Welcome to Michelle is Money Hungry, a podcast that has real and empathetic conversations that often focus on the intersection of policy and the financial conversations we’re afraid to have. I’m your host, Michelle Jackson and this summer I’m having conversations all about the potential for student loan forgiveness and what will happen if we move forward with the policy and what happens if we don’t. Lisa also wonders if we should get rid of undergrad.
In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Please read my disclosure here.*
As a result of my debt experience, I was really skittish about ever getting another credit card. I hate to admit that when it was finally time to sign up for my first card in years-I chose badly. I hate this new credit card and I wish that I had known about CashFreely when making this decision. What I love about this free tool is the following. It helps credit card users stay organized when using different cash back programs.
You don’t have to worry about leaving cash on the table. CashFreely helps credit card users optimize the different cash back rewards programs that may be a part of current cards you’re using or future cards that you may be considering in the future. And just maybe, that extra cash can be applied as an extra payment on your student loan. Again, this is a free app or you can use the website and I think you should check it out. Click on the link in my show notes. Go to: https://michelleismoneyhungry.com/cashfreely
Listen to the Show
Show Notes
Lisa–Lisa Q I am a blogger at A Lawyer and her Money. My day job is that I’m an attorney for the federal government.
Michelle-Why did you start a blog
Lisa-I started my blog partly because of my student loans. My parents helped with undergrad. I graduated with $112k when I graduated from law school. I’d never thought about debt before. My parents are immigrants and paid everything very much with cash.
Michelle-When you were considering law school did anyone talk to you about the cost of education?
Lisa-My parents went to college in their home country
Michelle-I lived in Europe and people didn’t pay for school which is where this question is coming from.
Lisa-With law school I did everything myself. Because they’d never applied to a US law school. It’s so different when I applied vs. when my parents applied. I used a typewriter.
Michelle-What was the guidance on your decision making process.
Lisa-I didn’t really get guidance and I think I read a book about Financial Independence. But, otherwise people just gave you loans. I didn’t want to take too many loans because I knew you had to pay them back because they’re loans versus grants.
Michelle-I was trying to figure out if the institution you attended gave you guidance. In my case, I don’t remember being given extensive guidance from the student aid office.
Good Luck! With Your Career
Lisa-2009 was an important year in the legal industry because it was the bottom of the Recession. The Dean gave the speech “Good luck!” I went to a good law school and usually when people graduated people left with jobs. In 2008-2009 a lot of those offers were being rescinded. A lot of people were waiting out the Recession.
Michelle-What have you noticed in the content that you’re creating for your community and in general conversations around SLF what’s the feedback that you’ve noticed around this potential policy?
Lisa-I think there are a few ways to look at it. Most people I know had the opportunity to accumulate debt. Most are middle class and had to take on debt in order to finance their careers but have been fortunate in their careers and have been fortunate to pay off their loans. Now tuition is even higher. I was talking with a friend of my dad’s (he’s younger) and he mentioned that he could pay his tuition with his summer earnings. Things have changed in two decades and people are experiencing loans in different ways. Higher education has gotten ridiculously expensive.
Michelle-What was it like for you to pay off your loans what was the process and pace that you took to do that.
Lisa-It took about a year and half. I hated being in debt. I planned to pay it within a year. I was starting to skimp on things like furniture, food, it was ridiculous. I didn’t skimp on clothing, but I didn’t have a coach. It was fine for me and new it was a short period of time. I was more of a sprint than a marathon. I know that a lot of people can’t do that. It was a rough year. It was certainly doable given my circumstances.
Michelle-If you were asked to speak with this Administrator as an advisor what would you advise them to do? What would YOU do?
Lisa-I would look into is this legal for the Administration to do as a policy? When I thought about this topic, I wasn’t thinking about I was thinking about if I was the person making the decision.
Michelle-If you were president what would you do?
Why Should Student Loans Be Forgiven?
Lisa-There are 3 reasons why student loans should be forgiven. One, students are distressed. We need to relieve their distress. Second, they were defrauded. The third is more cynical-it’s a popular program for people likely to vote. In terms of distress I don’t believe that people who have outstanding student loans are our most distressed demographic. I work with refugees. Whenever people talk about college these people are most likely to be employed, wealthiest, highest earning, we talk about all of these amazing privileges that people who go to college have. That said, the most popular post on my blog is college a fraud? We don’t reimburse people when stocks go down. We think it will go up.
Michelle-The stock in this case is your education.
Lisa-I assume that people who went to college attend some college. We believe collectively that education is an investment and should pay off. But, people are beginning to believe that it’s not an investment and they’re left with loans. If I were king emperor I would abolish college and discharge everyone’s student loans and just start from scratch.
Michelle-The question becomes how do we avoid having the same conversation 20 years from now and it’s a key area of discussion that we need to have. Student loan forgiveness is multiple policies being housed under one umbrella.
Lisa-The real problem is that tuition is too high. It’s unsustainable even for very wealthy. Especially since entry level salaries haven’t really increased. Colleges have to make the case that they were worth the value.
Michelle-I share how I had a maid as a senior. Why the hell did we have a maid when none of us had jobs?
Lisa-When I was in the dorms my first year there was definitely someone cleaning the communal areas. We had a beautiful gym and facilities. My college is a UNESCO world heritage site. I was recently wandering around UT Austin and the students were running a bake sale to raise money for intramural sports. Why do you have to raise money for club lacross.
Michelle-In my previous life I worked at a university. Towards they built out a buffalo pool. I live in Colorado. The pool can’t really be used for a significant amount of the year because we live in Colorado. You could have done so many things but you had to put in a Ralphie pool. Maybe we need to start questioning these decisions. For the last couple of years Federal borrowers have had their loans paused. They’ve had this significant line item taken out of their budget. What are your thoughts about people’s concern about reintroducing those payments into their budget.
Lisa-I don’t really know how I feel about that. I’ve been working for the government and we talk about how opaque college budgets are and the federal government is even more so. One it could be easy to be ungrateful for the pause. Where is the money going? I don’t have a strong feeling either way about this. All of my energy would be to make college more affordable and make sure that graduates get their investment.
Michelle-What do you think are some misconceptions about not moving forward with SLF as a policy. There’s a lot of emotion impacting the conversation.
Does $10,000 in Forgiveness Do Any Good?
Lisa-The current proposal that $10k forgiven feels counterproductive. I want education to be more aligned with job prospects and colleges will have less incentive to manage the expense and pass on costs to future students. It must be really demoralizing for someone whose child has graduated from college in the STEM space but isn’t getting hired. People who struggle to find work even when they do everything right. We give colleges so much money. Colleges need to make sure that graduates are getting into jobs. This $10k will help some people. I’m not unsympathetic to that. But, what we need is not to have people in 10 years graduating with even more debt. Law schools are very particular about employment numbers. Their hopes should be dashed at 25 not at 23.I would be incredibly demoralized. I know people picking up odd jobs and people thought it would be easier. It’s a weird fantasy of mine now to abolish college.
Michelle-What would you replace college with?
Lisa-I don’t want college at all and I don’t think it’s worth the private sector paying for it. So why should the public? After high school just go to work. If you want to go to medical school just go directly to that. I have a friend who wants to go into neurosurgery and I have a guy friend who felt it wasn’t as competitive because women aren’t applying because of the duration of time for the residency competing with child rearing years.
Michelle-I share how I met two students who began their professional nursing careers in high school. And would get their paid hours for their profession. Why aren’t you for SLF as a policy?
L-SLF working out the kinks of something that is fundamentally broken. I think if there are piecemeal improvements it doesn’t get to the crux of the problem. College is not doing that and we need to work on solutions that will do.
Michelle-Do you think it’s even possible to create a significant policy shift with the timeframe this Administration on?
Lisa-I think a lot of states are collecting information on college efficacy. It can take steps to reduce the cost of college. The federal government has to cap the amount it will loan to colleges. Colleges will need to take more initiatives to manage costs. Ensure that the federal government that is being given to colleges is being used wisely and put deeper scrutiny on outcomes.
Follow Lisa
Latest posts by Michelle (see all)
- How Work Policies Against Black Women Birthed a Love of the Soft Life - 20 March, 2024
- How Taylor Swift’s IP Victory Could Change the Business of Music - 28 February, 2024
- Why Don’t More Personal Finance Content Creators Talk About Policy - 16 January, 2024