Welcome to the first edition of HATE MAIL, where I respond publicly to Internet assholes.
Today’s Idiot is Carol Fankhouser.
Last week, I had an article published in The Philadelphia Inquirer about how I reduced my monthly student loan payments from over $800 to $285.
On Sunday at 7:15 am, Carol sent me a message through a portfolio website I had forgotten was still up and only accessible through my LinkedIn page:
“Read your article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about your student loans (the ones you didn’t know you had…really?!). I had loans at 13+% over the years and guess what…I paid them off! Your comment about people lamenting 7% mortgages was incredibly stupid. They aren’t buying houses at that rate and defaulting because they have a brain. Check the housing market.
This was the final straw “To me, reducing student loan payments is a win-win: a win for the borrower, and a win for the U.S. economy.” Thanks for shoving it up the taxpayers backsides. We are paying off your loans when we already paid of ours. You haven’t learned a thing! In addition, that loan interest now isn’t going into the Obamacare funds. Taxpayers again will be paying for your stupidity.”
-Carol Fankhouser
Leaving the stalkerish behavior of a mad woman who has nothing better to do with her time than harass me on the web, her statements are asinine.
First of all, I’ll agree with her that not taking more financial responsibility when I was 22 years old was, as I admitted in my article, quite stupid (but thanks for reminding me, Carol! I’m sure you’ve never fucked up in your life–that’s why you spend your Sunday mornings telling strangers on the Internet they’re brainless).
But can we also agree that having students complete loan exit counseling through a dull, complete-on-your-own-time slideshow a few days before they say goodbye to the place they’ve called home for the past four years is not the best way to communicate critical financial information? For instance, I completed my online exit counseling while simultaneously trying to figure out if I should try to maintain my relationship with the girl I’d dated since October of Freshman year, spending our final evenings together cuddling and crying as we faced uncertainty.
(Spoiler: the relationship did not work out).
Now, if Carol would have taken the time to actually read my article rather than fall victim to her politically-induced brainwashing courtesy of conservative trigger words (student loans, Biden, etc.), she’d have noticed that I’ve received no forgiveness on my loans, and still must pay back the money I’ve taken out.
I discussed two government programs in the Inquirer article. First was Fresh Start, which simply removed the history of student loan default from my credit report. This allowed me to refinance my private loans so I wouldn’t have to pay $800+ per month to Sallie Mae. The program actually required me to start making payments towards public loans again, the exact opposite of what Carol claimed. My public loans also continued to accrue interest while in default, meaning my balance is higher than the original disbursement–the taxpayers haven’t bailed me out.
The other program I discussed was SAVE (Saving On A Valuable Education), which is simply an Income-Driven Repayment program. This means I don’t have to make outrageous monthly payments on my public student loans unless I reach a certain income threshold. As a freelancer with variable annual income, this is incredibly valuable. For this plan, I make a small payment towards the principal balance every month, while the government covers the interest. This prevents my loan balance from increasing even though I’m making payments. If we really believe in the value of college, shouldn’t we provide interest-free education loans anyway?
Now, I’m not completely lacking in empathy for this woman; I actually understand where Carol is coming from. If I had to pay 13% interest on my loans until they were entirely paid off, I’d be pissed too. If it wasn’t for the Biden Administration’s actions on student loans, I would still be paying similar interest rates on my private loans.
But, like I said in The Inquirer, I’m not asking for a Great Recession-style government bailout, just manageable monthly payments. I’m keenly aware that many people opt not to pursue college in order to avoid the massive amount of debt that comes with it, and a free ride may be unfair to those who made that calculated financial decision.
I also won’t attest to being an expert in the housing market. In fact, my editor added the quip about homebuyers lamenting 7% mortgages. However, do we really feel the interest rates on loans for education should be higher than mortgages? As an SEO professional often covering the nursing and allied health industries, there are huge and worsening shortages of skilled workers like nurses and social workers in the United States. While the shortage is due to several factors (burnout, understaffing, etc.), the cost of an undergraduate degree is just one more deterrent to add to the list.
Additionally, many people don’t understand that college is more than just skills training–that’s what technical colleges are for. A liberal arts degree challenges you to think in new ways, not only about your discipline of study, but life and the world in general. Some of the most important courses I took at my university were electives called “Walking” and “Silence”. While they sound like BS classes you take for an easy A, these courses were actually some of the most intellectually-engaging, helping me think about the philosophical implications of basic concepts we take for granted in our everyday lives.
Perhaps the fact that I’m able to consider questions from a multitude of perspectives, and through a variety of lenses (philosophical, political, economical, psychoanalytic, and so on), is the reason why I was published in The Inquirer, and Carol wasn’t.
It’s also important to note that college classes provide a valuable social environment, and one of the few where you’re not expected to get drunk while you’re around others. As someone who’s always struggled with crippling social anxiety, the college environment taught me how to build new friendships and relationships. And while, outside of class, that also often involved drinking ungodly amounts of alcohol, the social exposure I experienced in general was key to my development as an entire person.
Even after being out of college for more than five years at this point, I’d still love to continue my education and take classes. It would be amazing to connect with others over a shared interest in learning about a particular topic. Unfortunately, the cost of education, with even single courses at the Community College of Philadelphia costing hundreds or thousands of dollars, prevents these connections, further deteriorating our ever-declining social fabric. So, it looks my socializing will continue to revolve around drunken, late-night karaoke excursions. (Yes, that whole social anxiety thing is still very much a work in progress).
The only point of Carol’s message I haven’t addressed yet is her comment on Obamacare. I assume she has to work that term into every message she sends–some psychological defect akin to Republican Tourettes Syndrome.
Carol suggested that I’m brainless–then perhaps it’s better to have no brain than one riddled with such cognitive impairment.
The critics who
Can’t break you
They somehow help to make you.
The critics who
Can’t break you
Unwittingly they make you.
-Morrissey, “You Know I Couldn’t Last”
