Saw this on another website. A parent posted that she was leaning towards cosigning a potential total of $90k+ in student loans so her whining daughter could go to the OOS public she wanted (parents would pay instate amount, daughter borrowing the OOS part). Dd is having a silent tantrum…staying in her room, not speaking to anyone. The husband is totally against having such loans for undergrad. The dad’’s wise position is that the daughter truly doesn’t understand the impact of that much debt.
A couple of parents posted the following and thought that maybe some parents here who are considering co-signing debt should read their words (This also applies to parents considering taking Parent Plus loans with the promise the kid will pay…)
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If she wants to see a picture of what living with a ton of student debt is like, I'll send her a picture of our house. We are 50 with 3 teens and still living in our "starter house" that was supposed to be only our "5 year house" and has become our 21+ year house with 1 BATHROOM for 5 people. All started with too many huge student loans.......... :(Us too. But 4 kids and six people. I took out $102k for Law School. 17 years later I have paid $150k back (mostly interest!) and still owe $61k. I don’t qualify for any loan forgiveness even though I have paid more than the loan and never been late with a payment - bc of my income. We are also in our starter home, four kids and one bathroom. These loans are crippling.
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when their child graduates with big debt and learns that fellow new-hires have the same starting salary…even though they went to CSULB, Iowa St, Nebraska, a SUNY, etc…and they have little/no debt.