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Comment by jdmoreira | Hacker News Reader

I live in Sweden and though I’m debt free from my understanding most household debt it’s either student loans and/or mortgage.

And by student loans I don’t mean the same as US student loans. Education is free and the state lends you money so you can move out of your parents home when you are 18 and can become independent - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_financial_aid_(Swede...

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most household debt it’s either student loans and/or mortgage.

While true in absolute numbers, the amount of unsecured debt in Sweden is among the highest in Europe pr. capita and has been growing very fast for the past decade. Equally the percentage of loan payments going towards paying down loans, as opposed to servicing the interest, is decreasing[1]. There is a reason why seemingly 80% of ads you see here are either for online casinos or loan companies ;)

The number of people in Sweden defaulting on their loans (being sent to Kronofogden) is also growing at an alarming rate.

[1] fi.se/contentassets/3900398fb47e41d6a6a5d9af378a1f36/konsumtionslan2019ny20190614.pdf

Wow. I was not expecting this. This blows my mind, I don’t want to make assumptions based on prejudice but it shows how much I live in a bubble.

So kind of like US student loans? A lot of US student loans go towards paying for housing and general living expenses. It’s not just tuition.

One difference is that the student loans in Sweden are controlled by the government and have a very low interest rate (it's 0.05% currently). It'd be foolish not taking that loan.

That is a big difference!

I think the argument goes something like this: if the state lends money to allow more people to educate themselves, then in the future those people will be earning more money and then be paying higher taxes. Therefore the interest on the loan does not need to pay it of, the increased income to the state from taxes need to pay of the loans.

As another commenter wrote, taking a student loan in Sweden is so beneficial that you would take it even if you don't need it because just taking it and buying funds or stock with it would give you free money.

There are even standard savings accounts that have a higher interest rate than the student loan

Don't think they do anymore though. Most savings accounts have like 0% or like 0.1%

For the largest banks that's true, but there are many smaller banks e.g. IKANO Bank (owned by the IKEA family) is 0.4% https://ikanobank.se/spara, and there are many more https://www.compricer.se/sparande/

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