Help!!! AmI doing the right thing? College debt or not?

Parents Forum
41

You can give him the budget and if he wants to go somewhere other than UNLV, he’ll have to figure out how to make it work. I did that with mine and one choose OOS, although still cheap, so she borrows a little more than her sister does. She lives in a sorority house and it is very inexpensive (cheaper than the dorms). Sister chose private, but has a lot of scholarships and grants.

We have friends who have become RAs, gone to WUE schools, work, do co-ops or work every other semester to earn money for the next. There are a lot of ways to get through college. You are offering your son ONE way, and a good way, but he can do something else if he’d prefer to.

If he wants to make friends (although I’m sure he’ll have plenty from his high school, youth sports, activities he’s been in) he can join activities like camping, mountain biking.

42

I agree with twoinanddone . . . borrowing isn’t the horrific evil that so many make it out to be. We borrow money to buy a car, to buy a house, to start a business, and so on and so on. We’ve sat down with our kids and looked at what is realistic to borrow and pay back and how to make it work. If you and your son go into it with an educated plan, it is totally feasible. And while I don’t dismiss the affordable option to stay local and avoid the debt, I also don’t think you can dismiss the value of living on campus. I learned so much more from that experience than I did in any classroom and most of my kids’ friends that have stayed home will be the first to tell you they wish they hadn’t. Just sharing our own experience for another perspective.

43

We live near a well regarded in-state school, and every year our kids’ friends transfer back to this school for a number of reasons. They get homesick, they can’t keep up the GPA needed for merit scholarships, they miss their friends, or they find the local school has better options in their majors. And mostly they commute. Some get apartments in their junior/senior years so they can try independent living.

So even if you find the $ to send your student to UNR, keep your door open. He might be back!

44

I was just a little concerned because somewhere in this thread you wrote that the parents don’t want him to go away. Is that affecting your perspective on this?

Most financial aid packages cover room and board, in my experience.

With an EFC under $5k, I would add up the costs of living at home, including the car. If he wants a campus experience, he does not need a car, and that eliminates insurance, gas, and repairs, and also adds the sale proceeds of the car if appropriate. It might not be that much more expensive to go away.

The idea of getting the PT assistant certificate is a good one. I just looked up PT education and was surprised to see that a grad degree IS required. And mainly a DPT: master’s programs are being supplanted by doctoral ones. This is a very long road.

Perhaps there are other fields to look into, like exercise science. He could consider becoming a personal trainer. Or be a PT assistant, which is a course often offered by community colleges and is very competitive for admission.

Has he considered nursing? Again very competitive but nursing offers several different levels of training, including both associate’s and bacehlor’s.

I think he and your family need to really look at the big picture and maybe rethink some things.

In the meantime, my strong vote- not knowing you of course- would be for at least a year of living on campus. I know many kids who live at home and go to our local state school, and that is fine. They remain close to home for the most part. Perhaps that s what you want.

But it sounds like he wants to fly free for a bit and with an EFC that low (assuming need is met by the school), and subtracting car, food costs etc. it might be possible for him to at least live away for a year, if he himself is ready for that.

If he is a kid who gets a lot of support from parents, if you oversee his organization, if he is interested in partying, then I would have a different opinion of course.

ps DPT is at least 3 years and has a lot of clinical training, so wonder if it is even possible to work and earn money during that time Here is a great website http://www.apta.org/Careers/

45

UNLV seems to have 10% of students living on campus. The cost of living at home is always exaggerated. I could not even take my kid off the car insurance. To pay 12K for a kid to live at a commuter school is pointless, having a plan for the kid to move out to a house share at some point on his own dollar is a good plan. My kid15 does this now as an eng junior. He did that by getting jobs, then a job that led to tuition benefit, working full time during every vacation and using all summer semesters to spread the workload. UNLV is like as not a school full of similar non trad students who work through university.
Can we remember again this is a kid with a 3.0GPA and an ACT of 26, getting to DPT is not the issue to even worry about at this point.