# What $200,000 in Student Debt Looks Like
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [November 22, 2010, 12:18pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364 "2010-11-22T12:18:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@JEG](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JEG)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/101 "2010-11-23T12:20:26Z")
lol. Actually right now I am trying to get a job as a lab tech for an environmental testing company.
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### Author:  [@dubbin91](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/dubbin91)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/102 "2010-11-23T12:45:55Z")
> [@bobbyg1243](#):
>
> I guess I was one of the people who decided that I wasn’t going to college and I was going to let my street smarts take me to a successful career.
>
> With the way things are going lately, a college degree isn’t going to mean jack shit in the future. I feel bad for the people who go to school and rack up all these bills and after they graduate, their degree means nothing.
Please explain on how college degrees mean jack shit in the future? I use a lot of what I learned in school ever day on the job and would not have my job without my degree. I think you mean to say is "I feel bad for people who racked up debt and got college degrees that are meanless degrees…IE. General Degrees.
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### Author:  [@RedGoober4Life](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/RedGoober4Life)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/103 "2010-11-23T12:47:52Z")
> [@bobbyg1243](#):
>
> I guess I was one of the people who decided that I wasn’t going to college and I was going to let my street smarts take me to a successful career.
>
> With the way things are going lately, a college degree isn’t going to mean jack shit in the future. I feel bad for the people who go to school and rack up all these bills and after they graduate, their degree means nothing.
I think it has more to do with the person. People render themselves useless regardless of their education.
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### Author:  [@drvnkd](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/drvnkd)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/104 "2010-11-23T12:50:27Z")
Garbage in, garbage out. Thats what you get out of any college you choose.
My degree got me an interview. I do not have to use much of it day to day.
What I use most is researching how shit works so I can figure out how to make similar shit work.
My biggest college regret is that I spent zero time outside of classes on course work (it was BSC)
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### Author:  [@NYstanger](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/NYstanger)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/105 "2010-11-23T12:56:53Z")
> [@Fry](#):
>
> The max allowable term depends on the size of the loan. And the point of my post is that at the minimum wage job she is now qualified for it actually can’t be paid off.
profile said she was a manager somewhere so at least she would be above minimum wage.
---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------
> [@boardjnky4](#):
>
> “i def understand what youre saying, but what i mean is someone can get their basic required classes out of the way at a 2year, like their basic writing classes, histories, arts, humanities, etc. coming in as a transfer student at a 4year like buff state, instead of needing 2 classes or 6 credits in all of these, if you have an AA or AS degree you only need 3 credits or 1 class of each of those requirements.”
>
> This sentence is the exact reason why you need a better education…
I seen what you did there.
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### Author:  [@Deathproof](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Deathproof)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/106 "2010-11-23T13:57:37Z")
Plenty of dumb people make it through their undergrad, great example right here.
$200k for a Sociology undergrad? Wow. U.B. and Buffstate have plenty of programs that will get you a decent job and only cost $25k. Plenty of people spend $200k on school, they are called doctors and lawyers.
$200k for a program that includes liberal arts classes! No one cares about a Sociology undergrad, it is like history, it is your doctorate that is important. You can start off anywhere, it is where you end that counts, she isn’t even done with school haha.
Who is lending out this kind of money? You shouldn’t be allowed to borrow that much for a useless undergrad, grad school yes. You are lending $200k to someone that is just as qualified as someone who borrowed $25k for school. Both will get similarly low paying jobs, how could the person who borrowed $200k ever pay that back? The person who borrowed $25k will probably borrow far less than $200k to get their doctorate and end up far more qualified than the person with the $200k undergrad, and they will obviously end up making more money.
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### Author:  [@Spam16v](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Spam16v)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/107 "2010-11-23T15:48:49Z")
I hate when high end college graduates talk down to me when they have to explain what sizes are what when I order coffee from them at Starbucks.
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### Author:  [@upstateclipse](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/upstateclipse)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/108 "2010-11-23T15:54:53Z")
> [@Deathproof](#):
>
> Who is lending out this kind of money? You shouldn’t be allowed to borrow that much for a useless undergrad, grad school yes. You are lending $200k to someone that is just as qualified as someone who borrowed $25k for school. Both will get similarly low paying jobs, how could the person who borrowed $200k ever pay that back? The person who borrowed $25k will probably borrow far less than $200k to get their doctorate and end up far more qualified than the person with the $200k undergrad, and they will obviously end up making more money.
This is my biggest question about all of this. Also, I really feel that not everyone should go to college(like most other countries practice) and unfortunately that is not the case here in the United States.
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### Author:  [@livin4hockey](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/livin4hockey)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/109 "2010-11-23T16:11:23Z")
> [@upstateclipse](#):
>
> This is my biggest question about all of this. Also, I really feel that not everyone should go to college(like most other countries practice) and unfortunately that is not the case here in the United States.
I agree, not everyone needs to go to college. And there are so many things that complicate this. First, kids are pushed to go to college because they are constantly told that they won’t get anywhere without a college degree. Secondly, the standards have dropped so much that any almost any kid can get into college and get a degree (that could very well prove useless in their life). And I don’t want to even get started about the BS college courses I and many other students are forced to take. But let’s just say that learning French to fulfill my foreign language requirement has done me absolutely no good in my career. A bachelors degree should be attainable in 2 years, not 4. But every college still hangs on to the high schoolish “well rounded” education principles that force students to take courses that they will never need knowledge from in their lifetime, thus wasting time and money. I know that’s slightly off the topic, but it all boils down to time and money being spent without a profitable result.
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### Author:  [@slo\_ride](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/slo_ride)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/110 "2010-11-23T20:27:36Z")
[http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/23/biz-school-grads-overeducated-and-under-funded/](http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/23/biz-school-grads-overeducated-and-under-funded/)
interesting read that is sort of related…
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### Author:  [@Minglor](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Minglor)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/111 "2010-11-25T14:52:19Z")
haha.
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### Author:  [@RedGoober4Life](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/RedGoober4Life)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/112 "2010-11-27T00:09:57Z")
> [@slo ride](#):
>
> [http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/23/biz-school-grads-overeducated-and-under-funded/](http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/23/biz-school-grads-overeducated-and-under-funded/)
>
> interesting read that is sort of related…
> **[Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-us-produce-too-m/)**
>
> American science education lags behind that of many other nations, right? So why does it produce so many talented young researchers who cannot find a job in their chosen field of study?
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### Author:  [@slo\_ride](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/slo_ride)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/113 "2010-11-27T22:16:19Z")
> [@RedGoober4Life](#):
>
> [Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists? | Scientific American](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-the-us-produce-too-m)
interesting read…although i’m not sure i buy all of it but a good bit of it seems true… i’ve worked with several ‘prestigious’ researchers at a few different institutions around the country on the designs for their lab spaces in support of research grants… most are absolute prima donnas who attempt to bully everyone around them but nearly every university or institution allows it because they are desperate for research dollars. they will blow millions on renovations or new construction with only the hope that this all star researcher will continue to get money… in a few cases only a couple years later that same researcher’s research has fallen out of favor and the money dries up immediately leaving the university or hospital with single use labs that are useless for anything else because they allowed some swinging-dick PhD to make a whole series of unreasonable and personality driven design decisions.
although in a lot of ways i agree with the point made in the article that this forces researchers to always be doing the best research because it is always a competition instead of a known cash flow that might allow career scientists to sit back and just keep doing whatever they are doing even if it doesn’t make the best use of the money- i’ve done some work with government energy research labs which had this sort of career science structure…a couple of years ago they were still doing research on clean coal technologies that hadn’t been installed on a commercial scale plant in like 15 years…but they were doing it because that is what they had been doing for the past few decades, even though there were other labs and institutions and even commercial labs testing far more modern technologies… they finally updated their facilities and research objectives but it required new staff, some open mindedness from management and a bunch of field trips… seriously, architects should not be telling scientists what the state-of-the-art is…
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### Author:  [@livin4hockey](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/livin4hockey)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2011, 7:36am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/what-200-000-in-student-debt-looks-like/206364/114 "2011-01-02T07:36:18Z")
Bump, she has somehow managed to get $8.5k in donations. I’m surprised but then again not seeing as it was the holidays and maybe some people felt generous. Some of the responses are hilarious though
[http://www.edulender.com/blog/why-i’m-joining-edulender/](http://www.edulender.com/blog/why-i%E2%80%99m-joining-edulender/)
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