Is someone experiencing student loan hardship if they can afford an Axe-Fx?

Is someone experiencing student loan hardship if they can afford an Axe-Fx?

  • No

    Votes: 25 75.8%

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 9.1%

  • Yes, but the Axe-Fx is worth it

    Votes: 5 15.2%
  • Total voters
    33
I'm pretty firm on this.

NO. Maybe we can carp about how bad the system is, but this is what we have. I struggled and took out plenty of loan money...and it took 10 + years, but I paid it back. No, I don't even work in the field I studied, and believe me I struggled mightily some months to make that payment, but I did it. I worked while going to school as well to offset the amount of debt I had, but it was still significant by the time I graduated.

There are plenty of ways around this:
-Get a scholarship (yeah, it means putting your head down and forgetting about all that leisure time that we enjoy in college.)
-Apply for every ridiculous grant you can possibly apply for. The answer is always no if you don't try.
-Work full time 1/2 of the year, save money, go to part time and school the other half. Takes you longer to graduate, but much less debt.
-CALL the bank that has the loan. They WANT to work with you, and in many cases will defer payments (still accrued interest) if you run into trouble or are unemployed for a time.

And I see this as a 1st world problem. Regardless of all the optimum conditions across the world where education is free, there is still a huge majority of the world that does not have the option for higher education under any circumstances (or conditions so unthinkable that it's just not possible to attain.)

We have a very simple path here. Get higher education, you get a better job (every study bears this one out). While it's nice to say you can study what interests you, you can't expect that job offers will rain down on you with an Elizabethan Literature degree. (Get the Econ degree, read Marlowe on the side.) It is our society that has laid this out for us in that to get the things we want in life to go in debt for it. No use carping about it. I know that sounds overly Republican, but until the world is a place where we are all provided Education, Health Care, a house, and a salary, put your head down and work for what you want.

This is from a guy who took 12 years to get his degree (Well, in there I did go to war, Rented cars, and opened a Private Investigations business....) I majored in International Relations mainly because it was easy for me. I now work bringing Video services to HeadEnd's for a major Cable organization....so essentially all that schooling and debt was for something that I never used.

But dammit, I paid that fooker off.

IMO.

R
 
I might be the overwhelming minority here, hell I might even be crazy..

I'm currently paying off student loans, own an Axe Fx, several high end instruments, nice recording equipment, live in a nice apartment, drive a nice new vehicle, etc..

How do I manage this? Simple, when I made my decision to pursue a degree, I did not care about which one "interested" me the most..

I made a list of all the things I wanted my life to consist of and then calculated how much income I'd need per year to sustain a life like that..

That really narrowed down the options for me at school.. so I went with the one that I felt I could be the most successful at.

Fast-forward to today.. I have a bachelors of science in chemical engineering and work at a chemical plant.

Yes I had to take out loans, yes it sucks to pay them, but at the end of the day, I can afford them because that was my intention all along.

...And I get to enjoy the best god damn guitar tones every day after work.
 
I'm afraid so. I taught at a community college for a couple years and witnessed this very thing. I could discuss further, but I should probably refrain.

Ben Randolph said:
I wonder if lot of people over-borrow in order to have student loans be their "income" for a few years. I kind of considered doing that 20 years ago when I was in college, just to get a bit of extra money for a Pentium computer (this was back when a Pentium was the uber-machine). I wound up working a job I hated for 8 months at home, but saved enough that, along with a part-time job and teaching fellowship, I managed to graduate with minimal debt. I imagine a lot's changed since then.
Click to expand...
 
Something to consider:

What happens to all those who have already paid back their student loans? My wife and I worked very hard to pay my hers off and then mine. If someone else is getting theirs "forgiven", where's my shorty, Morty? ;-)

But in all seriousness, it cannot happen. Cliff hit the nail on the head. A government solution is not the answer to a problem they helped create. And yes, it absolutely comes down to personal responsibility. If I could, I would have instructed myself better during highschool (and before) and chosen a different route in college, while not letting go of developing the musical talents I was given.

Thankfully, there are options for learning that don't require a degree, and it is possible to work and attend college. I did work study as an undergrad, and then worked multiple jobs while building my teaching studio and career as a musician as a grad student.
 
It's amazing how you end up with mountains of debt when you chose to finance your life while attending school rather than working to help cover tuition costs...
 
The economy has collapsed in the area in which I live (heart of the coalfields), mainly because of government regulations that were imposed far to fast for people to explore any other option. Of course they say only 30,000 miner jobs or so (lost count?) are lost but they don't consider, equipment builders, repair and machine shops, railroads -manufacturer - repair, truck manufactures and repair shops, road taxes and road crews, medical care and the facilities, insurance providers, retail of every type.
All because natural gas is better? No jobs once the line is laid - meter and bill. Starting cost as much as coal with certain drastic increases over time. It's proven that between what is lost into the atmosphere and what is burned, green house gases are not less. drilling miles deep and fracturing the 30 mile thick eggshell surface of the earth we live on and this industry highly un-regulated.

But all of this to say, no matter what the level of collage you achieve there are no jobs here! I'm lucky enough to not directly depend on the coal industry but it has affected every single person in this area to a substantial degree.
 
More "yes, yes, yes" to get the money when you want it and "no, no, no" to paying it back when you promised you would. I'm not sure we're talking about the Federal government in general or these college students.

Oh, it's both?

Yeah, that's not going to end well. Neither has a clue about the concept of integrity.
 
Last edited:
And here I was, expecting the link to take me to a picture of some young musician, unkempt, "artist skinny", living in a dingy, messy apartment, sub-par everything-in-sight, except for that ONE thing: the AxeFx. Waaaay wrong on that, right?

I could understand if the above description fit, and we're talking about students scraping by on nickels and dimes, denying the other pleasures in life in order to pursue that one true love, music. Hell, what do college kids spend on one weekend out drinking? $50 per week? But no.

Just as with my memories of health care when I was little, it seemed to work a lot better way back when before the government decided it needed fixing.

I guess I missed the memo where, evidently, the thought of junior waking up in a cold sweat due to contemplating how his future was going to be financed has become some sort of cruel and unusual punishment. As a young lad, I watched 18 year old kids get conscripted involuntarily into a war. Now, little Johnny gets offended by hearing the micro-aggressive term known as "personal responsibility".

WTF. Head out of ass soon or we're doomed.
 
the problem today is that anyone can learn about the latest most expensive gear and then buy it quickly due to amazon, internet, shipping, etc.

so people who want to be a musician spend money on the most expensive gear because they NEED IT to be a musician. oh web programmer? well you need a $4000 8 core computer, obviously. everything is within reach with no one to tell you not to buy it except your wallet. photographer? well you NEED the 400mm 2.8 IS L for $13,000 just in case you need to go shoot football on a whim.... it's too easy these days.

i wish schools taught practicality, how to do taxes, how to save money, etc. instead of some other "useless" curriculum.
 
Buyer beware/caveat emptor: Sellers puff their products and services to entice a prospective buyer. It is up to the buyer to do their research to determine if the product/service is worth the price. However, there is a threshold from where puffery turns into misrepresentative lies. I don't know what the threshold is for for-profit schools.

Supply/demand: Student loans are so easy to get that schools have increased their tuition and lesser schools have been created to cash in on the easily available student loans. Unfortunately, it seems that many prospective undergraduate students are not financially savvy enough to weigh the cost of tuition vs. their expected income from a chosen degree once they graduate.

I believe people should be accountable for their actions, like incurring debt.

The government has created a law that forgives debt for borrowers who prove their schools used illegal tactics to recruit them, such as by lying about their graduates’ earnings. People can use such a law when it is offered to them. If we don't like it, it should change.

Since it is very possible Syd Andrade is a fellow Axe-Fx forum member here, I'll toss him a bone. I don't know when he got his $44k job, but odds are he purchased the Axe-Fx after he graduated in 2011, after he was no longer receiving student loans. He doesn't seem to claim he cannot afford his loans. With proper budgeting, he should be able to afford his $30k student loan payments while also being able to afford an Axe-Fx. His gripe is that Art Institutes lied about their product and acknowledges the Education Department has to make tough decisions about misleading promises that are difficult to document.
 
Here in California community colleges are mostly free and the two year studies count as general studies when applying to a 4-year university. Which saves anyone lots of money. One thing missing is to have more community colleges preparing students for a trade, as in Europe.

And yes, sell that AXE to pay off student loans.
 
Is someone experiencing student loan hardship if they can afford an Axe-Fx?
Click to expand...

Yes.

And it's independent of owning an Axe-Fx.

With large debts we tend to set a payback period that makes some fiscal sense, eat the interest, and move on with our lives. Student loans approach the size of home mortgages now -- would you be so critical of someone who was paying off their mortgage still if they bought an Axe-Fx? What about a car loan? Highly doubtful. As much as a mortgage and and car loan are necessary debt for the vast majority of Americans, so too now is student loan debt. Having it does not preclude you having a financial life outside of debt repayment obligations.
 
iaresee said:
Student loans approach the size of home mortgages now -- would you be so critical of someone who was paying off their mortgage still if they bought an Axe-Fx? What about a car loan? Highly doubtful. As much as a mortgage and and car loan are necessary debt for the vast majority of Americans, so too now is student loan debt. Having it does not preclude you having a financial life outside of debt repayment obligations.
Click to expand...
1) A mortgage is secured debt whereas as student loan is not.
2) Paying on a mortgage will more often than not create equity.
3) There is no such thing as "necessary debt". One does not have to buy a house with a loan. One does not even need to buy a house. One does not need to buy a car that requires they go into debt. Unfortunately we are programmed to think we do.
 
Matt_B_77 said:
1) A mortgage is secured debt whereas as student loan is not.
2) Paying on a mortgage will more often than not create equity.
3) There is no such thing as "necessary debt". One does not have to buy a house with a loan. One does not even need to buy a house. One does not need to buy a car that requires they go into debt. Unfortunately we are programmed to think we do.
Click to expand...
Moot points, all of them. There's nothing inherently wrong with managing debt over time and that's what he's doing here. There's nothing abnormally wrong with not plowing all your available money in to debt repayment. Scorning someone for not plowing 100% of their money to debt repayment is absurd.
 
Last edited:
No one owes you a job. No one forced you into college at your own (eventual) expense, and at the immediate expense of everyone else.

Take some damn responsibility for your choices and their consequences.

(However: If this results in the Government realising it needs to remove itself from the loan system because of its terrible over-regulation [even of itself!], then maybe these people are doing an ultimate good... ;))
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom