$110,000 in Debt (college)

[JoiseyMom]

Interesting article. I can see how she bought into the idea of her dream school, her dream job . . . and yet made the wrong choices. It's perfectly clear to an impartial observer that she was fooling herself right from the beginning. She didn't have the life experience to know what she was getting into, to know what those loans would mean to her life -- and her parents let her down by cosigning, when they KNEW it was a mistake. Sometimes giving our kids the world means NOT giving them exactly what they want for their first four years of adult life. The girl in the article is an example of a family that should've said NO to student debt so that she could've said YES to a life after college. That's one of the problems: Everyone THINKS they'll come out of college and make big money right away. The student loan will essentially mean skipping a few meals out, a small sacrafice to have been able to have THE college. Instead, the sacrafice is much more. They buy into the idea of student loans as "good debt".

Also, it's important to note that the article girl hadn't done her homework -- she was under the mistaken impression that she could consolidate all those loans, something that was easy to verify before signing her name. Also, she was caught by surprise when she learned that her university wouldn't accept all her community college credits. That's VERY common and something she should've checked before embarking on this expensive journey.

She assumed that it was okay to do what she really wanted, ignore the financial reality, and it'd all work out somehow. That's rarely true.

You are right..she made so many mistakes, which at that age is so common. I remember the mistake/s I made at 19/20, it literally shaped the rest of my life (I have no regrets though). I feel her article will show studens and parents what not to do. And she even says her choice of school was a mistake. She regrets what she did and how she did it. I am sure it will give others pause to really think about their college choices. My DS who is her friend made tough choices for going to a private school, but he knew who much he would owe. He also made all the decisions himself. He knew how much he would owe and what he would have to pay off and when. He also knew due to circumstances we were not in a position to help him financially. But he was also in the unique position of a guaranteed job after college and knew how much he would be making.

 

[Mary•Poppins]

Thank you Joseysmom for posting this article. I have already sent it to my sons and keep using information like this to educate them on how to pursue their careers. Thank you again.

... but, even though the article is well written, I do have to agree with Abbys_mom. Perhaps a spoiled brat is harsh, but the girl really seems like she was thinking about herself at the time and not her future or her parents. To let her parents co-sign for so much debt (as a school teacher) is pretty selfish. JMO.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Wow, I always thought that architecture paid well I'm an engineer and I assumed that architects made about the same as engineers...maybe not though

Our girls have fully funded Florida Prepaid tuition plans including fees and housing. They also have 529 plans to cover the expenses not covered by the prepaid plan (books, meal plan, etc.). My sister said something to me about them "only" being able to go to a Florida public college. First of all, UF is the #2 public college in the country, and second of all, undergrad is the new high school. They can go to a big-name grad school with whatever is left in their 529's if they so choose (and loans, I assume). However, they will come out of undergrad with a degree and no debt. I think that they'd prefer that to going to Harvard and having $110K in loans, KWIM?

3 of my 4 children have Florida pre-paid....it is not true that they can ONLY go to a Florida public school. They can transfer the then-average tuition of a public university to any of hundreds of institutions public AND private across the nation.

So if tuition by the time they graduate is $15,000 per semester (totally not right--but just tossing a number)...they can use that $15K towards other private or non-Florida institutions.

They also get the money back if they are eligible for Bright Futures as well. But I think that is by semester.

 

[eyeheartgoofy]

The article should be required reading for college bound high school students. I find it really sad that the author obtained her dream degree from her dream college ... but can't afford to work her dream job.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Interesting article. I can see how she bought into the idea of her dream school, her dream job . . . and yet made the wrong choices. It's perfectly clear to an impartial observer that she was fooling herself right from the beginning. .

I can't say I did things right when I went to school. But I pretty much knew that in the grand scheme, my parents would not be contributing a dime. Somehow, I knew, way back in 1993, that I'd be the one repaying these loans. I didn't even get PLUS loans, b/c my mom would not have qualified let alone been able to pay it back.

But I knew, my state was contributing most of my tuition (formerly Florida Academic scholars, now Bright Futures)--and getting a huge bill at the end would not have been fun. I graduated with $15K in debt and that was just soooo huge.

I did look at Cornell (that one appealed to me and I do not recall why) and some other out of state schools. But in the end, even with my family's horrendous history with debt and irresponsibility, I knew that if I wanted a snowball's chance of paying all of my student loans, to just not bother.

Now I know that it gets posted that financial aid packages are better in form of grants/scholarships. But I didn't know that--and if it would have been too tempting to be convinced that they were helping me enough, while I likely would have still graduated with a lot of debt.

Her parents were her downfall. They could have said no, but they didn't. If she fails to pay--they are stuck with that bill.


As for this woman's $110,000. She says she only had to go one extra semester since not all of her credits transferred.

My math is off--b/c typically, when someone goes with an AS or AA, they have about 2 years left...4 semesters, not including summers. And she only had to go 1 exra semester. It seems she should be in less debt than the $110,000. But as I said, my math could be off.

I really felt in a fog when it came to financial aid. But all my loans were the govt ones as I wasn't eligible for private loans at the time, so there really wasn't anything to consolidate in the end.

I was fiscally foolish, and I could still see the writing on the wall.

These insane debt loads for school are just mind boggling.

 

[eliza61]

Yes, but she also, albeit wrongly, thought she would have a great job to help pay off the loans.

I can see that JM and I do think that maybe with me some times it's a generational thing.

See when I graduated from college, most of the graduates had the thought that we would "start at the bottom" and work our way up. We all thought we would be successful but no one I knew thought that right after college we would be making 50-60K year one.

We all hope to get work in our fields but like I said we applied for entry level no experience jobs. We expected to have a roommate, no one thought they were getting a fancy apartment (in NYC gimme a break) car, travel and spending money right off the bat.

So even if we were expecting a job, we were not racking up 10's of thousands in loans because we expected that job to be a jumping off point.

I mean seriously 100K is a mortgage.

 

[MrsPete]

Luckily my financial aid isnt anywhere near as bad, but I still ended up with just under 22k worth of debt to pay off. Ive been kicking myself in the butt since I discovered what I would be paying every month for the next 30 years. The main reason Im so angry with myself is I had the chance to attend a local SUNY college free of charge, AND they were giving me an extra $1800 a year for books, gas, & 'transportation' fees. I gave it up because 'I didnt like the school' . Seriously what I would give to go back and kick my 17 year old selfs butt at this moment.

See, that's the thing: Most people who get into student loan debt have other options. You had a good local choice, article-girl had a good local choice -- an awful lot of people do have a choice.

Perhaps a spoiled brat is harsh, but the girl really seems like she was thinking about herself at the time and not her future or her parents.

Well, a student who's applying to college SHOULD be thinking about his or her future -- but this student was thinking of a dream future, not a realistic future. We sell our kids on some false ideas in high school: You can be anything you want (no, you can't -- desire won't make you an astronaut), pay anything to go to the school you want, etc.

My math is off--b/c typically, when someone goes with an AS or AA, they have about 2 years left...4 semesters, not including summers. And she only had to go 1 exra semester. It seems she should be in less debt than the $110,000. But as I said, my math could be off.

I think she said 30,000 for each of her two full years, 15,000 for the extra semester, and then I think she mentioned 18,000 for living expenses. That doesn't total 110,000 -- perhaps that's with interest that's built up over the years?

 

[delmar411]

I read all the posts here prior to reading the article and I have to say I don't see spoiled brat in her article. But....Sallie Mae didn't seduce her, nor did they neglect to mention anything to her. She admits she didn't read the fine print. And clearly didn't take 2secs to do a salary search for her chosen job field nor did she bother to take another 2secs and run the financial aid payback calculator.

Eh, I find it hard to see the wisdom in her article but I hope it was at least cathartic for her to write it.

I'm in college FT as is my DH. We have loans and we are fully versed on what those loans are going to cost us in the long run and have a very realistic payback plan. Although we didn't have to do any budgeting thing like a PP mentioned? I just had to virtually sign off on the loans and the promissory notes. And all our professors are really clear about job prospects and salaries, which I find to be really refreshing. No lies or half-truths being given out these days I guess!

 

[MrsPete]

Eh, I find it hard to see the wisdom in her article but I hope it was at least cathartic for her to write it.

I don't see wisdom in it either, but what's that saying? No one is useless. Those who can't be good examples can at least be cautionary tales.

 

[disykat]

Eh, I find it hard to see the wisdom in her article but I hope it was at least cathartic for her to write it.

I agree. I just see someone who overlooked the obvious and now is assuming others are doing the same thing and this will somehow be helpful.

To me this is like "you'll save money if you don't buy a latte every day" and "you'll lose weight if you switch from regular to skim milk." Wow - really?

 

[csharpwv]

One thing that people have to remember is that college is the BIGGEST investment that a person will make in life that will have the greatest impact on ALL OVER INVESTMENTS that they will EVER make.

College is a huge investment - but people don't always make the best decisions.

As I mentioned previously, I am a college admissions counselor, and I always tell students to look at wanted ads/job postings etc so they can get an idea about their earning potential. And something that students should remember is that their student loan debt should not exceed what the earning potential is in their first year on the job. ($40,000 a year = $40,000 in student loan debt - $100,000 a year = $100,000 in student loan debt) The same applies for graduate and professional school loan debt.
While that is even below the government's 'red zone' for student loan debt, it puts it into perspective for students.

Private - For-profit schools are especially bad at providing career based education - and promising jobs and income levels that are not at all realistic. Congress has even had hearings about career education colleges promising really high incomes - and leaving students saddled with extremely high debt loads. I would leave my current job to work at a for-profit school and easily make $10,000 more than what I make now - but I won't, it isn't fair to students. The quality of education at the school I work for is higher than any for-profit school can provide, and student pay less than 1/2 the over all price - and that's including room and board.

So parents and students alike need to be especially vigilant to make sure that they quality of education is on par with the price tag. AND they also need to make sure that what a school is checks out - as far as starting wage/salary and reasonable job expectations.

A for-profit school is out to do just that - make a profit - off of students who are paying with 100% debt load upon graduation. It's just not fair.

 

[kirstenb1]

I don't know what to say. She has 2 yrs in a private school with a poli sci/public affairs degree. That sounds like something a Kennedy family member would have studied. And had the financial backing to do so, which unfortunately she didn't.

My experience was this: I was the oldest of six kids. No one was paying for college. I chose a state school, and always had at least 2 jobs, totalling minimum of thirty five hours per week to pay for school. I was fortunate enough to graduate debt free back in the eighties, when school was cheap.

Still it made enough of a mark on me, that although we have a five twenty nine plan for the girls, I'm picturing they will do two years at community college (one with guaranteed admission to a state 4 yr school), then transfer. If we're paying, they need to choose a highly marketable degree, no goofing.

I don't understand these annual tuition hikes. No one I know is getting commensurate annual raises. Here in Virginia,they keep adding programs to schools. News flash, we don't need 5 schools with engineering, accounting, nursing, education, law, etc. Back in the day, schools specialized in these degrees, and I'm starting to think they need to return to that.

 

[Spacepest]

Wow. Unless I was going to law or medical school, my parents would have screamed at me if I had a $100K student loan debt!

I'm just astounded. Over $100K in student loans for a Poly Sci degree...if that debt hanging over her head isn't going to limit her life choices, I don't know what will.

 

[NYEmomma]

DH & I both went to the (same) local state university. We both came out with no student debt. My parents paid for mine. I stayed at home the whole time & postponed getting married because that was their one ultimatum about paying for my schooling.

My husband knew from a very, very early age that his parents weren't going to pay for anything for him. He's a VERY smart guy... he got accepted to more than one of the stand out schools in the country. But at the end of the day, he stayed here because the state uni gave him a scholarship for full tuition + room + board. There was no way he could say no to that.

The one thing I wanted to say to all the parents of high schoolers that are reading this: if your son or daughter's school has a post-secondary program, I strongly, STRONGLY encourage them to utilize it. You can start your junior year and your classes are FREE! They count for college credit towards a future degree, plus high school credit. I only did it my senior year of high school, but was able to graduate with my undergraduate degree in 3 years, in part because of post-secondary.

The other thing I'd recommend is to take a look at the pricing structure of tuition. When I was in college, if you took 14-21 credits, tuition was a flat amount. Outside of that, we were paying per credit. So if you get into that flat rate range, you'll be paying $5,000 (for example) if you take 14 credits or 21 credits. Take advantage of that & max it out of it's possible!

 

[Kimberly]

I don't even want to say how much I money I burned away in college.

About 120,000 dollars for a B.S. in Economics, followed by a MBA, which cost me about 90,000 dollars to achieve.

I don't know if I regret going to college or not. 210,000 dollars is quite a bit of money which I could have invested into my own business which I started while I was in college. I'm sure I would have been just as driven to succeed, however, I'm not exactly sure if I'd be in my present geographical location because of the school I attended. The MBA program did allow me to meet some excellent business contacts at first, but I've met even more interesting people in the real world.

I do feel that the B.S. degree was just that... I wish I would have picked a state school for undergrad, and then perhaps done my MBA somewhere more prestigious. In the end, it's just a piece of paper.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

3 of my 4 children have Florida pre-paid....it is not true that they can ONLY go to a Florida public school. They can transfer the then-average tuition of a public university to any of hundreds of institutions public AND private across the nation.

So if tuition by the time they graduate is $15,000 per semester (totally not right--but just tossing a number)...they can use that $15K towards other private or non-Florida institutions.

They also get the money back if they are eligible for Bright Futures as well. But I think that is by semester.

Yes, this is very true. My sister meant that the only fully prepaid option is a FL public school I think. Either way, I hope that they go to an in-state FL university for their undergrad and save the 529 for grad. school. That seems to be the most sensible choice and would spare them ever having a financial situation like the author of this article.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

I think she said 30,000 for each of her two full years, 15,000 for the extra semester, and then I think she mentioned 18,000 for living expenses. That doesn't total 110,000 -- perhaps that's with interest that's built up over the years?

She said something about the original amount that she borrowed having ballooned up to 110K at graduation. I assume that this was due to interest.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

I agree. I just see someone who overlooked the obvious and now is assuming others are doing the same thing and this will somehow be helpful.

To me this is like "you'll save money if you don't buy a latte every day" and "you'll lose weight if you switch from regular to skim milk." Wow - really?

I actually see it more as "the 18 year-old me made a terrible choice that will affect the 30 and 40 and 50 year-old me" and don't do what I did. In hindsight, her bad choice is obvious. In the moment, she thought like a kid and insisted on getting what she wanted right then and there w/o regard to the consequences. She's trying to help other kids to avoid the same mistake. I actually do not think that this is obvious to your average 18 year-old who has been mentally sold a bill of goods on "being anything they want to be" from infancy on, KWIM?

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

Here in Virginia,they keep adding programs to schools. News flash, we don't need 5 schools with engineering, accounting, nursing, education, law, etc. Back in the day, schools specialized in these degrees, and I'm starting to think they need to return to that.

ITA with this Growing up, our in-state university program also had schools that specialized. My dad actually went to the "engineering" school and got a great education that I'd consider to be at least on a par w/my private engineering education. A return to these specialized schools would probably be a great cost-savings and would take all of the guesswork out of which college to attend. Then again, it does make changing your major 10 times difficult, which would be a GOOD thing in my book.

 

[DawnM]

My dad lived with his parents and commuted to med school for 4 years. He even shared a car with his mom. His mom was a nurse at the hospital on the college campus and he went to classes during the day.

He graduated from med school with no debt at all.

Dawn

Wow. Unless I was going to law or medical school, my parents would have screamed at me if I had a $100K student loan debt!

I'm just astounded. Over $100K in student loans for a Poly Sci degree...if that debt hanging over her head isn't going to limit her life choices, I don't know what will.