Letters: Students are to blame for debt

Repaying student loans is an obligation that many students have blown off in the past 30 years, as more parents focus on making sure their children have what they want to have without any consequences or responsibilities. Starting with elementary school, these children are not held responsible for their lack of learning or discipline; problems at school are automatically assumed to be the teacher’s fault.

I graduated from high school in 1972 and college in 1976; we were taught how to pay bills and balance our checkbooks by our last year in high school. We all had student loans, and we paid them back, because this was our responsibility. None of my friends had TVs; we read books and magazines, shared meals together for entertainment and had dance parties at each others’ homes to meet guys. We lived in apartments in old houses and drove old cars. We knew how to be happy without things.

Those who cannot repay a student loan need to find the most economical way to live life. If that’s with family, so be it. If that means an old-fashioned flip phone that does not text, then do it.

I would suspect that many of the student loan defaulters could have lived with fewer things and re-prioritized their priorities.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 2:20 PM.