\n<\/p>\n
This week we paid for The Girl\u2019s last semester at college. Barring catastrophe, I have filled out my last FAFSA. I won\u2019t miss those at all. We managed to get her through college without her (or us) taking out loans, so when she graduates she\u2019ll be in the best position to launch that we could give her. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s good in itself, of course, but I also learned recently that it\u2019s good for another reason. A few months ago we paid off The Boy\u2019s student loans. The loans had been in his name, as traditional student loans are. When we paid them off, his credit score took a hit!<\/p>\n
I am not making that up.<\/p>\n
As a young man starting out his adult career\u2014weighing options for places to live, thinking about medical school(s), grappling seriously with adult choices around locations and relationships\u2014taking a swift kick in the credit score has real impact. He doesn\u2019t have enough spare capital lying around to, say, buy a house for cash. At 24, most people don\u2019t. I certainly didn\u2019t. A new place and\/or a new tuition bill will require debt, which is more expensive when your credit score is lower. It\u2019s a sort of poverty tax, except that the proceeds go to banks.<\/p>\n
People who take out student loans get criticized for not paying them off, but then also get punished for paying them off. I don\u2019t blame him for being frustrated. <\/p>\n
This perverse outcome happened in a close-to-best-case scenario: He finished his degree, got a job in his field and got parental help paying off the loans. Most students would gladly trade scenarios, and yet\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n
I know it\u2019s culturally double-edged, but it\u2019s still true that minimizing student loan debt is a great argument for starting at a community college. Intro to Psychology doesn\u2019t vary that much from one college to another; why go into debt to pay double or triple what you could have paid? My own kids proved stubbornly immune to that argument\u2014they knew what they wanted, and they are their own people\u2014but it\u2019s still true. <\/p>\n
At least The Girl has managed to get through without loans, so she\u2019ll be spared the no-win choice he faced. She\u2019ll have her own challenges, but not that particular one.<\/p>\n
Of course, the right policy way to address scenarios like these is to recognize that they\u2019re structural and therefore the correct response is structural. Giving public colleges and universities the funding they need to do their jobs without annual tuition increases would obviate much of the need for loans in the first place; add support for student basic needs, and the space for loans would get even smaller. Making loans moot would get around the double bind of either paying back or not paying back and would do so regardless of whether students have parents who can afford to help. On a broader level, working toward a more equitable economy\u2014one in which young people just starting out could afford homes, say\u2014would do a world of good. In the meantime, moving to interest-free loans would offer much more bang for the buck without violating any major cultural norms.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, though, can we at least agree to stop punishing people who actually pay off their loans? What would we rather have people do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week we paid for The Girl\u2019s last semester at college. Barring catastrophe, I have filled out my last FAFSA. I won\u2019t miss those at all. We managed to get her through college without her (or us) taking out loans, so when she graduates she\u2019ll be in the best position to launch that we could<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3023,2230,12932],"class_list":{"0":"post-41093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-loans","9":"tag-paying","10":"tag-punished"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}