I think a very large difference is that a business needs customers to thrive and a lot of factors you have no control over. So, if you get drunk the night before a test and blow it, that's your fault. The local mill closes down cutting the number of folks in your vicinity with disposable income in half, that's not something you could have prevented.
When one's main adviser has 4 life threatening procedures in 6 years and your other main committee member gets fired for propositioning students thus leaving you in a few administrative lurches, is that controllable or no?
And I'll laugh at you. Student loans don't even try to come get you. Lenders do. From success to broke is the huge difference. Equating student loans is ludicrous. In grad school, everyone had them but expected to pay them off. To take them on for low paying or low odds of well paying jobs...well, that's not risk, that's gambling and silly.
Here's an idea: Get up every morning, work as hard as you can, try to make difference when you can, be as kind and helpful to clients/customers/students when possible, take on new challenges and constantly grow in your profession, treat your employment as a real vocation, as a calling, honor it with your hard work. There are lazy professors, corrupt cops, swindling bankers, insurance fraud specialists, inside traders, awol soldiers, and on and on. I had great professors and lazy ones, but the same could be said for insurance agents, state troopers and pastors. Are there more hucksters in some professions than others? Probably. But if you work hard, try to be the best at whatever it is you call a profession, and can sleep well at night after a hard day's work, good for you.
What collateral do you have to put up for student loans vs a loan for starting a business? I assume starting a business involves risking at least you and your familys home.
If you have projectable cash flows and a resonable credit rating you can avoid putting up your house usually. Interest rate can be higher though.
May I ask what the difference is? Is a loan not a loan? What makes one debt different? Or is it the pressures of running your own business, especially with employees, and not the actual debt that leads to the stress? I am familiar with school, house and credit card debt, but not with business debt. So that is why I am asking.
School loan can be deferred and negotiated on out for ever and ever, it seems. When you take out a business loan, you don't get wiggle room.
