<p>"Wealthy families don't have to worry; low-income ones qualify for aid. So guess who gets the short end of the stick?" …</p>
<p>Low income ones overall do get larger loan amounts relative to family incomes, so they are not out of the loop. It’s a huge problem for ANY student whose family will not or cannot help repay when the amount are onerous on a young person’s income… </p>
<p>How fun. Another person that has no idea what they’re talking about. </p>
<p>I am not certain what you mean by that cpt. I have a different perspective.</p>
<p>Some families have situations that allow them to pay for their children’s education out of pocket or with de minimus student loans. It could be money from grandparents. It could be a family business. It could be the family has been extraordinarily lucky in life and the income generating parent makes a lot of money. It could be they got lucky in the stock market (Ive heard stories of family and friends getting IPO’s with ZERO investment.) It could be the student did well on the SAT (and that is a function of a particular skill set, which penalizes the creative often, and its really a cruel hoax as IQ is measured many different ways). </p>
<p>Some students and their families “choose to attend a private college” and reject a state university. Some “choose” to go out of state. Every student and family should consider the relative student loan debt with the reasonable and rational expectation of earnings when they become employed. Its a known fact that many professions underpay while many are grossly overpaid. Some students “elect” to go to graduate school and it may be their family is tapped out and the student has to take on more debt. </p>
<p>Taking on too much debt, a debt burden that is outrageous and truly burdensome, requiring a student to move back home for years with little hope of relief, is of course not a good decision. But taking on a reasonable amount of debt for a personal and professional objective is a healthy investment in oneself. I know. Because I did it. My parents paid for NOTHING. Not a car. Not rent. Not food. Not tuition. NOTHING. I carry with pride that fact. I was not bought and paid for by my parents. I loved them, they did their best, but I had to find my own way to pay for college. I wouldnt trade that for anything. Sorry for that rant, but it must be said.</p>
<p>Finally, college tuition has gotten way too expensive. Its beyond absurd. Universities are bloated. They are inefficient. And many are living in the clouds of centuries past. We cant all be accountants or computer engineering majors. The soul of a community is the arts and the people who support the arts are often liberal arts majors. We have become a stratified nation of elitists. The haves and have nots. Its despicable. </p>
<p>Each family in these perilous times must evaluate the total cost of a college education and make the best decision for the family. For some, sadly, that means having to work a few years before going to college. For others it means going into the military. For some it means going to a state school. For others it means going to an expensive liberal arts college but taking on some debt. And paying it off over 10 years. As a society we have become so pampered and so caught up in elitism we are afraid to tell kids to go out there and earn it, pay for it and get on with their lives as productive independent adults, self assured, self motivated and to be happy doing it. </p>
<p>I can say that were I an executive in a major corporation hiring people and I have a kid who paid his own way through college versus a kid who was pampered and mommy/daddy paid the bills, I would take the kid who paid his own way 10-1 over the pampered kid. Because that person understands the value of a dollar. Understands setting goals and objectives and earning it. Doesnt expect others to provide for them. Isnt a mommy’s boy or daddy’s girl, prince or princess. </p>
<p>We all have choices in life and different circumstances. Its important to make wise choices, but its also important to assess risk and take a certain amount of risk. The middle class is shrinking badly. And that is very disturbing. But a certain amount of reasonable debt for a college degree/graduate degree is a good thing. </p>
<p>Many of the families that I know who are low, and middle low income, took out cosigned loans which are often not reflected in the stats. The kids are in really big trouble if they cannot find jobs that pay enough to make a dent in the loans taken because their parents have no leeway to give them a hand, and often live in situations where they may not even be able to house them. Not only that, defaulted cosigned loans have the wolf knocking on the parent’s door. </p>
<p>Though I also know families who are bitterly repaying these loans, or maybe not, when they are upper or middle income, there are, on the whole, simply more options. When the money isn’t there,…there are no options. </p>
<p>A close friend of mine was rendered nearly homeless, lost her business and she and her DD are in debt beyond what they will likely ever be able to repay due to taking out those loans, Their fault, yes, but the problem is that I see no tenable solution as it now stands. They are low enough income that they can’t make their basic needs, much less pay back any student loans. </p>
<p>The challenge I see is with the average student from a middle class family. They will likely get little in merit aid, little in need based aid and really only be offered loans. Top students have many more options, top poor students more still. Average poor or middle class students are the ones who might have been able to attend a four year university in the past when tuition, room and board were more affordable to the average worker. The middle income student could work their way through college when I graduated in the early 1980’s not so anymore. Federal aid used to cover much more of the cost of an education than it does now for those who are in the lower income brackets. Real income has declined for the middle class, especially in the last 10 years, while the cost of education has far outpaced any income gains.</p>
<p>nice rant, but like most of what appears to be journalism, it based on a pov, which is factually incorrect. (Why journalism enable such people I’ll never understand. Of course, why so many journalism programs exist in the internet world, is another issue…)</p>
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<p>Uh, no. "Many students are not sucked into gapping – their parents are. (Students will not qualify for loans without a co-signer.)</p>
<p>And of course, she fails to mention that she is eligible for IBR and all kinds of other non-repayment programs, after which the feds will eliminate her loan balance.</p>
<p>One should also remember that the schools that tend to meet close to need, are very few. Most schools gap. Rather bady too. The middle class kid who goes to Vanderbilt or like school with parents taking out loans is far better off than the many, many kids who are from poorer families going to some regional college that might not even be non profit, may not be a school anyone outside area of the billboards advertising it , and yet charging high prices, putting loans in the package and assuring the kids and family this is an "investment’.</p>
<p>My friend’s SIL has a job doing just that. Putting together packages from every and any loan source along with some funds, along with "discounts; and scholarships to get as many students as possible to register and pay or sign to pay for a school I’ve never heard about. And the pay for his job is not bad at all. Those kids often come from families that are PELL eligible and state fund eligible and that school has its mouth on both those teats. and getting the loan companies to pay them too. It’s a true shame. A lot of the parents don’t get that by co signing they are as responsible for the loans, and that the lender is getting a “two fer” . </p>
<p>Sovereign Debt " Its a known fact that many professions underpay while many are grossly overpaid. "</p>
<p>It is a known fact that this is incorrect. We have a labor market- it isn’t perfectly efficient, but there are reasons why dermatologists and NFL football players make more than nursery school teachers. You may dislike the market forces at play and find them abhorrent, or signs of a decadent society, and that is your prerogative. But the concept of “underpaid” when it comes to professional labor is not understood by economists or corporate leaders in the way that you are using the term.</p>
<p>There are externalities which distort the labor market in a particular field (some research that suggests that Teacher’s Unions, for example- made a very cynical calculation to expand their membership, i.e. build out the number of teachers, at the expense of fewer teachers making higher salaries.) But my guess is that you are not talking about that.</p>
<p>I love how this non-story and shoddy opinion piece becomes a “featured thread” :(|) </p>
<p>Another thread with a tired & incorrect premise from OP.</p>
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<p>Careful. (Isn’t the OP one of the principals of cc?)</p>
<p>Yup. And? EK is spot on.</p>
<p>;)) </p>
<p>It seems to me that Dave (the OP) is sharing an article for comment. Comment has been made- except for Niquil, who seems to have posted a blank post (very helpful). I don’t see an opinion from the OP.</p>
<p>Obvious solution: free college paid for by a combination of taxes from everyone, taxes on parents, and future career funding, and negotiated by a single payer or a network of big payers with the bargaining power to drive prices down. </p>
<p>Would the pithy disparagers (romani, bluebayou, emerald) care to explain why they think this article is dismissable, and what their alternative narrative is, and what the evidence for it is? </p>
<p>The Affordable College Act. LOL!</p>
<p>tes, for those of us who have been here a long time, it’s that this topic comes up every month like clockwork.</p>
<p>I’ll start with this: the poor do not really get a lot of financial aid like is commonly believed. It’s a bunch of hooey. </p>
<p>I’ll let others go more indepth. UCB is good at that 
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<p>I’ve had no luck figuring out where the author of the piece attended undergrad. She has a masters degree in journalism from one of the CUNY campuses; I’m assuming that some of her debt load comes from her bachelors degree. </p>
<p>Most of the comments on the LA Times website are, uhm, uninformed. </p>