Who wants to move to Salt Lake?

[Hawk]

My perspective is completely different but I can understand most of you. Actually this thread has made me understand the perspectives of a bunch a lot better.
For me at 55, things have been simple. I have worked continuously from age 26 for only 2 companies. Wy wife is the same but got better paying jobs. Married for 25 years with no kids. Kids were not in the cards but not for lack of trying. Went through both insurances and $100K of my own money doing in vitro with no results. Heartbreaking but it is what it is. We have moved on to an understanding that there are benefits to dual income no kids and going to state college for way less money than the expensive schools gave us zero debt starting out. It has meant we get to do a lot, save a lot, travel a lot and have no debt. Have owed my house and condo outright for the past 10 years so max investment in retirement has been the order of the day. Kids would have been nice but we can live with what we have. It is the cards we were dealt. I think it is like straight flush. Kids would have been a royle flush.

So with 22 nieces and nephews and a very close knit family all still living in the boston area with me, I have a good understanding of the current and past couple of generations. I can honestly say that most of them do not understand a good hard work ethic, think things should be easy, have had minimal challenge growing up and expect a ton like it is owed to them. Definetely not how my parrents pounded their raising into me. LOL

 

[KustyTheKlown]

^again, i think this is on the right track but misses the mark on the youth.

the whole 25 years at one company + a pension + a gold watch retirement party simply doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for some time

meanwhile the costs of housing and education (even state) have skyrocketed, while real wages haven't

people under 40 are at a huge economic disadvantage compared to people over 40, and dramatically compared to people over 50

 

[LonghornSkier]

I am 43, with very few exceptions every friend my age has 2+ kids, ample disposable income and the professional freedom to live or do whatever they want. From my view point, mid career Americans are doing better than our parents were at this age.

The kids currently in their mid 20's are the screwed generation. Several young engineers at work are stuck in this rut of living with parents or paying massively overpriced rent. Turmoil throughout their formative years has left them distrustful of both the job market and real estate market. Sucks to see miserable kids that did everything right.

I disagree with this-I'm 26-I graduated college in 2018 (but the same applies to anyone who graduated 2017-2019) into a very, very strong job market by modern standards. My generation has seen strong early-career nominal wage gains and strong market returns (even accounting for the recent swoon).

The housing piece is definitely tough, especially in HCOL areas. But at least for me-it'll likely mean buying my first place in Hoboken or Jersey City rather than Manhattan. Not a huge deal.

 

[jimmywilson69]

I get that Krusty as I'm paying college bills. how can the baseline to graduate from College be $100k in debt and you start at a job making $60k. That's silly and I guess the disparity was always sort of there, but as many are finding out it takes a long time to pay off college bills. I'm not for just outright forgiveness, but I think something needs to be done for those currently in the debt cycle and those who may potentially enter it.

 

[LonghornSkier]

^again, i think this is on the right track but misses the mark on the youth.

the whole 25 years at one company + a pension + a gold watch retirement party simply doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for some time

meanwhile the costs of housing and education (even state) have skyrocketed, while real wages haven't

people under 40 are at a huge economic disadvantage compared to people over 40, and dramatically compared to people over 50

It doesn't exist at the lower end of the spectrum-I agree.

But you mention that you're a lawyer by trade... Big law (and investment banking, hedge fund, private equity, etc) compensation has never been higher, even adjusting for inflation.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I disagree with this-I'm 26-I graduated college in 2018 (but the same applies to anyone who graduated 2017-2019) into a very, very strong job market by modern standards. My generation has seen strong early-career nominal wage gains and strong market returns (even accounting for the recent swoon).

The housing piece is definitely tough, especially in HCOL areas. But at least for me-it'll likely mean buying my first place in Hoboken or Jersey City rather than Manhattan. Not a huge deal.

hello from downtown jersey city. the real estate market here is insane. but yes, better than bk/manhattan.

i am very worried about our rent renewal in January. smaller units are going for well over $1000 more than my apt to new renters right now. hoping shit chills out majorly by renewal in jan.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I get that Krusty as I'm paying college bills. how can the baseline to graduate from College be $100k in debt and you start at a job making $60k. That's silly and I guess the disparity was always sort of there, but as many are finding out it takes a long time to pay off college bills. I'm not for just outright forgiveness, but I think something needs to be done for those currently in the debt cycle and those who may potentially enter it.

yep, thats why i like accrued interest forgiveness and an interest rate cap. pay back what you took out without being made a debt slave.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

It doesn't exist at the lower end of the spectrum-I agree.

But you mention that you're a lawyer by trade... Big law (and investment banking, hedge fund, private equity, etc) compensation has never been higher, even adjusting for inflation.

yea, i work in legal tech. made a switch after 8 years of unhappiness in a mid sized firm and then a huge corporate legal dept. big law wasn't for me. but yes, big law pays big salary. always has, always will. i knew from the jump that that lifestyle wasn't for me, which makes my decision to pay full freight to fordham and turn down scholarship to bk law or cardozo a particularly poor decision in hindsight. 20 year old kids shouldn't even be allowed to make these high consequence decisions. i am not blaming my dad at all but i wish he physically smacked some sense into me 17 years ago.

 

[djd66]

Kind of funny how this thread went down this rabbit hole of kids and college!

As far as college debt, I am dead set against loan forgiveness. How is forgiving debt fair to the people that struggled and sacrificed to save for college?

My daughter had a choice of a very good private school or UMASS - which was less than half the price. She chose UMASS mainly due to the cost. Fortunately, we are in a position to pay for it without loans. If we were not in that position, I would have encouraged her to go to a community college for 2 years and then finish up at UMASS. Taking this approach (which many people do) its possible to get a degree with very little (if any debt). Sorry, why should I cover the cost of school for someone paying $85K/year? That's your choice and when you make this choice - you should know full well - you have to pay the debt.

 

[Hawk]

^again, i think this is on the right track but misses the mark on the youth.

the whole 25 years at one company + a pension + a gold watch retirement party simply doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for some time

meanwhile the costs of housing and education (even state) have skyrocketed, while real wages haven't

people under 40 are at a huge economic disadvantage compared to people over 40, and dramatically compared to people over 50

I don't get a pension. I have a 401K like the rest that I have contributed to for my whole life. I work as a contructon manager so more of a blue collar type so no gold watch either. When I started out of college it was $28K a year. Kids now start at $75K or more. Also who says you have to go to the best schools and sink yourself into debt? That is an expectation set up by parrents. Why do yuo have to live in the expensive city? Start by getting a place that is cheap. This is what I am saying. Society and parrents are setting up kids to fail on top of the inflated costs. But if kids were tought to be more economical, spend less, live cheap, expect nothing, work hard, maybe they would be in a better place.

 

[thebigo]

Nobody has even mentioned daycare. Of the families we know that wanted more kids, daycare was the reason they stopped at one. You cannot defer day care payments, you have two choices: quit your job or run up your credit cards. My wife and I have both have graduate degrees, 100% paid for by us, our student loans never approached the daycare payments.

 

[thebigo]

Kind of funny how this thread went down this rabbit hole of kids and college!

As far as college debt, I am dead set against loan forgiveness. How is forgiving debt fair to the people that struggled and sacrificed to save for college?

My daughter had a choice of a very good private school or UMASS - which was less than half the price. She chose UMASS mainly due to the cost. Fortunately, we are in a position to pay for it without loans. If we were not in that position, I would have encouraged her to go to a community college for 2 years and then finish up at UMASS. Taking this approach (which many people do) its possible to get a degree with very little (if any debt). Sorry, why should I cover the cost of school for someone paying $85K/year? That's your choice and when you make this choice - you should know full well - you have to pay the debt.

X100

I did my first two and a half years of engineering undergrad at UNHM, stocking shelves at the grocery store third shift. Still worked as much as possible, plus every odd job I could find, after switching to Durham for last couple undergrad years.

 

[ss20]

Also in the camp of no loan forgiveness. At 18 you can murder someone and be tried as an adult.... You can/should also bear the responsibility to decide between a $20k state school and a $60k private school.

I came from a public high school in CT. Every spring they'd post on a bulliten board where all the graduating seniors were going to college. That never sat right with me even at age 13 or 14 or whatever as a freshman. I ended up going to a state school and commuting, working 40-50 hours a week (bit less in the winter), graduating debt free. But it speaks to the culture engrained in our society of the last 50 years of college being the "only" option, especially in more middle and upper class areas

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I don't get a pension. I have a 401K like the rest that I have contributed to for my whole life. I work as a contructon manager so more of a blue collar type so no gold watch either. When I started out of college it was $28K a year. Kids now start at $75K or more. Also who says you have to go to the best schools and sink yourself into debt? That is an expectation set up by parrents. Why do yuo have to live in the expensive city? Start by getting a place that is cheap. This is what I am saying. Society and parrents are setting up kids to fail on top of the inflated costs. But if kids were tought to be more economical, spend less, live cheap, expect nothing, work hard, maybe they would be in a better place.

i dont disagree with you at all that societal and parental expectations play a huge role, as does 17-21 year olds generally not having the maturity or ability to take the long view.

but as for living in the expensive city, for me at least, its just home. leaving NYC and the immediate surrounds would have meant leaving the only home i have known my entire life, my family, my social networks, etc. i didn't come to NYC from Nebraska with stars in my eyes and a bucket of debt. and i had roommates into my 30s to keep my housing cost to income ratio as low as i could - a choice i made to live in Brooklyn. i could have spent the same and lived in Poughkeepsie by myself i guess? then i was fortunate enough to move in with the roommate who has sex with me.

the expected $10k forgiveness would be inconsequential to my debt, so i am fairly indifferent to it. i'd much rather see systemic change that prevents people from winding up buried in debt. i think capping interest rates is a start. I'll gladly take the waiver of accrued interest tho that will never ever happen. i am happy to pay back what i took out when young and dumb, but the interest is outrageous.

 

[jimk]

Kusty still has time to do a home-grown ski buddy. I turned 37 a month after my son was born. He and I have skied about 50 different ski areas together all over North America in last 20 years.
8 May 2022:


March 2008 at Le Massif.


Following him in the intervening years...
Whiteface glades

Aspen Highlands

Blackcomb Glacier

Crested Butte

Snowbird



Also, above individual owns a house in SLC suburbs and I mooch off him by staying in his basement all winter.


I hear you younger guys about college costs! I paid about 80% of my kids college fees, but all four incurred about 20K in school debt that they had to pay off as young adults. One of my daughters (the smartest one) graduated from law school at age 26, she got a good discount for law school, but still had some debt from that, but should have it paid off by age 30, later this year.

The joke I tell my kids and other millennials: Aging boomer to recent college grad millennial, "when I was your age all I had was the shirt on my back when I graduated from college." Millennial with college loans to boomer, "oh, you were so lucky!"

 

[djd66]

the expected $10k forgiveness would be inconsequential to my debt, so i am fairly indifferent to it. i'd much rather see systemic change that prevents people from winding up buried in debt. i think capping interest rates is a start. I'll gladly take the waiver of accrued interest tho that will never ever happen. i am happy to pay back what i took out when young and dumb, but the interest is outrageous.

Based on your level of education you seem like a pretty smart guy. Did you not know how interest payment work when you signed for the loan?

 

[KustyTheKlown]

dont be flippant about it. there are millions of americans struggling because of this system. and i wasnt well educated and wise beyond my 20 years when i agreed to 200k at 8% interest on the eve of global economic collapse

 

[thebigo]

Jim k makes a good point. I was a year old than krusty when my youngest was born. She is five now and learned to ski bumps this year in those same perfectly seeded bumps krusty enjoyed in April. Not the best picture but she did ski them many times last april.

 

[cdskier]

Kind of funny how this thread went down this rabbit hole of kids and college!

As far as college debt, I am dead set against loan forgiveness. How is forgiving debt fair to the people that struggled and sacrificed to save for college?

My daughter had a choice of a very good private school or UMASS - which was less than half the price. She chose UMASS mainly due to the cost. Fortunately, we are in a position to pay for it without loans. If we were not in that position, I would have encouraged her to go to a community college for 2 years and then finish up at UMASS. Taking this approach (which many people do) its possible to get a degree with very little (if any debt). Sorry, why should I cover the cost of school for someone paying $85K/year? That's your choice and when you make this choice - you should know full well - you have to pay the debt.

I agree that debt should not be forgiven, but I also think the system is seriously broken on numerous levels. I went to a private university ~20 years ago that was at the time rated as one of the best values in the northeast. I got a scholarship that covered well over half the tuition. Total cost my freshman year (tuition, room, board, etc) was around $25K. Of that 25K, about half was covered via scholarship leaving roughly $12K to cover. My parents had saved money for college for their kids and from that savings covered pretty much everything other than whatever the Stafford student loan limits would cover (that loan limit was around $2600 my freshman year and I think was up to closer to $5000 by my senior year). So over the course of 4 years, my parents used maybe a max of $40K from savings and I came out of school with under $20K in loans.

Fast forward ~20 years and tuition alone at this same school now costs a whopping nearly $54K/year. Add in room, board, etc and you are up to over $70K/year. That is seriously fucked up. There is absolutely no justification for that much of an increase as that substantially outpaces inflation (inflation would put the cost at about $43k/year now if it matched that). The current "Presidential scholarship" (which is the one I received) maxes out at around $20K (not even half of tuition today). So where I had to pay or take out loans to cover roughly $12-15K/year when I went to school, now today you would need to cover or take out loans of about $50K/year. So what either my parents spent from savings or what I took out via loans over 4 years back then, now would barely cover 1 year.

To summarize, total cost 20 years ago was a bit over 100K over 4 years, with $48K covered via scholarships, $40K covered via my parent's college savings for their kids, and I want to say about $18K in student loans for me. Today the total cost for 4 years would be ~290K with only $80K covered via the same scholarships. That leaves $210K to cover via parent's college savings or student loans. Even if savings increased to $100K (which outpaces inflation so I think that's a somewhat high and unrealistic estimate/increase), that still leaves $110K in student loans. If I went to this school today, I'd have over $100K loans compared to the <$20K loans I had not that long ago.

That's seriously just wrong. And I think the ease of access to loans and things like "debt forgiveness" only make this problem worse because there's no incentive for colleges to control tuition and costs. They know the money will be found and essentially guaranteed somehow. They don't give a shit whether students will be saddled with crazy debt when they graduate or not.

Throwing money at the problem (via debt forgiveness and easy loans) doesn't fix the root cause of the issue. Several things need to happen:
1) We need to stop encouraging all kids to go to college and stop stigmatizing those that don't. College isn't for everyone and high schools need to stop the silly notion that it is. There are plenty of people that would be far better off going to a trade school than college for example.
2) We need to get kids to understand the costs and make more cost effective choices. If demand for expensive private colleges remains high, there's also no incentive for those schools to do anything about costs. Drop demand for them and maybe they will wake up.
3) Stop making money so readily available and stop preying on students. I actually do agree with one thing Kusty said earlier in this thread about interest rate limits for student loans. Student loans should not be overly profitable for either the government or any private institution that offers them. I don't think interest rates should be 0 though as I do think some debt with some small interest rates teaches kids a bit about financial responsibility. 0% interest just turns it into "free money" again which doesn't help the root cause.

Kudos to anyone that read my entire rambling. The notion of debt forgiveness rubs me the wrong way, but so do the astronomical rates schools charge today. I personally think it is downright shameful what my own alma mater charges now and it really bothers me whenever I see the numbers.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Jim k makes a good point. I was a year old than krusty when my youngest was born. She is five now and learned to ski bumps this year in those same perfectly seeded bumps krusty enjoyed in April. Not the best picture but she did ski them many times last april.

those seeded bumps were SO FUN