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Updated: Aug 23, 2022 117 Comments · by

Coffee Break: Scallop Pump

Coffee Break

This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

beige pump with scallop shaped detail along side

Zappos is having a big sale, which apparently extends to its Style Room offerings like these Stuart Weitzman pumps. There are limited sizes and colors left depending on how deep the sale is (these “Adobe”-colored pumps have a decent range left), but I'm always up for a sale on Weitzman.

The pictured shoes are 3.5″ high and were $425, but some colors are on sale for as low as $219. (The pictured shoes are $330 — if you're on the hunt for navy heels, do check out the $254 ones.) If you'd like taller, you can also find the scallop details on these 4″ heels, also on sale. (You can also find a bunch of colors, full price, at Neiman Marcus.)

This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!

Hunting for comfortable work heels? We've got a whole guide just for that, but some of our favorites include Marc Fisher LTD, Sam Edelman, M.M.LaFleur, and Cole Haan. On the pricier side, check out Ferragamo, Stuart Weitzman, and Sarah Flint. For comfort-first styles, look to Vionic, Sofft, and Naturalizer.

block heel pump
Marc Fisher LTD
pointy toed pump
Sam Edelman
black pumps
M.M.LaFleur
comfortable work heel
Sarah Flint

Sales of note for 10.10.24

  • Nordstrom – Extra 25% off clearance (through 10/14); there's a lot from reader favorites like Boss, FARM Rio, Marc Fisher LTD, AGL, and more. Plus: free 2-day shipping, and cardmembers earn 6x points per dollar (3X the points on beauty).
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale (ends 10/12)
  • Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything plus extra 25% off your $125+ purchase
  • Boden – 10% off new styles with code; free shipping over $75
  • Eloquii – Extra 50% off a lot of sale items, with code
  • J.Crew – 40% off sitewide
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site, plus extra 25% off orders $150+
  • Lo & Sons – Fall Sale, up to 35% off
  • M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
  • Neiman Marcus – Sale on sale, up to 85% off
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – 50% off 2+ markdowns
  • Target – Circle week, deals on 1000s of items
  • White House Black Market – Buy one, get one – 50% off full price styles

About Kat

Kat Griffin is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Corporette. You can read more about her here.

Comments

  1. Anon

    Does anyone else here work in securitization? Like as a lawyer or accountant or for a bank or buyer? I am struggling to find anything that will help teach this to me (lawyer) in an area of 1) remote work and 2) my law school did not really have any classes on this (or if they did, I clearly did not take them). I also feel like this is for people who are gifted in finance vs words. But what can I do to help myself? Worried I’m going to get beaten on my next review for not teaching this to myself a/k/a still doing entry level work (and poorly at that).

  2. Anonymous

    Where are most of your jeans from, and how many do you have? Almost none of mine are designer anymore. Size 16P mostly. I have 3 pairs of bootcut Wit & Wisdom, 1 raw edge skinny NYDJ, 1 baggy cropped ripped light pair from Wit & Wisdom, and I just ordered black and gray ripped cropped baggy jeans from Gap.

    • Anon

      The Talbots slim ankle in curvy fit is my go-to – I have white, off-white for winter, and a dark and light denim. It reads as a straight leg to me – I can’t quite get back to a full/boot/baggy silhouette yet.

    • Anon

      They’re all Levi’s at this point. I liked Wit and Wisdom when I bought them but after a few wears and washes, I find they start sagging and I have to hike them up at the waist all the time. If I try to size down, I have a muffin top and the tightness on my thighs causes them to pull down as I walk and move around.

      The Levi’s I buy are stretchy but somehow stay up. Idk, it’s magic.

      • Anon

        My Levi’s from 2018 (or whenever we went Denim-OK for the winter) are magical. I probably should ditch the skinnies (or leave in a rubbermaid tub for later) but thought ahead to buying some bootcuts while I was at it. I also have Gaps from anything “curvy” that they have sold since 2008 or so (and I’m scandalized by what now feels Britney/Cristina levels of low-rise-ness).

    • pugsnbourbon

      Three black skinny pairs from Target that were my work uniform and one looser tapered pair from Old Navy.

    • Anon

      All my jeans are Old Navy. They suit my budget and they fit me well. I’m a 16/18 petite and they’re one of the few brands that make petites in bigger sizes. But honestly, I haven’t bought new jeans since the pandemic and I barely wear them anymore. I can’t wear them to the office and I prefer joggers for casual/WFH. No more hard pants.

    • Vicky Austin

      1 basic dark wash Target, 1 J. Crew factory with raw edge (which I’m going to have to retire indefinitely because they have a very tight waist and no give, and I’m not given to tolerating that these days!). I miss the late aughts/early tens colored denim craze more than I would like to admit. I rocked those bright red skinnies.

      • pugsnbourbon

        I went shopping briefly yesterday and saw some colored denim! Nothing too bright, but some pretty greens and burgundies.

    • Anon

      I’ve had pretty good luck with the brand Liverpool for petite jeans and dress pants. They’ve held up well compared to my NYDJ jeans and not as much sag as I found with Wit & Wisdom.

    • Anonymous

      I have 3 pairs of mens Levi 502 which I rotate plus 2 pairs of womens black skinny Levi’s I need for work and a million pairs that no longer fit. I’d highly recommend the mens 502 for any slim hipped apples.

  3. Anon

    How’s the hive feeling about the possible $10k SL forgiveness for borrowers earning under $125k?

    • Anon

      How does it work if the parent took out the loan? VS the student?

      I feel like the earnings limit should be more like 60K, but if schools are graduating people who cannot pay back loans, they ought to bow out of the school business and we out not be doing things that prop up such schools. 10K is nothing; 60K in loans for a useless degree or a degree you couldn’t afford to finish (or parents who borrowed or co-signed for multiple kids) are where the big disasters are and they are . . . apparently not worth it b/c they aren’t an important voting group?

      • Anon

        TBD. Reporters are saying the announcement will come tomorrow.

        Forbes says only 20% of American adults have SLs. You do get into a sticky wicket asking 80% of the population to pay off others’ debts… (This is where I think interest rates should be lower. My grad loans were at 8%.) Though admittedly, elections turn on less than 20% of the electorate…

        • Anon

          But 10K of loans isn’t where the problem is. It’s the six figures of loans taken out for a job that will never pay more than 5 figures. And by 5 figures, I mean like 50K. IDK why we don’t go after the real problems that keep people from forming their own households and having kids they may want to have but are in too much debt. 10K of loans otherwise isn’t a problem. And if it’s not a problem, why are we asking taxpayers, most of whom don’t even have degrees, to pay for that???

          • Cora

            $10k of forgiveness will wipe out student debt for 30% of borrowers, most of whom do not have a well paying job and may not have finished college. There’s a whole group out there you are ignoring.

        • Leatty

          But part of the problem is that states have significantly reduced spending on higher education in the last twenty years or so, so the cost of higher education has shifted to borrowers.

          • Anon

            But that isn’t where the “I owe 150K for a LCSW program and undergrad in sociology” problem comes from. That was maybe always a bad move (vs graduating, getting a job, and getting any master’s degree one class at a time like most people used to have to do; ditto a LOT of law degrees). Borrowing 40K total to be a nurse and getting a good nursing job makes sense and for a lot of other fields. People need to learn financial literacy by freshman year in high school and not as an adult once you get the repayment schedule and it sinks in that you won’t ever have your own apartment b/c you will be living with your parent/s or having roommates until you die.

          • Anon

            Part but not all. The increase in public school tuition/fees has exceeded the decrease in what the state used to pay. (Example: if the state used to pay $10,000 per student but now only pays $6,000, you would expect that tuition for the students would go up $4,000; it’s gone up more like $12,000.) It also doesn’t follow the crazy tuition increases of private schools. Adjusting for inflation, my alma mater charged about $50k a year when I started; they now charge $85k per year.

        • Anon

          I agree. It’s a regressive tax whether you like it or not, and it seems like everyone is ok with it because they want some free money without consideration that most taxpayers who make a lot less are going to be paying for it.

          I’m a progressive and I also believe in a progressive tax system.

          • Anon

            Right? How do you sell this to union members like plumbers and electricians? I get that most union members now likely went to college and are in low-physical-risk jobs like “communications workers” and IRS workers (seriously, they have a union and even attorneys are in it) or are teachers. But honestly, talk to someone in the building trades about this or someone who cuts hair and see how this really chafes.

            AND don’t make me start ranting about laws in many places making day care workers get BAs. These women, generally, often WOC, do not need this drama and stress in their lives that they will lose their jobs if they can’t get enough credits together. I know one chain that wants everyone to have an AA degree and just upped it to a BA but aren’t paying more and those degrees not only won’t pay for themselves, but the time to get one comes out of the time most workers spend at the second job they need to make ends meet.

          • Seventh Sister

            I hate the degree creep for child-care workers. Basic training like CPR and First Aid is one thing, and I suppose a few ECE credits aren’t particularly onerous. But BAs? FWIW, my kids had preschool teachers who had AA/BA degrees and ones who did not. I didn’t think the teachers with degrees were really any better. If anything, I often preferred the older teachers without degrees since they’d taken care of zillions of kids over the years and had a good basic sense of what was a problem and what was A Problem.

          • Anon

            People take out student loans to go to community college and trade school, too.
            I don’t have student debt, but don’t begrudge others getting this (small) break.

          • Anon

            Anon @ 4:19 I’m responding to this:

            “Forbes says only 20% of American adults have SLs. You do get into a sticky wicket asking 80% of the population to pay off others’ debts”

    • Anon

      I would love to get some relief myself, but I make $130k. I’ve already paid $250kish of my student debt and only have $6k left. Now that I’m a Fed and have 2 kids and a mortgage, help on that $6k would be sooo appreciated. If I get cut off completely for making $5k over the limit I am going to be quite disappointed. Regardless, I’m happy a lot of people will be getting help.

    • Anon

      Are you the same person who is constantly posting anxiety-driven comments about paying for college? Please take a major chill pill.

      • Anon

        OP here, and nope. I paid off my loans 5 years ago and don’t have kids, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. I just saw the headline and was genuinely curious what the hive thought since this has come up so much here. Thought it’d make a nice convo for the slow afternoon thread.

      • Anon

        Anxiety about paying for college IMO makes total sense to anyone who is a parent (and often is why I hear of people only having one care — if not day care, it’s paying for college for 1 vs 2). Who has $$$ sitting around just waiting for some college to hoover it out of your wallet?!

    • Nesprin.

      It doesn’t go far enough. Student loan debt is a millstone around the neck of my generation and limits the career choices and opportunities available to people who should be experimenting, starting businesses and buying houses. I think should be discharged in bankruptcy after a couple years post graduation, and if not limited to a much much lower limit than currently possible.

      • Anon

        If you let that happen, no one will make loans anymore. Or you would have to cut SS and Medicare/Medicaid to make that happen if the govt becomes the lender vs guarantor. No one but rich people will have access to college. Maybe you’re smarter than me and can show a path forward but the current path is not rosy and is also not sustainable.

      • Anon

        if all student loan debt were to be discharged a couple of years post graduation, then wouldn’t everyone just take out loans. i don’t see how that is a feasible option

        • Anon

          And if you could do that, why not make it the best 6 or 8 years of your life (instead of just 4)? Spring Break 4-Ever!

        • Anon

          I certainly would have maxxed out student loans if that were automatic forgiveness, instead of working 2 jobs during the academic year and full time during breaks.

        • anonshmanon

          Perhaps lenders would not give out loans that are unrealistic to pay back.

      • Liza

        If you put “low limits” on student loan availability, then only the very wealthy will be able to afford the most expensive schools (to a greater extent than now). To put it in real terms, if I had only been “allowed” to borrow $50k for law school versus $150k, I would not have been able to go to as good a school as I ultimately did. I took that risk, but ultimately I was accountable for it. By not letting people bet on themselves, you’re closing off a lot of opportunities.

        • Anon

          You borrowed 150K for undergrad? Can I ask your major and current field? Because betting on yourself doesn’t work like that. If I borrowed 300K for a schooling but could not get a job to pay that off, I’m betting I will be able to hang myself if you give me enough rope. $150K for med school is different (and a bargain!), but IMO the calculus is rightly different for professional degrees (IMO no one needs to borrow like that for art history or a masters in languages) than for undergrad degrees. And most professions you can enter by going to a “lesser” school (which I think those “lesser” schools should shout to the rooftops — so many employers, even fancy one, hire from a broad range of schools and because of DEI concerns, that trend is likely to grow and become permanent).

          • Anon

            I think 150K for law school *can* make sense, but that is a low limit these days. I think if you are going to Columbia or Harvard or T15, you can easily snag a job that lets you pay off your loans (and THEN go to what you love). But if you are not at T15, it’s hard to get a job that pays that. And many law jobs pay 50K. I think it totally matters what school you’re at.

            But for undergrad, that is crazy high to be borrowing (and yet people do). IMO it will wreck your 20s and possibly 30s and beyond, even with a good job.

        • Anon

          Would your law school actually have cost $150k if the government wasn’t willing to underwrite it?

          You are assuming that student loans aren’t a huge part of the reason why education has become so expensive. Sure, Harvard will always be able to charge whatever they want and have people enroll. But there’s a limited supply of people wealthy enough to pay 50-80k/year for school unless the government is offering loans. If there was a cap on loans, most schools would have to lower tuition or find themselves with no students.

          • Liza

            I really do not think that is correct. Harvard Law School generally admits people who score in the 95th+ percentile on the LSAT. If a large portion of those people literally no longer have the option to attend HLS, even if admitted, I agree they would have two options (1) lower tuition to make it affordable to the 95th percenters (2) start admitting people in the 92nd percentile… then 90th…. then 88th… in each of which bracket there are PLENTY of wealthy people who would happily and easily write a check to HLS. Each class at HLS is about 500 people. You wouldn’t have to swap out many “qualified but need loans” students with “a tiny bit less qualified with family wealth” students to easily fill out the class and not have to lower tuition by a single dollar.

          • Anon

            TL; DR: just because taking out 150k in loans was helpful for you, that isn’t the case for most who do the same

            Ok so expand it to the top 14 law schools. Whatever metric you want but my point is outside of super elite schools, there are tons and tons of law schools that charge as much as Harvard but the likelihood of graduating and landing a job that can service those loans is like 5%. I’d much rather have a few kids like you (and me for what it’s worth – I also borrowed 150k for law school) not be able to go to a T14 school if it means saving thousands of other people from taking on debt they have no hope of ever repaying.

            I also still disagree with your premise. There is a limited universe of wealthy people that can or are willing to pay 150k plus out of pocket for law school. Certainly not enough to fill every seat at T14 schools. These schools also want to maintain some semblance of quality control to remain elite so they are never going to admit someone in the 50th percentile for lsat. And they are unlikely to fill their seats only with wealthy students if loans are capped because that would create a terrible image problem.

    • Leatty

      I understand the logic behind it, but it will be an administrative nightmare. Presumably, it will be based on a snapshot of a borrower’s earnings at a particular point in time, so new graduates are more likely to benefit than borrowers who have had student loan debt for a long time and may have finally eclipsed the cap. While those borrowers are now better positioned to pay off their student loans, their past lower incomes may have meant that their balances continued to grow during repayment, so it will take them longer to dig out of that hole. That being said, it’s better than nothing. Personally, I’d prefer it if Congress enacted legislation that reduced the interest rate and capped tuition costs since those would address fundamental problems with the system.

      • Anonymous

        +1 – Capping the interest rates would do more overall. And I just don’t get how this works for people who are currently in school, incurring loans.

        • Anon

          Capping tuition might make schools get rid of the exorbitant fluff and just focus on being an education provider. I don’t need a rock climbing gym if it could save me some $$$ in debt / tuition costs. Should be like the NFL’s salary cap but with a per-head spending cap.

        • Anonymous

          How about getting rid of D1 sports, especially football and basketball? That would save a ton of money.

          • Anon

            Why not all sports? D3 sports aren’t exactly free and bring in $0 revenue. At least SEC teams make $ but Swarthmore? Amherst? Please. My middle schooler’s girls lax team could play varsity football at some D3 schools. IDK what D2 even is. Club sports all the way.

      • anon

        +1. There is no reason that a non-dischargeable loan should have 7-8% interest. Gen X and older who took out loans had 1-2% interest which makes all the difference in the ability to actually meaningfully pay off the loans.

        • Anon

          Because it’s likely uncollectable and so many people default. It’s not like this crowd has assets to levy against. My house shouldn’t have higher interest than a student loan.

          • Anon

            But do people default in part because the interest rates are so high? It’s easier to pay off a $25,000 loan at a 2% interest rate ($230 a month, less than a car payment, with ten year repayment) than at 8% interest rate ($300 per month, which is actually 30% higher than the 2% interest rate payments).

          • Anon

            Interest is a paradox. Truly.

            I can remember telling someone that it’s a sign you can’t afford something or shouldn’t do it if you are getting quoted worse terms than anyone else. But as an asset category, it makes sense why loans on real estate (can’t drive away a house) < loans on cars (drive away; depreciating asset but you often NEED it for work in most parts of the US) < loans to 18YOs with no collateral and no work history and no payment history.

            Maybe you could make the schools more honest brokers in this by making them co-sign loans? Or have a 5K-10K penalty for every defaulted loan their students took out? The college got the $; why should the taxpayer be the default payer of first resort and the college never be subject to even partial clawbacks? IMO they need a bit more skin in the game — if they are so sure of what they are selling, they should not be afraid of this AT ALL.

          • Anon

            The great irony is that students agent initially given worse terms than fellow students. You don’t take on a loan at a 15% interest rate if you want $200,000 to study archeology, versus a 2% interest rate to borrow $12,000 to study electrical engineering. It’s all the same – no matter what school you are at, what you study, what your grades are, if you use the money for extra lab credits or a semester abroad in Sweden. We don’t send price signals to kids and them get mad at them for acting accordingly.

            Absolutely schools need to be on the hook for some of this. Make it proportional to endowment per student.

        • Anon

          Where are you getting the 1-2% from? Because I am Gen X and the rates on my student loans varied from around 6 – 8 %. The difference is that I went to a public law school when tuition was $1800/year rather than the $50K a year it is now.

          Personally, I think public schools should have more taxpayer support. I think student loans should have lower rates and be forgivable under a wider range of circumstances. If we want people to get degrees that are socially worthwhile but not high earning (e.g. social workers), we need to have more programs for that. However, I see no reason that 22-40 year olds making six figures should have all of their student debt wiped out at the expense of everyone else and just making college (any college, for any subject, for any length of time) free moving forward is not practical.

          For those of you with student loan payments that make it impossible to live alone or buy a house, I am curious. Did you not understand how much the monthly payments would be or how much you would be making? This is not a criticism – I am just curious.

          • Anon

            I can think of two first-generation students who went straight from borrowed-for State U (so reasonable overall costs, but no parental savings at all) in a MCOL state to a masters (LCSW) program and a DR program (physical therapy). No parental background for this and IMO they are not people who think of what things will cost over their working lives b/c they had no idea what salary is for the jobs they were studying for vs cost of living vs loan payment over various periods. I think they deferred all interest payments. It was fine but one wound up getting pregnant and her current situation + daycare means that she is lucky that she is from a place she can get a viable job and live for free at home in her old room. A brother who entered a trade is doing materially better even though he is just 20.

          • Anon

            Do you recall how law schools were sued for lying about the employment rates of their graduates and the cases were dismissed because lawyers should know how to do due diligence? Do you remember how tuition skyrocketed for a few years, such that the cost of attendance nearly doubled when kids were in school? Go in thinking it will cost $100k, turns out it costs $150k, and you’re doing doc review when you graduate, no earning six figures at a big firm. That’s a lifetime of misery right there.

            Look around. People say that the average starting salary for a college graduate is $55k a year. There are studies all over the place about that.
            Of course someone would feel comfortable taking out $80k in loans. But if the grad only earns $35k, the interest will overwhelm them and those loans will never get paid back, even if the graduate earns more money later.

            This is why the pause on interest is so important. We also need to stop lying about how much people make right out of college.

          • Anon

            That would make sense, but the people applying to law schools are anything BUT lawyers. I guess there is no 10b5 on glossy school materials?

            In my city, I live near a beauty school which charges something like 10K and that seems fair for launching you into a career in something like 18 months? A community college charges less for many of the same courses, but I think that the beauty school gets you in and out and has one mission (vs the many missions of a CC, all of which are laudable). It all seems very reasonable. That masters in art history or philosophy? Not so much.

          • Anon

            My brother still has student loans because they are at 2%. He is 37. He is someone who may get some forgiveness from this, which is totally silly. The only reason he hasn’t paid the debt is because it’s cheap money.

            Undergrad loans used to be quite low for student borrowers. Graduate loans were always higher.

            Lower interest rates and cap lending amounts. And make schools co-borrowers. If a school isn’t willing to co-sign a loan why should tax payers then be the ones bearing risk of repayment? Stand behind your product.

        • Anonymous

          That’s a really interesting point — what if they made it so that student loans COULD be discharged in bankruptcy? The massive hit you take when you go into bankruptcy on your credit score and future borrowing potential is already enough of a deterrent, and the people who are really in a bind by student loans would be helped by it. (A friend of mine went into bankruptcy and lost her house, she literally had no other choices when it got to that point.)

          • Anon

            Liza, this is true, but you’re forgetting that it applies to all unsecured debt. We allow people to declare bankruptcy on credit card debt, even though what was bought with those credit cards may never be recovered (e.g., trips to Paris, dinners out, massages, weekly nail appointments, groceries), or recovered for pennies on the dollar (e.g., used clothes, household goods, golf clubs). That doesn’t stop people from negotiating with credit card companies even when bankruptcy isn’t on the line. We can make student loan bankruptcy a different type – maybe you have to pay for ten years to be eligible, and then the repayment (not liquidation) lasts another seven years. If someone’s been paying for 17 years, we’ve either gotten our money back from them or we aren’t getting blood from that stone.

    • Anon

      They’re saying $10k for borrowers earning less than $125k would cost $300 billion over a decade. I wonder what reducing the loan interest rates would cost the government. Maybe more than that and that’s why we haven’t heard as much about it as a possibility.

    • Anonymous

      Forgiving loans encourages schools to raise tuition. The easy availability of student loans is how tuition got so ridiculously high in the first place. The solution is not to forgive existing loans; it is to restrict the availability of loans so schools can’t get away with raising their tuition far more quickly than the rate of inflation.

    • Anon

      Slightly resentful. DH and I are old, and our kids are out of college by a few years, and we worked our butts off to put them thru school without loans, including not letting them go to their “dream” schools. They both got decent STEM oriented degrees at public institutions. But we also cut back on a lot of things while they were growing up to afford it. They got a week at the beach, while their friends with student loans got 2 weeks in Costa Rica. They got the Kohl’s version of Levi’s while their friends whose parents didn’t pay for college and the they ended up with loans got back to school shopping weekends in NYC. I kind of wish now that we had let them borrow for school and we had put some of the money we were so intent on saving into experiences for them. My dh also mentors a kid who is in the process of becoming an auto mechanic. He has loans to the tool guy of at least $75 K and his taxes are going to help pay off someone’s college loans?
      Now I do think something should be done about interest rates, the story of the woman who borrowed a few thousand to pay for her last semester and ended up owing 100s of 1000s is just absurd.

      • Anon

        I’m with you. People look down their nose at me because I never travelled. My parents were just worker bees and never really took family vacations (just trips to visit relatives and day trips to local historic sites and for hiking — generally free activities). When I was in school I finished undergrad with no debt even though I had credit cards. I guess I should have just charged trips to Europe and for spring break? I had no $ even then and would have just been making minimum payments. I couldn’t get another job b/c I was already working as an RA to get free room + board + meal plan, so I was obligated NOT to take another job b/c I was “on duty” if I wasn’t in class. UGH. Now that I am working I don’t have time to backpack through Europe and back then I didn’t have the $ to do anything even low on the hog if it involved plane fare.

      • Anonymous

        Count me as totally resentful. I consciously made a decision to go into a career that didn’t require additional education beyond college because I didn’t want to be be paying off the loans for life. I was already uncomfortable with the amount that I needed to borrow for undergrad. In other words, I made a responsible, adult decision not to take out loans beyond that (because I wasn’t planning on going into medicine or law). Everyone else who “followed their passion” is now getting a free ride, which I will ultimately pay for through taxes.

      • Anon

        My loans are paid off now, but it took forever b/c for years I only made the minimum payments. It was hard and I never took a vacation except where I could couch-surf until I was . . . older. I could barely spend $ with the feeling of that debt hanging over me. And now I get to pay for everyone else’s loans . . .

      • Anon

        My kids are in public universities right now. Private universities were off the table because we had saved for public. They’re not doing semesters abroad. They didn’t do a gap year of travel. People who were able to all those things and get loan forgiveness at the expense of the majority of lower earning taxpayers who receive no such benefit can bite me. It’s immoral.

      • Anon

        I completely agree with everything you just said. My parents lived well below their means to send me and my siblings to public universities. While my high school classmates went to Cancun for spring break I worked at the local supermarket. Interest rates should be adjusted but I don’t understand why people want something for free that others actually paid for, whether themselves or their family members.

    • Anon

      i have mixed feelings. on the one hand, i think that if someone has massive SL debt, this isn’t going to do much for them and seems silly. but if someone has a lesser amount of debt, eliminating the payments could have a significant impact, and that instead we should be doing something to address the root of the problem, such as lowering interest rates and also not having jobs that require masters degrees that pay 50k a year or 4 year college degrees that pay 30k. on the flip side, i am conflicted about how much of it is the borrower’s own responsibility and i see a difference between undergraduate and graduate level education in that there are too many students, particularly at the graduate level who are beginning degrees at schools without considering the graduation rate, post graduate employment rate, etc. if a school does not track that data (and many grad schools don’t), then you should not go there absent a very very good reason. (and i say this as someone who works at a university, but has no control over the degrees offered)

    • Seventh Sister

      Mine were (finally) forgiven through PSLF, so I don’t really have a dog in the fight. I feel like 10k is a good start, and I think the means-testing is a costly PITA. Frankly, I’d forgive them without an income cap (rich people get lots of tax breaks).

      While I know the average loan amount is higher, I do think 10k forgiveness will help a lot of the people who are in the worst position – young people (often women, often people of color) who take out loans and drop out before graduating.

    • Anon

      The worst of every possible world. It costs a massive pile of money, is helpful for those who don’t need much help, and barely makes a dent in the debts of people who are drowning. It will infuriate basically everyone, from conservatives who are all “pay back every cent you owe” to progressives who want full forgiveness to people in between who worry that it’s a prequel to full forgiveness.

      Forgive 10%, not $10,000. Do 0% interest for loans that were taken out more than a decade ago. Continue forbearance for the loans for the simple reason that getting indebted people to save up some money is a good thing and we’re on the cusp of a recession.

    • Anonymous

      My parents paid for my undergrad and law school with a lot of sacrifice. I think the biggest problem is the interest rates — especially for federal loans, they should not be money-making endeavors.

    • Anonymous

      I’m actually ok with it because it is a nothing. I’m one of the rare few that’s against SL forgiveness because I simply don’t think it’s fair to those who didn’t go to dream schools, didn’t take unpaid internships but rather paid non professional jobs to hold debt down, or graduated from dream schools and continued to live nothing lifestyles for years and we managed to pay off ours and now we have to subsidize it for others. And no we aren’t all 100 years old and didn’t go to school when it cost 5k per semester. There are many of us in our 30s who went to these schools when it was 60 or 70k per year rather than 80k.

      But under 125k really only covers professionals who are a few years out of school. Most people I know graduating from good schools and pursuing careers like finance or tech or engineering are starting at least at 75-100k, higher in banking when adding bonuses. So I’m fine with throwing a kid a bone for 10k because they’re age 25 and haven’t hit the 125k mark in their career. I’d be less fine about it if it was forgiving debt for a 35 year old lawyer who has had years to hustle and pay it down but most of those people will be over 125k anyway plus early details suggest this will be undergraduate debt only.

      • Anon

        Agree that it’s a nothing, but it’s a nothing with a shockingly high price tag.

      • Liza

        +1 to “didn’t go to dream schools.” To this point, there should be a way to exclude students who made the CHOICE to take out loans to go to elite schools, rather than take the scholarships they would have undoubtedly been offered at a state school.

    • Anon 2.0

      I wish it was more personally. I have a very different background than most posters here. While I won’t go into significant detail as to not out myself, I have loans for a degree I never completed. A significant amount of loans, actually. A combination of no parental help (not blaming here, neither of my parents are college educated and they did not know how to help) and falling to the pressure to attend a highly religious school was a recipe for disaster for me. It was a terrible fit for me as was the major I chose. My parents had no ability to offer me guidance and further I did not attend a public school so I had no guidance from that direction either. (That is another story I won’t get into here.) Even though my parents made very little the pricey school was still out of my price range so I signed a loan at 18, with no co-signer, and no credit history whatsoever for a 9K unsecured student loan to cover the difference. My parents could not contribute even $1 so it was entirely on me at 18. I had no idea how to get scholarships, didn’t even realize the community college could be an option, and had no guidance from a highly religious HS to even consider more affordable “secular” options. No AP classes, no rigorous HS course work, no extra-curriculars (bc there weren’t any offered) etc, left me unable to be accepted to the highly competitive state school I’d hoped for even with a 3.8 GPA. Our local community college had a great option where I would have been guaranteed admission to the state school had I completed two years there but I didn’t even know this was an option at the time.

      So, are the loans ultimately mine? Well, yes they are. But why was I, an 18 year old clueless to the world, allowed to get myself into such debt in the first place? Not everyone is setup to even understand the later impact of the repayment burden. I know I wasn’t and the school offered NO education to understand the loans because they were ultimately the ones benefitting. So, I have part of a degree that I never completed, and if I am being honest with myself, probably never will. Life has taken me down a different path where I am extremely fortunate to have a professional job in a line of work that is all about experience over anything else.

    • Liza

      I’m against it, and I think it’s absolutely awful politics. I’m a staunch Democrat but cannot understand why the administration would do this, or why anyone supports it — other than naked self-interest.

      • Anon

        Right? Who do they think that govt lawyers paying back loans are going to vote for without this — Republicans??? After overturning Roe, you have their votes and they are angry and will show up to the polls anyway.

        • Liza

          Not to mention it’s an OBVIOUS, easy talking point for the 87% of Americans who do NOT have college debt. “Democrats are taking money out of your pocket so that some spoiled kid can get drunk for 4 years and study French literature.” And, for once they wouldn’t even be lying.

          • Anon

            4 years? I’m on the 6 year plan. And will switch majors a couple of times.

      • Anon

        Biden is trying to be Santa Claus, but Santa isn’t real. I’d respect doing something on the cost front — we do not need colleges with such fancy gyms and housing and so many non-teaching staff (while outsourcing jobs like housekeeping and cafeteria, so benefits from being a likely state employee are just reserved for white-collar college workers) and “centers” for stuff that isn’t related to core instruction or getting people into viable jobs. And charging $$$ while making first year teaching the job of underpaid contract employees should be a crime (hyperbole alert) or at least require a lot more truth in advertising.

      • Anon

        Same. Die hard democrat/liberal and I think this is just pandering. There are higher priorities that are going unfunded.

      • Anon

        I think it’s because you have people like AOC and her supporters who are incredibly progressive to a point that is unsustainable and unrealistic. I think the democrats are just trying to appeal to the younger generation and are desperate for reelection.

    • Dr. The Original ...

      I have many dogs in this fight. Personally, many in my life are social workers and teachers and their work pays very little but contributes a ton to society. Chastising them for the debt feels wrong and I am hoping we get better PSLF situations (maybe 5 years?) so more will go into these needed lines of work.

      Societally, the nation consistently pays for things we don’t personally use, like roads I may not drive on and bridges I may not need. Individuals without kids pay for school levies. We all contribute to healthcare premiums for everyone even when we are healthy. If the money is freed up, certainly it goes to societal gain as the only ones who squirrel away their wealth are the wealthiest. The ones most impacted are going to spend on homes and weddings and building businesses and raising kids and health needs and supporting their elders.

      On a bigger note though, I cannot ignore that this debt most significantly impacts not just People of Color and women but also a generation hit by 9-11, by 2 recessions (with another on the horizon), and pandemics. Plus a lack of financial education and parented by a generation that often demanded kids go to college. I am all for people taking accountability, I am also mindful that so much of the generation impacted got hit in ways they could not control through no fault of their own.

      I think we need to go in three directions; we need to take the boulders off of the shoulders of those struggling, we need to not allow universities to charge more for an entire program than students make in one year (with very low interest rates), and we need to push the knowledge that many amazing careers are had via trades and self-employment and there should be celebration of those industries not assumptions that they are lesser people.

      Just my 2 cents.

      • Anon

        I have no beef with teachers or social workers. I hate that the pay scale in their professions basically forces them into masters programs to make more $ and I’m not sure that a “masters in educational leadership” actually helps vs just doing the job? I guess it is credential creep, but I know someone who felt forced to get an MBA to get a promotion and a fancy-school one at that and while it may have helped her, it was totally not educationally helpful and cost a lot of time/money. It’s just such a racket. Like why do you even need a BA for a lot of jobs (my past secretary had “some college” but 20 years experience and was awesome; now I think by requiring college, we get people who will leave for something more prestigious the minute something comes up b/c who wants to be a secretary if you are a college grad even though the $ is actually quite good).

        • Dr. The Original ...

          Each degree holds different weight for different goals- or they are supposed to. For example, if you want to become a principal, the Masters in Ed Leadership is needed. A PhD in Leadership makes sense if your goal is Superintendent. The problem is that many schools require masters or PhD to gain decent pay, which is a forced mess even for those without goals of those positions.

          • Anon

            Honestly, how does studying leadership make you a leader? Other professions do not work this way.

      • Anon

        Oh, help me understand that. Is that when govt loans are maxed out (and then repaid)?

          • Anon

            I feel very dense but why would this happen? I understand that the govt loans are much less expensive.

          • Anon

            Not the same anon, but mine happened because my mom hadn’t filed her taxes for a couple years, so I didn’t have AGI to file with a FAFSA…I think? This was 20-some years ago, but I think that’s what I remember.

          • Anon

            My parents were deeply religious and controlling, and didn’t want me to go to the college of my choice. As such, they refused to give me their SSNs/info to file the FAFSA. Even though I was 18 and they were not contributing financially to my education (or life), I was still considered a dependent and could not file the FAFSA without their information. The government does not allow you to file the FAFSA as an independent until you are 24, married, a veteran, or have a child (there are some unique circumstances if you are a ward of the state, which I was not). An adult in my life stepped in a co-signed my private loan so I could go to a state school.

          • Anon

            Anon at 5:41 – I answered you, but it has been sitting in m for an hour. Check back.

    • PolyD

      I have no student loans – was fortunate enough to be able to go to a state school that was supported well by the state, then went to grad school in STEM where my tuition was covered and I had a fellowship that gave me enough to live on. Not fancy, but I could live on it. I have no kids, so I’m not looking at college payments for anyone.

      But you know what? I’m okay with this. Is loan forgiveness the best way? Maybe not, but it will help some people while perhaps we can also address the other issues (why TF is tuition so out of control??).

      As far as it “not being fair” – well, a lot of my tax dollars support stuff used by kids. And sure, sure, children are our future, but I would best most are neutral as far as tax dollars used as children vs. taxes payed as an adult. And I live in a blue state that sends lots of money to red states, so if a few college-educated kids in blue states get a break on their loans, maybe that balances the money the red state takes to support its residents who are on disability. But that’s okay, that’s what we pay for a functional society. And someone will always be the first beneficiaries – I imagine that back in the day, there were some 80-year-olds who grumbled, I save for my whole life and now comes this new fangled Social Security that those 65-year-olds will get! It’s not fair!!

      • Anon

        I agree re sometimes it is right to pay for the common good but this will just double down on our problems. It isn’t sustainable and doesn’t get at root causes of this problem. It’s rotten as a policy and bad deal for taxpayers.

      • Anon

        Honestly, I have a lot less trouble with people being the first beneficiaries than with the fact that they’ll also be the last beneficiaries. A one time give away doesn’t solve anything! All the students starting school in the future won’t benefit either! We need to deal with the college cost issue for real, not just do a one time give away.

      • Liza

        You were not merely “fortunate” in the circumstances you describe in the first paragraph – you also made wise choices. If your grad school was covered, there were probably options where you could have taken out huge student loans, but you chose not to. You also chose not to take out supplemental loans for your fellowship stipend but chose to live within your means.

    • Anonymous

      I heard something that makes a lot of sense to me, which is to compare SL forgiveness to seatbelts. Millions of people died before seatbelts were widely used — putting them in every car right now is not an affront to those people and their memories, as well as the “survivor stance” of “well I drove without a seatbelt all the time so why do we need them now.” But it’s got to be only part of the solution — cap the interest, put schools on the hook, or make the loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, and THEN forgive some of the accrued interest right now that has snowballed out of proportion.

      Meanwhile, I’m in an active alumni group for my T14 undergrad, where my parents paid $28K a year for me in 1995… that school now costs $70K but someone from the dean’s office always says how proud they are that less than 20% of students pay that. Um… great for those suckers, I guess?

      • Anon

        They are lucky Fers. You are the suckler (sorry). I hope they at least give you good swag!

    • Anonymous

      I already got my PSLF loan forgiveness (long time public defender), but 10K of forgiveness would not have helped me at all when I was working towards PSLF loan forgiveness. The pause on payments made a real difference and so I think that is a better option for PSLF workers instead.

    • Anonymous

      I am deeply resentful. I literally picked tobacco, worked three jobs, and slept on a couch for years to pay for college. Now my taxes will be used to pay a loan for someone that studied poems? I won’t vote for Trump, but of there is loan forgiveness I will not vote for a Democrat in 2024. No how, no way. Hope the votes Biden is buying is enough for them.

      • Anon

        Don’t worry, my friends and I who will benefit from loan forgiveness will make up for whatever you’re saying you won’t do. Which I think we both know will change when you wake up next week and are over this misplaced rage you have today.

      • Anon

        So you are prepared to vote for an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, climate change denier because Joe Biden forgave $10K in student loans – which largely benefits people who went to shady for-profit vocational schools?

        Really? This is the hill you are going to die on?

    • Anon

      I suspect this is intended to help people who borrowed a relatively small amount for some type of trade/ occupational training that did not pan out or who started and did not finish a program. That is not a lot of borrowers but it is a lot of people who default. I do not have the article at hand but if I recall correctly, most people who default on their loans owe less than $10K. Many are older. Many are Black. Many went to shady for-profit schools.

      I realize that people making five or six figures with six figures of debt at 8% feel hard up but you are not buying a house. People who default on $10K in debt because they started community college or some trade school that promised the moon are not able to buy food. That is who this is intended to help.

  4. Knit Blanket

    In the past couple of weeks, someone posted a pattern for a gorgeous knit or crochet blanket. I can’t find it after digging but if it was you, could you repost it? Dying to make it this winter. Thanks!!

  5. Anonymous

    Can I just say that I haaaaate how spammy ActBlue is and how they’ve crossed into text messages?

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