Student loans = wage slavery

Here's a story for Hub Blog in regard to student loans:

When I began paying off my undergraduate loans in 1995 (one year after I graduated from college and about six months after I dropped out of grad school), I paid about $355 a month.

Now, $355 doesn't seem like much, but when you're earning $8-$9 in temp jobs; get laid off (and disinvited from the company Christmas Party) on a job that paid $7.50 an hour, and have to live at your parents' home for several years - meaning no starting a family, no apartment, no discretionary money, no parties, no real vacations, no transportation, no 401(k) contributions - $355 is HUGE.

Thankfully for me, I was hired at a company (where I have celebrated my 15th anniversary), and I took advantage of that. $255 of that money was in MEFA loans, split up into four coupons.  The other $100 a month was Sallie Mae.  The MEFA loans were forgiven in 2005 thanks to the bonds being paid off; and then the Sallie Mae loans were paid off in February 2008.

I wholeheartedly agree: the student loan complex all but encourages wage slavery - where every single dime someone earns is endorsed to the loan company for decades.  When a student loan payment is the same amount as a rent payment (at least in Boston), and graduates are only making enough to have pocket change as discretionary income, it's time to thoroughly investigate who's making a mint off of graduates.

Quite an expensive keg party - one that might be paid off when you're ready to retire.