A recent caller to “The Ramsey Show” revealed he's been making student loan payments for 19 years and still owes $20,000. Now 49, he asked Dave Ramsey about student loan forgiveness programs that kick in after 20 years.
Ramsey wasn't having it.
“The program is: cut your lifestyle and pay this off in 12 months,” he told the caller, who earns $90,000 a year. “Live on $70,000 minus taxes and pay this off in one year, and that means you're not going out to eat, and it means you're not going on vacation.”
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The financial expert emphasized that intensity is the only way the man will be able to stop making these payments for good. “That's the program,” Ramsey repeated.
The Bigger Picture: Student Loan Drama Runs Deep
The segment echoes a broader frustration Ramsey and his team often express over the student loan system, especially Parent PLUS loans. In another episode, a listener asked who should repay those loans once they come due.
“Legally, it's the parents,” Ramsey said, since their names are on the loans. But morally, it depends. If the student promised to pay, they should keep their word. “That's you keeping your word. You go pay it,” Ramsey said.
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The hosts described how these situations can strain relationships when promises are made informally, forgotten, or ignored. “It ends up being this tangled mess relationally,” Ramsey’s co-host, and daughter, Rachel Cruze added.
Ramsey knew exactly who was to blame for the student debt mess. In his words, “The whole stupid thing is a scam. Higher education is to blame. Congress is to blame. Weak parents that won't tell their spoiled freaking children ‘no’ are to blame.”
He added that if student loans are so harmful that we need to forgive them, then Congress should stop offering them altogether. “That'd be an awesome thing,” Ramsey quipped. Cruze also added that the universities would probably lower tuition because nobody could afford it.
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A Cheaper Way to Do College
Ramsey and his team insist there is a way to attend college without debt. Go to an in-state school, graduate in four years, and if possible, start with community college.
“Here's an idea: get a degree that’ll help you get a job,” Ramsey added.
As for the caller who still has $20,000 in student debt nearly two decades later, Ramsey's advice was blunt but simple: forget waiting on forgiveness. Get serious, cut back, and pay it off fast.
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