> 1. I'm 31 years old and not even halfway through paying off my student loans.
Why did you take them?
Disclaimer: I'm not an american, and this is an honest question. I always see that about US and don't understand why people get angry at someone else for their own decision.
The entire time I was growing up, I was told it was "college or bust". I was never told that it would be "college and bust", but that seems to be the reality.
Kids were told over and over that a college degree would ensure their future success, that they'd be practically guaranteed to get a career that made paying their student loans trivial, on top of a nice house and a car because that's the American Dream, isn't it?
It's easy as an adult to look back on it and say "wow, that was a big mistake", now that I know how jobs and the economy actually work, but first we had to unlearn everything our parents, teachers, career counselors, and college financial advisers told us in the first place.
In the USA we have a public education system that strongly indoctrinates our youth (and their parents) for 13 years that kids must go to college and must get a degree or they are utterly worthless, given that its "pay or die" they'll pay anything. Will not talk about apprenticeships or the trades upon pain of being fired from the educational establishment. With a side dish of propaganda that all educational debt is good productive debt. There's also a widely held misconception that high paying jobs are magically handed out with each diploma, so an increase in the number of diplomas issued magically means high paying jobs are created, which is tragicomic.
I went to JC then a state school. I was able to work and pay as I went. Thus no loans. But I might not have as prestigious of a degree or as good an education as the OP.
Why did you take them?
Disclaimer: I'm not an american, and this is an honest question. I always see that about US and don't understand why people get angry at someone else for their own decision.