years wherein they provide public service to the rest of us. It seems to me to be win/win. They come out of school without debt, we get qualified public servants.
 
I rather see more privately funded scholarship as a reward for academic achievement and an incentive for excellence, in any field.
If the manufacturing base needs skilled laborers, fund a program to train skilled workers, and so on. The sky is the limit. Supply your demand.
 
I rather see more privately funded scholarship as a reward for academic achievement and an incentive for excellence, in any field.
If the manufacturing base needs skilled laborers, fund a program to train skilled workers, and so on. The sky is the limit. Supply your demand.

Yeah, it certainly would be nice. But it's not working out so well.
 
There are definitely alternatives to loans to get an education. The idea that one can go through K-12 and then four to six years of college and never have to work to earn a penny until they get that 'dream job' making a six figure salary is absurd. For every student that ties that, how many will succeed? The way I went to college was to work full time and take classes too. I started my first semester by taking a full load (15 credits) but soon found that to be too much and by my last semester was taking only 9 credit hours of classes. I paid out of pocket for the first semester and had my company (Singer corporation) reimburse me for tuition (but not books) at the rate of 80% for a grade of A or B ad 75% for a grade of C.
 
There are definitely alternatives to loans to get an education. The idea that one can go through K-12 and then four to six years of college and never have to work to earn a penny until they get that 'dream job' making a six figure salary is absurd. For every student that ties that, how many will succeed? The way I went to college was to work full time and take classes too. I started my first semester by taking a full load (15 credits) but soon found that to be too much and by my last semester was taking only 9 credit hours of classes. I paid out of pocket for the first semester and had my company (Singer corporation) reimburse me for tuition (but not books) at the rate of 80% for a grade of A or B ad 75% for a grade of C.

Paying your own way is certainly one incentive to get moving. Rewards for achievement being another.
Across the board tuition doesn't really inspire, although a bit of a jump start in the beginning should be worth considering.
A healthy competition is always worthwhile.
 
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