You know the debt can be extended over 25 years if need be, yes? In theory she should extend the note, take the lower payments and then pay it quicker as there is no penalty for early payment and she increases her earning over the years.
She doesn’t have to pay the 40 in one year, 10 is the standard. They also offer lower payments based on income. They offer graduated payments..etc.
Yes, you’re going to take a hit on the interest, but there should be a big difference in her income between the first year out of school and the fifth and that should be more than enough to make the payments quicker and reduce her interest.
Hell she could even become a teacher in an ‘under-privileged’ state and write off some of the debt through service.
My point is there are ways to work with the debt, that won’t cripple her.
Then she should be able to graduate in 5 semesters. That’s less tuition to pay.
This makes no sense. You would be the borrower. If there is a “bubble” to worry about, it is the people loaning the money that need to be worried.
Sorry to be an asshole, but top 25 percentile is not screaming “Get this girl a scholarship, STAT!” to me. The top 25 percent of the country does not get a free ride. Hell, the top 10 percent of the country doesn’t get a free ride.
If she is serious about her education, I would suggest she excel at a cheap state school then apply to a “better” school for graduate school. Engineering graduate school is generally paid for via Teaching Assistantships and Research Assistantships; plus she would get a stipend. Also, while in Graduate School, student loans do not accrue interest. I’m not one to put a ton of weight on School name recognition, but I can’t deny that the real world does.
The harsh reality: Even as a straight A student, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Straight A’s a one high school could mean something very different than straight A’s at another. When I was a Freshman one of the valedictorians on my hall was literally throwing up after exams. Her high school was simply not as rigorous as others and she was less prepared (she got better, but it was a rough first few months for her).
Have you considered her getting a technical diploma first, and working using that at a high-paying job and continuing her college education after that? For example, medical laboratory technologists make very good money, and it is not too far off the path of biomedical engineering.
You and she have my sympathy that this isn’t going as you planned, but this is the reality for millions and millions of North American teenaged graduates (and middle-aged ladies like me who didn’t finish their university degree, and it costs 10 times as much now).
I got no financial aid for my first three years of college in the early 1980s. The last year I won a student leadership scholarship. My parents did not make a lot of money - they were right smack in the middle of middle class, but they made enough money that we didn’t qualify. I applied for a lot of scholarships - got $100 and a few “honorary scholarships - congrats on being a National Merit Scholar, but we can’t give you any money.”
Like Alice, we started saving for our kids college when they were born. I started with the goal of putting enough away for the “two years of community college, transfer to a state school, live at home” plan. When I reached that goal for two kids, I moved onto the next goal “enough for four years of state school, live at home.” We’ve reached the third goal now “enough to go to a state school and live in a dorm for four years.” And we are working towards the final goal - four years, tuition room and board, private or out of state (there isn’t too much difference in tuition). And since its been asked, if they decide not to go to college, the money is there for trade school or starting a business - Mom and Dad get veto power though.
Just for this, I have continued to work instead of staying home with my kids (well, this and retirement savings, and health care comes from my job).
Having a kid in a middle class household get to the age of eighteen and then discovering that financial aid is inadequate is a little like not saving for retirement today and then discovering at 65 that social security isn’t exactly luxury living. Most people will get to college today with a combination of savings their parents started when they were young and loans - there may be some token grant money.
Define “higher education.” Are we talking about anything past high school? If so, you could argue 56% of jobs do require some additional schooling - maybe not necessarily a four year degree, but at least some community college.
Anyway, why should there be a perfect correlation between the number of people who go to college and the number of people who need it for their specific job? Perhaps people who WANT to go to college should be allowed to do so, whether or not they need it for whatever job they end up in. It is, after all, a free country, is it not?
On another note, Thomas Sowell’s “Economic Facts and Fallacies” has some pretty fascinating insights into the warping of college costs, and much of his argument is essentially that the system has hopelessly overpriced college education through a series of self-perpetuating perverse incentives. It’s a neat read.
I didn’t. And the reason is because I put on my big girl panties and went to the local CSU (California State University-- so the tier of schools that are above the junior colleges in California, but a step below the University of California schools-- UCLA, Berkeley, etc.) even though I really wanted to accept that offer I got from Georgetown. The reality I accepted was that I’d much rather pay $12k for my college education and graduate with zero debt than pay $160k+ for my education and come out burdened for literally my entire lifetime.
Yeah, there are budget cuts at state schools (any state). Yeah, it’s a little harder to find the classes you need (though my school vastly expanded their online course schedule, so this has helped tremendously). Who cares? I am 25 years old, I have zero debt, and I have a degree.
Beyond that though, I actually enjoyed my time at the local school-- which is surprising, because I went in with complete disdain and judgment, presuming it to be a horrible, shitty place. I got a fabulous education that allowed me to work directly with my professors in a way a lot of my friends at bigger schools couldn’t. I crack a lot of jokes about where I went, but ultimately, I got a great education (and did I mention? Zero debt).
Of course. That doesn’t mean free of cost. That’s my point: public financing of unnecessary education is bad. Unnecessary education is not bad in and of itself.
While that is, strictly speaking, true, it wasn’t unearned, especially if you were in the military in the last decade. And remarkably, it wasn’t a lot. I went to Shippensburg University rather than Penn State or some other big-name college because the tuition for the big-name colleges was not covered. It would have cost me an additional $10,000 or so to go to Penn State. Going out-of-state is almost unthinkable.
It also didn’t cover books, fees, or anything else. The GI Bill, be it for Active Duty, Guard or Reserve members, does not cover a whole lot. It simply defrays the larger costs. Loans and/or grants are still a virtual requirement.
When you consider that the pay scale for low-ranking enlisted men and women is pretty abysmal, that few thousand a year for tuition is a hell of a return on investment.
Hey, are you me? I had the same sort of deal. I did choose a private university over a state-run institution, and the overall cost was about the same as I would have spent for a state college, due to generous private grants, scholarships, and the requisite loans. I also paid for 95% of college on my own with work-study (very generous in a private university, and highly encouraged) and working throughout my summers and most breaks, along with loans and minor handouts from my parents for extra food and supplies.
I did score fairly well on my SAT and was a nearly straight A student (a couple of B’s somewhere along the way), so I was an attractive student.
I am so glad I went to school in the 90s. My high school GPA was 3.2 and I did decent on the ACT. I got a scholarship at an instate school that covered basically everything but books. That would never happen now.
I really feel bad for the kids today. And I 100% agree that kids and their parents should not just assume college is the right track for all kids. For a great many number, learning a trade will pay off much more. What’s a communications major that goes in debt at least $20,000 do after school? Most likely wait tables. Instead, become a plumber or electrician or something.
Re the GI Bill: If the government is willing to pay for it, then yeah, follow the money. I objected not because it was bad advice; I think the OP and her daughter should give it due consideration.
Rather it was Chessic Sense’s supercilious attitude to the OP’s plight that is particularly hypocritical. In the first place, let’s observe that we do have a very large standing military, certainly larger than is needed if we were to adopt the libertarian take (which he otherwise so eagerly embraces) on what our defense committments ought to be. That hypocrisy is only compounded by the fact that to this day, CS continues to suckle at the teat of the hypertrophic military-security industrial complex (i.e., he’s a temp for a defense contractor in DC). So, I am disinclined to suffer in silence his overweening posts about the virtues of self-sufficiency, his heroic defense of small government(!), and his boisterous objections to social spending—now that’s he’s taken his cut.
To anyone who is recommending a two-year community college and then the Cal State system: have you seen what education is like in these institution within the last three years?
Not the last ten. Not the last five. The last three. If you haven’t, please stop recommending that path. Not long ago it was a very good idea, but things have changed in California.
I wouldn’t recommend loans based on personal experience: not impossible, but very burdensome.
To the OP: I don’t know what to tell you. You are right about almost everything: there are in-state private schools, and some of the in-state public schools are weathering the crisis better than others, but no one I know teaching there expects it to improve in the next four years. I’m sorry.
I coach high school debate and this is still more or less the case. I have kids that are just like you described yourself who get excellent help from local CSUs and UCs (almost every graduating kid on my team this year that is going to a state school has the vast majority of their cost being absorbed by where they are going). If the kids decide to forgo those offers and instead try to go to a big name school out of state. . .well, that’s their problem.
Yeah. Less than two years ago. Have you gone to a CSU in the last three years?
You think higher education is about getting an education? It’s not. At least through the bachelor’s level, higher education is basically just giant proficiency test for employment. The intellectually curious will learn far more outside their classes than they could hope to learn in them. The happily ignorant won’t learn anything in or out of class.
We’re still waiting to see what the final budget does to the CSU system, but at the moment it is not unlikely that tuition could rise from about $4,500 per year to about $7,000 per year, and this increase will come at the same time as a whole bunch of classes get cancelled due to budget cuts.
One of the courses i teach is a required course for students in a particular major. That course is already full for the Fall, and i’m already getting desperate emails from students begging to be let into the class.
One problem in California, and one that is probably repeated in quite a few other states, is that there has been a declining willingness in the state to help fund college education. Now, as a general principle, this might not be too problematic. Nothing is free in this world, and if college education is going to be subsidized, then the money needs to come from somewhere. As someone who has college degrees (undergrad and grad), and who teaches college, i support the idea that those who benefit from college should pay money out of their own pockets from the privilege.
One problem, though, is that tens of thousands of Californians who now whine about taxes and about things like university funding, and who get on the “Students pay for your own education” bandwagon, got their own degrees back in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s when their education was almost entirely subsidized by the state.
These people want the best of both worlds: they got to go through college barely paying a dime out of their own pockets, relying on California taxpayers to foot the bill. And now that they are California taxpayers, they’re not interested in giving the same helping hand to the next generation of college students.
A system of state subsidies works fine for college education, because it basically allow you to get your education without a massive up-front payment, but then asks you to foot some of the bill later on through the tax system. A system like this only works, though, as long as people recognize the pay-it-forward nature of the system, and as long as you don’t get a whole generation of people who are happy to say, “I got mine. Fuck the next generation.”
Those two things are incompatible with your expectation of a pot of free money. If you are a good, but not exceptional, student and you or your parents aren’t paying your tuition, you don’t get the college of your choice and you don’t go out of state.
My hat’s off to you, madam. That’s exactly the kind of attitude that I’d love to sear into these whiny ass hats that think they should be spoon-fed everything in life without any effort on their part.
Huh?
Did I, or did I not, say that the OP’s daughter could join the military? Yes, I most certainly did. If she’s willing to put in the hard work and sacrifice to serve her country (i.e. me and mine), then I’m more than willing to help pay for her higher education. And as you just said, if the government is willing to pay for it, then follow the money…so what’s your beef with my advice and/or career, exactly?
Excuse me while I go make sure some terrorists die today. Someone’s got to do it, and lord knows your pansy ass isn’t going to.