Warning about large student loans. If you're considering graduating with a lot of debt, read this...

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 students or parents here who are considering large student loans 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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“Dd is having a silent tantrum.”

It would be better to have her take a gap year and not go anywhere, rather than take on $90k in debt just because she wants to go out of state. The gap year could be over in 12 months, whereas the debt can haunt a student for decades.

If student loan debt could be expunged via bankruptcy, then it would not be possible to get such large loans. Many students would be better off because they would then be forced to choose more affordable schools.

Unfortunately many parents cave to these silent or not so silent tantrums.

Someone here on CC noted that possibly many of these parents find that college-choice is the first time they’ve ever had to say “no” to their child…and many can’t bring themselves to do it.

And I’m trying to imagine living in a small home with 3-4 teens with one bathroom…

Also, while I see the many benefits of living on campus, if a family is lucky enough to live within a short commute of a good college then living at home can certainly minimize the need for excessive loans. But that would detract from the “experience”.

^^^

Good point! Yet many just assume that most kids “go away” to college, when really most commute to a local cc or state school.

As for missing out on the experience…there’s ways to mitigate that. A commuting student who joins clubs, intramurals, studies on campus, and doesn’t leave campus the second classes are over can have a more “residential experience.” Such a student certainly can have a similar experience as the student who moves out of the dorm and into an off-campus apartment.

And it’s a myth that residential students have 24/7 campus fun/experience…many are working 10-20 hours a week at jobs, and spending 10-20+ hours a week studying in the school library…which the commuting student can do as well.

Ooof. That could be a long discussion by itself.

And I’m trying to imagine living in a small home with 3-4 teens with one bathroom…


That would have been most of the families on my street growing up.

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And I’m trying to imagine living in a small home with 3-4 teens with one bathroom…


That would have been most of the families on my street growing up.


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I get that. My mom only had one bathroom with 8 kids and 2 parents…of course that was before blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, etc. i guess families today with 1 bathroom, have mirrors set up in other rooms for haircare.

My mother grew up with 8 in a one bathroom house, and those were 3 adults and 5 close in age teens. I shared a bathroom with 4 brothers and a sister. My parents had a bathroom but we never used it unless it was an emergency.

I know people competently raising three teenagers in two bedroom apartments in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx- so the one bathroom thing doesn’t phase me.

The issue is sacrificing one’s retirement. THAT’s the crux of it. How folks choose to live (small house, big house, nice cars, cruddy cars, good school system, private schools, bad school system but kids get outside enrichment and/or magnet programs)-- these are all choices. But very few 90 year olds “choose” to enter a publicly financed nursing home. They do so because they don’t have any money left.

So the folks I know in real life who are taking on unrealistic amounts of debt for their kids say things like “Well I’ll just have to keep working until I’m 85”. And if you are healthy enough- and can find an employer willing to keep you on- that’s great. Or they say things like “my kids are my retirement plan” which again- also great. If your sons-in-law/daughters-in-law buy in to that plan- and are happy to have you move in with them, and are happy to provide in-home care when you need it, or pay for the out of pocket on nursing care-- again- great.

But these don’t seem quite as rock solid a plan as having fungible assets.

Not hard for me to imagine…at all…because that Is exactly the house I grew up in. Three small bedrooms…small ranch…one bathroom. You know…we were fine…learned to share space, and time well.

But we didn’t live in that house because of college loans. We lived in it because it was what our family could afford.

We learned NOT to live beyond our means…a lesson that is well learned.

I will say…my dad said…if he ever put an addition on the house…it would be a bathroom…we were four girls!

4 boys, 2 girls, 5 teens - 1 bathroom. Luckily, my brothers were slobs and didn’t spend much time in the bathroom.

I see a growing number of kids wanting to go out of state to public schools. It isn’t because they have better options out of state but because the kids do not want to go where everyone else in the high school class is going. Sometimes they cannot get into state flagship so rather than go to lesser in-state school, they go to an even lesser out of state school at two or three times the cost. Seems crazy to me but I am seeing more of it in the last 5-10 years.

@saillakeerie I think that would be the case with Illinois and Michigan residents flocking to Indiana University Bloomington.

I grew up with 4 girls using one bathroom. And I graduated with 35k in student loans. I paid it all back in 10 years time.

You can’t generalize: some flagships are harder to get into than others (GTech v. Ncsu, Colorado Boulder v. UNM…), some may offer good scholarships (NJ kids who attend UAlabama…) But it shouldn’t be random. An Ohio student who goes to Indiana should have a scholarship to justify that trip, and vice versa.
Taking Parental loans to attend an OOS public makes no sense to me.
However they parents in the OP should have told their daughter what their budget is and what the cost if that is school should be in order for her to be allowed to attend. If they were all “dont worry about costs, we’ll figure it out” till now you can’t blame the kid for being upset.

Looking at it from the student’s point of view, that would mean that college choice is the first time that his/her choices are significantly constrained by cost considerations.

Seems like raising a kid should include making him/her aware that desired things can cost something, rather than suddenly springing cost constraints on him/her at 17/18 when looking at colleges. (Or worse, springing the cost constraints on him/her after it is too late to make or modify the college application list.)

The argument that they don’t want to go to the flagship because “it will be just like high school” is silly as there is no way a 20,000 student flagship can be anything like a 2000 student high school. Parents should put an end to that just like they decided which grade school the kids would go to and which high school usually by where the parents bought the house. Most states have several public options that offer each student a choice of where to go - big, small, special majors. In California one can even pick the weather.

I had enough trouble with my kids take the lowest amount of loans possible. I don’t know how people are borrowing thousands more than that and thinking it is no big deal. It’s time for parents to learn to say no.

My house NOW has one bathroom and it was lived in by myself and 2 teens until recently. Not the horror show suggested here, at all. I have tons of friends in NYC who’d kill for the space we have here, and none of us have student loans.

I take your point but I think it’s more effective to explain to those kids who want big debt that they can’t take the groovy job in NYC/Boston/Denver/LA/SF because they can’t afford rent share and their loan payment, they won’t be able to buy a car for the cool job in Atlanta or Columbus, they want to go to grad school too bad, that’s on hold until the debt is all paid,whatever. There won’t be any road trips or vacations or new clothes…

Those probably have a greater impact than sharing a bathroom 30 years from now.

That is pretty major. I can’t imagine my parents - or me as a parent - saying yes all the time, buying anything wanted, joining any camp/vacation/travel team. If this is the world the kid lives in no wonder they’re so angry at being denied the college of choice.