How Entrepreneurship Can Help Millennials Build Wealth and Cut Student Debt | Inc.com

April 29, 2020April 28, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s a favored tradition amongst well-established generations to look at younger generations with contempt. People love to tease millennials — calling them lazy, entitled, and self-involved — but research by Boston Consulting Group shows that these stereotypes are unfounded.

Yes, there are generational differences — driven largely by technology and social trends — but millennials as a whole are ambitious and idealistic. Not only do they want to “make the world a better place,” but a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that millennials work significantly more hours and have higher levels of education than previous generations.

Considering that education costs have risen 65 percent and food costs have increased 26 percent since 1996, it’s clear that the struggle is real. Many millennials live in survival mode, trying to keep up with basic expenses.

This Just In: COLLEGE SHAKE DOWN

August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 ~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

Shit is more expensive

Courtesy CB Insights

Everybody (except colleges) is complaining about the cost of a university education. This graph makes it clear how bad it really is.

On the plus side, mobile apps and SaaS are making software affordable, and if you have any money left over after paying for your education, childcare and healthcare, you can get a great deal on toys.

Soon Your Employer May Be Paying Back Your Student Debt | Bloomberg Business

March 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Imagine a world in which the standard benefit package at work includes health insurance, 401(k) contributions, and a few thousand dollars to pay off your student debt.

More companies than ever are offering that last perk, but it’s still a fringe benefit. Two bills making their way through Congress could change that, by giving companies a tax incentive to help employees repay their student loans.

At the moment, when employees get money to pay off their student debt, it counts as taxable income, like a salary bump, just for debt payments. Unlike money that goes toward a 401(k), both employees and employers have to pay taxes on the benefit. For many businesses, it costs more than it’s worth. “I think the tax treatment now is a detriment to more companies adopting this,” said Rob Lavet, general counsel for SoFi, a nonbank lender, which works with around 400 employers that give employees loan refinancing reductions.

How College Loan Relief Firms Prey On Desperate Borrowers | Forbes

July 29, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In February 2014 Kim Kotary was living in Queens, N.Y., working 25 hours a week in three part-time jobs at nonprofits and as a freelance crafts teacher and designer, and worrying how she’d ever pay off the $20,000 she borrowed to earn a master’s from New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology back in 2002. So when she heard a radio ad offering information about how those working for nonprofits could get student debt forgiven, she called the 800 number. A phone rep told her Broadsword Student Advantage could get her monthly payments suspended, based on her poverty-level income, and help her apply to get her debt forgiven after ten years.

Kotary agreed to pay Broadsword $500 and signed its forms online, without, she admits, reading them closely. On top of the $500, Affordable Life Plans, a Securities & Exchange Commission-registered investment adviser, started taking $29.95 a month from her bank account. Then, last August, Kotary lost her main part-time nonprofit gig. Finally, this past March, after 13 months of paying, she discovered she wouldn’t be eligible for the debt forgiveness unless she worked 30 hours a week in the not-for-profit sector, and that she could have applied for forgiveness herself, for free, at http://www.studentloans.gov. “When I found out it was free, it really pissed me off,” says Kotary, 43, who has stopped the monthly payments. “I was told that they could help me save more than they charged me for the services.”

Wall Street firm pushes for student loan forgiveness | Money Cnn

October 31, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One Wall Street firm has an idea that’s raising eyebrows: forgive some student debt for first-time homebuyers.

It’s too early to say exactly how the stimulus measure BlackRock BLK suggested would work, but it would take Congressional action because the federal government administers the majority of student debt.

The move could be a creative way to ease student debt, which has quickly become a $1.2 trillion Achilles heel in the American economy.

Millennials aren’t buying many homes. Mounting student debt may be part of the problem. “Fiscal policy initiatives targeted at young workers with high levels of student indebtedness might, perhaps surprisingly to some, have an outsize impact in supporting the housing recovery and financial markets,” Rick Rieder, co-head of Americas Fixed Income at BlackRock, wrote in a recent commentary.