[IveBeenFramed]

https://archive.fo/50SEV

Quote:

DRAPER, Utah—Mike Meru, a 37-year-old orthodontist, made a big investment in his education. As of Thursday, he owed $1,060,945.42 in student loans.

Mr. Meru pays only $1,589.97 a month—not enough to cover the interest, so his debt from seven years at the University of Southern California grows by $130 a day. In two decades, his loan balance will be $2 million.

...

Due to escalating tuition and easy credit, the U.S. has 101 people who owe at least $1 million in federal student loans, according to the Education Department. Five years ago, 14 people owed that much.

More could join that group. While the typical student borrower owes $17,000, the number of those who owe at least $100,000 has risen to around 2.5 million, nearly 6% of the borrowing pool, Education Department data show.

[getdownonit]

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. - J. Paul Getty

[IveBeenFramed]

That's over a quarter TRILLION dollars...AT LEAST. Just between that group of borrowers. YIKES!

Quote:

While the typical student borrower owes $17,000, the number of those who owe at least $100,000 has risen to around 2.5 million, nearly 6% of the borrowing pool, Education Department data show.

[wi30]

It'll be interesting to see what happens. There are a lot of expensive and useless degrees out there.

[BortimusPrime]

I can't recall where I read it, but I do remember reading something that was explaining how fashion came about. Basically, the aristocracy would develop some sort of manner of dress like poofy pants or a frilly collar in order to show they were part of the nobility, as peasants couldn't afford frilly collars or poofy pants. But as textile manufacturing developed fancy clothes became increasingly available to the growing middle class and eventually to the lower classes, and those people would try to dress like the aristocrats. The aristocrats would then move on to something else because once the proles were wearing a style it wasn't fancy anymore.

I see university as being a similar phenomenon. Prior to the 60s it was only rich people that went to college, so that degree served as a proxy for being the right sort of person. The massive prosperity of the United States in the 20th century made it so that the middle classes could get those degrees, and suddenly a degree isn't that ticket to a corner office sinecure that it used to be, since you could still have a degree while being one of those disgusting middle class people. In the last couple decades it got even worse because the welfare state decided to start pushing everyone into college so that the even more disgusting peasants were going to college (with crippling debt). So now liberals pat themselves on the back for getting Jamal and Shaniqua the same diplomas as Nigel Huffbottom and Mary Shelly Ponceby, without realizing that the social value of those diplomas has been rendered nil by their very ubiquity.

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

(05-28-2018 01:54 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

I see university as being a similar phenomenon. Prior to the 60s it was only rich people that went to college, so that degree served as a proxy for being the right sort of person.

'Everyone going to college' is the direct result of SCOTUS's decision in Griggs vs. Duke Power. Griggs is what inflicted the toxic concept of 'disparate impact', which has since been codified into Federal law (signed by Bush W.).

Pre Griggs it was not unusual to come across an engineer who never went to college. As a kid out of high school, the local engineering house would give the kid an IQ / aptitude test, and if the scores were high, would take him on as an apprentice.

Griggs basically banned general IQ / aptitude testing. Any type of test needs to be legally reviewed... even then, you take a big legal ($$$$ to defend the test) in having applicants take the test.

After Griggs, employers needed a new way to screen people. So instead, the requirement for college degrees for jobs that never required them before (i.e. secretary, bookkeeper, etc.) became common.

So now.. everyone had to go to college... so college had to be dumb downed for 'everyone' to pass. Add in government guaranteed student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, the college cartel has a massive customer base of debt slaves.

A more detailed look at the Griggs debacle below:

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/008525.html

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/acrobat/..._Power.pdf

From the second link:

At the time of the law’s passage, employers routinely tested prospective
employees, leading at least one researcher to conclude that “it is probably safe to say that there are more ability tests given annually in the United States than there are people.”

One survey in 1963 found that 84 percent of employers were using some type of personnel test, up from 64 percent in 1958. Another study found that 2,171 such tests were printed in the year 1964 alone. This does not even take into account the civil service testing system, which the
government had widely used since the 1870s.

[[email protected]]

Since student loans are means tested in all the anglo countries now they will just repay as much as they make irrespective of how much they owe. Basically they've become eternal debt serfs that have no way of escaping except leaving their country to places where the debt cannot follow them. This is one of those bubbles that won't pop only because the government does everything in their power to rig it in such a way it keeps going forward. The whole income based repayment (IBR) or means testing was the newest rig to make sure defaults on loans wouldn't skyrocket and collapse the lending system. And recently, provinces in Canada like Ontario are pushing for eliminating interest rates on student loans.

I used to say that student loans are alright if you can guarantee yourself a professional degree like medicine, law, dental, engineering, pharmacy etc but these exceptions are outdated now. I know now that medicine law dental and pharmacy schooling can cost 2-500k in the US and you could potentially graduate with no job (law, dental, engineering) or low paying ones with diminishing returns (medicine, pharmacy).

So now, i can't encourage anyone to go to college. People will say I'm a hypocrite because i did pharmacy and it worked out well for me but I did it while tuition was reasonable compared to the salary. After a decade, the salary has stayed the same or gone backwards in most places and tuition has doubled and tripled.

And what about the biggest bag holders of student loans, a.k.a Wamin? They can't exactly cry their way out of it, or can they? This is going to prolong their reproduction until 40+ and I doubt even betamax's will want to wife up these radioactive ladies. Women will end up working their asses off until they are middle aged so they can have the status and security that comes from the college degree. It'll just become normal to have 100-200k loans from a worthless undergraduate degree, it'll be another thing women complain about like the badboy that rawdawged them and pulled out at the last second, ruining their hair and bed sheets.

The elites see no problem with it. It's all according to plan. Lower birthrates by giving women options and shipping in immigrants from the third world to compensate their tax base. In one generation, the immigrant's children will mostly fall in line and fall for the same student loan slavery (or welfare mooching, in any case they are controllable.)

[Razgriz]

Wow the feedback and analysis in this thread has been phenomenal. Came in expecting basic moaning and groaning of the student loan issue left with a much better understanding of how we got here.

This forum and Mike Rowe were a key factor in getting me to leave college and get into the electrical line trade. The decision just looks better day by day.

[Kona]

First, imagine how much student loan debt is out there for stupid bullshit online schools like University of Phoenix. Those places are basically another form of welfare for fat bitches.

Second, I'm surprised that theres only 101 people that owe more than a million. I bet if you add up all the people that get private shit it's a lot more.

(05-28-2018 02:54 PM)Razgriz Wrote:  

This forum and Mike Rowe were a key factor in getting me to leave college and get into the electrical line trade. The decision just looks better day by day.

You should look at getting a job at Hawaiian electric. Those fuckers make a fortune. They are also gonna hire tonsa new dudes because basically the whole systems infrastructure needs to be replaced. A lot was built before Hawaii was a state, hence it was less regulated. Check it out.

Aloha!

[AceP]

Damn.

Power to the banks and the government. The institutions are working these people like them farmers milking their cows for milk.

Probably the same way how the EU governments will use the migrants tho (if they can use them at all lol)

[scenicway]

$1mill debt to make $225k. Brilliant.

As someone who went the whole nine yards with the US education system, no debt (via military), and has a high paying job now, if I was giving advice to a young guy, I'd say don't bother. These fields are totally infested by SJW, white knight, blue-pill types. Sadly, even the military is victim to this except for a few small communities (hint; the ones without women).

I worked in some trades before college, and have many friends that still do. If I had a do over I'd skip all the bullshit and become an iron-worker or lineman. Something along those lines. Something where you get to be a man at work, and not have to watch everything you say or do because it might get reported to HR.

If you do it right, you'll still make just as much money, if not more.

[zatara]

Americans just need to emigrate more. Theres no point in wasting a decade of your life or more paying off hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. Just go to one of the English speaking countries where its easy to get a visa as an American with a college degree (Australia or Ireland for example), get a job, and live there. The language, standard of living, culture etc are all extremely similar so its not exactly a huge deal.

If it became more common for people to just flat out ditch their student loans the system might change to be more reasonable to try to minimize this. But when everyone just happily pays off their mountain of debt nothing will change.

That and as other posters have mentioned, someone should really start telling 18 year olds that going into $200k of debt to get a degree in art history isn't the best idea in the world.

[churros]

(05-28-2018 01:54 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

I can't recall where I read it, but I do remember reading something that was explaining how fashion came about. Basically, the aristocracy would develop some sort of manner of dress like poofy pants or a frilly collar in order to show they were part of the nobility, as peasants couldn't afford frilly collars or poofy pants. But as textile manufacturing developed fancy clothes became increasingly available to the growing middle class and eventually to the lower classes, and those people would try to dress like the aristocrats. The aristocrats would then move on to something else because once the proles were wearing a style it wasn't fancy anymore.

I see university as being a similar phenomenon. Prior to the 60s it was only rich people that went to college, so that degree served as a proxy for being the right sort of person. The massive prosperity of the United States in the 20th century made it so that the middle classes could get those degrees, and suddenly a degree isn't that ticket to a corner office sinecure that it used to be, since you could still have a degree while being one of those disgusting middle class people. In the last couple decades it got even worse because the welfare state decided to start pushing everyone into college so that the even more disgusting peasants were going to college (with crippling debt). So now liberals pat themselves on the back for getting Jamal and Shaniqua the same diplomas as Nigel Huffbottom and Mary Shelly Ponceby, without realizing that the social value of those diplomas has been rendered nil by their very ubiquity.

Universities still have a real utility in the West, and that is to socialise the middle class for HR and management positions, since the labourers now only work in China etc. This socialisation explains why middle class men are so effeminate nowadays. And don't forget that the top universities are extremely profitable fronts for investing in property, that's why Goldman Sachs own Harvard etc. but pretend to be enlightening the world. The welfare state hasn't really got fuck all to do with this, since we're talking about private debt, federal or not.

[AceP]

(05-29-2018 05:51 AM)zatara Wrote:  

Americans just need to emigrate more. Theres no point in wasting a decade of your life or more paying off hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. Just go to one of the English speaking countries where its easy to get a visa as an American with a college degree (Australia or Ireland for example), get a job, and live there. The language, standard of living, culture etc are all extremely similar so its not exactly a huge deal.

If it became more common for people to just flat out ditch their student loans the system might change to be more reasonable to try to minimize this. But when everyone just happily pays off their mountain of debt nothing will change.

That and as other posters have mentioned, someone should really start telling 18 year olds that going into $200k of debt to get a degree in art history isn't the best idea in the world.

True.

Taxes go to the ones that doesn't deserve it too. Go into "welfare" of the poverty and jobless when they themselves don't want to work and use their groceries money for drinks and grass.

Can't just revamp the school system into something affordable and of quality like Germany.

[WalterBlack]

Fuck this guy:

Quote:

Mr. Meru then entered into a government-sponsored repayment plan based on income. He agreed to monthly payments at 10% of his discretionary income, defined as adjusted gross income minus 150% of the poverty level. Any balance remaining after 25 years is forgiven, effectively covered by taxpayers. The forgiven amount is then taxed as ordinary income.

So he will owe $2M in 25 years time, and it will get written off. Why should taxpayers pay for this fuckup? His family take vacations and he drives a Tesla - I guess he's just coasting along until the loan is forgiven.

I think universities should be on the hook for all loans issued - that would drastically lower the amount of people admitted. There's too many people with degrees, you even need a degree just to be an admin nowadays at many big companies.

Fuck USC too, their fees are obscene.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(05-28-2018 01:54 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

I can't recall where I read it, but I do remember reading something that was explaining how fashion came about. Basically, the aristocracy would develop some sort of manner of dress like poofy pants or a frilly collar in order to show they were part of the nobility, as peasants couldn't afford frilly collars or poofy pants. But as textile manufacturing developed fancy clothes became increasingly available to the growing middle class and eventually to the lower classes, and those people would try to dress like the aristocrats. The aristocrats would then move on to something else because once the proles were wearing a style it wasn't fancy anymore.

I see university as being a similar phenomenon. Prior to the 60s it was only rich people that went to college, so that degree served as a proxy for being the right sort of person. The massive prosperity of the United States in the 20th century made it so that the middle classes could get those degrees, and suddenly a degree isn't that ticket to a corner office sinecure that it used to be, since you could still have a degree while being one of those disgusting middle class people. In the last couple decades it got even worse because the welfare state decided to start pushing everyone into college so that the even more disgusting peasants were going to college (with crippling debt). So now liberals pat themselves on the back for getting Jamal and Shaniqua the same diplomas as Nigel Huffbottom and Mary Shelly Ponceby, without realizing that the social value of those diplomas has been rendered nil by their very ubiquity.

Building on this analogy (and putting a manosphere spin on it), college became about status when it became majority women.

For men, college was about utility. Go to college, immerse yourself in something you can learn a lot about, then go out and do it.

For women, this really isn't exactly the case. It's about pedigree. It's about class. The price needs to be high. Because if it was low, it wouldn't show that you had a high status. With this way of thinking, if anyone can get it, then it's worth less. (A good comparison here is to the housing market.)

The problem is that the "women's values" of status over utility has come to define the college experience -- and therefore it defines men by association.

One thing is certain. This is a different beast than when I went to college and you could pay the entire semester's tuition with the money you made delivering pizza over the summer.

Economics isn't my strong point, so I'm probably not hitting the target exactly right with this post. Maybe someone who knows money better than me can fill in the blanks. All's I know is that when women enter, the market changes.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

< I think that they scrapped the government college debt program. Some people are now in their retirement with college debt, since you cannot go bankrupt over it.

The 1.3 trillion college debt bubble will get worse.

[FilipSRB]

(05-30-2018 02:05 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

Building on this analogy (and putting a manosphere spin on it), college became about status when it became majority women.

For men, college was about utility. Go to college, immerse yourself in something you can learn a lot about, then go out and do it.

For women, this really isn't exactly the case. It's about pedigree. It's about class. The price needs to be high. Because if it was low, it wouldn't show that you had a high status. With this way of thinking, if anyone can get it, then it's worth less. (A good comparison here is to the housing market.)

The problem is that the "women's values" of status over utility has come to define the college experience -- and therefore it defines men by association.

One thing is certain. This is a different beast than when I went to college and you could pay the entire semester's tuition with the money you made delivering pizza over the summer.

Economics isn't my strong point, so I'm probably not hitting the target exactly right with this post. Maybe someone who knows money better than me can fill in the blanks. All's I know is that when women enter, the market changes.

The Last Psychiatrist agrees with you:

Quote:

I don't want to be cynical, but boy oh boy is it hard not to observe that at the very moment in our history when we have the most women in the Senate, Congress is perceived to be pathetic, bickering, easily manipulated and powerless, and I'll risk the blowback and say that those are all stereotypes of women. Easy, HuffPo, I know it's not causal, I am saying the reverse: that if some field keeps the trappings of power but loses actual power, women enter it in droves and men abandon it like the Roanoke Colony.
...
I can't predict the next field of power, I'm happy to hear your projections, the point for now is that while power moves ahead of you and your family, it leaves behind the appearance of a gender (or racial) struggle; and the immediate result of this is that people consider it a societal achievement that they are merely playing, even if what they are doing is ultimately meaningless. So while women (appropriately) fought for, and got, equal access to college educations-- and now women even outnumber men in colleges-- today we find that college is irrelevant. Huh.

[Arado]

Who are the biggest beneficiaries of the status quo that are standing in the way of online courses like Udemy/Udacity/Coursera from taking over and providing real skills that companies are after?

The whole education system is such a zero sum credential racket mill it's mind blowing the amount of resources we waste as a society on it. Is there any way that we can get companies to drop the BA requirement for jobs and focusing on skills and personality instead?

If companies are looking for workers of a certain class or IQ, surely there is a way of proving it instead of forcing students to waste 4 years and six figures just for a certificate.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(05-31-2018 10:35 AM)Arado Wrote:  

Who are the biggest beneficiaries of the status quo that are standing in the way of online courses like Udemy/Udacity/Coursera from taking over and providing real skills that companies are after?

The whole education system is such a zero sum credential racket mill it's mind blowing the amount of resources we waste as a society on it. Is there any way that we can get companies to drop the BA requirement for jobs and focusing on skills and personality instead?

If companies are looking for workers of a certain class or IQ, surely there is a way of proving it instead of forcing students to waste 4 years and six figures just for a certificate.

A lot of education is useless, antiquated and unnecessary. X-time of content and usefeul insights can be put especially in college.

Some fields are of course more practical than others, but most people forget the overwhelming majority or it's of little use.

For example: MBA and most business degrees are bullshit. Sure - you have specialists like accountants and a few other fields, but the overwhelming majority of the field can be learned in 2 years.

Most social sciences are almost pure propaganda.

As for companies - when you hire someone coming from Harvard you hire pedigree, heritage, likely IQ and minimum level of skill.

But a truly advanced meritocratic system would teach a high-IQ person more by age 18 than he would get as a Phd at Harvard. Currently I doubt that the elite want to go down the IQ-route even putting aside the then crumbling leftist "everyone being equal" dogma.

The desired goal as put in Brave New World may indeed be to have A++, B- or C+ put on your clothes for everyone to see, but as of now this might be embarrassing.

The reason for this is that elite-spawn are at times not overly smart, politicians are sometimes dumb, even Nobel price laureates have at times IQs in the 115 range. When you see a senator talk or a CEO rant on about something and have his B-- IQ assessment on his lapel, then it would not look good. No one would take the future king Charles seriously if he walks around with his C- uniform.

The companies are already using approximations - SAT results which are more meritocratic than the universities you get into. Plus conscientiousness is also a factor that is the result of completing an MIT study.



But as a side note - the system is still more meritocratic and offers plenty of opportunities - compare it to any time in known history - it's still great. We are just larping on how it could be better or how it is manipulated now.

Give it time - society will make it work - and online studying will become a thing. I think that they are hesitant to roll it out, because then they are losing control over it. Plus they cannot charge the 40.000$/year tuitions anymore. College could just as well be organized online with students coming over to tests whenever they feel ready. Some could finish medical studies in 2 years while it might take others 8.

[Dulceácido]

A million dollar in student loans? Did they buy the fucking school or just attend there?

[nola]

(05-31-2018 02:03 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(05-31-2018 10:35 AM)Arado Wrote:  

Who are the biggest beneficiaries of the status quo that are standing in the way of online courses like Udemy/Udacity/Coursera from taking over and providing real skills that companies are after?

The whole education system is such a zero sum credential racket mill it's mind blowing the amount of resources we waste as a society on it. Is there any way that we can get companies to drop the BA requirement for jobs and focusing on skills and personality instead?

If companies are looking for workers of a certain class or IQ, surely there is a way of proving it instead of forcing students to waste 4 years and six figures just for a certificate.

A lot of education is useless, antiquated and unnecessary. X-time of content and usefeul insights can be put especially in college.

Some fields are of course more practical than others, but most people forget the overwhelming majority or it's of little use.

For example: MBA and most business degrees are bullshit. Sure - you have specialists like accountants and a few other fields, but the overwhelming majority of the field can be learned in 2 years.

Most social sciences are almost pure propaganda.

As for companies - when you hire someone coming from Harvard you hire pedigree, heritage, likely IQ and minimum level of skill.

But a truly advanced meritocratic system would teach a high-IQ person more by age 18 than he would get as a Phd at Harvard. Currently I doubt that the elite want to go down the IQ-route even putting aside the then crumbling leftist "everyone being equal" dogma.

The desired goal as put in Brave New World may indeed be to have A++, B- or C+ put on your clothes for everyone to see, but as of now this might be embarrassing.

The reason for this is that elite-spawn are at times not overly smart, politicians are sometimes dumb, even Nobel price laureates have at times IQs in the 115 range. When you see a senator talk or a CEO rant on about something and have his B-- IQ assessment on his lapel, then it would not look good. No one would take the future king Charles seriously if he walks around with his C- uniform.

The companies are already using approximations - SAT results which are more meritocratic than the universities you get into. Plus conscientiousness is also a factor that is the result of completing an MIT study.



But as a side note - the system is still more meritocratic and offers plenty of opportunities - compare it to any time in known history - it's still great. We are just larping on how it could be better or how it is manipulated now.

Give it time - society will make it work - and online studying will become a thing. I think that they are hesitant to roll it out, because then they are losing control over it. Plus they cannot charge the 40.000$/year tuitions anymore. College could just as well be organized online with students coming over to tests whenever they feel ready. Some could finish medical studies in 2 years while it might take others 8.

When I was at MIT there was a saying around Boston and Cambridge among Venture Capitalist.

Harvard = Show Horses
MIT = Work Horses

Fuck when I was in undergrad MIT didn't even have humanities courses. We would go to Harvard to take all those classes if you actually wanted to take them. They were not prerequisites either for any of the degree courses that I know of. I think the closest you can get at MIT to a humanities degree is Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Also MIT was a largely libertarian student body in my time. Although we would hang out with Harvard kids we quietly had no respect for them.

The HBS students would frequently try to come down and get us to build their prototypes or whatever tech they wanted. Little did they know we had Venture Capitalist already trolling us with all their funds solidified.

It took Harvard students a bit of time to figure out we are not all completely autistic and actually could run a company and raise money without some faggot with a liberal arts education.

Speaking of autism we had a kid in my dorm who was autistic as fuck. He ran two companies to acquisition patent trolling as a class project before he was old enough to drink earning him a cool few 100 million. It's the type of shit Harvard kids can only dream of. The thing about MIT is the wealth generated by it's alumni and students are obscure technologies unlike Bill Gates or Zuckerburg which founded famous main stream tech companies at Harvard.

[Arado]

Bumping this thread because I was surprised to read an article in WaPo that admits that the entire feminist indoctrination network is completely dependent on forcing students to get a meaningless credential (BA) in order to have white collar job prospects.

Link here

Quote:

Imagine a world without mandatory college diplomas

This should send a small shiver through the spines of anyone employed in academia: the recruiting site Glassdoor has published a list of companies that no longer require a college degree — including professional heavyweights Google, Apple and Ernst & Young. If firms like these no longer insist upon a sheepskin, it seems just possible that the decades-long trend of requiring more and more education to maintain a toehold in the middle class might reverse.

To be clear, we’re a long way from returning to the days when enrollments were tiny, and cutting-edge technology firms were founded by ambitious machinists rather than Harvard dropouts. But our reverence for the college diploma is a social norm, not an economic necessity, as economist Bryan Caplan cogently argued in his recent book, “The Case Against Education.” There are better ways, such as apprenticeships or management training programs, to sort out workers who are bright and conscientious — especially given the barriers this throws up for talented people without the financial or social capital to obtain a four-year degree.

...

Colleges and universities have largely evaded the economic disruption that has whipsawed the rest of us; there’s little threat from foreign competition or automation, and they control the main gateway to secure and remunerative work. True, feckless graduate programs producing too many PhDs have led to ferocious competition for tenure-track jobs — but the competition is so fierce precisely because the work is so secure and attractive compared with the rest of the economy.

Those people will lose a lot if “everyone should go to college” stops being a universal mantra. But they’re not the only ones who should be shaking. A lot of vital research goes on at those schools. They’re also repositories of enormous left-wing cultural and political power that would be scattered if enrollments began to precipitously decline. Indeed, enrollments already are falling in the humanities, where most of that political and cultural power is held.

What does feminism look like without a nationwide network of women’s studies departments organizing conferences and doing research? What would our current debate about racism look like without the vocabulary and theoretical work supplied by critical race theorists? What would the rest of left-wing politics look like if many academics had to get jobs that didn’t leave them so much time to think and write? And more broadly, what would left-wing activism look like without the critical nexus of student groups that organize protests and indoctrinate future graduates?

In another era, the left might have looked to trade unions, or the media. But unionism, never particularly strong here, has been gutted by deindustrialization. And journalism’s business model is crumbling under assault from the tech companies, which have grabbed all the advertising dollars. If cracks start appearing in the university system, what, to coin a phrase, is left?

That probably sounds like a joyous prospect for conservatives, who endlessly bemoan left-wing cultural hegemony. Most of that energy would be better spent shoring up their own bases of power, such as churches, for they are in no better shape.

The increasing interlinkage of partisan leanings and cultural identity has allowed both sides of the political spectrum to consolidate control over key cultural institutions, which they can leverage to foment policy change. But it’s also concentrated partisan power within those nodes, leaving both sides dependent on them — and vulnerable to their decline.

[WalterBlack]

I recently paid off my student loan. I borrowed USD 110K and ended up paying back 140K due to interest, and it took me 10 years. I got lucky because interest rates dropped from 8.75% to 2.5% just when I had to start paying. My US citizen uncle co-signed the loan - if he didn't the rate would have been 16.75%!

Again, fuck that guy in the article!

[BaatumMania]

I think self-employed medical professionals can have huge revenue but after expenses and taxes are solidly middle-upper class (middle class if their business isn't doing that well). So I doubt the banks will get that money back.