I can't imagine graduating college owing $900 a month

[LynneSin]

I can't imagine even owing $900 a month on anything other than rent/mortgage.

I'm reading this article from the NYTimes and I'm just stunned but this is the reality of a college education - unless you are a trust fund baby or have the grades for a massive scholarship your life is going to suck. What's worse is that the job market absolutely sucks and it's almost impossible to find a decent job that will include healthcare. Take way the healthcare plan recently passed and now college graduates are saddled with the full cost of healthcare if they can't be on their parents plans anymore.

How can anyone sit there and say this is ok - to start our young adults out in the world massively in debt. Mitt Romney's plan - just borrow from your parents.

At this point my advice to any non-trust fund/little scholarship graduate - do your first 2 years of college at a community college. All colleges are going to make you take core classes like English or Math or a Language - classes that are needed for you to graduate but not a part of your degree. Take them somewhere cheap where you might be able to still live at home and maybe work parttime. $50k a year for college is just not worth it - not for those non-degree classes.

Oh here is the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-a-generation-with-heavy-debt.html?_r=1

A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

DA, Ohio — Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon give up her apartment here to live with her parents. Her mother, who co-signed on the loans, is taking out a life insurance policy on her daughter.
Multimedia

Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.

“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”

I also see alot of private colleges going belly up. I mean they are going to start losing students if they can't afford the tuition.

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Solution? Just sell two of these shirts ever month.

I know....it sucks








My brother sent his daughter to Law School and had to Mortgage his house.
She went to the same law school as he did. Her tuition was $27000 a year as a resident. His tuition was $1800 a year. He paid off his debt in 3 years.

[exboyfil]

5. My younger daughter is thinking medical school

She will be on her own for that. I plan to cover her undergraduate degree though (she will live at home). My older daughter got chased away from vet school because of the payback. She is now planning on Electrical Engineering. She starts her first college class this summer (Chemistry to be taken between her H.S. sophomore and junior year). I think she is capable of getting her first 2 semesters (and outside shot at 3 semesters) of engineering done while in High School. Many of the classes should be paid for under PSEO. I will be aggressively pushing every step.

I would recommend that High School sophomores do some serious planning. It is like a lever - small actions today can result in big impacts tomorrow (for example investing $2-3K to save $20K later). I admit I have this option because I have been saving for my kids education for the last four years at a pretty healthy clip (yearly bonus goes immediately into the 529). Many families don't have that option.

[crazylikafox]

11. My son started College as a 2nd semester sophomore based on AP credits. Got bachelors in 3 yrs.

School was cheaper back then. We let him stay for the full 4 yrs & he left with a Masters. But there are ways to knock down the price of school & it's really worth aggressively pursuing those strategies.

[riderinthestorm]

14. My daughter did exactly that too. Graduated with her masters in 2010 with ONLY $24k in debt.

And she got a ton of scholarships.

Honestly, she's one of our country's best and brightest yet even she didn't escape entirely unscathed which is ridiculous! We should be subsidizing our brightest minds instead of crushing them with debt. I know, she's not under a monstrous pile and will work her way out from underneath just fine but she's just one of the fortunate few.

My heart breaks for the rest and I find myself outraged when they come over to my place and I get to hear their stories personally.

This country is fucking over our greatest resource - our young educated talent pool.

[LynneSin]

21. My friend's daughter is doing the same thing - taking as many AP courses as possible before college

She's in a very good public school so it's a great opportunity for her.

[exboyfil]

34. AP can be a good route but it does not work too well in my daughter's case

For example I am paying about $1300 this summer for her to take Chemistry I. She could take AP Chemistry at the High School next year, but she would cover a year's worth of Chemistry (equivalent to Chemistry I and II) and get a 5 on the AP test to get credit for Chemistry I (not Chemistry II). Only 17% of the nation gets a 5 so I thought high risk with low probability of reward. Her time is more valuable. She ony needs Chemistry I for her major (Electrical Engineering). She also does not like Chemistry very much, and she will really only have to learn it once (this year in her High School Honors Chemistry - she will be tested over much of the same material this summer without forgetting it during the summer and starting over again in the Fall).

She is slated to take AP Calculus as a senior in two years (next year she has Honors Precalculus - a course which pretty much repeats her Honors Algebra/Trig). She has a very good shot at testing into community college Calculus I for the Fall. She is currently registered for Precalculus for the summer so she is getting Calculus I one way or the other in the Fall. Calculus I is key for taking higher level math that you cannot get credit for on AP (her selected college only gives credit for one semester of Calculus if you get a 4 or better on the test). By taking Calculus I in the Fall she has a shot at completing nearly her entire math sequence before going to college (Calculus I-III, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra). All of these courses except Calculus I fall under PSEO. By paying $600 (Calculus I) she has the chance of geting 1 1/2 years of engineering math in. I will probably also pay for $450 for a summer course in math (Differential Equations) but that will allow her another course during the school year.

Having Calculus I means she can take Engineering Physics I and II while still in High School. She also has the opportunity if she elects to take two Sophomore engineering classes (Thermodynamics and Statics). All of these are PSEO eligible courses.

Another AP class is AP English Language - You get absolutely nothing for passing AP English Language at the school my daughter plans to attend. I am having her take a semester of college Composition and a semester of college Speech to fulfill the Rhetoric requirement. She would otherwise invest a year in High School and get nothing. This will cost me about $1,000.

She may take AP Psychology as a senior if we can fit it into her schedule. Again I would be willing to pay $450 to get this course done in a semester instead of a year at the High School. She would get a semester of social studies credit.

AP Biology, AP Physics B (not offered), and AP Statistics (not offered) do not apply in engineering. The high school does have dual enroll community college equivalents for Physics B and Statistics, but they do not apply either.

You can get Humanities credit via AP English Lit (need a 4) or AP U.S. History, but my daughter plans to minor in Film Studies - she will get plenty of opportunities for humanities credits. In engineering you only have to get 15 hours of humanites/social studies credit, and the max you will have will be 9 hours from AP.

Going the AP route my daughter would arrive at college with the first semester of math, the first semester of a Intro to Engineering course (taken dual enrolled), Chemistry, a social studies, and one or two humanities. Because many engineering and science courses are only offered once a year she will only have the chance to lower her courseload by about 1 course every other semester, but otherwise not benefit herself much. She will take 4 years.

At a minimum I expect that she will have her first two semesters completed which is critical because she is then looking at 3 versus 4 years. This would be by only giving up her summer between her sophomore and junior year to Chemistry. If she wants to dig a little deeper (sacrifice her junior to senior year summer) then she could wrap up three semesters (still will take 3 years but will be able to take several more Film Studies classes).

I do think it is criminal how the public university in our state applies the AP credit. I see that as breaking faith with the High Schools in the state, many which still emphasize these classes. Of course they may still go into the determination for scholarships, but determining how they make those decisions is like going to Vegas - I would rather bet on a sure thing. When you have to live away from home the cost of every public university semester hour at least doubles.

Learning for its own sake is also beneficial, but my daughter is tired of the rules and mutli test days at the High School. Instead of Honors Precalculus and AP Chemistry next year, she will have Calculus I/II, C++ Programming, and Engineering Physics I - all four of these courses taken online with the ability to take the tests at any time within a two day window (which beats having to take 4 finals in a day like this year). She will only have two classes at the High School with testable material.

[NotThisTime]

2. STEM majors come out doing well

I can see spending the money if the placement rate for you major is 90% and you start at 65 grand a year.

For these kids with this debt and a degree that can't get them a high wage job it's an impossible situation, but I do agree about starting out at the State level and then moving over to a private. Our daughter who wants to go to Medical school is doing just this, starting at the State University, living at home and then looking at private after that.

[limpyhobbler]

6. Not all of them

If the placement rate is 90% for example, and 90% then do well, let's say.

What happens to the other 10%? Must be various degrees of struggling...

I'd guess 5% are just getting by, and the remaining 5% are totally overwhelmed.

Or something like that. It's still unacceptable in my book.

[magical thyme]

3. They never really tell you what the loans will cost

Even Federal stafford loans, they leave up to you to figure out what the payments will be.

As an adult with experience in having paid off a mortgage, I was able to appropriately "guestimate" my loan costs. I pegged it at approximately $100/month per $10K in loans, and rounded up to the next hundred dollar figure, and turned out to be pretty accurate.

Thank freakin' dawg for the Income Based Repayment program that Obama instituted for recent grads into the jobless market, because it never dawned on me that the HR department of the local hospital would blatantly lie about the salary range in my field, increasing it by a full 25%, because the difference was how I *expected* to be able to pay off the student loans in 10 years and return to a slight savings so that maybe when I was 70 I could retire without living on what I could grow or forage for.

Instead, I am barely treading water and, barring the lottery, will carry this effing debt load until I'm in my 80s, after which it will be forgiven and I will owe taxes on the forgiven amount, which will be astronomical since I can't even pay off the interest on the loan, so I will end up thrown out in the street. Unless I die first, which is my current plan.

Everything, everything these days is a scam and a bald-faced lie. You can trust no figures or claims from anybody. In my field, the government *still* claims 14% growth, even while hospitals everywhere are downsizing. The government also claims roughly 50/50 male/female, but everywhere I've been it's more like 90% female (i.e. pink ghetto). The university claims 100% employment (although they don't actually say 'in your field'), yet I had classmates who applied all over the country and couldn't get interviews, and the same situation exists for this year's class.

[qazplm]

12. that is about right

I owed 60K ish in law school loans and owed around 500 a month (but I paid 600 a month and paid it off in 9 years).

Another thing that gets these kids is they take the option to pay over 30 years. Yeah, it lowers the monthly payment but you end up paying tens of thousands more.

[xchrom]

4. Du rec. Nt

[global1]

7. How About "Home-Schooling" For College.....nt (sarcasm)

[FSogol]

8. Book recommendation for anyone going to college or sending a kid to college

"Debt-Free U, How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching off My Parents" – Zac Bissonnette

I can't recommend this book enough.

[laundry_queen]

19. I have never read that book

but there are numerous ways to make it through without a large amount of debt. I think part of the problem (besides greedy for profit universities) is people want the whole college experience. They want to live in residence, they want to party on the weekends. That means more debt. At my school, it's really amazing how few people do that. Most people have a p/t job (admittedly I live in an area with low unemployment) and take several online courses so they can work a few full days. Almost all still live at home, and those that don't (because they have a spouse, or come from a far away town) have 3 or 4 roommates. The caveat being I'm in Canada and our tuition rates are still quite low in comparison to much of the US.

I pay roughly $7,000/yr. I've been paying as I go, but I'm lucky to have an income stream (alimony, child support) and I earned quite a few scholarships this last year ($3000 worth). I also take courses year round to spread out the cost (and it allows me more time with my kids until the youngest is in school).

If I was single, just starting out, with unsupportive parents, I'd totally find a full time job and take online courses as I could afford the tuition- just one or 2 at a time, year round, can add up quickly to a degree. With the internet, there really is no excuse to not work and get a degree at the same time. The big issue is you forgo close personal relationships with profs and other students (which can lead to opportunities) and you miss the whole experience. But only you can decide what all that is worth to you. Cost vs benefits and all that.

[riderinthestorm]

25. At $30k/year for even a US public university degree, you can't work enough to close that gap.

Not even close to possible, especially in this economy. Then add on trying to find a part time job that works around your academic schedule is close to impossible.

Right now online degrees in the US aren't really of any quality and I don't know of any quality universities offering a 100% online degree. The bigger money degrees like nursing, engineering, lab research etc. - all of those require attendance. Schools like Phoenix University aren't going to open a lot of doors.

[laundry_queen]

35. Wow, that sucks.

My university offers a lot of online courses and another university offers total online degrees (and it has a campus also) between the 2 I can get my accounting degree completely online (Although I chose to take most of my courses on campus). Both universities are highly regarded where I am. And then I can go on to get my accounting designation online too. I can see how it's more difficult with other degrees - when I took one year of bachelor of science, there was SO much lab time. It's not like you can dissect things or count fruit flies at home, LOL.

30,000/yr is totally ridiculous. I thought that was only the private schools, I didn't realize the public universities were the same. Sheeeit. There's another bubble/collapse waiting to happen. I wrote in another thread how I just got finished watching 'The Flaw' - a documentary about the housing bubble/stock market crash and this whole overpriced college education reminds me of what they said - the whole supply/demand theory is blown out of the water when a 'good' becomes an 'investment' and you can finance the purchase of such. When prices go up, demand actually goes up until the market can no longer sustain the prices and instead of balancing out, it crashes outright - almost like a company that is over-leveraged. A degree is often seen as an investment, and funded with debt, so I can see how a crash could be right around the corner.

[riderinthestorm]

9. 2012 costs for University of Illinois, a public state school is $30k for undergrads

and that's for in-state tuition.

Unbelievable....

[hifiguy]

20. Wow. Back in the early-mid 1980s

my tuition at the University of Minnesota - Minneapolis was about $350-450/quarter. Add another hundred or so for books. I lived at my mom's home and took the bus to school every day. In those days a student could actually afford to get an education.

[riderinthestorm]

23. I know but people (even on DU) want to blame the students, or ignorance

or that the students aren't taking part-time jobs to offset costs, or whatever.

SOMETIMES its all of that, but a lot of the times its simply the cost of college has gone sky high. If you want to get a university education in the US, its going to cost you big time. PLUS the college administrators are salespersons - they 'sell" their programs/graduation rates/job placement rates/post grad salaries etc. etc. They are in the business of trying to get you to sign that contract and so they absolutely spin their numbers deceptively.

Some law school grads are actually suing their schools because they posted false job placement rates/salaries and it wasn't until those students graduated and tried to find jobs (especially in this economy) that they realized they'd been had and now owe $150k in student loans.

[hifiguy]

24. What I do not understand is why college costs

even at state schools, have escalated 500-700% in such a relatively short time. It certainly isn't because teaching and support staffs are being overpaid. So where is the money going?

ETA: Given the way that the Repukes have been hacking away at educational funding for thirty years, I have the answer to a significant part, though not all, of my question.

[riderinthestorm]

27. Very, very, very good question. And its a lot like the frog and boiling water analogy

Perhaps you heard on the radio (as I did) that tuition rates were going up 2 -3% or 5% each year and you thought, "well that's not too bad. Everything's going up". But what happened is that this was going on every single year and its just been this gradual but relentless rise for the past 20 years.... You don't pay attention to it because you have 25+/- years gap in between the time you went and your kids are going.

And now it's just this huge shock. You can't imagine your kid NOT going but how the hell do you finance this? Even if you saved $50k, its still not even nearly enough anymore

[Godhumor]

10. Did my undergrad and grad at state universities

All of that schooling and left with less than 10k in debt. Amazing how quickly you can "net" higher that prestigious institution grads when you figure in how much salary they have to burn to cover loan payments.

[peace13]

13. My son graduated from Ohio Northern six years ago.

If your grades are up there the school has great scholarships. He managed to place out of several requirements giving him some breathing room to get out in four years. In the long run it cost him about 2K a year over going to OSU. All of his friends who went to OSU took at least five years to complete a BA. In the end their tuition was higher by gong to a state school. Granted my son had to work to keep his grades above 3.2 to keep his money.

Her parents should have helped her understand the final number before deciding on a school. The fact that they co signed for her and are betting against her by admitting that they have purchased life insurance is awful! This young woman is feeling it now. Too funny that she is blaming her debt on the convincing staff members.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. It isn't just the private colleges.

I know several people who graduated from the University of North Dakota's aviation program, which is very expensive, and they are now trying to make their $800/month or so student loan payments - while working as pilots for regional airlines, a job that pays about $20K a year to start.

[JDPriestly]

16. Best strategy for poor kids: study really, really, really, really, really hard

and I mean really, really, really.

When my kids were about 12 or so, we took them aside, told them what life would be like without a degree and what it could be with one. Then we told them we didn't have the money to pay for college so they were going to have to work really hard in school for grades and all the things they would need to get scholarships.

We simply laid it on the line.

And they worked really hard and got the help they needed. There is a lot of money out there for education for kids who really want to go to school. But they have to want to learn more than they want to watch TV or date or do a lot of other things.

We never had any money, but we are both very well educated. We gave them what we could.

A lot of parents have neither money nor education, but the most important gifts parents can give their children is a strong work ethic and a membership in the local public library. It helps to ask your kids to keep a record of the time they spend on various activities like computer games and TV.

And -- a tip for the SAT. Have your child make vocabulary cards and practice them. Our children were bi-lingual. English was not their first academic language, so they really had to work on vocabulary.

Children in other countries compete to go to college. Our children are no different. They have to compete to get the money for college. But that has to be their choice, and they have to make it early.

Understand. I'm a Democrat. I don't think things should be this way, but this is the way it is.

About community colleges, I talked to a community college teacher over the weekend, and she told me they are now inviting a lot of paying foreign students into the community colleges. So, that may not be the greatest option either. It may become very difficult to get classes there too.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. Aren't there just so many scholarships to go around?

If everyone takes that advice and studies 18 hours a day there's still just a limited number of super scholars who would qualify. To me, it's the same idea that everyone can become a billionaire if they just work harder. There is still just so much room in society at the top. To me, the obvious solution is to make high school very, very hard where virtually everyone gets held back a grade at least once, the way it is in many places in Europe but once you get through that gauntlet, college is free. People, especially the rich, benefit greatly from an educated citizenry and should have to pay taxes for it.

[JDPriestly]

45. Yes. Education should be free, and we should pay more of our tax dollars for

education and fewer for defense. But until then, poor parents really have to stress to their children that there is little help unless a child competes for scholarship money.

It is very unfortunate. But that is the way it is.

[aikoaiko]

17. In GA, if you graduate High school w/a 3.0 GPA you only pay 10% of public college tuition.

Not every state is gouging decent students. And you're right about taking CC courses. Its a good deal.

Today, one really should take advantage of 529 programs. Ask relatives to donate half the money they would spend on Christmas or birthdays there.

Parent and their young adult children are making terrible mistakes by signing and cosigning these loans.

[LynneSin]

22. Delaware has plans like that too

Which for my friends daughter if she keeps up the grades she has she could probably get 2 years extremely cheap. She wants to go out of state but has to realize that unless she gets alot of scholarships she's going to end up seriously in debt after 4 years. Better to get as much done for cheap/low cost and then maybe do 2 years out of state.

[aikoaiko]

31. If going out of state is a luxury they can afford then so be it.

I'm glad to hear there are affordable options in Delaware.

I'd rather pay for cheap tuition and send my kid on trips to see the world than pay high out of state tuition just to leave Delaware.

But to each there own.

[FarCenter]

18. Their web site seems pretty clear

http://www.onu.edu/admissions/financial_aid/types_of_financial_aid
describes scholarships, grant, loans and work study and says which are gifts and which are loans.

http://www.onu.edu/admissions/tuition
says that tuition, room, and board total $45,898 and notes that there are additional fees. To which you need to add books, supplies, travel, etc.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. I can't imagine paying student loans over 30 years. Folks in their 30s, finishing phds, loan payoff

date = age 60 or older.

[coalition_unwilling]

30. I dropped out of Ph.D. program rather than allow myself to become

an indentured servant for life. (Current law does not allow student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy, meaning they follow you to your grave.)

Academia's loss, although I might have enjoyed a career in academia. But not by going into a mountain of debt with no certainty of employment after getting the Ph.D.

[aikoaiko]

32. Its a tough time to get into academia.

We're hiring a lot of full time temps instead of tenure-track or even non-tenure-track.

You probably made the right decision.

[coalition_unwilling]

39. It's one of those 'road less travelled by' moments but I do

know that only 25% of my Ph.D. cohort who finished subsequently received tenure-track positions. Some of those nominally tenure-track positions were what I would characterize as distinctly sub-standard, i.e., not paying enough to pay back student loans at the levels mentioned in this article.

And this while the head football coach at the U. of Kansas rakes in more than $1,000,000/year in salary and benis. Whatever.

[aikoaiko]

41. I was very fortunate to get my Ph.D. in 1999.

State budgets were reasonably well funded and pubic universities were hiring.

Of course merit raises have only just kept up with cost of living increases, but I'm fortunate to have had the opportunity to compete in a tenure track position and get tenured.

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. applications for tenture track positions running 300 to 1.

[madinmaryland]

28. I graduated from there 30 years ago. Ironically ONU was known as one of the least expensive

private schools in the country. Not sure how that has changed since then.

[dana_b]

33. "do your first 2 years of college at a community college"

exactly! live at home and get that undergrad stuff out of the way. Its the only way unless a person has a scholarship or is wealthy. My daughter is doing this now and hopes to transfer to a state university in a year or year and a half.

I feel for these kids though. So many truly do not know what they are getting themselves into.

[LynneSin]

42. If her school offers any AP classes she should take them

That'll help cut down costs too.

[dana_b]

43. to be honest, even if they did offer them,

she wouldn't have the grades to take them. First off the community colleges in California are cutting EVERYTHING (ugh!) and then secondly she has messed herself up a little by not taking things seriously when she first started college. Now she may have to retake a couple of classes. She now has a deep interest in psychology but she has to get some of the other basics out of the way or retake them.

[jeff47]

36. ROI for various schools

http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value

[Marcia Brady]

37. Sounds like she wanted the whole "college experience"

And that's great--but not worth $900/month. Go to a community college for a couple of years, then transfer to a state university. You won't pay nearly what four years of a private college will cost, and you will probably get as good an education.

[B2G]

38. Community college for the first 2 years

then transfer to a state school for the last 2. It's the only thing that's doable.

[Yavin4]

44. A Lot of Private Universities Correlate High Priced Tuition with Prestige

Most schools based their tuition on scale in accordance with other "elite" universities. So, if Harvard charges X, then another private school will charge 88% of X, and so on.

In addition, a lot schools spend outrageous sums on brand name university presidents who want to be paid like CEOs.