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Paying for College
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No, it would have been the amount of loans. The amount I was expected to pay was $30,000.</p>

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<p>Well, much of the income is going towards mortgage payments (some unscrupulous purchases were made during the housing bubble) and collage loan payments (they finished school only in the last 5 years). I have no college savings, and the $15k that my parents would have helped me with would include work study and the like.</p>

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<p>This is absolutely true, which is why I emphasized to Julian that we were not in the same situation.</p>

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<p>Thank you for your explanation; it has clarified things a bit. For my undergrad career, I was firmly opposed - and still am - to taking on any debt, especially because I will have to finance my entire post-undergrad academic career, so I understand your opposition to someone taking out loans that could by them a house.</p>

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<p>I know a few people who live in NYC and consider it a bargain to pay $750 - with that being their share of the rent, which is generally split 3-4 ways - in order to sleep on a couch with a “view” of NYC’s skyline. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. :o</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>Yes, some resort to such things as splitting rent 3-4 ways. However, that gets old rather quickly - especially as people move on into their twenties and want to live solely with a significant other.</p>

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<p>Even to split rent 3-4 ways – the person generally needs to come up with at least twice the rent to move into a room. </p>

<p>Do the math – figure out what kind of income Julian would have to generate to make loan payments in order to have $1000 left over each month for personal expenses. (The $750 rent for an apartment split 4 ways doesn’t include utilities, food, and incidental expenses – so managing to get by on $1000 a month would in itself be tight).</p>

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<p>Just curious – did Harvard give you enough financial aid so that you can achieve that goal (no undergraduate debt)?</p>

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<p>^Thankfully, yes. After a successful appeal, I will not have any debt after four years of college - I’ll save the heartache in the form of loans for law school. :)</p>

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<p>milkandsugar,</p>

<p>Yes, I meant federal loan max. I think sk8rmom thinks I was referring to need but that wasn’t what I meant. My college allowed students to say early on in the process each year if they preferred loans, work-study or both. If you couldn’t find a job, you could call the financial aid office and they would shift all or part of the ws award into loans – but I think it was only up to the federal loan max.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>I think 2college is right. I read about converting w/s to loans and it kept referring to a “grid” to determine if that is possible. It didn’t have a link to the said “grid,” but I think it was referring to whether a student was already “maxed” out on federal limits.</p>

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<p>Depending on your interests after law school, you might be able to get some or most of your loans forgiven if you enter in some form of public service. This is especially common among the highest tier of the Ivy League universities.</p>

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<p>^Ah, yes. I have been looking into those programs, which according to my research are sponsored by Harvard and Yale - do you know if any other institutions have these debt forgiveness programs? However, I am not yet sure that I would like to enter a public service job immediately following graduation.</p>

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<p>Ksarmand, I think you actually represent the opposite end of the spectrum from Julian; you are someone who has a conservative and risk-averse view of student debt, and definitely is planning for the long term. So even after being admitted to Ivy League colleges, you were still actively considering your full-ride offer from Hunter – something that most prestige-obsessed CC’ers would not do – and this was even with a cost-differential that was giving you a substantial discount over full cost students. Even now, as you enter Harvard (pretty much the cream of the crop) – you are focused on the question of how you are going to finance law school – even though you probably know that with a Harvard degree, you could probably easily pay off a moderate amount of debt by taking 2 or 3 years off between graduation and starting law school. Your career aspirations are such that you could also accept a very broad range of employment and still be furthering your goals – for example, its pretty common for students intent on law school to work in a support capacity in a law office during a gap year after college, and there is no shortage of law firms in major cities that need support staff. </p>

<p>I think you clearly have made excellent choices, giving a good deal of thought along the way to the finances --and that certainly bodes well for the future. You probably could be Exhibit A for “the right way to manage college finances”. </p>

<p>But to me… that just reinforces how misguided a student is to take on more undergraduate debt than he can handle in conjunction with career aspirations in a field where regular, high paying work will be difficult to find. I think its particularly frustrating when the student clearly comes from a financially impoverished background – it kind of reinforces the cycle of the rich getting richer, while the poor get poorer. So I see you as a student from a solidly middle-class background, making decisions that will keep you on a firm financial footing down the road – possibly because you have a strong example from your own parents. Whereas the OP clearly lacks that example and guidance … and obviously isn’t willing to listen when it is offered.</p>

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<p>I became “middle-class” only three years ago; before that, I was living solidly below the federal poverty line. I’m more inclined to think that my aversion to entering debt comes from my experiences in difficult financial situations. It is only because I have seen what my parents have gotten themselves into that I am determined not to repeat their mistakes.</p>

<p>But many thanks for your advice about taking a few years off between undergrad and law school! It’ll definitely be in the back of my mind a few years from now. :)</p>

<p>And yes, I must agree - it is a bit disappointing to see individuals unwilling to take alternate paths to reach their ultimate goal, all because glory must be delayed.</p>

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Not defending the OP, but is there really a need to keep piling it on? Most readers here get what your thoughts are on this issue.</p>

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<p>Well then I’m glad to know that your parents have managed to recover from whatever economic barriers they faced in the past. (You did post somewhere that they have a reasonably good income now). </p>

<p>It is very easy to get overwhelmed with debt. I’ve posted on another thread that my personal belief is that students should base their decisions as to taking on debt based on present earning capacity, not future earning capacity. That is - everyone talks about how much money they will be able to make after they get their engineering degree, etc. – but I look at it as, you never know what could happen along the way to prevent getting that degree, but you certainly do know what you are capable of earning right now.</p>

<p>That’s why I had no problem with the idea of my d. taking on $18K worth of debt, in the form of subsidized loans. She could pay off that amount of she lived at home and worked the retail job she had the summer she graduated from high school. (Well, technically not – the major retailer she worked for has since gone out of business.) But the point is, she’s clearly got the ability to earn what is needed to handle the debt that she has taken on, even if the job market meant that she had to take a job that paid less than hoped for. Now that she’s got the bachelor’s degree, of course, if she opts for grad school, she can look at her earning capacity in light of the degree she has and the work experience she is gaining. </p>

<p>My point is that there is a smart way of looking at debt – and <em>smart</em> borrowing can be very useful in terms of financing an education or a house or a major purchase like a car. But ability to pay is always a very important part of the planning.</p>

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<p>University of Virginia has one that I’m personally familiar with, but I can’t think of any of the others off the top of my head.</p>

<p>Remember though, “public service” is a pretty broad term and is defined differently by colleges. For example, UVa’s definition of public service also includes private employment in areas in underserved areas. I checked Yale Law’s school and they also cover private practice as well as government or non-profit work. You should read up on the terms (many of them have a cap on the student’s income too, since it’s directed towards encouraging students to take on interesting but less-profitable fields of law rather than going en masse into Big Law to pay off their loans).</p>

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<p>That’s a great way for parents to look at it when they’re deciding how much of the debt burden should fall on the student, provided the parents can afford to pay the rest. Unfortunately, even the instate public schools in a relatively cheap state like NY don’t allow most kids to graduate with that little debt if the parents can’t afford to pay a significant chunk, barring substantial merit aid. So, the income challenged lower and middle income families are hard-pressed to come up with ways to keep student loans to a minimum, especially if their kid is interested in engineering, accounting, various health professions which are now almost always more than 4 years and/or require a graduate component.</p>

<p>My philosophy is to avoid debt or keep it as low as possible for the first 2 years, until the kid has truly found their niche in majors and has a successful track record. Then it becomes more of a ROI calculation when it comes to debt. I wouldn’t balk at $80K for certain degrees where the demand and salaries are high, and wouldn’t support $30K in other fields. While there’s no guarantee that any of them won’t end up working retail, I can’t imagine that most kids will get a solid college education on a minimum wage budget.</p>

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<p>I didn’t say anything about “minimum wage”. I don’t understand why parents seem to think that a kid with a high school diploma and no college can’t earn better than minimum wage. If the kid has the native intelligence to go to college, they ought to be able to work their way up past minimum wage level on any job. I’m not saying that they are going to be earning a huge amount of money, but when my son was 20, and not in college, he was earning roughly $25K a year. </p>

<p>This myth that you can’t do better than minimum wage without a college degree is part of what drives people to take on inordinate debt. A kid who doesn’t have the money to pay for 4 years of college doesn’t have to go straight through --they can start by attending community college part time while also working. </p>

<p>My son was age 25 by the time he had his bachelor’s degree – it wasn’t the end of the world. Down the line, his work experience was a huge advantage in terms of getting a job. </p>

<p>I think that individuals who are facing substantial financial barriers and can’t find a good job might do better to start by taking courses in community college geared to building vocational skills, first – and then with the foundation of those skills, they would have an improved earning capacity to look toward financing a 4-year degree. </p>

<p>The whole problem with this rationale of college degree = employment is that there are a lot of unemployed and unemployable people coming out of colleges with degrees that they thought were their job ticket – but they’ve got mediocre grades in college and they lack work experience, so whatever they learned doesn’t translate into a job in any case. When I say they are “unemployable” - I mean that there are students who lack work experience and job skills, and don’t know the first thing how to look for work. </p>

<p>I agree that its tough for a kid whose parents aren’t able or willing to foot part of the bill – but my point is that the kid has other options than to simply rely on loans.</p>

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<p>Sorry, my bad, I assumed when you said your D was working at a major retailer when she graduated HS that it would have been at minimum wage, or something close to it! One of my DD’s summer jobs is with Walmart, in one of the higher-paying departments, and she only makes $8.10/hour which, even at 32 hours a week, means around a $400 bi-weekly paycheck…but they’re good about working within her schedule needs so it’s worth it vs taking other jobs that might pay a bit more but compromise her summer class/internship schedules.</p>

<p>I agree that it’s absolutely not necessary to have a degree in order to earn a decent living and the trades and other fields like retail employ many bright, successful people, with and without degrees. But for the student who is determined to go straight to college and finish in 4-5 years, a good financial projection as applied to education will factor in demand for their field of interest as well as regional starting salaries. That’s really good information to have when a student is trying to develop their own personal “max” for loans. Nothing is guaranteed in life, sometimes you just have to take a chance and trust that you will be able to land on your feet - and many college degrees, such as psych, history, etc, demonstrate the skills that employers really need such as critical thinking/decision-making ability. It’s really a myth that only certain degrees are “employable”. Yes, unemployment is high now because of the economy and it may be necessary to use IBR/ICR or work several lower-paying jobs - but that’s true for people who have been in the workforce for years too and I have yet to hear a single college grad with a mediocre gpa say that they thought they would get a great job just because they have a degree…I think most kids are more savvy than that or we’re all in trouble!</p>

<p>I’ve worked with kids in tough situations…it’s fair to say that some kids have other options but, sadly, many do not. Trying to find the best combination of school/program/aid/loans is a very individualized process and it’s hard to take a specific number, or even a range, and use it for everyone. I agree that the less motivated or remedial student is often best served staying local, where they’re already able to navigate the resources available to them (whether or not they’re living with family) and getting local aid (ie local scholarships/in-county CC rates). The bright, motivated HS grad is usually the one I want to see break away from the family situation (whatever it is - and this is not income dependent) and experience education/life for themselves, even if it means taking on more debt. If the local school is not of the caliber or does not have the programs/opportunites to offer to this student, it’s often not a good choice even if it’s cheap and can be very expensive in the long run in terms of missed opportunities. Not surprisingly, the “achievers” (ie. those that work very hard and are persistent, not necessarily those with 3.5+ gpas) often are very appreciative of the opportunity to study at a school that meets their needs, work their butts off to do well and gain department scholarships/internships/RA positions, etc. and manage keep their loans at a reasonable level without sacrificing their educational goals. Something I learned long ago on my grandfather’s farm is that cream floats…unless you keep shaking the bottle!</p>

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<p>I agree with sk8rmom</p>

<p>Work is not equal in all parts of the country. Those living on the coasts tend to make more money than those in middle America, so the rationale will not fit many kids and families. The answer is not as simplistic and pat as it is being presented. I don’t understand the mentality of a “formula” that going to work for the majority. For some, if they don’t break away at the time, it may never happen for them again.</p>

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<p>I’ve never agreed with the popular formula that students can borrow up to the amount that they think they will earn their first year out of college.</p>

<p>Too many kids assume that they will start at $60k-80k per year. Very, very few kids do, and usually the ones that are that lucky have to live in high-rent areas of the country. </p>

<p>I think the federal limits are a good guideline for many majors - including those who think they’ll start out high (such as engineering majors). </p>

<p>Most cannot count on being able to move back home and save on rent while working at their first “real” job. The job may be in another state. And, living with the folks can get real old after being away at college for four years.</p>

<p>I don’t think many kids can foresee how much money they often have to spend shortly after graduating and starting their new job. They may need to buy a car. They may need to buy a professional wardrobe and buy some minimal furnishing for their new apt. That doesn’t even count recurring expenses of rent, utilities, food, gas, insurance, cell phone bill, internet, etc. </p>

<p>However, if your likely career does not typically pay well in the early years (for instance - teaching, art, or music performance), then loan amounts should be as small as possible. </p>

<p>And, lastly, those who are from low-income families who cannot “help out” occasionally during a month when money is tight, are especially at risk if they borrow a lot. Those with families with better incomes often enjoy the benefits of being given cars (maybe dad’s old, but decent car), help with the new prof wardrobe, help with furnishing the new apt, etc. That’s why I feel so badly about the OP.</p>