How Do Colleges Justify This?

<p>The outrage was the Bankruptcy Act of 2005 making private student loans ineligible for foregiveness in bankuptcy. It has encouraged irresponsible lending and should be amended.</p>

<p>"Do you also tell people to just eat cake? "</p>

<p>Can you spell this out please? Would it help if I assured you no one “wasted” money or loans on my education? What are you saying? H and I come from really different places an the value of cheap (HBCU, SUNY, CSU), vs expensive (Columbia) education. We are trying to come to tms o our kids “full pay” eduction. </p>

<p>I guess I’m the cheap one, maybe the “dumb” one, but the one with no loans,and no retirement. </p>

<p>We met at the some medical school. </p>

<p>What are you saying?</p>

<p>I am saying that when you say that Pell and Tap grants should cover all low-income people, you ignore the very low income limites on Pell, and that many states do not have programs equivalent to TAP, and many students can not commute to college. Many people can not take the route you suggest. </p>

<p>Its like when Marie Antoinnette said let them eat cake.</p>

<p>From what I understand, she didn’t say that.</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>"Many people can not take the route you suggest. "</p>

<p>Did I suggest something?</p>

<p>In my community, most commute to the CC.</p>

<p>Here’s the thing. </p>

<p>Thirty years ago, I never would have imagined ANYONE would pay the kind of money folks are expected to cough up today, for an “education” with such a low yield. </p>

<p>I was expected to risk my life (ROTC scholarship at an HBCU for a four year commitment) for an education that didn’t cost much at all.</p>

<p>Where is the money supposed to come from?</p>

<p>It would be a service to explain what the debt really means, what repayment looks like and what the realistic post degree salaries are. </p>

<hr>

<p>Every student who borrows a Stafford loan is required to complete entrance counseling. This explains what debt really means. It is an explanation of loans, interest rates, etc. After each section there is a series of questions that must be answered. Yet students still insist that they had no idea what they were doing when they borrowed. Wonder who did their entrance counseling?</p>

<p>In a situation where an undergraduate assumes six-figure debt, a lot of people should share blame. You can never go wrong blaming the Republican party. But the institutions that lend the money are at the head of the list.</p>

<p>“The outrage was the Bankruptcy Act of 2005 making private student loans ineligible for foregiveness in bankuptcy. It has encouraged irresponsible lending and should be amended.” </p>

<p>Might this also not encourage irresponsible borrowing?</p>

<p>Student loans are made without reference to the borrower’s creditworthiness, based merely on a gamble that the student will earn enough to repay them–it’s a hugely risky enterprise, and making the loans dischargeable in bankruptcy would make it ridiculously risky. Imagine the number of currently unemployed new grads who would file for bankruptcy to flee their school loans! As for the students who claim they had no idea what they were getting into when they borrowed large sums–these are instances of either willful ignorance or reckless disregard of the facts–I don’t have sympathy for either circumstance.</p>

<p>Whatever happened to personal responsibility?</p>

<p>And common sense?</p>

<p>Personal responsibility?</p>

<p>I am willing to bet that many of these teenagers have never had a bill to pay prior to entering college. Unfortunately many teenagers are not aware that borrowing 100,000 means a monthly bill of 1000.00/month for 15 years. </p>

<p>Who is more versed in the business of money?..the lender or the teenager?</p>

<p>It’s not just the teenager, but the parent’s responsibility as well. S wanted to go to school out of state which would require about 12K + in loans/year. Since he had no clue about finance, he was willing to take it. But, we told him we would not co-sign for additional loans over and above Stafford and he literally did not have enough money to attend that school. He is going to school in-state. I’m not aware of loans that are not Stafford that don’t require a co-signer.</p>

<p>What would I like?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Lenders who are in a better position than students to understand the loan problem should have to take more responsibilty. At a miminum, make social security and 401Ks and pensions off limits for collection actions by banks re student loans. If we can not repeal the Bankuptcy Act, at least amend it. </p></li>
<li><p>The govt and college admins should deal with difference in COLA. To say Pell and TAP (NYS program) solve all problems is arrogant beyond belief. The federal govt collects more tax from people in high cola area, it should recognize cola in efc calculation. States too. I was ready to barf when SUNY Chancellor said TAP solves affordability problem. Too bad she doesnt understand/care about cola differences between upstate and downstate. Hopefully Silver will continue to block her moves to increase tuition. </p></li>
<li><p>All states, not just a few, should require non custodial parents of divorce to pay for college. Yes, I realize that puts divorced parents in a different position than still married ones, but that is part of divorce, you get courts involved and lose flexibility.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I find this discussion terribly interesting. I’ve got a few thoughts - disjointed and unrelated as they may be . . . </p>

<p>I went with my friend when she took her s to college last year. We stopped in the fin aid office. Know what we saw? GIANT posters with loan amounts down the left hand side, interest rates across the top, and payments in the middle. Find your loan amount, your interest rate, and TA DA! there’s your payment. “Colleges” aren’t hiding this information. There’s that entrance counseling Kelsmom pointed out, too. How does a student not know?</p>

<p>And yet after 20 years of working with 18-20 year old kids, I understand that they don’t get it. They’re in college. They’re going to get those “good” jobs, probably start the day after they graduate. They have no concept that even if they land a $50K job right away, an $800/month payment hanging over their heads for 10 years is giong to take a bite out of the old budget. Part of the problem is brain development. The teen-age brain really has trouble taking a long-term approach to anything. Where are their parents? Well, in TRIO, our kids are mostly first generation. Their parents may not understand that the “good” job is down the road a ways.</p>

<p>Great points!!</p>

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<p>This.</p>

<p>As long as the banks have zero incentive to be responsible about lending, you can’t possibly put all the blame on the borrowers.</p>

<p>*This is not a sarcastic question, Mom2, but why should NYU be ashamed of themselves? What would you rather them do? I assume that they are not wasting money? *</p>

<p>Because NYU is a top elite school with a good-sized endowment. It also has a top B-school. It would seem that it has the financial brains and the money to figure out how to invest/seek donors provide more aid to its low income students. It’s not like NYU is some mid-tier with few resources to access.</p>

<p>*Where is the money supposed to come from?
*</p>

<p>Exactly…everyone would LIKE food, shelter, transportation, college, etc, etc to be free or very low cost. However, those things cost money…and taxpayers cannot provide these things.</p>

<p>Mom2 – NYU almost went broke in the 70s and had to sell its engineering school. I dont think even the best brains in the country can invest money when they dont have money. It is also in a very high cost area of the country. I think you are making asumptions about its ability to fix this problem. </p>

<p>If you look at NYUs endowment, endowment per student, it does not look like it has the ability to do more.</p>

<p>[List</a> of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment]List”>List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>NYUs BSchool has not been so highly rated until recently. I dont think it has the large group of successful alumns, at a point in their lives, when they can contribute.</p>

<p>I think where the colleges are going wrong is when they give the impression that they will somehow help you “make it happen” if your kid is accepted. While I can’t point to a specific example right now, I know when we were going through innumerable college visits and presentations by ad com officers, any time a question about financial aid came up it was brushed off by the presenter. The attitude was that “no one should have to worry about financial aid” when in fact EVERYONE should worry about it.</p>

<p>I know in the time since then I have become much more aware of how college financing works and when my DD goes through this in four years I know I will have a much better sense of what questions to ask! (I have a feeling DD will not be happy with me, but she’s already heard me rant about student debt. She’s already said she might be interested in an instate public, especially if she can score large merit money.)</p>

<p>There are two great myths in this country when it comes to college: </p>

<p>1) Kids are told that if they work very hard they will be able to go to the top schools. (Yeah, the ones that accept only 5% of their applicants!)</p>

<p>2) If a student is accepted to his “Dream School” it is worth it to go, no matter what the cost. (Really, $100K debt is no problem!)</p>

<p>*If I had a $1 for everytime I have advised a student to not look down their nose at community college because it is a finanically feasible option for many families, they tell me that they deserve more because they have worked hard. </p>

<p>The harsh reality is that college unlike K-12 education does not come free. If you cannot pay your tution and fees, you cannot attend.
*</p>

<p>And, you’re right. </p>

<p>Many/most families need to come to terms with the financial realities of a college education and clarify their situations with their kids long before senior year. The reality is that most families cannot afford to send their kids away to school. That is a luxury. Some kids have the stats to either qualify for big merit or big FA packages, but most students don’t/can’t get these opportunities. For most, their college educations will being at a local state school or CC. And, that is fine. This attitude of being “too good” for that has got to change when it involves needing other people’s money in order to go to college.</p>

<p>This is not a “let them eat cake” situation at all. People can’t demand/expect others to pay for their luxuries…and again, a college education and going away to college is not a right, it’s a privilege. More to the point, many can barely provide for their own, so it’s really unfair for their tax dollars to be going for someone else’s room and board at college.</p>

<p>Until families/students understand that many, many kids have “worked hard” to get good stats, there will be this entitlement attitude.</p>