Another thing that has always irked me is how people don’t seem to consider community college. I don’t understand why people don’t take advantage of how cheap community college is. At the minimum, to knock out gen ed requirements. I think I* paid about $3k + books for my freshman year before transferring to a state school.
*I used the GI Bill.
YES!
No worries. I graduated without debt as well. Worked in a corrugated packaging plant and at a car wash. I did get Pell Grant and a math scholarship. My parents were able to help with about 1 year total of tuition.
My point is that I think of myself as somewhat new grad, but the expenses are way higher than just a few years ago. I do think the rate of price increases for tuition is out of hand. Makes it really hard to plan when the price goes up 50% in 3 years.
True. I am interested to see how much it raises in 4 years (this will be my first year).
Wait… Did you just say you have no idea how the debt happens, then say it didn’t happen to you because you’re living at home and got scholarships to cover everything? You know that’s not how it works for nearly everyone right?
If everyone gets scholarships, they have to reduce to amounts to offset costs. Then you’d have the same average amount. Colleges are businesses.
College prices are set in accordance with available capital of the student. The mere ability to access student loans naturally inflates college prices. The easier it is to qualify, the more the inflation happens. Wall street drove a large chunk of the college price increase imo.
What I meant by this was that I don’t get how so many people don’t do the things or make the choices that would lower or eliminate their debt. “I have no idea” was the wrong wording.
I got scholarships by working hard at school, and being a poor minority. Smart kids and poor minorities make up a large amount of people - the millions of scholarship money that go unclaimed each year could probably go towards some of these people.
My point is that many people don’t make the best choices. Yes, many people can’t afford college, and many don’t get the aid to help them out. But I think too few people are doing these things:
1). Get a job as soon as you possibly can and save as much money as you can
2). Apply for as many scholarships as you possibly can - I’ve read several (obviously, these are the exceptions) stories of kids who would spend hours at the library searching for them, and accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars towards school. It’s a pain in the ass but it’s possible.
3). Go to community college to get your generals. Spend your first 2 years there, super cheap. Now, go to the next cheapest university you’re able to. I was accepted to Notre Dame, but decided to go to a small public university in my hometown. Would Notre Dame have been cooler? Hell yeah. Probably would’ve looked better on a resume as well. But by going to the other school, I got low enough tuition that not only will my scholarship money cover the costs, it will be enough that I’ll get a few thousand every semester refunded back to me. If I went to Notre Dame, I wouldn’t have had enough to cover it.
4). Work during college - I plan on working full time throughout the school year, and every summer in between.
5). Live cheaply. I don’t own a car. Never have. If you stay in a town with family, you can probably make do without one. Small towns are easy to get across since they’re small, big cities have public transportation. Maybe you can’t buy new clothes/shoes or the newest phone every other week. Maybe you can’t eat out that often. Maybe your dorm room won’t look like a Crate & Barrel catalogue.
I literally just had this debate with my uncle. He’s a pretty far left leaning, Bernie fan, do away with all student loan debt. He didn’t do any of the stuff I listed above, and owes about $60k.
I fully understand that not nearly everybody will walk away with no debt. I’ve lived poor enough to truly get what it’s like to go without, live in debt, etc. It’s not fun, and very hard to get out of. I just think the above listed items are steps a LOT of people could take that they’re not doing, and imo, that’s on them. Maybe you won’t walk away debt free, but you can sure do everything you can to minimize it.
Case in point, one of my classmates is going to a $50k a year school. Wants to be costume designer for plays lol. Why would you spend a fifth of a million dollars to come home and work at the local theater? Because she wants to get away from her mom, and party, cause, you know, YOLO. Those are the people I’m saying are dumb, and are the cause of a lot of their debt.
I’m not trying to start anything but you might want to keep your guns unloaded. I simply don’t think it’s offensive to encourage people to become doctors by not having them take on so much debt.
The govt bailed out Wall Street and GM, so why should individual people with jobs be offended if the govt wanted to give them a hand for a change?
She sounds very principled. Definitely not a liberal😬
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but this one just shows a lack of understanding on the finances and scholarships that feed into schools. The only reason you could get so many scholarships is because everyone else didn’t (on average). If it was possible for the majority of people to go for free on scholarships, they’d just raise the prices (and they did).
This also isn’t possible once you have real responsibilities. Maybe in LA or NYC it’ll fly. Not in 99% of cities.
Agreed. But stupid people don’t change that the system doesn’t work in a way that people can go for free en masse. It’s just not how it works.
Have colleges co sign on the student loans. Watch the prices drop and quality skyrocket.
That, or a UK/Aus system. Pouring money at the system alone will do nothing at all.
100% agree. The banking system was bailed out to the tune of trillions of USD.
We bail out banks and businesses. We have welfare, including corporate. We give farmers money because of the effects of tariffs. Warren Buffet’s son gets farm subsidies.
I’m not saying we should or shouldn’t do it, but what’s wrong with the idea of investing in people?
Absolutely! Also, if the US is so vested in its entrepreneurial culture, surely having a great proportion of its 19-39 year olds saddled with debt is contrary to that?
And the govt itself is pushing higher education on young people.
Which is a further disgrace. A total lack of skin in the game.
1/2 of US jobs are un to relatively little skilled.
They still have value - try no garbage pickup or waiting on rail to distribute goods.
Pushing college for all, rather than teaching trades has failed.
I would 100% agree with this. Right now you can only write off what, $2500 a year in interest? That’s ridiculous if you’re paying 10,000+ a year on the loan itself
It is changing but who was behind that push? It wasn’t public school teachers.
Well, that’s the issue isn’t it? You are in your home town. Most college students go to college somewhere outside of their home town, so dorm and food are real financial needs. That may make it $10k a semester in your college, or $20,000 for year.
In addition many people go out of state to college. This happens for a variety of reasons–out of state college has a highly regarded program for the degree you want, whatever. Universities jack up the cost of tuition for out of state students. It can be upwards of 2x the price per hour
So now in your college and out of state student may be paying $15,000 a semester, or $30,000 a year if they are unable to get scholarships. You’re unlikely to get all that money working a part time job during school, even if you worked full time in summers.
Remember too that you are VERY fortunate (as was I) to have a college savings account built by your parents. Many many students have nothing in the bank available to help them. They could be 1st generation college students, or their parents could be working class poor. Or they could have a single parent.
When you don’t have a nest egg you are forced to take out more loans, regardless of work.
Basically, there are many reasons kids may graduate with lots of debt besides Ivy league or wasting money.
At many universities it is, many more.
I don’t particularly blame anyone, as logically it behooves a society to be educated rather than ignorant, more cerebral jobs are created in first world economies, and as an extension of high school diploma opened doors in the past and now degrees open even more.
But as a society, we have been remiss in evaluating these changes to see if anyone benefitted, other than the collegiate education systems. Lots of money spent for students to begin while unqualified, chase majors that have no economic return, or leave supply shortages in higher paying manual jobs.
Sorry for ramble on the obvious. I think higher education systems have pushed this, with the results turning out to be counter-intuitive