A couple days ago I wrote about “snowbirding” in the Philippines and mentioned also that now days there seem to be quite a few of us living here who are as much “economy-birding” as anything else. Even though I was in good shape financially when we left the US (I have a very decent pension, which will also continue for my wife, should I pre-decease her, had money from wrapping up our business that we operated together in the US, etc.) , I really felt pressured back in the USA, living very modestly in Colorado.
We were taking stock just a day or so ago …having been forced into making an unplanned trip to the bank on December 29th … never go near the bank for the two weeks before New Years if you can help it … we were looking at our bank books from the Philippines and our US accounts, on-line, and marvelling how much we have been able to save in three years … without really feeling as if we were “saving”.
I was doing some research on other foreigners who might feel the same as we do when I came upon this article:
… Carl (who doesn’t want his last name used) stopped making his $450 monthly payments after his family incurred some unexpected medical expenses, and his $55,000 private loans went into default. That’s when the phone calls from debt collectors started, and Carl decided not to come back.
“It was made clear that if I ever came home, I’m screwed,” says Carl.
Today, he estimates his private loans are more than $70,000. Though he hopes to move home one day, for now, staying abroad is the only option he can see.
“If it means I have to live in exile from friends and family…well, that’s the breaks. So be it. But I won’t put my family in a situation where they are afraid,” he says.
While most Americans are burdened with debt of some kind, student loan repayment can be a particularly scary prospect for young people struggling to start a career. Payments are often higher than expected, and the loans can’t easily be discharged. Added pressure from debt collectors causes some grads to flee their loans by fleeing the country. … (Full CNN article on “Foreign Debt Fugitives” here)
Now I am certainly not one to advocate running out on debts. But I certainly am in touch with how Carl and many others in the same boat he is must feel.
hiding
photo credit: naydeeyah
I had no idea the US Student Loan situation was as bad as it is. When I was of school age, and even after I had kids of school age, Student Loans were nowhere near the business they seem to be now. Today, it seems that in addition to marching off like two-legged lemmings to sign up for more house than they can afford, more car payments than they can afford and many other debts that they do not, in any way need, a great many of my fellow Americans seem to think nothing of signing up to unbelievable debt to aquire a college degree.
If a college degree were worth what many think it is, perhaps this would make some sense, but a college degree is nothing but one tool, among a whole tool box full of knowledge and personal skills that you need to make good money. Overall, for an American, I guess it makes sense to have one. I don’t, but then again, many of you do. Not having one worked pretty good for Mr. Gates and quite a few other big name people, but Warren Buffet has one … from a good school, to, so I’ll spare you my anti-college tirade 
But people, people, people, use some common sense, will you? The numbers I see people racking up in student debt just makes no sense what-so-ever. Do the math on how long it will take you to pay that off and how much you are paying some third-party, like a bank, who contributes nothing to your education or income at all. Some of these folks in student loan trouble couldn’t pay off their loans unless they live until 90. And that makes no sense at all, degree from the Wharton Business School or no degree.
In particular I see a really strange thought process in my fellow US and Canadian friends. A fellow blogger and long-time online friend, Tyler Cruz, recently published a report on his activities for 2009 in which he beat himself up for his own performance. He had set a goal of clearing $150,00 for the year and wound up only clearing $90,000 +.
I bet there are more than a few people out there reading this that would say, “Wow! $90K! Wish I could do that.” Well, you can, but that is another story. What really “rang my chime” was a comment left by one of Tyler’s readers:
As Tyler said, “It wasn’t that bad.
A guy, experienced with building websites that make money fell short of his self-imposed goals.
Immediately, a ‘Go in debt for School’ bot chimes in with a suggestion of ‘go to school, then you’ll make money’.
It really boggles my mind, truly. Especially since Tyler already has years of experience in his chosen profession, which is taught by no school. By its very nature, “web work” is hardly ever taught effectively by a college.
By the time money-making skills become obvious, and some professor writes a text-book on them, and then some other professor writes a classroom course, and then the board of regents approves it being added to the curriculum, the school is taking your money to teach you “How to make money with Google Arbitrage”, or some other skill that “died” three or four years ago. Sad, how many have been sucked up in this pocket-picking charade.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts. If you have student loans that are dragging you under, I recommend you do everything within your power to settle them the ‘right’ way. But if there is already nothing left of you to give and the wolf is at the door? Sure, come on over. You can live here in the Philippines for, in average round numbers, 40% of what you will spend just to stay afloat in the US.
Also, the ‘Net works here just as it does in the USA … no reason you can’t make money here and pay off those debts while you live cheap and well, in the Philippines.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Philly,
Australia wastes more money on defence spending each year (when I say waste, I mean cost blow-outs, project over-runs) than it would cost to provide a free University education to every student that wanted one. In addition, it would cost less to provide a free University education to every “illegal” immigrant than it does to lock them up in detention centres.
One day the general public might wake up (or possibly rise up) from their debt induced stupor and demand that a Universtity education should be free (as it was in the 1970s and early 1980s).
Of course I’m talking about Australia here…..such a thing could never occur in the US because undoubtedly it would be deemed “socialist”.
I didn’t know the figures for Australia, but I have no doubt your point makes sense. One of the largest ‘social education experiments’ the world has ever known was the original GI Bill for servicemen returning from WW-II in the US. Mnay studies over a long span of time have proved that the cost to the government came back many, many times over. I’m a big believer that such a program … especially if coupled with mandatory government service … military, civil conservation corp, ‘peace corp’ type service, helping with the elderly, helping children learn, etc., would pay off big time for any country, in both a monetary and national spirit sense.
My views, of course, are colored by my personal military experience, but it’s not a matter of wearing a uniform that benefits the person and the country as much as a program to force citizens to give back, just a small percentage of their life as a repayment for their rights of citizenship. Doing this benefits the person involved much more than they may realize at the time.
Hi Dave,
I fully agree with your comment.
My own early experiences in life have stood me in good stead throughout my life.
From the age of 8 until 16 i was a boy Scout which taught me independance and many other life skills.I then served in the Royal Navy for many years learning more life skills.
The experience of being a boy Scout gave me a head start when i joined the Navy.
regards Chas.
Hi Dave,
What a basket case our education system has become.
This article triggered something in my memory from many years back.
I was listening to an interview on radio at the time.
The guy being interviewed was telling his story,how after WW2 he applied for a job as a public cr attendant.
He was illiterate,and failed to get the job, coz he could not fill in the daily work sheets.
He built himself a street barrow from scrap and went selling veggies door to door.
He progressed to a market stall and over the years built a chain of retail shops.
At least he understood profit and loss.
The interviewer asked “Where do you think you would be now,had you been able to fill in those worksheets”.
He replied ” Cleaning cr’s i guess”.
regards Chas.
Amen.
When my younger son was a sophomore in high school he went through the typical teen rebellion phase with a vengeance. All he wanted to do was reach his 16th birthday so he could drop out of school. All the school wanted to do was to see the back of him, because he didn’t fit their “university is the only measure of success” mode. Most US high school gave up teaching any potentially profitable “manual” skills long ago and just exist as a federally-supported shill for the over-priced private university system in the US.
A rebellious and not well-like guidance counselor (relegated to the back office of the guidance staff, because all the “movers and shakers” in the administration considered her too radical in her ideas), called me in and told me that the school had an agreement with a local junior college to offer many of the hands-on courses that none of the local, college=prep only schools would get their hands dirty teaching. One course they offered, machining technology, was something my son was very interested in. So I asked the counselor why I hadn’t bene advised of this earlier. Her explanation? “If he avails of this, your son will go down as a tick mark in our ‘failed to get into a 4 year university’ column and the principal will “lose points”.
I told the lady, frankly, that I could not possibly care less what the principal’s score was, I was interested in saving my son’s life,literally (like many US high schools, his school was a hotbed of drug use … can’t root that stuff out, violation of the rights of the students, etc.).
Long story short, he finished his high school years going full time to college, when he received his high school diploma he had already earned all but 6 credits for his 2 year machining technology degree, (which he finished while working for the college as a teaching assistant) and now has a very nice job as a high level non-destructive testing specialist, working on his international accreditation. (by the way, his employer hasn’t had to beg for any government handouts, because rather than selling worthless paper to other impractically educated white collar folks), his company _builds_ something out of metal in the USA … a very rare concept.
So much for the unsuccessful student. There’s more to life than college entrance exams, and that’s for sure.
In the U.S., there is now some push back on that sort of thing. Do a Google search under “career technical education” and you will find many school districts now moving in that direction.
Which is not say that there are not school districts who still believe that a pre-college education is the only way to go. My local school district strives to make students “college-ready.” I think this is a good approach because for some of those students, college-ready means taking some courses at their local high school and some courses at the local community college (or other training facility).
My firmly held opinion is that all students in 2010 need a post-secondary education. That could be college, that could be technical school, that could be a lot of things. What that looks like will vary from student to student, but gone are the days for most when a high school education will get you where you want to be.
And one thing to keep in mind: Yes, Bill Gates is a college drop-out. However and importantly, he dropped out of Harvard!
Hi Tom,
Yes, I can agree with you there. In particular, we often fail to consider what you say there about ‘post secondary’ education. It can take other forms than a general studies type college degree. So I don’t want to sound, perhaps, as anti-college as I often do. But it’s also true that our blind reliance on a college degree as aticket to success needs tempering … you’ve got to learn something there, not just go there to gain a degree. I’ve even had more than one person write me about jobs in the Philippines and tell me how they felt they were owed jobs because they earned such and such a degree. Here, I cna probably find you a taxi driver with that same degree. and happy to be earning a few hundred pesos a day … a degree is only worth what you can make of it.
And re: Harvard … I have to admit a kind of fondness, bias toward Harvard, since it is “in the family) (one of my multi-great grandfathers presided over the first founding meeting of the school, gave them their original land and appointed his son to the first board of regents (Google Dr, Comfort Starr), don’t forget that one of Harvard’s “most illustrious” business School graduates, not only drilled away all his initial business funding on dry holes, but then culminated his career by giving us Hank Paulson and one of the greatest economic greed-funded boondoggle sour country has ever faced.
My opinion is, the wrong guy dropped out
Dave: A degree gives you what you make of it… Just as your son found out in getting his machinist’s degree. I dropped out of college because I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t interested in the courses, so I naturally did poorly. After I went back and eaned my degrees, I was glad I did, but not for the job reason. It dawned on me, while in grad school, what the value of a degree is to employers: It shows that once you start something, you finish it. That, and as a resume-sorting tool (narrows the list of candidates immediately). Thats all.
However, I feel the money was well-spent, particularly on the Masters, but solely because of where I went to school (Marquette, jesuit university.) As part of the jesuit system, my grad school tied together all of the things you learned as an undergrad… ie: Why do accounting majors need to take biology or another science? The answer is that all things in life are inter-related. A well-rounded education gives you the tools to cope with all that life throws at you. Unfortunately, until the postgrad level, this really does not become apparent to students. Throughout my undergrad time, the focus was listen to the lecture, memorize facts, and take the test. In grad school it was form teams, discuss, research, report. The only tests I had were in the math subjects… everything else was research, reading, reporting, and working as a team.
Was it expensive? You bet… Am still paying for it and will be for a number of years. Would I do it again? You bet. Is it for everyone? NO… not by a long shot. You have to go to school because you want to learn… not for a job. Unfortunately, most students are there for other reasons.
John, our views are much closer than they might first appear. Higher education for a purpose is absolutely high on my list of good things. “Dropping out of the real world to put yourself in school because you are making $90k a year and your want to make $150k a year” strikes me as going in the wrong direction, though.
School is a tool, not a solution.