Most forum posters are high SES, so their observations skew toward people who could send their kids to less expensive college but choose to take parent loans to send their kids to more expensive college.
However, the real world has many of the second group you describe, where family income is low enough that even commuting to a community college or regional state university may be a financial stretch (or not even possible in sparsely populated areas where the colleges are too far to commute). But it may also be the case that the parents’ income is not high enough to qualify for “huge” parent loans, so the student in such a case may have few or no college choices at all, even with parent loans.
@mom2collegekids funny, because U of Al is the top pick for my example! When we have TCNJ in state that is one of the top education schools in the country!
There may have been more than one instance, but you got the general idea right. But it was mainly in the context of kids (in high SES families) with big dreams who have difficulty coming to terms for the first time in their lives that there are money limits, leading to conflict with their parents about college choice.
In the case of parents who take out big loans, they are not really saying “no”, but continuing to help their kids pretend that there are no money limits, postponing the kid’s financial reckoning until college graduation.
right. What I meant is that when faced with this issue, the “never have said no before parents” either have to take out loans so that they STILL don’t have to say no, or they have to say no for the first time because loans aren’t possible and the child is furious.
From what Ive seen it’s not just high SES families. Many “just middle class” parents and even some “modest income parents” have a history of “never saying no.” There was a Dr. Phil episode, years ago, where very modest single income moms wouldn’t say no to their kids’ outrageous Xmas lists. It was crazy.
Are you saying that the coworker’s daughter wants to go OOS to Bama to be a preschool teacher? Oh my. She wants her parents to borrow or let her borrow for this? Does she realize how low preschool teachers are paid???
This is so true. And it’s one reason I stick around here.
I can remember an old thread in the Bama forum. The person actually asked if there had ever been a student from Bama go to med school. Lol. It just goes to show that there are people out there who think that a student has to go to a top ranked school in order to get into professional school.
@mom2collegekids yes, that’s what I’m saying! And she wants to stay in the south to teach pre-school. I tried to gently suggest staying 4 more years to get her degree, then moving, but she’s not interested. She would also qualify for 2 free years of community college up here.
I am very familiar with that second group because that is where we are, except that I won’t be taking out parent loans. I started researching and talking to him about college last year early in his junior year and let it be known that me taking out loans was not an option. I still owe students loans of my own, which are on an income based repayment plan, and our household income last year was under $20,000, how in the world would I make payments on those parent loans. Ds19 is one of the top students in his class, has lots of extracurriculars, but hasn’t been able to top 1200 on the SAT or 24 on ACT(his ACT scores are among the highest in his class). We are trying different avenues but honestly his scores make his chances of admission to most of the meet full need schools unlikely and they aren’t high enough to get huge merit money. I am really hoping that he gets into Berea, it has his desired major and should be affordable. He has been admitted to UNA, which is our closest university, and right now with what we know he would get could cover tuition and fees. He would have to commute an hour each way, but it is doable and we are hoping some of the other scholarships he is applying for come through.
I have had to do all of the research on my own though and I imagine many in his situation who don’t have someone to help them through it fare much worse.
Well, if parents won’t pay or take out loans, then it won’t happen.
I also suspect that she’ll want to rush/pledge, which can easily add another $5k+ per year
If the parents plan on co-signing $150k+ of loans for her to go OOS, the parents better be prepared to pay back those loans because I can almost promise you that she won’t be able to pay.
Do her parents realize that the loan payments would be about $1500 per month??
I remember meeting an early childhood grad with $50k TOTAL of loans and she couldn’t pay any of it back. Between rent, utilities, car, insurance, gas, food, etc, she was living paycheck to paycheck. She had been contacted to set up IBR which would have given her a payment of about $125 per month, which she also could not afford.
The people taking Plus loans are not always poor or uneducated. Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland and who ran for president in 2016, had $450k in loans for just 2 of his 4 kids, and he was paying tuition for 2 kids still in grade school. His kids had lots of other choices, including U of Maryland. Mike Pence had over $300k in Plus loans for his kids when he became Vice President.
It’s worked out for them. They used lower interest government loans so they could use their salaries for something else, something other than saving for college.
I think there need to be stronger standards, and limits, for Plus loans or they should just get rid of them. Some people will be able to qualify for private loans, and even more will just have to make other choices (CC, state schools, working before going to college).
Students like him may want to apply to some “test optional” schools that meet need…like Wake Forest and many others. Maybe someone can post which schools are TO and meet need.
What is his major and career goal?
That said, UNA is a very good and well-established school.
I see a number of posters here with ‘boggled minds’ - what boggles my mind is the cost of higher education in-general! In many parts of the developed world, a student can achieve a 3 or 4 year university education for less than the price of a one year in this country - for example: One year at UCLA for OOS incl tuition and board = $63,669 for this current academic year - Oxford University incl tuition and board APPROX $24,000 per year.
Oxford does cost more for non-resident (i.e. international non-EU) students, something like $33k tuition per year (varies by major), plus around $15k per year living expenses, for a total of $48k. Still less expensive than many US universities.
But then many other countries subsidize their universities more, with fewer added student services besides the core educational services. In the US, states have been defunding their universities over time, in order to pay for other state government priorities, such as prisons (criminals from the crime wave era may be still in prison or otherwise under criminal justice supervision, even though current crime levels are much lower than a few decades ago).
In other countries the universities do not have all these extra benefits: Greek system, sports, stadiums, gyms, theaters, nice on campus food etc. All those things cost money. Plus in many foreign countries the kids do no live on a campus which can also add to the cost. This “college experience” is a large part of the cost.
No one from out of state needs to go to UCLA. The student and parents choose to undertake that expense. UCLA is actually quite cheap for most Californians after financial aid.
Oxford is very comparable in cost for a domestic UK student to UCLA for an in-state Californian student. The UK fees are GBP9250 ($11800) vs $13700 for UCLA. The estimated cost of food and accommodation at Oxford is GBP7500-10000 ($9500-$12700) vs $15800 for UCLA residence halls per the COA (though in fact the cheapest UCLA triple is $12900 including meal plan). However, the international premium for Oxford (varies by course but GBP18000 = $23000 is typical) is generally somewhat less than the OOS premium for UCLA ($29000). Also worth noting that the exchange rate is currently the most favorable it has been in the last several decades - for most of that time you would add 15%-25% (or more) to the dollar figures above when converting from pounds.
The main differences are that most UK degrees are three years instead of four, and the accommodation is mostly single rooms not triples. On the other hand aid for low income families is better in California. When you also take into account that graduate salaries are much higher in the US than the UK, UCLA is probably more affordable for most Californians than Oxford is for most Brits.
College students have to live somewhere, and most US college students live off-campus. Probably most live with parents, or wherever they were living before in the case of non-traditional students. But perhaps the US expectation of “going away to college” for those aiming for more selective/desired universities differs from many other countries, some of which have population patterns that put more people within commuting range of the more selective/desired universities.
@mom2collegekids
He has decided that he wants to go into nursing, ultimate goal being nurse anesthetist. Yes, UNA is fine, but I think it would be better if he can get enough scholarships to live on campus. I fear that the drive back and forth every day will get old in a hurry, but then again there are plenty of people in our town that drive that far everyday to a job.
I checked out Wake Forest, but it doesn’t have nursing. Some of the most generous schools don’t have nursing programs, and some that do(Vanderbilt, Penn, etc.) are probably out of reach with his stats.