<p>About “shackling” students to loans – I do generally agree that adults are responsible for their own choices. But I think 12th graders (and most traditional undergrads) are barely adults, and they have so little personal understanding and knowledge about what the loan will mean later in life, and most have been marinated in the cultural myth that any college at any cost is a good idea. So, they are left to take their cues from the adults around them, borrow for something that cannot be resold, before they realistically know what they’re doing.</p>
<p>I question the theory I sometimes hear of giving Junior “skin in the game” by having him take a loan. Junior thinks borrowed money is free money. Junior will find out about the skin after college, when the transcript is final. A gap year, working and saving up for college, would give most kids a far more personal awareness of the value of those tuition dollars. </p>
<p>I also feel that parents who smile and nod when DS/DD signs undergrad promissory notes, have a moral obligation to let DS/DD move back in after college. For what could be a long time, in which DS/DD may begin to resemble Cliff Claven.</p>