“life isn’t always easy and can’t be planned, but hard work and determination pay off in the end”

So true! I learned this lesson a long time ago. I’d have to add that life isn’t fair either!

“young people, people under twenty-five (she looked very pointedly at me, though I passed that mark years ago), don’t know what it means to struggle. They have been given everything they have ever wanted and they are weak because they don’t know what it’s like to have to fight to get what you want.”

I think I would have either punched this lady or walked out. Without the pointed look, it might have been tolerable, but what a rude thing to do! I may be gen Y, but I have fought tooth and nail for everything I have.

Sure, it kind of sucks to be graduating college right now, and things look a little grim, but in a few years, it will (once again) be a completely different world. Whining and complaining doesn’t change anything. The only thing you can do is work with what you have and go from there. Life never goes according to plan, so you might as well get used to it now.

(Also, what’s with all the complaining about student loans? Sure they suck, but you signed the papers.)

Furthermore, we as a generation are more lazy, we are living at home longer and longer and its not for good reasons either. We are racking up debt and living of others.

I am 24 and taking responsibility now by paying for rent, utilities voluntarily to my parents.

Also, this is also partly to blame parents of today because they want their kids to have a better life but wheres the balance?

They put themselves in debt and struggle and give us everything or at least enough. Yet we don’t appreciate it, and don’t learn anything from it.

But I don’t think the lenders should get off the hook here. The student loan system is pretty screwed up. Private student loan companies are lending hundreds of thousands of dollars to kids who are barely 18 on the promise that they’ll be able to afford monthly payments that sometimes reach the thousands in 5 years. The problem is, a lot of students made those promises when the economy was growing, and now that it’s shrinking it’s a lot harder to meet them than expected. I didn’t borrow hundreds of thousands, but between my husband and me we have a good chunk of loan debt.

The problem with the kids who make these mistakes with private lenders is that the lenders have nothing to lose. Private lenders guaranteed to get paid, and they can charge whatever interest they want. I’m all for guaranteeing federal loans, but there are limits on what students can borrow and what interest rates they can be charged. The same isn’t true for private loans, and yet the lenders don’t have to take on any risk. If private lenders had to take risks to loan money to students, you better believe they’d no longer give them a blank check to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on electronics and vacations.

Thanks for this great post! As you can see, it’s a topic I feel strongly about!