Just a few words on something that might help people with a lot of student loan debt. I have roughly $40,000 of debt and I am unemployed. I applied for the income based repayment plan, which scales your monthly payment relative to your income. I think the maximum monthly payment cannot be more than 10% or 15% of your income. In my situation, my monthly payment for the whole year of 2014 will be $0. Depending on my how much income I make in 2014, they adjust the payment amount for 2015 (I dont plan on making much in 2014 either). After 25 years, regardless of how much has been paid, the total will be wiped clean. Now I dont ever expect to pay the whole of my $40,000 off (it might even be much more than that with interest and whatever else). Who knows what will happen in the next 25 years? We are looking at an unraveling global economic system and the potential for people rather than profit based economies. Regardless of whether people come together to end wars, remove oil companies, Wall Street banks, military companies, and other corporations from political and economic power, and pass socially beneficial policies like wide-scale student loan forgiveness (also known as a debt jubilee), I encourage people who are struggling with loans to check out this income based repayment plan. Paying $50 a month is a easier than $300 or $500 a month if you dont have enough, and if you were to make a lot more money in the future you can always pay more than what the program determines for you. Again, I will say that I dont ever expect on paying my $40,000 of debt off. Partially because I have no choice but mostly by my choice, I will be living a life of relative simplicity with much more dependence on friends and community. For instance, I see myself living in a house with people sharing bedrooms. I picture people in the house pooling resources such as money, food, and material possessions. I picture being a part of community sharing and collaboration networks like time banking and free sharing. So, for me, I dont really mind that I will probably never pay off the debt. Will I be able to have children someday? I dont know. That may be a sacrifice of living in an age of less opportunity, less employment and very serious issues. Maybe ironically, I consider myself fortunate in that being at the end of the old opportunities (degree, job, house, family) is pushing me toward greater community, co-dependence, and simplicity. Without having to work 40 hours a week, I will have much more time to choose how to be productive and be able to help work on the issues at stake. So I encourage all you student loan debtors to check out that income based repayment plan.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:51:10 +0000
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