<p>The top 10 colleges will always have people willing to pay at any price. International students are lined up at the door with their wallets open.</p>
<p>Its the mid range LACs and privates that should begin to feel the strain of people no longer willing to pay those big numbers.</p>
<p>Back in the day I worked summers and part time to pay off my $3000 private school education without too much problem. I maxed credits and lived at home.</p>
<p>My kids could go to the local State U and pay $8000 a year, live at home and work summers and part time and make it work with our support or some small loans.</p>
<p>As parents put the breaks on the outflow of cash you will see more and more high stats kids heading to these schools. When that happens those mid tier privates will have to lower costs to get these kids coming back.</p>
<p>Supply and demand will fix it as long as we QUIT taking on these outregeous loans.</p>
<p>This is the only thing i agree with New t Gin grich about “we are currently paying 99 weeks of unemployment. That is enough time to get an associates degree or to get votech training for a different job. - if you are able and you do not spend your 99 weeks in training then you won’t get the checks”</p>
<p>We are paying for our kids educations, but they have to get a 4 year degree in an areas where the chances for employment are high (nursing, accounting, engineering. THEN they can use their own money to follow their passion and attend graduate school.</p>
<p>Sax said: “My kids could go to the local State U and pay $8000 a year, live at home and work summers and part time and make it work with our support or some small loans.”</p>
<p>But to me, part of the whole college experience is living on the campus as well during the college years. I know that college is a privilege and not a right, but isn’t there a better way than having the kids work jobs while attending school, and living at home to boot? Where is the time for them to enjoy the college lifestyle and socialize w/friends? Working hard during the summers, I understand, but w/the rigors of college, it is very hard to work during the school year and keep your grades up. I think to some, college is more than earning a degree. It is a rite of passage of sorts, and it just a shame that w/the astronomical costs, that many may not be able to experience it w/living on campus. Also, I don’t think too many state U’s in my state would only be $8,000 for the year. UIUC is $20,000+, Northern Illinois University is $16,000+, Illinois State University is $12,000+. I think Eastern Illinois University may in the neighborhood of $8,000 a year though…</p>
<p>I am one parent who is NOT getting on this crazy train to financial hardship by thinking my kid is getting something “worth” more going to a “ranked” school. I don’t plan on spending much at all for my two beginning college in 2013. My husband is on faculty at a state school (full tuition remission) and one D will attend there. My other D is applying for full ride scholarships at a couple of good LACs, but is also fine with going to the state school should her plan not work out. I plan on being out less than $10 a year for two kids in college, most of that expense will be from books, room and board. I think it is INSANE to get into large debt for an undergraduate degree. Both my kids will need help going to med/grad school and it is possible for us to help more when we are careful with our money now. I’d also actually like to retire someday!</p>
We already have ways of doing this. Most of the people who get into a lot of student loan debt do it because the decide to. </p>
<p>If an individual (or family) decide to forego the less expensive routes (commuting to local state U, CC->state U, attending the private or state that gave lots of merit/grant aid, etc.) for the expensive private school with huge loans, that’s a decision they made. If that’s what they want to do then fine but please don’t try to stick the taxpayers with your bill because of your decisions. (I’m referring to random students/families - not anyone in particular on CC) The whole concept of ‘loan forgiveness’ is ridiculous. People should pay for their loans and not stick the taxpayer and fiscally responsible people.</p>
<p>A lot of people think of this question in terms of $55k/year for the private or nothing and that’s not the case - there are lots of other options and an Ivy education is not a requirement to be successful, educated, and happy.</p>
<p>^^ These questions aren’t so black and white. There’s nothing wrong with a reasonable amount of debt that can be managed without significantly impacting your future. There’s nothing wrong with ‘no’ debt either. </p>
<p>Why do you have a ‘dream school’? What parts about it are you dreaming about? Keep in mind that once you get there you might find it’s not quite what it was in your dreams - you may be doing HW late into the night, have profs who can’t teach or can’t be understood (i.e. they can’t speak English intelligibly), have an obnoxious roommate, get worse grades than you planned, find that you really won’t do well in some class and end up switching majors from your dream major, etc. Of course maybe none of those things will happen (I hope they don’t - at least not all of them) but I’m just trying to illustrate how some of those bubbles can be burst. </p>
<p>If the decision is between a no-name school with little selectivity and a poor reputation vs a top school then it may make sense to choose the latter despite some ‘reasonable’ debt. OTOH if you’re comparing schools that are within a narrow gap of each other in rankings (whatever you think is important) and are similar, ex: UCB vs UCSD vs UCLA, then it’s likely not worth much in the way of debt.</p>
<p>There’s no pat answer for you but you’re right to ‘value’ the debt to see if it’s really worth it.</p>
<p>Referring to the article about the 60 year old with the master’s degree in psychology debt. What they do not tell us is where the degree came from. My guess is she signed up for an online for profit masters degree and is now stuck with the huge debt. Fantasy got in the way of reality and she probably fell for a slick “admissions counselor”</p>
<p>I constantly advise my community college students not to go with the online options except in the case of doing it through our state university system. Hopefully, now that this scam has been exposed in the media, we will see less debt.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I see a lot of debt occurring because the students wanted the “full” college experience. Cars are bought, spring break trips are financed along with the $90.00 shirts with little whales embroidered on them (or some similar status item). Students with no family support are often the most vulnerable as they borrow away in order to fit in.</p>
<p>About 60% of my community college students are “reverse transfers”. Some are in this position because of real issues that impeded their progress. The majority are with us because Mom and Dad felt they should be in college and the kid wanted to have the experience of college. Sadly, the parents of these kids will waste four semesters of money on junior’s experience. It is often only after the college refuses to readmit them that they come come and continue to fail with us. We don’t have a draft presently and kids no longer have to be in college to stay on parental health insurance. Some kids need to work for a few years before they are ready, others will never be ready (college is not for everyone).</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with not going away to college. Back in the 1940’s my mother elected to go to Duke and live at home rather than go away to a state school. Even then, tuition was expensive-she won some type of town student scholarship that Duke had back then. Although there are things she missed out on (it wasn’t dances and dates-WWII era), she was always proud of her degree and sported a Duke Alumni sticker on her car. She later developed Alzheimer’s. One memory stayed with her almost to the end- her degree from Duke.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, this would be true - but in this less-than-perfect world we live in, this kind of experience may well be a luxury. To me, it’s kind of crazy to take out huge loans just so you can have that “rite of passage,” but that’s me. YMMV.</p>
<p>I’m not picking on you LadyHam, I just have a difference of opinion. I think on-campus living is the gravy but the college education is the real meal.</p>
<p>I imagine that the campus experience is nice (I have never experienced it) but I was working quite a few hours part-time at a job that was next to where I lived and that was more convenient for work overall. I don’t know what it cost back then to live on campus - maybe $500 or $1,000? I suppose that I could have rolled that into a loan but I didn’t know enough to do that.</p>
<p>A lot of people like the granite counters experience too. But there are lots of people that get by fine without them.</p>
<p>Searching, searching, searching for the “like” button. </p>
<p>I, for one, am for attending a school you can afford. DD chose the scholarship over prestige. She also had a high school teacher who graduated from Yale Divinity and after 15 years was still paying off loans.</p>
<p>Scout59 ~ I do agree w/you as well. In my post, I stated that college is a privilege and not a right. It’s just a shame that there is not a better way than having kids get into unrealistic debt just so they can experience the whole college experience. I do think that you can get the whole college experience at a less expensive college rather than going to what is perceived as a prestigious, brand name school though, and that is something to be considered. And I don’t think you are picking on me at all; I appreciate the discussion everyone is having on this thread. Thanks for your thoughts.</p>
<p>Here is a recent posting by a guy in the business forum who notes,
,“And as for CUNY, I rather have Stern/Mendoza name + $100,000 debt than just CUNY-Baruch name on my resume”</p>
<p>This prestige or die mentality is why we are having a huge potential problem with student indebtedness and why there are still people age 60 who are paying off student loan debt.</p>
<p>Sadly, there is no arguing with close minded people.</p>
<p>OMG - still having people at 60 that haven’t managed to pay off college student loans is preposterous. So many bad decisions had to have been made along the way for that to make sense. I mean, how the hell did they even graduate if they cannot figure out how to pay off student loans by age 60.</p>
<p>Poor choice of school, must have been even worse choice of major - followed by a life of terrible living beyond one’s means.</p>
<p>Again, colleges are expensive, but as I have seen so many level headed parents on here managing to “work the system”, I have to think age 60’ers still struggling to pay off student loans are a rare and messed up breed.</p>
<p>This reminds me of my friends ex wife. She has $40,000 in loans with a bachelors in early childhood education. She works at a preschool making maybe $12.00 an hour and has now returned to school to become a registered nurse. She is 43 years old. She will easily end up 60 k in debt. I couldn’t imagine beIng close to 50 and having all those loans.</p>
<p>Maidenmom: this woman didn’t live above her means, but made the mistake of taking as much as she could take every semester so she wouldn’t have to work and still pay the rent, food etc… I know, it doesn’t seem right. I can understand using some of that for childcare but just for cash so you don’t have to work at all seems crazy.</p>
<p>mspearl - I guess by living above one’s means, to me, means they didn’t hunker down and pay back the loan first thing. I can tell your friends ex wife suffered from at least one of my mentions - bad degree choice. I feel like if you chose a major that stands little chance of making decent money (because you love it I presume), please go to the cheapest school you can find - or consider whether or not you actually need a four year degree to do the work you love.</p>
<p>I also lurk listen to a talk radio show by Dave Ramsey - I just landed there one day and agree with his money advice which is to a slew of people in debt and most of them with huge student loan debt. Let me tell you, 99% of them made a poor choice of school with a major guaranteed to put them in the poor house. This is why I jump on this topic like I am.</p>
<p>It also almost always seems they also have car notes, houses they shouldn’t have bought, multiple kids they want to send to college someday and credit card debt out the a**. If you take out large school loans, you better make sure you can turn that major into a money making job and get rid of that debt as soon as you are out of school and before you borrow money again.</p>
<p>I think if handled this way, you cannot get to be 60 and still have outstanding student loans.</p>
<p>Hi All,
This is a very timely discussion, especially for those of us whose kiddos are starting college soon. I told my D that she MUST read Debt Free U by Zac Bissonette. She’s learning from it since it’s not more lecturing from me.</p>
<p>My husband works for a large Defense Contractor. He has two co-workers he talks about. One has a large amount of student loans that he restructured to pay over 30 years. And this guy is not a fresh-out-of-school new hire. If we had that much debt and paid over that amount of time, we would still be paying student loans at a time when we’re contemplating sending our own kids to school. He has another co-worker who has been paying his loans for the past 12 years and appears to not be even close to done paying them off. Back when I graduated, the standard payback timeframe was, of course, 10 years.</p>
<p>Presently D is wrestling with where to go. She has about three or four choices, that I think we can swing financially, the fourth being about $4K over what we can cover comfortably from savings and her contribution from summer work. She also has been accepted to USC with their Presidential Scholarship (1/2 tuition). The problem is that we are fairly high income and USC’s COA is $60K. I figure we are a good $15K/year short of affording USC. So, even though she really wants to go to school in California (she was born there, I think it’s a back to her roots instinct) I don’t think it’s prudent to have her go there with that kind of cost deficit. She can maybe get a job in Ca. after she graduates, when SHE’s paying for it. She is looking to major in a STEM field so if she sticks with it, she should make decent money. But DH and I are careful with our money and really don’t want our kids to start off financially in the hole.</p>
<p>BTW, when I started my first job, it was easy to see who had student loans and who didn’t merely by walking through the parking lot. Those without loans had much nicer cars.</p>
<p>2girlzmum, you’re right this is obviously a very timely thread. Like you, we’re wrestling with choices. Our kid made Ivies, one of which is a “dream school,” and earned a full-ride plus at the state U. When they’ve worked so hard to distinguish themselves, it’s difficult to send them to the state U with friends who perhaps didn’t work quite so hard. Financial common sense tells us to accept the state U, but the access to labs and cutting-edge research opportunities at some of the Ivies make it tough. If your daughter “sticks” with STEM, then maybe 15k parent loan a year for USC is a reasonable risk if she agrees to help repay your loan.</p>