[Moderating]Please do not say “fuck you” or “fuck off” to other posters.
No warning issued.
[/Moderating]
A rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t go into debt for college more than the first year of salary you can expect to make. I suspect biomedical engineering (and any engineering field) can make more than $40,000 as a starting salary, so that much education debt won’t be backbreaking.
I managed to graduate with only $4,500 in loans by attending a state school (University of Nevada, Reno) and having several merit based scholarships (one state, one from the University, one from the Kiwanas Club [though technically need may have been a factor in this one]). If your daughter hasn’t been putting even more effort into applying for scholarships than into college, she’s leaving money on the table. Top 25% on standardized tests is good but not amazing, but she sounds like she’ll have more access to need based scholarships than average.
No, I don’t. And if my living there made it infinitely more difficult to get by without incurring a lifetime’s worth of “educational loan” debt - I hate to be so flippant - but I would just move.
Like I said…MY life’s about living. Not worrying about how things might be if I did or didn’t have a certain something. I’ll pursue my own “American Dream” thank you very much. And it doesn’t necessarily require the traditional overpriced college diploma. There’s nothing wrong with a college education. The problem is with it’s over-inflated cost.
Everyone who decides to have children should make up their mind that their life now revolves around raising the kids. I believe in that. I do not believe in trying to “burn the candle at both ends” and worry not only about raising them but also try to provide for them after they’ve left my direct care. In my opinion, college is their choice. It’ll be a choice that is hopefully influenced by the way I’ve raised them, and on whether or not it is the best choice to make at that particular time, in that particular economy. I’m not going to decide NOW that my kids will definitely go to college and therefore burden myself with providing for that eventuality…an eventuality which is NOT set in stone. The kid could be a moron! You never know! He may be a genius, and get grants. Or he could decide that a life of crime is more appealing. In any case…it’s the kid’s choice.
I’ll teach my kids to fish, and I may occasionally hand them a new fishing pole, but I will not be storing up a boatload of fish for them to eat in the future at the cost of my life now. I hope that analogy made some sense…:dubious:
Just skimmed this thread, too long, but…
did the OP ever chime back in, whether they actually went through FAFSA? That’s really the key to see your options. I used to work for the company that ran that program (and handed out loan deferments like candy to the sob stories…)
If the OP isn’t willing to even see what their EFC (expected family contribution) is, then it’s hard to have any sympathy.
It’s hard to believe the OP wouldn’t know about FAFSA. You get Pell grants based on FAFSA, right? Didn’t she (or he) say they were turned down?
Also, I thought that paperwork was a requirement when seeking financial aide through a school, no?
I figure that providing for some sort of head start is part of teaching them to fish. Maybe it won’t be college. Maybe it will be trade school. Maybe it will be funding for a business. But most people in the beginning of the 21st century don’t hit their eighteenth birthday with enough equipment to be able to be a successful fisherman.
And because I WASN’T paying off loans, I can pay that forward for my kids. And they’ll be able to pay it forward to my grandchildren - should there be any.
And if my kids don’t use the money, I guess I’ll spend a summer or two traveling Europe for my retirement.
Providing a boatload of fish would be a trust fund. I’m not planning on doing that for my children.
It actually has become something of a de facto college application, I forget how many colleges used our app to upload the data but it was a lot, hundreds maybe. I did a site visit to the call center, saw the online apps that process the data (in the old days was over 80% paper based - last year it was something like 99%+ of the fin aid apps are now online out of about 16m, really a government - make that contractor - success story).
The call center work was probably miserable, but hey, it’s Coralville IA, if you don’t like drudgework, next time go to college 
Why not? It’s at least half true.
We still had and have a Democratic controlled legislature.
While there are illegals with drivers licenses, many if not most do not drive nor own cars. Of those who do drive, there was a fake license plate factory busted in north county 3? years ago?
I have trouble believing that four taxes are over 50% of the budget.
I’d have to see a cite on this. Last I read a majority of illegals were working under the table.
It was merely the first one that came up when I googled it.
This cite is using information that is eight years old.
Hmm, that might make some things difficult. OTOH, even if federally funded, it still means we have far too many people living off of the taxpayer here, since our taxpayers also pay to the fed.
And? I’m not being snotty, I’m just not getting your point - a third of the budget is a heck of a lot.
:rolleyes: I highly doubt that by the time your kids are old enough to be looking for jobs, they will be able to support themselves, a spouse and offspring based on the free up to high school education you are going to provide them.
I really don’t care if you pursue walking on the moon, as long as you don’t end up sending even more people out into the world expecting “the village” to take care of them, as the OP seems to. It also doesn’t seem to indicate that you care much about your children if you would rather blow your money now than plan for their futures.
My apologies, that’s a tough one to remember for some reason.
Is that old, as in 1990-era, or old like 1995-era?
I ask, because when I was in college, they changed it, and my transcript showed revised scores that were significantly higher than what I actually scored. Apparently they normalized everyone to the latest scoring system.
Bolding and italics added.
This is exactly the type of conclusion leaping that leads to shitpoor discourse.
I never said those things, nor did I imply them. **YOU **extrapolated those ideas based on your perception of my point. If I was unclear, I apologize. Perhaps you could try asking for clarification.
I will not provide my children with naught more than a “free up to high school education”. It’s a little snotty on your part to assume that is the end of my efforts. And haven’t you ever heard of individuals who were financially successful without the aid of a diploma? Or perhaps you have never heard of people who live fulfilling and happy lives despite not having a diploma and not having a $100K/year job.
I do not expect “the village” to take care of my children, and nothing the OP said implied that either.
And “blowing” my money is how you interpreted me saying that I will spend my money on my life NOW as opposed to an unknown future possibility? So what part of my statements implied that I had an adamant stance on non-saving? Or that I would never help my children when they hit a bump in the road? My children will be part of my life, and I will be part of theirs. Spending money on them while they are children, in reasonable ways, such as a decent home, regular recreation, and highly motivational activities (which may or may not cost money but will yield results worth their weight in gold) - is not in my opinion “blowing” my money. It simply means that I will not PLAN FOR a $50K - $100K wad of cash that will wait around for their college acceptance letters. (that’s ME extrapolating data there…I figure it’ll cost a boatload more money to go to college when my imaginary kids get to that age) It’s just not in my budget, and even if it were, I wouldn’t do it. I mentioned before that it is in my opinion feeding a bad system. Not all education costs money, and not all costly education is worth the purchase price.
You smarmy little loud-talker. Hop down off the high horse of righteousness long enough to consider the possibility that YOU do not understand how someone else lives, despite the positive results.
What you said, exactly, is “My kids can scrounge like I did”. That indicates that you are not going to do anything to finance their education beyond whatever supplies you need to buy for them while they are in public school.
As for “And haven’t you ever heard of individuals who were financially successful without the aid of a diploma? Or perhaps you have never heard of people who live fulfilling and happy lives despite not having a diploma and not having a $100K/year job.” Yeah, maybe you should have a look at what kind of life those provide AND ask your kids if that is the sort of life they want to live. I am one of those who only got a high school education and I was dirt freaking poor until I was in my mid-20’s. That is not a life that I would wish on a child of mine, much less purposely plan for.
Actually, any parent who sends their child out into the world with only a high school education, particularly these days, is doing just that.
The rest of your post sounds like an awful lot of backpedaling and over-justification, so I’m not even going to bother with it. IF it is true that you plan to have funds available for your children should they desire to go to college. then I think you need to rethink calling that “My kids can scrounge like I did”.
So you’re loser if you rely on government hand-outs.
And you’re loser if you try to instill independence from hand-outs in your children.
Gotcha.
I’m with echo. My imaginary children will not have to worry about me not being able to put them through school because I will be upfront with them and tell that paying for school is THEIR responsibility. So that means, get a job when you turn 15 and start saving, start filling out as many scholarship applications as you can, take as many SAT/PSAT classes as you can (I’d pay for those), make sure your grades and extra-curriculars are top-notch, and start comparing good, affordable schools way before your senior year arrives.
If my child did accomplish the task of paying for their first semester’s tuition, that’s when I would open up my wallet and help them out. But like I said, from jump-street they would know there wouldn’t be a secret cache of money waiting for them after high school. That’s how I was raised and although I didn’t go to my dream school (which may have turned out to have been a nightmare, for all I know), I did manage to get through college and grad school without incurring debt or going through extreme poverty.
I don’t think it’s bad to support your kids through college, mind you. But I don’t think it’s horrible to NOT do that either.
As someone whose parents paid for college, but not grad school, and who entered grad school financially ignorant and left in massive debt, I think your plan is brilliant and I wish my parents had gone that route.
Don’t be a twit. For one thing, I haven’t used the word loser and for another, there is a huge gap between those two things - it’s called providing for your children and not kicking them out into life at 18 to “scrounge like I did”. Now, maybe echo has managed to teach his/her kids to be responsible and they wouldn’t just immediately start looking for handouts, but in this day and age it’s kind of rare. Look at the response to the OP - most people were telling her where to get a handout.
That is MUCH different than being told they need to go scrounge and echo being proud of the fact that s/he is living life the way s/he wants to now and to heck with the future.
Now, there seems to be some backpedaling going on here, so perhaps echo does intend to help out if necessary, but in light of the OP doing almost exactly what it sounded like echo is planning, it isn’t a leap to believe that his/her plan is to simply tell the kids to go scrounge for whatever handouts are available, I guess because parents aren’t supposed to be responsible for the lives they bring into this world? 
Dr Drake - whether or not one’s parents paid for college doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with financial ignorance. And, you got all the way to grad school without knowing how loans work??
Your first statement is true, but if they hadn’t paid for college I would have learned a hell of a lot faster. I still had to work, but they paid the tuition and books.
For your question, sort of. I knew how loans work! What I didn’t know is that graduate school takes much longer than undergraduate education, and by the time I found out I was already over $20,000 in the hole. I also didn’t know anything about how to finance my education other than loans. I didn’t know what questions to ask, and I thought that my professors wouldn’t like me if I admitted how poor I was or that I was living entirely on loans. I was a first-generation college student and very aware that I was the wrong class to be getting a PhD, so I kept quiet about my ignorance. That was a mistake and I try to make sure my own students are less ignorant going forward.
Yes, I realize my own words. And no, it does not necessarily mean what you think it means. But you’re gonna make it mean whatever you want, aren’t you?
That sounds like somebody who depends too heavily on money to provide life’s non-material necessities. As I said, the decision will be my children’s whether they go to college or not. I’m just not going to bend over backwards NOW trying to save enough to send them through college in the future when it will cost much more than it does now. That does NOT mean that my children will be unprovided for. Nor does it mean that they won’t have anything to fall back on.
That’s your opinion, and it’s a jaded one at that.
No, I’ll not rethink anything I’ve said. What do you not understand? People the world over live differently than you do and it does not make them less happy or successful. YOUR definition of those things, no matter how many other people agree with you, does not stand alone as the ONLY definition.
I’d just like to point out the painfully obvious and ridiculously childish leaps of logic and assumptions of intent and re-wording that is happening here.
I just hope that you aren’t this assumptive and negative in your everyday life. It’s gotta suck for you and those around you.
As long as you cannot be bothered to give “scrounge” any other meaning, then yes.
Actually, that sounds like someone who is a realist, who understands what it is like - how completely miserable it is - to be without money and having to, er, scrounge for life’s non-material necessities, like food and shelter.
This lacks logic. If you don’t start saving NOW and you know that college in going to cost much more in the future than it does now, how do you propose to pay for their college education should one or more choose to go?
Then, again, you need to provide your definition of the word scrounge.
No, that happens to be a fact. These days those with only a high school education tend to have low paying jobs. I had only a high school diploma but I got lucky and got on with a company that taught me a trade. After 25 years, I was making about $30-35K, tho with automation, these days people doing that work are making less. Sure, you can exist on that, maybe even have children, but I prefer to live.
I don’t live the world over, I live in the US and I am aware of the costs of getting a college education, and the pitfalls of not doing so. All of your hippy talk about not needing money to be happy and all of that rainbows and bunnies stuff just shows that you are simply not aware of how the world has moved on since the 1950’s. Sure it’s possible to get by on love and good intentions, but it sure isn’t likely, and for you to more or less plan that life for your children seems, at the least, irresponsible. Which wouldn’t be any of my business except that irresponsible parenting tends to lead to a need for taxpayer dollars. Hence my delight that you do not live in my state.
Uh, if you want to bring up assumptive I’ll need to point out that just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean that I am negative, anything sucks in my life or that it affects anyone around me. Assuming any of that seems to me to be a ridiculously childish leap of logic.