Student Loans: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Literally the entire history of the USA is just, "We have this problem and we could have spent a little money to fix it but we hated the idea of helping people so much that we waited until it was a thousand times more expensive to do anything."

To anyone wondering: that's not Estonia, thats Latvia. Estonia is the one directly to the north. Greetings from Europe

To whoever's in the audience screaming laughing at John Oliver's jokes: you have my whole heart

23:55 That Navient "oops" and then dropping their written legal response was great

After paying $90K over 12 years on my $80K student loan, I owed another $90K despite working in public service the entire time. Was not originally eligible for PSLF I was in the "wrong payment plan." After two years of reviews, last year the balance of my student loan was finally forgiven under the PSLF waiver. I plan to celebrate the anniversary of the forgiveness letter every year. I don't even celebrate my own birthday.

Is it really "forgiving" when people have already paid you back more than you ever gave them

In 1968 I graduated from a private university in New York City with a student loan that covered the last 3 years of undergraduate school. My monthly loan payment was $44; if I am remembering correctly it took about 8 years to pay off the loan. It is horrendous how times have changed!

Loan forgiveness through public service is a false promise. I've been working for more than 20 years- social work, never missed a payment, applied for programs that promised to forgive remainder of my loans. Denied. Still paying. There was also no pause on my payments throughout the pandemic- "didn't qualify." Beyond frustrating. I continue to support loan forgiveness even if it hasn't benefited me.

As a freshman in 1969, my tuition for fall term at the University of Oregon was $70 total! At the time, the minimum wage was $1.65, but I was earning $1.85. So three weeks (38 hours each) of my summer job paid my entire year's tuition and fees. We didn't need any student loans, because the government provided 80% of the cost of our education.

I love how the same gang who hates the idea of any kind of social safety net is also like "WHY AREN'T YOU HAVING KIDS"

Me and almost every other physician that went through medical school in the USA have at least ~$200k in debt at graduation and that’s just from med school. Every single person in the US (and world) deserve far better.

This needs to be shared with everyone that calls student loan forgiveness as terrible, but giving the rich a pass on paying their share of taxes as all OKAY. We are smarter than this.

Here's a crazy idea: CANCEL THE INTEREST on all student loans. All payments should go to the principal.

"How dare you spend money on something that benefits someone who isn't me." 🎯

Every time I watch a video like this, I'm eternally grateful for New Zealand's interest free student loans and minimum income requirements before payments are required.

US : "ScHoOl Is On Me." Countries with free tuition : "um...yeah? Shouldn't the government help its citizens?" US : Lol

My grandfather took out a Parent Plus loan for my sophomore year in 2007. The moment he got the first bill he paid it off entirely (something most people can't do). They processed his check AFTER applying the next interest accrual so the balance wasn't completely cleared. A decade later Navient sent him to collections on interests of interest. These companies are evil.

I was able to pay off my students loans and got one of those "share your story with us!" e-mails from AES. The ONLY reason that I was able to pay mine off was because my dad was killed by a truck driver, and my mother got a settlement that allowed us to pay off the debt. The American Dream!

I’m sitting over here in my Danish university class, and I was doing research on the debt crisis in the US, turns out that international economics and a little political science + John Oliver is honestly a great way to spend your free time (don’t worry; I won’t use it as a reference for my research paper but I might use some of the sources John provides in his piece) Also how much have I paid for my university degree, well if you discount the books which I bought for new, but with student pricing, and my crippling addiction to coffee, plus my literally monthly suspension to Xanax… then… about 0 dollars

2:03 I worked in car loans, and hearing someone start with $80k, pay $120k and only knock down $4k of the principal balance brings back nightmares