“Each of them has about $100,000-$150,000 worth of debt.”
You’re right, oldfort, assuming those are the terms and the school loans aren’t some wacky private arrangement. But if Mom and Dad are taking the Dave Ramsey approach, they’re accelerating and paying for a private college at full freight isn’t as important.
I do wonder if OP has the numbers right.
It does seem like a lot of loans for each parent for graduate school. Assume it is right then just double the student loan payment to 2200, it is still around 5500/mon - a very manageable amount. The parents may need to send some money back home.
According to StreetEasy, there are 390 residences on the market today with three bedrooms and at least one bathroom for under 600K.
Sorry Oldfort- not everyone in NYC lives on the Upper West Side or Tribeca. There are real folks raising their kids in actual dwellings (apartments, two families and apartments). I looked at a couple- some are actually quite nice. Your money goes very far on Staten Island btw- single family houses in nice residential neighborhoods.
Once again, I responded to austinmshauri’s post that if they’d wanted to save money, the OP’s family should have moved to Oakland or Hayward where they could have purchased a house for * ** half of * ** the $600,000 they spent for the current home. Please re-do that search for $300,000. And if you find a property at that price that isn’t pending in Hayward, the area I searched, I assure you the likelihood is that there is something very wrong with it.
@blossom - do you live in NYC? Have you actually looked at some of those nice pictures in real life? If we go back to what the OP said, they lived in Silicon Valley, not just any town in CA. Same analogy here, not that many people think of Staten Island (no disrespect to SI, but when you have to take a bus, a ferry then a train to get to work in Manhattan then your housing price is just going to be a bit lower) when they say they live in an expensive part of NYC.
I probably should have said you couldn’t buy a studio in Manhattan for 600K, just like OP couldn’t be living in a mansion for 600K in Silicon Valley.
Actually those loans for grad school could be correct, if the family was taking out loans for living expenses as well as college costs.
We don’t know the terms of their loan. For all,we know, they had no down payment and their mortgage does not have as favorable a rate.
Regardless…the parents have give the student a budget. And fortunately there are some excellent public universities in CA that could very well be affordable.
Of course there are sprawling estates that cost many millions on SI, but there are also working class houses in perfectly reasonable neighborhoods - I lived in one for K-2 before we moved to Manhattan (Harlem, before Harlem was considered habitable by most white people), we also lived in Brooklyn). I know people in Queens and The Bronx too, and I don’t mean RIverdale.
If one wants to have a high paying job and pay a lot less for housing, there ARE options in NYC, is what blossom is saying. Not super nice super spacious options, but perfectly livable options.
My sis in law lived in a decently large studio in the west 60’s and stayed there until the oldest of her two girls was about 8. Then they moved to Long Island. A studio with two kids is tricky, but they were also have a block from the park and really made it work with bunk beds and such. No one is forced to buy a huge apartment in the best neighborhood.
You can, though. You can get a 2BR in Inwood on Riverside Dr, even, for half that. http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/inwood
Or Washington Heights. http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/washington-heights
No one is forced to buy a huge apartment/mansion in the best neighborhood, but OP said they bought a house for 600K in Silicone Valley. It is either a spacious house at a not so nice neighborhood or a small house at a nicer neighborhood, but some posters are implying OP’s family is living high off the hog because they are living in a 600K house.
Exactly, @oldfort. And I tend to doubt that any $600,000 house purchased two years ago in this area is spacious, regardless of the neighborhood. OP, that is in no way suggesting that your home isn’t lovely. I’m only underscoring the cost of living here.
That is still a lifestyle choice that the OP’s parents made. Unfortunate for the OP.
It is not necessary a lifestyle choice, it is going where the job is.
I think most people would prefer not to commute to NYC, but I can tell you the same job in NYC vs across the river in NJ is 50% off in salary. I can attest to that because I tried to get a job in NJ when my kids were young, but I opted to commute for my family due to financial reason. OP’s parents may be able to get similar jobs in other parts of the country, but it would be very unlikely they could make 250-300K doing similar jobs. I applaud them to live very well below their means in buying a 600K house, instead of few millions $ home like many other Americans in that tax bracket.
No, what I’m saying is that you can only spend each dollar once, and that means you have to make choices. OP’s parents apparently wanted a nice house in a nice neighborhood and OP wants an expensive education. But OP’s parents already committed x number of dollars to pay for their home leaving only y number of dollars for her education. Now she wants colleges to take the high cost of their housing into consideration and make up the difference with need based aid so they can have both. I don’t think they’ll do that. I think colleges will view those expenditures as a choice.
Are you saying that you believe colleges will take the high cost of living into account when determining need based aid? Do you think OP should expect financial consideration from colleges because they carry $200-300k in debt? Which colleges offer those kinds of consideration?
I am just saying a 600K house in Silicon Valley is probably a very modest house commutable to their jobs.
Where did I say colleges should take high cost living into consideration? You are putting words in my mouth. I just think it is laughable people think 600K would get you a nice house in a nice neighborhood around Silicon Valley. It probably has one of the highest housing cost in the US.
@MYOS1634 Senior
@twoinanddone IDK I don’t see not having a car as an embarrassment. To other kids, it comes off like a parental choice (maybe they aren’t allowed to get a car or to drive, for some reason other than money). i know lots of rich kids without cars, but when you do have a car and it’s old, I think it’s a bit of a different story.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, NO, you can not expect to buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Silicon Valley with a $600,000 budget. Do the search yourselves. Realtor.com will provide the average house price for each city you search.
Here’s another thought. CA public schools vary tremendously. The ones that deliver a reasonable education are located in neighborhoods where $600,000 won’t buy you a garage. It may be that the “expensive private education” ended up being the cheapest option in a place where nothing is cheap.
angie,
best of luck to you in the months ahead! Dont let"senioritis’ get the best of you- keep your grades up and if you are taking AP classes then be sure to take the corresponding AP tests in May. If you are given credit for hi AP tests results it can shave an entire year off your college placement, and allow you to register early for classes- depending on where you enroll. Above ALL- chin UP!
Dont be “ashamed’” if you decide to go to a UC or ANY OTHER COLLEGE because of costs.
Your classmates dont need to know the “why”.
Its none of their business.
I want to echo @menloparkmom. Best of luck to you and be proud of what you have achieved. Plenty of your fellow students will go to UC schools or will wish they were going. Talk to your guidance counselor who can be a good source of support and information.
Since you are a senior I’ll assume all your apps are in. I hope you can attend a college that you like. Don’t worry about what other people in your HS think. It’s only an issue for a few weeks and then everyone will be “over” it and they will move on. Come April, if you have a few options, take the time to visit them and find a place that you think you will like. Best of luck to you!
Looked out at the parking lot today from an office where well paid people work. There were plenty of cars older and cheaper than a 2004 Honda Odyssey. Yes, there were also newish Teslas, BMWs, Mercedes, etc., but it is not like everyone drives an expensive car, or cares what other people think about their less expensive cars.
Stop worrying about your car as a status symbol. Actually, stop worrying about status symbols (including expensive colleges), so that you won’t spend your (or your parents’) money on things chosen only to impress others (when many will actually think, “you spend $$$ on that overpriced ___???”).