Graduating from college with little to no student loan debt can free up the young adult to be able to accept that initial just-out-of-college dream job which pays peanuts. And attending community college first is a great way to safeguard one’s financial health while pursuing a BA/BS.
I think that it’s pretty normal for many HS seniors to think, “I’m ONLY going to community college.” I also think that a lot of people on College Confidential get caught up with the “must go to a prestigious college” hype. It’s easy to get sucked into all that. It’s also hard for a HS senior to see the big picture because he/she might be feeling a lot of social pressure from peers, other family members, etc. to go straight into a 4 yr institution.
Some community colleges do offer scholarships. For example, the community college system in our area has free tuition if your HS GPA is 3.0 or higher.
Around 15% of the graduating students from my daughter’s high school choose to go through the CC-to-4 year college route every year. The only ones for whom it’s really difficult are the ones who want to study engineering, since they have to churn through all of their math and work heavy engineering courses in two years, rather than spread them out. But for other majors, it’s a very affordable and worthwhile route. One of my daughter’s good friends, who was interested in psychology took that route, specifically because they knew that they would be going to grad school, and wanted to save money.
They can probably attend their local State U for a very reasonable price and commute from home. I know lots of kids that went to a satellite UT or TAMU campus and enjoyed their time.
Engineering majors starting at community college can do stuff like math and physics before transferring. However, and lower level engineering courses not available at community college would have to be caught up after transfer.
Probably not an issue for a psychology major whose lower level courses are common ones that should be available at community colleges. May need to check if early childhood education has any specialty lower level courses that are not available at community colleges.
Here in CA, early childhood ed is a popular CC major, as a fair number of students choose it as a terminal AA, in addition to those who transfer to four-year programs. At least one local CC even has its own Child Development Center, that’s been established for 50 years and is used for research-based teacher training.
If you choose a community college wisely and choose classes/professors wisely within that college, it’s entirely possible to end up with a better experience in the first two years than at many four-year colleges. CC’s often offer smaller classes and have dedicated professors who are delighted to mentor motivated students.
There are, of course, downsides as well. CC administrations often paternalistic and full of petty tyrants. But a discerning consumer can still get what they need and save a lot of money.
This is a great point, especially the part which I bolded. When you go to Big State U, the odds of your classes being really really big is quite high. So are the odds of you ending up in some classes where the ‘discussion section’ of the class is taught by a grad student and NOT the professor.
…whereas, at a community college, it’s the professor who teaches it all. And you probably won’t end up in a Psych 101 class with 800 other students.
As adult parents, we are all still learning the ropes. We (meaning my husband and I) often fail them as parents because life happens and we are human.
Yes, our great kids have had to deal with disappointments from us because we weren’t able to buy them the designer clothes, new cars or pay for the “elite” colleges, like their friends got, so with a combination of summer jobs in H.S., student loans, and scrimping, their educations were paid for by the family.
Did they work their butts off in high school? Absolutely. Did they get scholarships? Only the eldest where it did make a difference, but she received one at a time, when universities were still granting full rides.
If you didn’t save funds, long term, then they have to figure out a way to help with their expenses and costs of attending a university. Community colleges are a good way to do that because they will still access a good education. The only thing that matters is that they complete their educations without going into total debt for the remainder of their lives.
Tell them that the world is expensive and that you appreciate their hard work such that they will be successful no matter what route they take. It will make for better people, as well as, future employees.
I’d suggest they take a gap year to get instate tuition in Texas. They can work and save for college plus you and your husband can put aside the $1000 a month per daughter.
Then apply to schools they can commute to from home after the first year in the dorms.
I am a bit perplexed here. The deadline for most colleges to commit to is May 1. We are in July! Without knowing which school this is, it is hard to give you good advice.
My suggestion would be to sit them down and tell them it is not possible. I would look at spring entrance to state schools in TX that are close to home or some that are still accepting students.
Your kids should understand that college is expensive and that they should have consulted with their parents before sending applications out.
And yeah, your hubby is right. No one will pay for your retirement.
It’s not free. The student has a military obligation for a certain number of years after college graduation. Unless someone wants to be in the military, this should not be considered a “free” way to attend college.
This is the time in this process when reality strikes as tuition bills post and loans may need to be signed. Summer melt (students deciding they are not coming) is a real thing for colleges for any number of reasons, but tuition bills posting certainly triggers a high percentage of it.
In comparison to the costs at most colleges, this is pretty darn affordable. If this is after scholarships, they’ve done really well. When my daughter applied several years ago she had a combination of publics and privates and her lowest cost school would have been 22k per year. Could they each take the federal loans, then work in the summers to bridge the gap? This doesn’t sound like a big deficit to make up.
Poster said the $10k and $14k are after all grants and loans (so the $5500 loan has already been applied). That’s ~$25 grand for the family to come up with every year, plus travel and other expenses. So the kids would have $28k in loans after 4 yrs, and the parent will have paid out another $100k. That’s a lot for a teacher and a psych major to pay back.
The kids each have 5500 in loans already so over 4 years thats 44 K between them in loans.
The parents have the deficit at 100K.
Going TX instate would save a huge chunk of change. And doing CC would save another huge chunk. Do what you can to keep all of you out of debt.
