Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Draz]

My monthly payment was a mere $275 but I paid $1300+ every month (from Korea of course) just to get rid of it and not suffer under that interest rate any more than I had to.

I'd always been confused hearing about student loans as being "good" debt or "safe" debt or whatever. Now that I know what other countries charge on interest, that makes a lot more sense!

I'm also bitter about it.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[blade]

[the ireland]

your interest rates are outrageous.

We have free third level education in Ireland. You have to pay a registration fee every year, which was �675 but is now �1500. Of course if your parents earn less than �45,000 a year you don't have to pay it plus you get a grant totalling approx �3400 per year (this is tax free and does not have to be paid back)

I do think this will soon be coming to and end as the government has a �4billion shortfall to make up in the budget, however I don't think fees will be introduced until 2010 but most likely 2011 at the earliest.

I was able to get free education for my entire degree and my masters was also paid for too. As a mature student (over 23) you can claim independence from your parents if you are not living with them and if you are not earning the �40,000 a year the government pays for your masters (up to a value of �7,000approx) and give you �3,400 to live off too. most masters courses don't cost over 8 or 9 grand unless you do an MBA so we really did get a good deal here.

* the way the system works can be very annoying though and they tend to try avoid paying the grant assistance using very rediculous rules that applicants must follow

[Moldy Rutabaga]

I don't want to give a tone that sounds like I'm fishing for pity. I'm sure people have worse stories, and we could probably make an interesting thread about specifically why people came to Korea.

I was hungry (literally) when I came to Korea. The bank had seized my account and so I was looking for work on a bicycle or on foot in February in Canada because I could not buy a bus pass. It didn't work so well!

Student loans aren't a gift. They are a loan which is an investment in a student's education, and which is not only paid back but results in higher tax payments over a graduate's lifetime. I'm one person and that's insignificant, but Canada drove me out of the country and lost a decade and counting of productivity. It's an asinine system, particularly for a country which is always bragging about how compassionate they are.

[blade]

CONGRESS ESTABLISHED the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education in 1997 to investigate the growth in college costs and to suggest what, if anything, the federal government should do about it. Under the auspices of the Council on Aid to Education, I wrote a report to the commission with Cathy Krop, a researcher with the RAND Corporation, that examined the relationship between college costs and federal student aid. We reached two conclusions:

The ready and growing availability of federally sponsored loans has been a key factor in the rapid growth of college tuition and other charges over the past two decades�a period when tuition has increased at roughly twice the rate of inflation.

Federal grant aid has played a less substantial role in growth of college tuition than loans, in large part because grants now provide far less financing than loans.

In its final report, the National Commission essentially ignored the relationship between student loans and college tuition, relegating our report to an obscure footnote.

Skeptical commission members and other critics made the following two arguments for not addressing this issue: First, they said no empirical evidence exists that loans contribute to college cost increases or that college officials are using federal student aid programs to gouge the public; and second, even if federal loans have contributed to tuition increases, there is nothing short of price controls that the federal government can do to address this issue.

Continuted... http://www.highereducation.org/crosstalk/ct0598/voices0598-hauptman.shtml

[Draz]

[youtuber]

Once again, it is our proximity to the US that hurts Canada.

It is far too easy for an educated professional to cross the boarder into the US to make a 6 figure salary as a professor. We share the same language, similar culture, and it is fairly easy to obtain a working visa for a Canadian.

High tuition costs in Canada mostly go to the profs' salaries. If the govt paid for our education, prof salaries would lower, and they would flee to the US.

So we are screwed. It's a bit difficult to try and operate a social state with a money hungry neighbour right below us.

[madowlspeaks]

What's the worst that can happen to someone in Korea if the person is from the USA and never paid?

Can the USA gov't garnish their wages over here? I know that in the USA they can.....

[Kikomom]

I call them 'student loads'. That's LOAD, with a d. Not a typo.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[mmstyle]

Wow, I had no idea Canadian student loan interest rates were so high. I'm American and mine were fixed at 4.25 (with auto withdrawal). As another poster said, they were income contingent. After I filed taxes for the first time abroad they went automatically into deferral as it had registered as 0 income. I kept plugging away. Now, if I decide to go back to school, my husband and I have decided to find out what we can do through the Australian system. Even if I can't pay the same rates he does, it is still much cheaper.

Another poster lamented how Canada is following the US system. Australia is doing the same, and programs that used to be free are now a pay system. Only a PhD is free.

[blade]

[young_clinton]