Student debt ...

In a bid to woo the votes of millennials politicians are proposing all kinds of solutions to let borrowers off the hook for some or all of their student loans. 

For reference, student loan debt is now almost $1.2 trillion dollars, more than doubling since 2007. And as many as 23% of the borrowers no longer enrolled in school are in default.

Boo-hoo. 

I am sorry, but I have zero compassion for them. I have even less interest in plans to help them avoid paying back every dime they owe. 

Spare me the “it’s a tough job market” argument. I also don’t want to hear another word about how lenders took advantage of them. Or that they didn’t know how high their payments would be. 

Tough shit, kids.  Time to put on your big-boy pants and grow a pair.

Be honest: Many of you took a multi-year all-expense-paid vacation from responsibility to “pursue your passion” and explore things that interested you and a handful of others. Now it’s time to pay up. It was fun while it lasted, but your Magical Mystery Tour is over. The bill is due.   

That’s what it’s like to be an adult. Of course that may be part of the problem; Mommy and Daddy have shielded them from so many of the perils and pitfalls of growing up. Since many of these former students never had to make their own bed, much less balance their bank account, it’s small wonder that when they dropped out or graduated, they scurried back to home. 

The world outside was just too scary. Getting as job meant actually having to apply, and then show up for the interview – and possibly face rejection. So getting a real job was too hard, too threatening to their fragile psyche. Plus no one wanted to pay them what they were worth; at LEAST enough to get a nice apartment, afford a car, dine out from time to time and go on a decent vacation. 

And even then, somebody might make a mean face at them.

Shudder. 

If you are the parent of one of these pampered deadbeats, you share part of the blame. You shouldn’t be surprised that your kid wants to continue to avoid responsibility and expects someone else to pick up the tab for their student loans. You taught them there was no downside to making dumb decisions – nothing’s ever truly their fault and someone will always bail them out.

Must have been nice for them. Now, look at the unintended consequences. 

When I left college in 1973 I had a degree, a beat-up car I bought for a buck, and $7500 in student loans. That doesn’t sound like much debt today, but back then it was more than I grossed my first year out of school.  Like my degree and my car, that debt belonged to me alone. 

So I needed a job – any job even remotely related to my field – to get a place of my own and to prepare to start paying off that debt.

And I got one at the princely sum of $4000 a year, which enabled me to move to a crappy shared apartment in a run-down part of town. Six months later my loans started coming due.

I started paying them off. In a few years they were paid in full. On schedule.    

I didn’t think there was anything special about doing that, or that I deserved special credit for paying back the loans.  When I took out the loans I agreed to pay them back, which I did.

Maybe all that is why I have zero empathy for someone who ran up thousands in student loans and now refuses to pay them off. The terms of the loans were fully disclosed to them, and typically to their parents if they co-signed them, probably in much greater detail than they were to me when I signed up for my loans.    

Nowhere was there a promise – then or now – of a money-back guarantee or debt forgiveness if someone’s college experience didn’t lead to a great job.  The money was loaned; the money got spent; the debt was incurred and has to be paid back by the debtor regardless of the outcome.    

So please, please stop whining about how unfair it is that the son or daughter of someone blew $50,000 or more on that quaint private college they’d always dreamed of and can’t find a job. And now they can’t afford to pay off their student loans while saving for a home. 

Too many of today’s generation suffer from the mistaken belief that the lessons they learned playing T-ball are applicable to life as a grown up. 

They’re not. If you play poorly and make bad choices you can lose.  And losing can cost you.

The quicker someone learns that, the better off they’ll be to compete effectively in today’s world.

So the answer to the student debt issue is simple. Pay up and shut up. 

And any politician who offers any other alternative to that  is simply pandering to a group that's not worth helping.  Do we honestly need to reward irresponsibility more in our culture?