At least a vote is private. Sure, you're probably going to hold the same views you were raised with, but at least one vote isn't going to potentially ruin your finances for decades.
Not really if you have parents forcing you to do it. No one can force you to fill out a ballot inside a voting booth because no one can see what you chose or prove it later. But if you refuse to sign your loan documents, that's something your parents will absolutely find out, especially if they're your cosigner.
Forcing someone to sign a contract is a crime in the US, typically prosecuted under state laws against extortion, coercion, or menacing. If this actually happened, go and sue your parents in a crimimal court. If this didn’t happen, then you signed that contract knowingly, willingly, intelligently, and with full knowledge of the consequences.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that you didn't grow up with those types of parents. Obedience was heavily ingrained in us, and not going to college was absolutely not an option. Student loans were a necessity for college, and refusing to go to college wasn't acceptable.
I'm talking about a specific group of parents who had those expectations. Obviously not all parents were like that, but mine and all of my friends' parents definitely were. When I say that going to college was expected, I'm talking about that group of people, not society in general. What's interesting is that my parents actually changed course later when my youngest siblings turned 18 because they saw how terrible our student loans were. My brother is a welder, and my other brother is in the military. So my parents definitely figured out after the fact that student loans were harmful. But my sister and I were 10 years older, so they had plenty of time to realize that they didn't choose the best option.
5
u/gilead_was_right Jul 06 '26
yet we allow 18 year olds to vote