<p>Sorority? That is not, by any means, a required cost during undergrad. Required volunteer commitments? I’m not sure any volunteer commitment is “required.” Everyone has an academic workload and can typically graduate in four years unless they are enrolled in extended programs – it doesn’t mean that working on the side is impossible. Either way, you have to consider opportunity cost. If you’re forgoing working for the sake of these extra bells and whistles, it’s going to be a messy road to recovery.</p>
<p>There’s definitely time to fit it all in (many students spend 10-20 hours per week doing work-study, for example). I worked fulltime during my undergrad years… but it was rather soul-crushing, and it really detracted from my college experience and caused lots of stress. I only went through with it because I was attending an Ivy League university and felt that it was worth the pain. In hindsight, I probably should have gone to a cheaper school (today I have about $40k left in undergrad debt), although my own case is unique.</p>
<p>You’re taking on quite a bit of risk, here. U of D is, what, $30k+ a year? Definitely agreed with the others – you should not cosign any more loans and get her to transfer somewhere cheaper.</p>
<p>I know more than one young couple who have bought a home in their twenties. Two examples from my family are:</p>
<p>Nephew and Niece-in-law, have just bought their second home at age 26. How did they do that? Four years each of service in the US Marine Corps, with the first home purchased after Nephew returned from his first tour in Iraq. NIL started her AA as a dual-enrollment in HS, and completed it before they married. She’s now preparing to complete her BA at the new location. And yes, she also managed to have a baby on the USMC’s dime.</p>
<p>My cousin’s daughter married last year at age 20, and moved into the house her husband had just bought. No baby on the way yet, but it would be no surprise if that happened in the next year or so. Cousin’s daughter has a 2-year med-tech degree, and is making good money. Cousin’s son-in-law is nearing the end of his apprenticeship as a pipe-fitter, and is practically turning away work.</p>
<p>Neither of these young couples are they sort that parents at CC tend to be fretting about, but I assure you that they are very real. So are their innumerable peers who made similar decisions about post-high school life.</p>
<p>Sylvan - it is very doable. They just have to decide to do it, and make sacrifices (or rather, sacrifice the luxuries that they think they’re entitled to).</p>
<p>When they go to buy their first house, the bank usually gives them a figure or what they can afford for a monthly payment based on their financial situation. The bank will calculate how much home they can buy with a 30-year mortgage - but they should ask how much they can buy with a 20-year loan instead. Yes, less house, but if they still get a 30-year loan they have the luxury of paying it off on their own schedule. Make extra payments when they can, if money is tight, just pay the scheduled amount. The bank is in the business of making money off your loan - they are more than happy to help you buy a bigger house. I know plenty of friends who bought the bigger house, and they are all wondering what they have to give up to afford college. I’m going to enjoy my eventual retirement, because I learned to live within my means from day one.</p>
<p>Graduates are complaining that they can’t live the life they want because of the loans - but if they borrowed to pay Sorority or Fraternity dues, or to go to a college that simply costs too much, they had their 4 years of luxury. If they had cut back then, they wouldn’t have to cut back now. If they want answers, they need to call Mom and Dad. They allowed this to happen, and maybe even caused it. As a taxpayer, I don’t owe them an explanation anymore than I owe an explanation to the family that runs up $50,000 in credit card debt… nobody made them do it, it’s their own poor choices that got them where they are today.</p>
<p>Legend: I don’t want to vere off subject but I’ve always wondered about “required” volunteering. Somehow it takes a way from the spirit of things. </p>
<p>Back on subject. We are gearing up to have the “money” talk with D. The talk is going to include what we will pay and emphasize I will not co sign for or borrow any money. We will do with what we have saved and what we can afford to spend while she is in college. She may get some good financial aid and scholarships but she needs to be ready to be disappointed if “prestige U” gives her $30k/yr but the school still costs $30k/yr to attend. We’ll see what happens but I will definitely bookmark this article.</p>
<p>In other threads you mention that your child has the stats for merit at some schools. She wants to do ChemE. </p>
<p>If I were you, before I have “the talk”, I would have a handful of high-merit alternative schools to offer so that your D isn’t just hearing, “We’ll only pay XX”, when she knows that schools cost XX+++.</p>
<p>If you include a few schools with assured merit for her stats, include a breakout of the merit award, your contribution, and the costs to attend these schools, she may feel less “cut off at the knees.” </p>
<p>Beware of using raw COA costs…a number of schools are highly padding their COAs so that families can do Plus up to COA to cover pricier options (pricier dorms, meal plans, etc). Those luxury options are necessary, so the real COA might be lower.</p>
My son did this. Actually, he bought his house about 5 years ago with a 15 yr mortgage. He got married 4 years ago and when he and his wife started making good money, instead of buying new cars and nice vacations, they increased their mortgage payments. The house will be payed off in less than two years from now.</p>
<p>Do you know how much less they will have paid for that house than if they had taken out a 30 year mortgage? It’s unbeleivable.</p>
I am usually very sympathetic to those with student loan debt, but then I got to the end of the story
“I am owed answers simply because I have the right to pursue happiness.”
Not sure how to characterize this, but let’s start by saying it’s no one’s fault-not the high school guidance counselor, not the media, not the neighbors; at some point we all have to take responsibility for our actions, and getting two degrees and not realizing that one has to pay back debts is, well, troubling to say the least. The answer is that we’re all responsible for our decisions; being a student isn’t an exemption.
Totally unrelated-what’s all this “drinking the Kool Aid business”? Maybe I’m showing my age, but the only Kool Aid drinking analogy comes from Jonestown, where everybody died from drinking poisoned Kool Aid. What am I missing?</p>
<p>My colleague’s wife worked for some time also. She was all for the support of her D. Fortunately, they may also have some inheritance too. I believe they can handle the $600K with only one D. Aunt bea had a pretty good guess. His D transferred to the OOS in California after he got out of the disability. At least, she stayed IS and closer to her parents for two years during the difficult time.</p>
<p>“Totally unrelated-what’s all this “drinking the Kool Aid business”? Maybe I’m showing my age, but the only Kool Aid drinking analogy comes from Jonestown, where everybody died from drinking poisoned Kool Aid. What am I missing?”</p>
<p>You have the right analogy. To drink the Kool Aid means to join in with the delusional groupthink and follow the other lemmings off the cliff.</p>
<p>Your son is just incredibly fortunate. Most people don’t buy a home at all until age 35, and most people don’t make enough money to have new cars and nice vacations or increase their mortgage payments.</p>
<p>35 is the mean age of first time home buyers, but the median is only 30 - that means that half of the first-time home buyers are 30 or younger. Obviously there are some who don’t buy their first home until they’re far older, and the skews the mean age higher. There are plenty of young people buying homes.</p>
<p>I would be careful of claiming most people don’t make enough for a new car or vacations - because that’s what many of these people are doing, or want to do. Yes, you have to make sacrifices, but that’s part of the cost of your education (or whatever else you spent your money on). Many of these people could benefit from an accounting of exactly where their money goes - they would be surprised how much they are spending on “wants” rather than “needs.”</p>
<p>My nephew recently purchased a huge TV, though he wanted an even bigger one - he didn’t qualify for financing. Turned out he was lucky, because he was laid off a for a few weeks, and wouldn’t have been able to make the payments. As it is he would have had to sell the TV if he didn’t live in his father’s house. Dad was willing to delay the rent payment until he was back to work - most landlords aren’t that forgiving. Could he afford the TV? Well, he had the money in his account, he paid cash. But in reality he shouldn’t have bought it, because he didn’t have an emergency fund, so no, he couldn’t really afford it.</p>
<p>I just don’t understand how her parents would let that happen. I know nothing about her earlier school, but Ursuline Academy would have been around 40k alone. Granted there is possibility for assistance, but most likely her parents were just able to afford that. I just don’t understand why you would go for a second degree immediately if you were already in a large amount of debt either.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids: I’ve encouraged her to apply to schools with guaranteed admission scholarships ie. Alabama, Ohio University etc. She is preparing her applications to Northwestern, WUSTL, Case Western, Purdue, U of Toledo and U of Kentucky. U of Toledo is the only one I know we can afford. They will give her a $6500 admissions scholarship and she should be eligible for some other money - COA around $20000/yr. She would be eligible to apply for their full ride Presidential Scholarship, however, there are only 4 of them. Case Western is known to give good aid but again it may not be enough to cover what we can’t afford without loans. NU and Wustl are reaches and they are the ones I’m most concerned she will be disappointed in if she is accepted but the aid is not enough for us to afford it. Purdue is a school she loves. Purdue, however, is unlikely to come close to meeting our aid need. I suspect that even given their maximum OOS scholarship it may end up costing more than any of her other chosen schools. UK gave full tuition scholarships to two of her older friends with similar interests and stats to hers. If she received the same we could afford it. </p>
<p>This is my first child and I may be wrong but as long as the school is accredited and has the opportunities she is looking for the onus to succeed is on her. In the middle of the winter UT will look little different from NU. While there maybe more intellectual types at Wustl the group she surrounds herself with at any college will have more impact than which school she attends. Graduating from Purdue with $80k in debt will impact her future far more than attending a perceived less prestigous university. Her mother and I have intimated this for some time now it’s time to lay it on the line. God help us!</p>
<p>I did this, though I would not recommend it.</p>
<p>I was married at 21, while still in college (undergraduate). We bought a house (FHA mortgage) when I was 22 (starting a graduate school). I had my son when I was 23.</p>
<p>It was tough, very tough - especially the first year.</p>
<p>P.S. The reason why it was doable was because I did not have any student loans. My husband had minimal student loan when we married - 2-3K combined Direct and Parent Plus - the combined payments were around $100 a month.</p>
<p>I got married around 28 or 29 and we bought our house a year later and paid it off around ten years later. We bought far less house than we could have. We bought in the middle of a housing crash when interest rates were very high. It gave us a lot of time to save for college. The stock boom years of the 1990s helped as did the commodity boom in the 2000s.</p>
<p>The advantage of waiting several years to buy your first house is that your income and savings should be higher if you’ve been frugal through that time.</p>
<p>“35 is the mean age of first time home buyers, but the median is only 30 - that means that half of the first-time home buyers are 30 or younger. Obviously there are some who don’t buy their first home until they’re far older, and the skews the mean age higher. There are plenty of young people buying homes.”</p>
<p>My wife was 18 when she bought her first condo. She was 22 when she bought a townhouse with me.</p>
<p>I’m concerned by the poor quality of this student’s writing – the strange sentence construction, the stilted, odd, formal quality of the language. How is it that she spent nearly 200,000 dollars and yet still writes so poorly? Whatever she bought with all that money, it was not an education or a set of skills. Also, she doesn’t appear to have learned much critical thinking.</p>
<p>*mom2collegekids: I’ve encouraged her to apply to schools with guaranteed admission scholarships ie. Alabama, Ohio University etc. She is preparing her applications to Northwestern, WUSTL, Case Western, Purdue, U of Toledo and U of Kentucky. U of Toledo is the only one I know we can afford. They will give her a $6500 admissions scholarship and she should be eligible for some other money - COA around $20000/yr. She would be eligible to apply for their full ride Presidential Scholarship, however, there are only 4 of them. Case Western is known to give good aid but again it may not be enough to cover what we can’t afford without loans. NU and Wustl are reaches and they are the ones I’m most concerned she will be disappointed in if she is accepted but the aid is not enough for us to afford it. Purdue is a school she loves. Purdue, however, is unlikely to come close to meeting our aid need. I suspect that even given their maximum OOS scholarship it may end up costing more than any of her other chosen schools. UK gave full tuition scholarships to two of her older friends with similar interests and stats to hers. If she received the same we could afford it. </p>
<p>This is my first child and I may be wrong but as long as the school is accredited and has the opportunities she is looking for the onus to succeed is on her. In the middle of the winter UT will look little different from NU. While there maybe more intellectual types at Wustl the group she surrounds herself with at any college will have more impact than which school she attends. Graduating from Purdue with $80k in debt will impact her future far more than attending a perceived less prestigous university. Her mother and I have intimated this for some time now it’s time to lay it on the line. God help us!
*</p>
<p>LVV…</p>
<p>You need to tell your D that she can’t borrow $80k for Purdue or any school without your cooperation. She would need willing, (naive), and qualified co-signers to borrow more than the Stafford amounts…</p>
<p>5500 frosh
6500 soph
7500 jr
7500 sr</p>
<p>So, if you wisely won’t do that, then that should move her to consider some more affordable schools (such as ones that will give her large merit).</p>
<p>I don’t know what her stats are, but if she’s an engineering or CS majors, and she has at least a 30 ACT (or 1330 M+CR SAT), then Alabama would give her FREE tuition PLUS $2500 per year. Her remaining costs would be about $11k per year (and that with the pricey Honors dorms with private bedrooms!!). It sounds like she’s considering Toledo but not Alabama??? Why?</p>
<p>I found myself in a mess when I graduated. I got a worthless professional degree and could not make a living at what I wanted to do. My student loans ballooned from $70,000 to $140,000. When I took out student loans I had no idea how they would come back to haunt me. A good friend of mine who was going to school with me made a joke that he wanted to graduate with the highest student loan debt possible. I always considered him smart so I figured student loans were no big deal (I know I was young and stupid). Once reality hit me that I may never pay these off and may be ruined for life the sleekness nights started. I eventually changed fields and also worked at night as an adjunct college professor. I was able to pay about $2500/month into the loans and put some of them into my house because the interest was lower and I could write it off. It stinks working so hard just to pay loans but they are basically gone now. So even though the young lady in the article is severely in debt she still has a chance.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if these students ever consider joing the military? This young girl has an advanced degree so she could start off as an officer and the military would pay off a large portion of her student loans. She would also get free room and board.</p>