Disney Is the Happiest Place on Earth, if You Can Afford It

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The economy didn’t make people go into debt! We all make choices in life. I don’t understand the mindset that “life just happens to me and I have no control over it.” Our parents lived through a much tougher era and were able to buy homes and retire comfortably. Of course, they never had a credit card and never bought something they couldn’t afford.
All three of our kids went to college and graduated without debt as well as my husband and I. And one of them is a physician. We saved for college with savings bonds for them and 529 plans, they worked and got scholarships. They didn’t choose expensive schools and they worked while in school. They were RAs so they got free room and board. And we are very strictly in the middle of middle class. It takes work and sacrifice, but it’s worth it that our kids didn’t start their lives in debt, and are now all home owners as well.

I think you might view things differently if you yourself were not in the position you were in. I have never felt like my parents were responsible to pay for my college education but neither parent, most especially my mother, was able to provide any financial assistance for college. It makes for a remarkedly different outlook. However, I will also say that my husband and my sister-in-law who did have some financial assistance (first year room and board paid for by their grandmother) though they also took out loans feels much the same as I do so perhaps it's also down to not viewing the world in a "pull up your bootstraps" mentality. To the context of the conversation ironically enough they also can't get through to their own mother on the realities of the situation who just repeats "well I went to college without debt so.." (for context she went to the same dang college as my husband, my sister-in-law and I; you'd think she be more in the know on tuition costs as well as you know the financial state of things over the years but alas nope).

 

[DCLMP]

People tend to forget we are consumer based economy. It's one thing to say people should tighten their belts and not spend, but have you really thought that one through? What's going to happen to the job market and the precious stock market if people stop spending. Our economy is dependent on people spending money they don't have. How do you think WDW is what it is?

As far the fiscal debt. It can't be paid off, it's not going to disappear and it's growing by the second.

 

[FreeTime]

A country of predominately old people is not going to work. You do need people that can work, build things and take care of all the old people. Do you think maybe things shouldn't have gotten so unaffordable that young people don't want kids.

I know No young people that are saying they don’t want children because of the economy. They are claiming it is the other responsibilities. This my own kids. Their friends. Young people I mentor.

 

[DCLMP]

I know No young people that are saying they don’t want children because of the economy. They are claiming it is the other responsibilities. This my own kids. Their friends. Young people I mentor.

Yes I’m well aware of all the things.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

They may not take expensive vacations but they may be spending dollars unnecessarily on other unneeded items.

Ready to get fired up? They elected to have those children. Why shouldn’t they provide for them? If they elect to have them and NOT save, why is it the responsibility of universities to be affordable?

Going to college is a choice made by an adult. Why is it the responsibility of parents to provide for their adult offspring?

You can't touch your 401k until your almost 60. No guarantee we won't see it drop 50% again before we retire. I've seen at least 4 of those drops and I'm not retired yet. If you knew anything about the economy you would know that everything is predicated on what the debt market does. The bond market is a lot bigger than the equities market.

Not true: https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/

True but even if they did the pricing is nowhere near what a starter home would have been many years ago. My county defines "attainable housing" as $300K or less and it is very difficult to find that, even in existing homes. My mom's home was valued around $150K pre-2015 when the housing market here was a buyer's market (it switched to sellers in 2015). Presently it is $316K (as of Jan this year) and she could probably sell it for a decent amount higher than that (her home is a 3b/2b split level 1960s home with very little updates).

Since 2018 the number of homes $300K or less in the county..remember that's just considered "attainable" dropped 75% (they said 100,000 homes in 2018 fit that definition, in 2024 it was down to 25,000). Renting isn't as feasible as one would think either as they put it rents increase 35% from 2018 to 2023 while median income only increased 18%. I'm not sure what the figures are now though. The average sales price of my county back in March was $557,000.

Part of the problem we're seeing in the US is that people are locked into their current housing because of interest rates. If you have a loan from 2021 or before you are looking at a 50% increase of the P&I portion just from interest rates. It becomes very hard to justify moving with that math which has really hurt supply.

I know No young people that are saying they don’t want children because of the economy. They are claiming it is the other responsibilities. This my own kids. Their friends. Young people I mentor.

What "other responsibilities" are you referring to here?

 

[DCLMP]

Not true: https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/

Sure you can pay a penalty or take out a loan. I'm not sure why you would do that to pay for your kids college. I guess if you had millions it wouldn't be an issue. I thought we were talking about the normal middle class\middle aged parents.

I think he's referring to the responsibilty of becoming selfless. That sort of goes along with having kids.

 

[DCLMP]

The average 401k balance by age 50 is around 200k.

 

[FreeTime]

Going to college is a choice made by an adult. Why is it the responsibility of parents to provide for their adult offspring?

I don’t think it is. But for those that are saying people can’t save and it is unaffordable for their children, that isn’t true. I see no need for a parent to pay for the education and I know it is possible for someone to work their way through college and be debt free when they come out of it.

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

Going to college is a choice made by an adult. Why is it the responsibility of parents to provide for their adult offspring?

Yes and no. They start pushing for kids to figure out what they are going to do after high school earlier and earlier. In 8th grade kids have to decide whether they want to go to the regular high school or trade high school. They start pushing kids to figure out their future plans in freshman year. Kids may not be even be 18 when they decide on a college.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I don’t think it is. But for those that are saying people can’t save and it is unaffordable for their children, that isn’t true. I see no need for a parent to pay for the education and I know it is possible for someone to work their way through college and be debt free when they come out of it.

That is actually a large reason why talking about the reality of the situation falls on some deaf ears. This idea that someone knows someone who did it and therefore voila it's possible.....if only you work hard enough for it it's the whole "pull up your bootstraps you'll be fine" mentality that simply keeps the conversation stagnant. You can recognize that you know so and so did it while also recognizing the issue as a whole; it's this part that is always missing from the conversation.

One trend that wasn't as big when I was in college is parents taking out parental loans in greater numbers. It was a thing back then just wasn't as prevalent as it is now (or at least seems now).

FWIW I worked in high school, I worked all of my college life sometimes 40 hours per week and doing full time student. If you think that meant I was able to be debt free with the college tuition plus housing and food and gas and insurance, etc you'd be wrong. Even my husband couldn't do it. The difference is my husband was in the engineering field and right after college was already making $20K more than I was, it made it less of a burden for him to pay back his loans. We both ended up with right around the same student loan debt after 4 years. He worked during college, often full time or close to it. And this was when tuition was actually quite a bit less at our alma mater than it is now. Not only that but my meager pay back then when I was a high school student and college student actually was partially, somewhat, kinda doable. Now the pay you'd get at the jobs most college students have yeesh it's often just really not enough.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Part of the problem we're seeing in the US is that people are locked into their current housing because of interest rates. If you have a loan from 2021 or before you are looking at a 50% increase of the P&I portion just from interest rates. It becomes very hard to justify moving with that math which has really hurt supply.

Yup, we refinanced in May 2020 although we were not in the 2% range, ours was a slight reduction in amount from our 1st refinance which was a slight reduction from our original loan percent when rates were already in the 4-5% range. For those who steeply dropped in rates yes that did make it more difficult still now. That has had an effect on our market for sure but specific to my market it's so much stuff that started well before the pandemic, that got worse during the pandemic and just hasn't recovered quite enough to reduce the pricing back down. In my county in particular, which full disclosure is the most affluent in the state and the metro (our metro straddles two states) each year for a while now it averages 93-97% increase in home values. For new homes lot pricing has surged and our market has been in a very tight housing for a very long time now. The interest rates increase really is only the icing on the cake in my housing market not the actual cause for the root issue of inventory problems (or in the case of the other comment starter homes).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes and no. They start pushing for kids to figure out what they are going to do after high school earlier and earlier. In 8th grade kids have to decide whether they want to go to the regular high school or trade high school. They start pushing kids to figure out their future plans in freshman year. Kids may not be even be 18 when they decide on a college.

And it's also in part why many Millennials are jaded about things, Gen Z sees even less reason for it having witness a lot of the fall out of it. We were under that whole mentality that you'll make X amount more with a college degree more than someone without it which I can understand when it's more about a job requiring a college degree but it really didn't end up fitting with the job market that many of us came out in after college right around the Great Recession or the several years after that. The whole "we were sold this thing" idea. I also dislike when people talk about the alternative being trades as if that is just the only other answer. Valuing extra education (be that a traditional college or trades) is admirable but making your entire society see it as a caste system (which had been that way for decades prior to me being in college) didn't really serve the society in the end. I've told the story before that my job at the insurance company only months prior to me getting that job required a college degree. That job in no way needed a college degree for it, it just didn't. And rewarding someone in the form of income due to their education is good, it's just making generalized " a degree means you're better educated" fuels the "must go to college" track which fuels jobs requiring degrees for which the job really doesn't truly need as a required qualification.

 

[DCLMP]

I don’t think it is. But for those that are saying people can’t save and it is unaffordable for their children, that isn’t true. I see no need for a parent to pay for the education and I know it is possible for someone to work their way through college and be debt free when they come out of it.

No one has said you can't save for college. Not one person has said that. Your trying to argue that the cost of college isn't out of sync with average incomes and that is so far from the truth.

 

[DCLMP]

That is actually a large reason why talking about the reality of the situation falls on some deaf ears. This idea that someone knows someone who did it and therefore voila it's possible.....if only you work hard enough for it it's the whole "pull up your bootstraps you'll be fine" mentality that simply keeps the conversation stagnant. You can recognize that you know so and so did it while also recognizing the issue as a whole; it's this part that is always missing from the conversation.

One trend that wasn't as big when I was in college is parents taking out parental loans in greater numbers. It was a thing back then just wasn't as prevalent as it is now (or at least seems now).

FWIW I worked in high school, I worked all of my college life sometimes 40 hours per week and doing full time student. If you think that meant I was able to be debt free with the college tuition plus housing and food and gas and insurance, etc you'd be wrong. Even my husband couldn't do it. The difference is my husband was in the engineering field and right after college was already making $20K more than I was, it made it less of a burden for him to pay back his loans. We both ended up with right around the same student loan debt after 4 years. He worked during college, often full time or close to it. And this was when tuition was actually quite a bit less at our alma mater than it is now. Not only that but my meager pay back then when I was a high school student and college student actually was partially, somewhat, kinda doable. Now the pay you'd get at the jobs most college students have yeesh it's often just really not enough.

When my first child was born tuition was 4600 for the year it is currently 15k for the year. The bigger cost is room and board which makes the cost 35k a year. Yes we could all spend our adult working lives scrimping and saving every dime for our kids to go to college without debt, but if we all did that their wouldn't be any jobs when they graduated. Our economy just doesn't work that way, it never will and it shouldn't. Like I said earlier our economy is consumer and service based

I think more and more kids will forego college. I think the cost has gotten to point where it's not worth it. They may choose to live at home and do online school or other alternatives. It's unfortunate because I think going away to school and experiencing the college life is such a great experience. In addition to that with AI I think kids are more confused then ever. They are very worried AI will take over any career then choose.

 

[gsdweller]

When my first child was born tuition was 4600 for the year it is currently 15k for the year. The bigger cost is room and board which makes the cost 35k a year. Yes we could all spend our adult working lives scrimping and saving every dime for our kids to go to college without debt, but if we all did that their wouldn't be any jobs when they graduated. Our economy just doesn't work that way, it never will and it shouldn't. Like I said earlier our economy is consumer and service based

I think more and more kids will forego college. I think the cost has gotten to point where it's not worth it. They may choose to live at home and do online school or other alternatives. It's unfortunate because I think going away to school and experiencing the college life is such a great experience. In addition to that with AI I think kids are more confused then ever. They are very worried AI will take over any career then choose.

I agree that going to college and being on your own is a valuable experience for young adults. The problem isn't just the fact that college is so expensive. A big part of the problem is that currently, a majority of the degrees offered are just not worth anything in the work force. A humanities undergraduate degree buys you nothing. Even if you go on to get a Masters or a PhD there are limited jobs available.

The 'crime' being perpetrated by the universities is them telling students that their degree will have worth once they are done. They should have to sit down with every student and go over the overall financial picture with them before they pick a major.

Going $250,000 or more into debt in order to get a degree that will pay you 50K a year after 5 years is a bad deal no matter how you look at it.

 

[DCLMP]

I agree that going to college and being on your own is a valuable experience for young adults. The problem isn't just the fact that college is so expensive. A big part of the problem is that currently, a majority of the degrees offered are just not worth anything in the work force. A humanities undergraduate degree buys you nothing. Even if you go on to get a Masters or a PhD there are limited jobs available.

The 'crime' being perpetrated by the universities is them telling students that their degree will have worth once they are done. They should have to sit down with every student and go over the overall financial picture with them before they pick a major.

Going $250,000 or more into debt in order to get a degree that will pay you 50K a year after 5 years is a bad deal no matter how you look at it.

A lot of kids went into Computer science and from what I've read it's oversaturated right now. The job market right now for college grads is the worst it's been in over decade. There is definitely a need for skilled jobs like electricians, plumber, HEVAC, welders etc. It will be interesting to see how the job market shifts.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I agree that going to college and being on your own is a valuable experience for young adults. The problem isn't just the fact that college is so expensive. A big part of the problem is that currently, a majority of the degrees offered are just not worth anything in the work force. A humanities undergraduate degree buys you nothing. Even if you go on to get a Masters or a PhD there are limited jobs available.

The 'crime' being perpetrated by the universities is them telling students that their degree will have worth once they are done. They should have to sit down with every student and go over the overall financial picture with them before they pick a major.

Going $250,000 or more into debt in order to get a degree that will pay you 50K a year after 5 years is a bad deal no matter how you look at it.

I totally get where this mentality is but that is just not at all how you can formulate education beyond high school. You cannot nor should you ever limit what college degrees are based on what you view is worth it The end result would be extremely detrimental if we decided (and well the older generations already have honestly as the good ole joke about basket weaving or like how you said deciding what what major) that a degree in this is not actually worthy but a degree in this is. The world is not just filled with people who have knowledge in X over Y. You cannot have a varied society with large amounts of varied knowledge when you only select a small amount of directions one can go.

Interestingly when you talk about a masters I think back to my husband where he said in his specific field of engineering a masters is viewed as very unnecessary. Do some get it? Yes but a P.E. license is the thing you need and a masters is not really going to get you anywhere.

The issue there if you're talking about income vs tuition costs is not at the college level, it's the society level, it's the job market level who determines that if you have X it means you're worth more and therefore if you only have a degree in this lowly category pfft you might as well have not gotten a degree at all. Don't blame the colleges, blame the people who arbitrarily decide that a humanities degree mean nothing and it's also precisely why you have people in the boat they are in now because they were taught that you have to go for X degree because that's where the money is, that's where you are valued and you can't just go to college for this Y degree you won't make any money. Yeah well many found themselves well overqualified for what jobs they could get (if they could get one) after they graduated college. That's what focusing only exactly what field you get a degree in can get you.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When my first child was born tuition was 4600 for the year it is currently 15k for the year. The bigger cost is room and board which makes the cost 35k a year. Yes we could all spend our adult working lives scrimping and saving every dime for our kids to go to college without debt, but if we all did that their wouldn't be any jobs when they graduated. Our economy just doesn't work that way, it never will and it shouldn't. Like I said earlier our economy is consumer and service based

I think more and more kids will forego college. I think the cost has gotten to point where it's not worth it. They may choose to live at home and do online school or other alternatives. It's unfortunate because I think going away to school and experiencing the college life is such a great experience. In addition to that with AI I think kids are more confused then ever. They are very worried AI will take over any career then choose.

AI is an interesting thing too. It can be very helpful and has increased in usage over the years but yeah it will and has already had an impact on jobs, like robots did before, AI is doing now.

Part of it I think is adjusting what jobs people are doing and where. It's a slow process over years but it's not like we haven't done it before. Industrial Revolution, advancements in technology using computers, sensors, robots and now AI. We have shifted and moved what jobs we do and adapted. It's getting the rest of society on board that usually takes the longest. Look how long it took for remote/work from home took to get really a hold of the job market, a pandemic created the driving force into much more acceptance which has opened up new or at least in some ways different ways of doing a job.