It seems like this:
Why didn’t your parents pay for your college?
“Well, they couldn’t afford it”
well, how did YOU afford it?
“I took out loans”
well, why didn’t your parents take out loans?
“???”
Expected by whom?
Again, different families have different expectations, and abilities, and that is ok. Each family works this out for themselves.
And like in my family, I was supported through college in tons of ways, but full support financially wasn’t one of them. And that was ok too.
You seem to be struggling with the idea that parents financial situation may be static, but the kids have earning potential that can grow over time. So yeah, children can afford things their parents cannot, when the children become adults.
Isn’t that what we want for our kids? That they do better than us?
Why wasn’t it one of them?
I believe I answered that already.
Because, at the age that parents usually are when they are sending kids off to college (40s and 50s), those parents are also substantially closer to retirement than to the start of their working lives. In addition to the student loan crisis, we also have a crisis in this country where an awful lot of people are saving little or nothing for retirement.
If middle-income parents take on five-figure student loans, on top of everything else that they’re paying (including mortgages), you’re setting an entire stratum of American society up to be in even worse financial shape when they get old.
I don’t think so. Unless the answer is “my family couldn’t afford it”
but you, as an 18 year old high graduate COULD afford it. That’s the part I don’t get.
Why isn’t that answer enough?
So, no, of course I couldn’t afford it at 18. But I didn’t have to be able to afford it at 18. The government placed a bet that I could afford it at 26, with a college education and a job. And they were right.
My parents at almost 60, when I went to college, were never ever going to be able to afford it, and save money for their retirement, and support themselves.
I feel like several of us have answered this, repeatedly:
Thank you, that’s an informative response.
This goes to the root of my question. I would rather NOT save money for my retirement, and NOT support myself, instead of making my children suffer from 6 figure student loans throughout their life. I guess that’s the part I don’t understand.
You are welcome.
The issue isn’t the parents who are good at financial planning, make a good salary, and have carefully planned, all along, to be able to pay for their kids’ colleges. That might possibly describe you, but honestly, it describes relatively few American parents.
The issue is the parents who are financially strapped just raising a family and keeping a roof over their heads, may not be terribly financially literate, may well be carrying substantial debt already (mortgage, auto loans, credit cards, their own student loans, etc.), and aren’t saving nearly enough for their own retirements.
Right. And that’s why I mentioned “Americans” in my previous post. Pretty sad, actually.
Again, thanks for your posts, I appreciate them.
Most American parents CANNOT. They do not have the financial resources to do so. Average cost of college, at an in-state public university, is around $25,000/year. Median household income in the US in 2019 was about $68,000/year. Most families who have any children at all have more than one child, and they’re usually fairly close together, so having two kids in college at the same time is quite possible. Out of your $68K income, pay for two kids in college ($50K), save some for your own retirement, pay your mortgage or rent, put food on the table, etc., etc. The math simply doesn’t work. Even with only one child, paying 40% of your income to put that child through college isn’t usually doable (quite aside from what happens if that one child needs more than 4 years, or wants a program not available at your state’s public universities [median cost of private college = $52K/year]).
If you as a parent take out loans for that sum (2 kids @ $25K/year = ~$200K), you’re paying back that sum at the same time you’re supposed to be saving for your own retirement. If you get to retirement without enough money to pay your expenses, then what? Are you expecting your children to pay your living expenses, at the same time they’re wanting to start their own families (or help their own children through college)?
FWIW, I have a personal perspective on this, as I watch my parents.
They spent a big chunk of their savings nestegg about 20 years ago, when they were in their early 60s, to help get my sister set up with her own business. It was a risk they were willing to take, because they wanted to help my sister finally become independent, and the agreement was that my sister would pay them back from her business’s profits.
Except that, after two years, her business failed. The money from that nestegg, which should have helped them in retirement, was gone, and they had to declare personal bankruptcy. They’re now in their 80s, and while they aren’t desititute (my dad has a good pension, and a monthly disability payment from the VA), they have little in the way of savings, and have had to live a much less enjoyable (and much more anxious) retirement than they had orignally hoped.
?? The student gives somebody a bag of M&Ms and gets a credit card in return? What???
Not literally, but student credit cards are notoriously easy to get, so people with little or no credit history and only marginal income usually get approved anyway.
Who says the parents didn’t go to college?
So what you seem to be really fishing for is whether parents have a moral obligation to pay for their child’s college education to the best of their ability before resorting to their children having to take out loans?
If so the answer to that is no, that is not a universal expectation in the United States. It’s a common notion, but very far from universal. My parents, one of whom has an advanced degree but none of whom had a great deal of money, felt no such obligation. They were supportive to the extent that they were willing to extend to me free room and board (up to a point, eventually I started paying a token amount of rent, but then I went to school for an eternity more or less) while I was attending a nearby commuter school. But I paid my own tuition, books, transportation and entertainment expenses. How? I got a part-time job, or rather a succession of them. I didn’t need to take out loans because back then in ancient times my local state university had relatively inexpensive tuition.
But yeah, my folks loved me but as far as they were concerned their formal obligations to take care of me and my step-siblings ended when we hit 18. They were happy to start smiling and singing “be all you can be” when questions like that came up. Beyond that they weren’t assholes about it 
, but they had no interest in sublimating their lives to and/or subsidizing their children past the age of majority.
Sure. But where does the bag of M&Ms come in? One doesn’t normally trade candy for credit cards.
Do you obtain a harder-to-get “adult” credit card by giving the bank hundreds of cases of M&Ms?
Whence the idea of trading candy for credit?
And who says they did? And even if they did, a child in college has more earning potential than their parents who are 20+ years closer to retirement and death.