Watch these two deliver real talk on why the student loan game is rigged.
Are student loans the worst or The Worst Ever? Franchesca Ramsey and Benjamin O'Keefe break it down for us.
How do your feelings about your student loans stack up against your feelings about your college experience?
Franchesca Ramsey nails the conflicting feelings so many of us have right at the start of her latest "Decoded" video, "5 Reasons Student Loans are Bulls**t":
All GIFs from MTV News "Decoded"/YouTube.
Yeah, I am glad I learned so much at school (I discovered my love of sociology!), but the journey to earning a college degree came at a huge cost.
In this video with Benjamin O'Keefe of "The O'Keefe Brief," Franchesca and Benjamin break down how the student debt repayment struggle has become all too common.
Here are the five reasons student loans are bulls**t:
1. College in America used to be free.
Did you know that the public college system was created in 1862 so anyone could financially access higher education? Federal land-grant colleges provided education for free — or close to it — for almost 100 years. Since then, tuition has skyrocketed.
IDK about you, but this difference kinda makes me want to cry. I so wish I was born a few decades earlier. *glares at mom and dad.* All screenshots via MTV News "Decoded"/YouTube.
2. Your tuition is probably funding your administrators' luxury cars ... or yacht ... or both.
Time to take a look at what's behind the ever-increasing college price tags. (Just a hunch, but I think increasing administrator salaries while cutting student scholarship moneymight play a role here.)
3. Student loan debt is nearly impossible to shake — even if you declare bankruptcy.
There's this thing where you can claim that having to pay your loans back would cause "undue hardship" and get them cancelled. Except it's basically impossible to get approved. Just ask this woman living on $10,000 a year.
4. Lenders intentionally make student loans complicated so you struggle to pay them back.
They're like the iTunes Terms of Agreement — student loan repayment terms are long, complicated, and clearly not made for users to understand.
5. There are those pesky private universities that treat students like consumers, not scholars.
Schools are increasingly competing to get the best and the brightest. Except now they do it by making some major (and often unnecessary) facility upgrades. The result? Well, the money for that luxury dorm and lazy river has to come from somewhere ... (Hint: your wallet).
I mean, it's nice that the school has a pool and all, but ... chances are that perfecting my backstroke won't pay my bills.
Luckily, not all is lost. Student loans are a hot topic in politics today, and you can urge your government representatives to take action.
Want to hear all the bulls**t? Check out the full video below: