Student Loan Payoff
Robert Smith is a billionaire.
He made news over the weekend by promising to pay off the student loans for the 2019 graduating class at Moorehouse College.
There’s a good story!
Sure beats stories of money laundering and obstructing justice and congress, doesn’t it?
I paid off my student loans in 1995.
Just nine short years after graduating college.
I wish I could say it was painless, but I hated writing that check every month because I wasn’t making a ton of money at the time and it seemed like I wasn’t getting anything for it.
Thing is...
...college was affordable back then compared to now.
I went to Gannon University and it was certainly an expensive college then...
...$3,000 a semester.
$24,000 for 4 years.
I took out a $2,500 loan each year.
(Books and beers were more expensive than you’d think!)
Yet, between my freshman and sophomore year, I worked construction every free minute and I paid for more than a full year.
Easy enough!
Mom and Dad certainly helped, big time.
Now, just 33 short years later, Gannon runs about $25,000 a year.
A kid like me would owe $100 grand.
How can a kid today do what I did?
I got out with less than $10,000 in student loans.
The same kid today couldn’t earn what I earned in the construction field.
The interest rates?
Forget it!
So, bravo for a billionaire who did something good for some people who were truly stressing the next twenty years as they wrote out a big check for their education.
The inflated costs of higher learning in this country is absolutely criminal. It’s hampered the middle class because no one wants to see their child leave school with so much heavy debt.
I’ve been able to help my boys, but it hasn’t always been easy writing those checks either.
“Jake needs money for books.”
“How much?”
“$800.”
“For books??? That he won’t read???”
He sold them back.
For about $70!
Scam.
Kudos to Robert Smith.
He made news over the weekend by promising to pay off the student loans for the 2019 graduating class at Moorehouse College.
There’s a good story!
Sure beats stories of money laundering and obstructing justice and congress, doesn’t it?
I paid off my student loans in 1995.
Just nine short years after graduating college.
I wish I could say it was painless, but I hated writing that check every month because I wasn’t making a ton of money at the time and it seemed like I wasn’t getting anything for it.
Thing is...
...college was affordable back then compared to now.
I went to Gannon University and it was certainly an expensive college then...
...$3,000 a semester.
$24,000 for 4 years.
I took out a $2,500 loan each year.
(Books and beers were more expensive than you’d think!)
Yet, between my freshman and sophomore year, I worked construction every free minute and I paid for more than a full year.
Easy enough!
Mom and Dad certainly helped, big time.
Now, just 33 short years later, Gannon runs about $25,000 a year.
A kid like me would owe $100 grand.
How can a kid today do what I did?
I got out with less than $10,000 in student loans.
The same kid today couldn’t earn what I earned in the construction field.
The interest rates?
Forget it!
So, bravo for a billionaire who did something good for some people who were truly stressing the next twenty years as they wrote out a big check for their education.
The inflated costs of higher learning in this country is absolutely criminal. It’s hampered the middle class because no one wants to see their child leave school with so much heavy debt.
I’ve been able to help my boys, but it hasn’t always been easy writing those checks either.
“Jake needs money for books.”
“How much?”
“$800.”
“For books??? That he won’t read???”
He sold them back.
For about $70!
Scam.
Kudos to Robert Smith.
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