Following up my own post, many of my coworkers in their forties are still paying off student loans from over 20 years ago. Amounts that were tiny compared to what it costs now to attend the same school.
Some of the new graduates we are hiring are paying almost as much on student loans as they are for rent. And rent is really high around here.
Of course not. But if the parents cant afford it, how in the world can an 18 year high school graduate afford it?
This has been answered.
They afford it once they start working and pay it black slowly over years, using that college education they just got. As in my example, my parents were much poorer than I ever was. They could have never paid back my loans. Once I was done with graduate school and fellowships and had a job, I was easily able to.
I’m sorry to hear that. Can you ask them why their parents are not paying their loans, or why their parents didn’t pay to send them to college? Those answers are really interesting to me.
Thank you for your responses. But just to be clear, your parents were poorer than you were when you graduated from high school?
Part of the problem is that the balance of financial has tipped away from grants and scholarships to loans, and interest rates on loans are higher than they used to be.
When my siblings were in college in the 70s they received more grants and loans were at 1-2%. When I went in the 1980s, I had more loans and rates around 7%. As tuition has gone up and outstripped inflation, students needs more aid (mostly loans) and higher rates.
That’s the root of the crisis. Tuition going up disproportionate to inflation and relative decline in grants.
Once again, an 18 year old high school graduate, who has pretty much no money, isn’t being asked to pay off those loans. A college graduate in their 20s and 30s, with a (hopefully) good, full-time job, is being asked to do so, and they’re being expected to pay it off over the course of decades.
Now, there’s a reality here, which @Mighty_Mouse alluded to, and that’s that college has gotten far, far more expensive over the past 30 years, and the amount of student loan debt with which many people graduate is, frankly, crazy. And, not every person who graduates from college winds up with high-income jobs.
20 or 30 years ago, I have no doubt that the model worked better than it does now, due to just how expensive college has become, and how much debt many students are being saddled with.
Yes, they were poorer than I was. My loans were deferred while I was in grad school but after grad school I made enough to begin paying them back and over the years my income significantly outstripped theirs.
There are many ways to support a child through college than financial. They helped in 1000 different ways, but money was one way they were limited.
Many students can’t, for various reasons, count on assistance from one or more of their parents. Parents can, of course, make loan payments for their kids if they want to. But surely you can see that the program needs to be built to work for people who don’t have parents, or who can’t count on their parents’ support, particularly as those are the students who most need help.
Again, nothing stops parents from helping to pay tuition, or making payments or helping with loan payments. There are loan programs for parents too, but again, the main program is built around the student themselves.
Sorry, I’m not talking about grad school. I’m talking about when you graduated high school and were going to undergrad. Your parents were poorer than you were when you graduated high school?
Uh no. But I wasn’t paying loans then, so how is that relevant? The loans sat in an account and did nothing and did not accumulate interest. Once I graduated college I had six months to begin paying them back. But I went to grad school instead, so they remained deferred until I was done.
I was 26, married, and employed when I begun paying them back.
And they wouldn’t be either. But the loans were on you instead of them. That’s my question, why?
I rather doubt that was the case, and I really don’t think that that was what he was saying.
What I think you’re failing to grasp is that student loans are based on a fundamentally different premise than personal bank loans made to adults.
Because my parent were too poor to afford them and would have remained too poor. I was not going to remain too poor.
My parents needed to save for their retirement and support themselves. I had decades to grow my career and pay back my loans.
Most people have parents. My question is when people say “I have so much college debt” nobody expects that their parents should pay for it. I’m just curious on why that is, that’s all.
Most people do expect parents to help and most parents do.
The crisis about the kids who are in crushing debt because their parents cannot help. It’s not my kids we’re worried about. We worry about the kids like I was, but they have much, much more debt than I ever did, for the reasons I stated earlier about changes in financial aid over the past decades.
Plus, kids today are graduating into a disaster of a job market, making even harder on them.
I wouldn’t say “most” since there is $1 trillion of student debt. Does that count debt that parents take on for their kids?
There’s a big difference between “most parents help” and “most parents foot the entire bill for their kids’ college.”
I’m really not sure what you’re looking for here.
Yes it’s a crisis, but it’s not because the fundamental system is wrong.
It’s a crisis because the system is knocked out of balance combined with a horrible job market exacerbating the financial aid problem, coupled with rising tuition rates.
Most parents want to help their kids. Most parents do, to some extent. Not all can. But it’s all made worse now because the system is out of balance.
FWIW, in case my jargon username isn’t meaningful to you, I’m in higher education myself. These are conversations I have almost daily.
Of course. My question is why do parents not foot the entire bill for their kids’ college?
And the answer seems to be because it’s easier for an 18 year old high graduate to get loans for college instead of their parents. And their parents don’t pay the loans for their children.
And that is my original question, it’s my job to pay for my kids’ education, is that not expected of me? Apparently, it’s not.