Student Loans

[NotUrsula]

Where is this? Because it’s not that way around here. Our nearby university converted an old nursing home into dorms.

Also in Kentucky high school students can earn KEES money based on high school GPA each year and act score. My son had about $2400 to use towards college for each of 4 years. So $9600 total. This money is for any college in the state. Public or private.

You're asking about public/private construction partnerships for student residences? These are commonly done for new construction, not renovations or conversions, but yes, they are very common. The two developers that I'm most familiar with that do them are American Campus Communities (www.americancampus.com) and Capstone Development (www.capstone-communities.com). In Kentucky, ACC has properties at UK and Louisville, and Capstone has one at UK and did have one at Murray State, but it was sold a while back.

(BTW, the new DCP housing at WDW, Flamingo Crossings Village, was built and is managed by ACC. They leased the land from Disney.)

 

[BK2014]

I guess you didn’t read my entire post and just assumed it said hat you wanted it to say for your talking point ….

I read you entire post. I didn't address the whole get an $18/hr job at Lowe's and pay as you go scenario because it is not based in reality. Most Lowe's aren't starting people at $18/hr. If they do, they are likely in a city where $18/hr an hour is insufficient for one to afford rent, groceries, gas, utilities, etc, in addition to the out of pocket education expenses you're suggesting.

But again - why is a K-12 education considered a right, but a college education is somehow a privilege?

 

[TippyThomas]

I was going to make a few posts just to get people to react but I guess it's already being done.

 

[Sadeesmom]

"why is a K-12 education considered a right, but a college education is somehow a privilege?"

This is a joke, right? Why are we providing for our minor children a basic education?

Is it not required by law that kids attend school in some form? College is not required by any law.
College is a choice; K-12 is not.
College is for adults. K-12 is for kids.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

"why is a K-12 education considered a right, but a college education is somehow a privilege?"

This is a joke, right? Why are we providing for our minor children a basic education?

Is it not required by law that kids attend school in some form? College is not required by any law.
College is a choice; K-12 is not.
College is for adults. K-12 is for kids.

Yes but you can drop out as a minor depending on the state. Mine is 16 if the parent consents.

And then you have the sorta weird thing when someone turns 18. My friend turned 18 weeks into senior year, by law she could be done. It did make it easier though for her since she could sign all the documents and call herself out.

There's also the point about students on the other end who are young. 17 going to college.

More or less the "minor" and the "kids" argument sometimes it suits one part of the argument but then doesn't on another.

Quite a few, especially when the pandemic hit and just blasted it into the limelight, felt lower ed schools were just teaching to testing rather than knowledge. Kinda interesting too IMO the various colleges that have opted to remove ACT/SAT from requirement as a permanent thing vs temporary.

Compulsory attendance laws have their own controversy, what good is required school (up to a certain age) if you don't feel like the school sees your child for your child rather than someone they have to teach to pass a test because the government said so.

I don't remember who said the quote you are quoting but I can kinda see where they are going. Our society values educated persons but we tend to fail on grander support, most of it seems to feel like our country's individualism at play (both a pro and a con to our identity).

 

[Princesca]

But again - why is a K-12 education considered a right, but a college education is somehow a privilege?

I'm for free college education (community and state college at least) but even I admit that there is a huge difference between K-12 and post-secondary. K-12 should be giving you the basic skills you need to function as an adult (which it often doesn't, whole other issue there) but I can honestly say, while post-secondary was enlightening for me, I can't think of much of anything I learned there that I consider a fundamental need. And I went to a top private school. It was very much a 'nice to have' but I could have gotten to where I am today with the skills I learned in K-12.

Obviously, we need tradespeople and other occupations that have skills you don't typically learn in K-12, and post-secondary is very much needed for those. But for instance, (ETA: basic) accounting? I didn't learn any accounting in college, and accounting skills make up about half my job now. I learned those skills on the job. What got me the job in that area was the basic ability to logic and do rudimentary math, which I learned in K-12.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I didn't learn any accounting in college,

I didn't learn accounting in lower ed either aside from brief checkbook balancing (which is archaic these days).

On the other hand my mom fell into accounting after various job roles at the company she worked at for just shy of 40 years, starting in the mail room. Unfortunately when that company decided that all 55+ people were expendable and she was essentially given the boot days before Christmas 2020 she found that places where she could use any accounting knowledge wouldn't hire her because she was informally trained without an accounting degree. Her real life experience was limited to how the company she worked for did it, the specifications that which wouldn't translate to companies in general and that made it difficult to find companies to hire her with such limited knowledge. That happens with tech people too. You might be an expert in a specific software but it takes a company using that specific software to hire an expert on it.

I can't think of much of anything I learned there that I consider a fundamental need.

I learned far more in college than I ever did in my lower education. So much more. On a personal and life lesson level. Sometimes I feel like whether or not people feel that their college education was worth it or not introspectively (so not counting whether their field required it or not) is dependent on the college they went to. Maybe the top private school you went to wasn't the right fit for you. I know for me I would probably not have felt the same way I do about my alma mater had I gone to the other main college in the state (which is largely agricultural and more in a rural feel). My cousin went to that school though and it worked for him but I don't think it would have worked for me. I'm not sure I would have been able to experience things the same way.

Whether occupations should require just a college degree vs a specified one I think is a good conversation to have. My call center insurance job did not really require a college degree in terms of soft skills or specified knowledge but they had only removed the college degree requirement a few months before I got hired. Before then without a college degree you could not make more than $X. But that would be entirely different conversation than not feeling like college was worth it. And to be fair when I made the comment about the pandemic just a bit ago that was part of what I was speaking to as more and more young individuals are having issues seeing the point of college. It's a fair conversation to be had. But in terms of comparing lower and higher education I feel like that's very different but also perhaps very personal.

 

[wvjules]

Obviously, we need tradespeople and other occupations that have skills you don't typically learn in K-12, and post-secondary is very much needed for those. But for instance, accounting? I didn't learn any accounting in college, and accounting skills make up about half my job now. I learned those skills on the job. What got me the job in that area was the basic ability to logic and do rudimentary math, which I learned in K-12.

As a CPA this made me cringe....

 

[Princesca]

As a CPA this made me cringe....

To note, I'm not a CPA. But my employer(s) have called what I do accounting, and they've never required a CPA. If I went on to be a controller, sure, but at the level I'm at, it's just not necessary. (Apparently.) I've had three jobs now that entail calculating and paying taxes and I've never had any mistakes found on audits.

 

[wvjules]

To note, I'm not a CPA. But my employer(s) have called what I do accounting, and they've never required a CPA. If I went on to be a controller, sure, but at the level I'm at, it's just not necessary. (Apparently.) I've had three jobs now that entail calculating and paying taxes and I've never had any mistakes found on audits.

Sounds like bookkeeping more than accounting. My mom owns her own bookkeeping business doing payroll, payroll taxes, preparing W2s, individual taxes, bookkeeping services, prepare basic FS, etc.

Back on topic - I do think that 2 years of CC (or 2 years of trade school) should be free or super inexpensive for those that qualify educationally.

 

[Princesca]

I learned far more in college than I ever did in my lower education. So much more. On a personal and life lesson level.

My opinions are predicated on the fact that I was fortunate to have a great K-12 public school experience and we, as a society, should work hard to make that true for every student so that by the time they turn 18, they have all the fundamental building blocks they need to pursue a successful life as an adult. To me, that is more worthy of using public funds than supplying free post-secondary education. (Just my casual, armchair opinion.)

I learned and grew a lot in college too, but I just don't think it's the taxpayer's responsibility to make sure people have valuable 'personal and life lessons' to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars of free post-secondary education a year. You can have valuable personal and life lessons in other places, for much less cost. That's not the first priority of college, in my opinion. It just happens to occur there quite often as a pleasant side effect. I could have some very valuable personal lessons come along if I took a year-long sabbatical off work to go meditate and practice my Tai Chi and work on myself, I'm 99.9% certain of that, but I don't expect my expenses in doing that to be paid by taxpayers.

I do believe that education should be priced appropriately, so that people who pursue advanced skills have a reasonable expectation of paying the loans off within 5-10 years of beginning their career, at the low end of whatever salary they should earn in that career. I really do believe in student loan reform, and at a minimum, interest forgiveness and caps. Whatever we do, it HAS to come with strong reform so we don't end up in this place again in 5-10 years.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I just don't think it's the taxpayer's responsibility to make sure people have valuable 'personal and life lessons' to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars of free post-secondary education a year.

In fairness why is post-secondary the line in the sand because we certainly expect tax-payer money for lower despite not really having much evenness in education. And as a taxpayer I DO pay for higher education for the community college for instance. More than 55% of my property tax goes straight to the school district I'm in but another percentage goes straight to the community college (ETA: 2021 figures were more than $500 in the year to the Community College, it will be more for the year 2022). I'd be willing to pay more if it meant people truly looked more at it.

And by personal and life lessons in quotes like that saying it that way I gather you don't quite know what I mean or place much importance on it. But again I very much think what college people went to can impact things. The one I went to at least during the time I did placed high importance on exposing of various ideas. From being an open campus that allowed for protests, to twice a year allowing bibles to being handed out to seeing billboards of aborted fetuses to so much embracing of The Community and much more. I would not be as open minded about a variety of things if I had not been exposed to these things as well as my particular variety of classes. Debating the ethics of the death penalty at 10 years old was one thing but it took on a very different thing in the college setting I had.

Perhaps you would have been better off not chasing the top private school as I suspect there was a particular reason you felt you needed to go to that vs another option.

 

[Princesca]

And by personal and life lessons in quotes like that saying it that way I gather you don't quite know what I mean or place much importance on it.

I put it in those single quotes because I didn't know if I had your exact wording correctly, in full, not because I was trying to be sarcastic or anything like that. As I said in my post, I did those things in college too, and have, throughout my life. However, I just don't personally think it's anyone's responsibility but mine to pay for that opportunity.

My college placed a LOT of value on a progressive liberal arts education, and it was a game changer for me in terms of changing my worldview versus where I had grown up, sounds like similarly to you. I don't say any of this to poo-poo my alma mater. I enjoyed my experience. But in terms of it being something that I would expect OTHERS to pay for, no... it was mine to pay for, and my parents, because they wanted me to have that experience. And we all paid for it. But would I expect taxpayers to cover the $50k+/year cost for that? I wouldn't.

I don't mind at all that my tax dollars go to community college in my area. As I said in a prior post, I actually am in favor of free local and state post-secondary (undergrad). But I do think that K-12 fundamentals should take priority. And, as you pointed out, there's so many issues there that need addressing.

 

[BK2014]

This is a joke, right? Why are we providing for our minor children a basic education?

No, not a joke. Just trying to have a discussion.

Is it not required by law that kids attend school in some form? College is not required by any law.
College is a choice; K-12 is not.
College is for adults. K-12 is for kids.

I understand this, my question is why is 18 the age where we decide that we are no longer responsible for educating children? Yes, the law says that at that age they are no longer minors, but does that make sense in light of what we now know about the brain development - including their reasoning and judgment - that does not finish until closer to 25? As people have discussed in this thread about their own children, even at 18 some parents believe that their children are incapable of understanding the loan documents that they are signing, or even responsibly choosing a major.

 

[Disneychick13]

No, not a joke. Just trying to have a discussion.

I understand this, my question is why is 18 the age where we decide that we are no longer responsible for educating children? Yes, the law says that at that age they are no longer minors, but does that make sense in light of what we now know about the brain development - including their reasoning and judgment - that does not finish until closer to 25? As people have discussed in this thread about their own children, even at 18 some parents believe that their children are incapable of understanding the loan documents that they are signing, or even responsibly choosing a major.

Well, to be fair, I think the arbitrary line drawn at 18 should be applicable to all kinds of situations for the same reasoning. I like the idea from a PP about 2 years of post high school learning (vocational/community college/etc) Being paid for. Even better would be to incorporate some of that education into the last two years of high school beyond AP classes (which aren’t universally available and certainly not to all students). Unfortunately, having the government being in charge of anything seems to lead to higher costs and poor management. As we’ve clearly seen from this thread.

 

[MrsPete]

I just wish the payments on student loans would be tied to the graduate's income. A new teacher making $40,000 per year should not have to make the same high payment as a new attorney making $100,000 per year.

Agree, and -- in a perfect world -- that would happen automatically. People choosing to major in education would say, "I am likely to earn ___ , so I should beware of taking on big debts."

But kids don't always think logically or long-term. Sad story: Years ago I tried to "talk sense to" one of my high school seniors who was dead set on attending an expensive, private religious school halfway across the country. Her parents are both graduates, they met while they were students, and she grew up on stories of that school. She flew out there over a school break and after that she'd never even talk about another school. Thing is, she's the oldest of something like six kids, and her father is a pastor. So she was paying for school herself. She borrowed BIG and became a teacher -- I talked and talked to her about the financial reality, and she just couldn't hear what I said. She was sure-sure-sure she'd get some scholarship money, that teacher salaries would increase, that she'd marry a guy who'd help pay off that debt. Nope to all of it. Now she's one of my colleagues, and she understands what I said perfectly -- but it's too late. She lives at home and will realistically be paying for most of her career. The one positive for her: as a teacher, she'll have a pension, so she will be able to retire.

Yes, I think it’s horrible that people take out loans without understanding how it works. That same predatory situation happens with credit card interest. But ignorance is really no excuse.

I've taught high school seniors for three decades, and MANY of them don't have a good grasp of what they're doing when they take out loans. Real things kids have told me over the years:
- I won't have any problem paying back these loans. I'm going into (insert high paying profession here), and it won't be hard at all.
- I know I could go to an in-state school /avoid loans, but I've always had this vision of myself going to school up North, walking to school in the snow in a little pea coat, hat and scarf.
- I fell in love with ___ school when I saw the pool tables in the student union! I absolutely have to go there, and if it means I have to borrow, I'll do it. Alternate: granite countertops in the on-campus apartments

And the most common thing kids have said to me about borrowing:
- I know I'm going to be sorry later for taking out loans, but I really, really want to live on my own right now, and this is the easiest way to do it.

Every time you see one of these people with mega balances, it's always from grad school. The maximum federal student loan for an undergraduate is $31,000. Not nothing, but also not the types of loans that make headlines.

Eh, you're probably right in most cases ... but some people borrow from the government AND also go for private loans.
As for being adults when they go to grad school, a kid who goes straight from high school to undergrad, then straight into grad school IS legally an adult ... but may not have actually supported himself in an adult manner; that is, he may still be on his parents insurance, may never have held a full-time job.

My problem is that I don’t think we should be paying for people because they decided to do more research on how to decorate their dorm room than on how student loans work.

This is ABSOLUTELY an accurate appraisal of my high school seniors. They care a lot about their dorm rooms, the roommate with whom they'll live for a year, the on-campus fast-food that can be bought with their meal plan, whether freshmen can have a car on campus, and free on-campus activities.

But student loans? Dude, that'll all fall into place.

It's very frustrating when you get forced to do something at a young, vulnerable age ("You HAVE to get a degree! ANY degree! To get ahead!" - every adult) with no help from your parents. Because your parents are so poor, congrats, you get the federal loans with the GOOD rates! Everyone celebrates you being the first in the family to go to college. Nobody questions or challenges your choice for a Liberal Arts degree because you are SO, SO SMART and can Do AnYtHiNg. You can either have a full ride at a state school, or just pay for a little bit of the really nice independent school that you liked better. Your poor parents just want you to be happy and successful, so you go to the better school without a regard for the cost. Your wee 18 year old brain thinks that $40,000 will get paid off in no time when you're a fancy adult.

This is a pretty accurate appraisal -- except that high schools absolutely are NOT preaching "degree at any cost". High schools are really pushing community college /trades because that's a much cheaper /quicker entry route to middle-class adulthood. And because we as a society have a real need for people in these jobs.

Thing is, "smart kids" refuse to listen -- they only hear college-college-college because they see that as "the best choice", and they aren't settling for second-best! That's for other people who aren't as special, as smart.

I think the conversation about fairness misses the point, because there are a lot of things about our system that involve benefits to some at the expense of others.

Anything that's given to you was taken from someone else.

Why is “gender studies degrees” always dragged into this?

Because most of us have no idea how that degree could possibly be useful in the real world.

If they are going to forgive debt, it should be medical debt. No one can plan for getting sick and being buried alive because treatment that can save your life costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. That I can get behind. Student loans are a choice. People make the choice they should own that choice.

Agree about the medical debt. My husband spent ONE night in the hospital a few months ago -- when all was said and done (doctors, physical therapy after), it cost us almost $10,000 . My just-out-of-college daughter went to the ER /had to have a small outpatient surgery -- it cost her two month's pay, and that's tough for someone who's in an entry level job.

TL : DR the thread, but as someone who literally washed dishes and bussed table to pay for college as I went, I am deeply offended by anyone who didn't do that and now thinks I should be paying off their student loans. Pretty sure I speak for the bartenders and waitresses who served you drinks so you could party it up while we worked feel the same way. That 20-30 hours a week we worked is time we're never getting back. It would have been nice not having to work through the night after my shift to finish those term papers too. Not complaining; that's the decision we made so we wouldn't have all that debt. You made your decision if you took on the debt instead. Now it's time to do some adulting and pay that debt off, don't you think? Seems only fair.

I'm with you. I worked 2-3 jobs at a time to get through college and lived in less-than-safe places with more roommates than the management knew about. It was rough. Then when I finished college, I was super-poor for the first couple years. BUT I did it. I paid my debts, and I paid for my kids' educations.

I'm done -- and I'm unapologetic about it.

It is interesting that there's an assumption of either/or being made by so many. I don't know a single college student who doesn't work. And I know very few who aren't taking loans.

When I was in college in the 80s, almost everyone had a part-time job during the school year /full time during the summer. Those jobs varied pretty widely -- some people worked just a couple hours a week, others worked full time +.

BUT my kids were in college 2012-2020, and the majority of their school friends didn't work. At all.

All my kids had to watch a video before they could accept a student loan. We are planning on paying off their loans when (if?) payments resume. But the loans are in their name

A friend of mine had her son take out loans for his entire education. She told him that if he graduated on time, they'd pay the loans off the day after graduation -- if he spun his wheels and goofed off, well, the loans were in his name. She knew how to motivate her kid; he graduated on time with a profitable degree.

I agree with the degree requirements. My sister has been a nurse for over 40 years. She is an RN with just an associates degree. Now you not only need a bachelors, they want a masters.

False.

My oldest is a RN, and she says about half the nurses with whom she works have "only" an associates degree (plus a nursing license, obviously). Those people are highly employable -- they're very highly employable -- but they don't "move up the ladder".

My daughter has a BS from a 4-year university (graduated in 2016), and she has worked her way up from Clinical Nurse 1 to Clinical Nurse 3 (highest category her employer offers without a masters -- she had to complete an original study and defend it to earn that 3). She has left what she calls "Bedside Care" and is in "Nurse Management". That's an opportunity that won't come to the people with associate's degrees.

I think a lot of the pushback you're getting is because you don't see how good fortune and factors outside the student's (and parents') control play into the ability to do things the way your kids did.

It's no secret: Elementary - high school grades are heavily correlated with parental income, which is heavily correlated with parental education.

Sure, a kid "from the wrong side of the tracks" can make it big -- but he or she must work harder to do it, and usually it happens because some adult really helps that kiddo. I personally was one of those kids; my dad abandoned us, and my mom was very caught up in trying to support too many kids after a decade-out-of-work /only a high school diploma. But my grandmother was always there for me -- she didn't have money to give me (she was giving all she had to my mom to buy us food), but she gave me advice and guidance when my mom had no time for it. (In her defense, she was putting out fires all the time.)

Also, we have to accept that the "wrong side of the tracks kid" probably won't go as far as the kid who was born in a more enriched environment. I've just retired, and I've done well, but I can say with 100% certainty that I would've done more /done better if my dad hadn't left /all those things hadn't derailed my childhood. I'm happy enough knowing that I got out of poverty and gave my kids much more.

So, college CAN be done without debt; but it requires research, hard work, and lots of sacrifices. My kids aren't spending summers and breaks on expensive vacations, or driving shiny new cars. But they also won't have the burden of college debt. Repsonsible finances are all about choices and trade-offs. It's a shame so many young people didn't know or understand that.

Absolutely college CAN be done -- even now -- on your own. Doesn't mean you can go to big-name U, live on campus, graduate in four years -- but it can be done. It requires sacrifice and scraping by and doing things you'd prefer not to do.

I worked my butt off to get through school, and -- at the time -- I thought I was doing everything possible. Looking back, I see a couple options that could've made my college years easier /better, but 18-22 year old me didn't see them then.

While I certainly agree that personal finance should be a requirement, my guess is that in many cases it's not that advice hasn't been given, it's that it wasn't listened to.

We DO teacher personal finance at my high school -- it's not called personal finance; rather, it's a part of Civics. The problem is, the kids don't see it as something pertinent to their lives, so they don't listen.
- Who'd ever spend more than they earn? What an idiot. They're all going to make big bucks and will be able to pay their bills easily.
- In 10th grade when kids take this class, they're prone to talking about their plans to become a singer, have a penthouse in New York, an apartment in downtown Paris and a mansion in Malibu.
- Even those who are not dreaming of unlikely fame don't understand how hard it can be to qualify for /get a well-paying job. For example, I'm thinking about a student of mine who was very average academically, who planned to go into the military after high school. One day he told me he'd done some research, and he'd decided what kind of Air Force pilot he wanted to be -- he was going for the Blackhawk Helicoptors. I didn't tell him, of course, that it's really hard to get a pilot slot of any type. Poor kid -- the Air Force didn't even take him.

I don’t think it’s a simple as kids don’t understand that loans need to be paid back. I think a lot of times kids go to college thinking that they will major in one thing and then things shift. They get into a weed out of class and can’t keep up. Or they find out that while they got all A’s in high school they’re barely pulling Cs in college because they didn’t understand that their high school was using grade inflation. A lot of times people take out loans with the best of intentions of paying them back but then life happens- illness, accidents, etc. I personally know so many kids that are not finishing their education for one reason or another- it’s a little disheartening ...

Yes, Engineering is a perfect example of this -- LOADS of my students go to college saying they're going into Engineering, and they figure out pretty quickly that they can't hang with the big boys. I'm married to an Engineer, and -- to make it in that program -- you have to not only be good at math, you have to be the best in the class and grasp the concept even before the teacher finishes talking. But high school kids don't get that.

Add in that they're living away from home for the first time, and the temptation to skip classes is pretty strong. The high school C-student gets into college (somewhere), but he doesn't have the skills to stick it out in college.

And yes to illness, accidents, etc. Four years is a long time and includes a lot of moving parts -- so many things can happen.

And to a point yes kids feel that they’re infallible. It is wired into their brains at that age. Frontal lobe is not fully developed at 17-20 when students are signing up for these loans.

Oh, yes. And we don't help this in high school. We tell them, "If you miss more than 8 days in a class, you won't get credit!" And then Admin gives them credit. We tell them, "This project counts 30% of your grade! You can't pass this class without this project!" And then Admin makes us extend the deadline or offer an alternative grade. No wonder they don't believe anything we say.

The "offers" are rarely truly available.
But it sounds great to some.

Yeah, having taught in the public schools for three decades, I know exactly 0 teachers who've had their loans forgiven -- and I did teach in a Title 1 School for a while.

Same number of students who've earned those red-headed, left-handed, descended from this family name scholarships.

Nobody should sign a contract without KNOWING what they are agreeing too. What they “think” about it doesn’t matter one iota.
If you don’t understand it then don’t sign it, don’t cry ignorance when your bill comes due. Suck it up and pay for the services you received, don’t be mooching off the taxpayer for your mistakes. Own up to them and be responsible for them yourself.

Agree, but kids don't "get it". I have an article on student loans that I've been using in class for years. Every year students read this article and ask the same questions:

- You mean, even if you have financial need, you have to pay back a loan?
- You mean, if you borrow money and then you do everything right, you have to pay it back?
- You mean, if you leave school and don't finish your degree, you still have to pay it back?

... You get my point. Options, options, options.

Totally agree. No one option is going to work for everyone, but a college student who is physically healthy and has no dependents can do SOMETHING to get through college for less money.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Suggesting that people from low income backgrounds shouldn't pursue a higher education is hardly thinking outside the box. I posed this question earlier, but did not receive an answer - why is a K-12 education considered a right, but a college education is somehow a privilege?

I agree with you 100%, they are both worthwhile.

What some people fail to see is that every extra dime spent instead of lost to debt is another dime paid into taxes so it's an enormous investment into our society.

Many of the poor kids in public housing who need social services in public school could, with a hand up, jump the barrier and start paying back into the system via taxes. All the dead and dying towns in the US could draw in solid paying remote jobs and then lift up their communities from within, with income drawing business then costing taxpayers a ton less in a relatively small amount of time.

This benefits us all because ALL the coffers for schools and roads, social security etc are dependant in taxpayers paying tax dollars so the more people paying into the system the less we all need to contribute. Right now the loans are siphoning off earnings that would and should be contributing to taxes. I WANT the kid next-door to make 3 times normal because then that pays for a senior center, pays into better road repair, pays into better community parks and REC, there are reasons why higher income communities have nicer things and the reason is the dollars paid by tax base.

 

[Kestryl]

I have some friends go through the ROTC program on full scholarships, and met a lot of people going through that program.

ROTC paid for their full tuition or room/board (not both) and gave them small monthly stipends. The ones I hung out with didn’t have jobs during the semester unless it was something like part time tutoring- ROTC takes up a lot of time, obviously. They had summer training requirements so had to be careful on getting a job over the summer to pay for their expenses that weren’t covered.

Some were discharged or weren’t commissioned for various reasons- developed allergies, thyroid issues, GPA under cutoff, etc.- and some had to pay back the tuition money ROTC paid for them. (And there have been cases in the broader ROTC program of former members getting discharged due to their sexual orientation- this wasn’t at a school that my friends were enrolled in, but the Sara Isaacson case happened while we were in college.)

But if they made it through the program, they were commissioned as officers, and then they were paid and given housing allowances until they left.

So yeah- if you can get in and make it through the program and get commissioned and do your service, at least some of your school will be paid by the taxes we pay that go towards the military. And if you can’t, you may have to pay it back.

 

[barkley]

But kids don't always think logically or long-term. Sad story: Years ago I tried to "talk sense to" one of my high school seniors who was dead set on attending an expensive, private religious school halfway across the country. Her parents are both graduates, they met while they were students, and she grew up on stories of that school. She flew out there over a school break and after that she'd never even talk about another school. Thing is, she's the oldest of something like six kids, and her father is a pastor. So she was paying for school herself. She borrowed BIG and became a teacher -- I talked and talked to her about the financial reality, and she just couldn't hear what I said. She was sure-sure-sure she'd get some scholarship money, that teacher salaries would increase, that she'd marry a guy who'd help pay off that debt. Nope to all of it. Now she's one of my colleagues, and she understands what I said perfectly -- but it's too late. She lives at home and will realistically be paying for most of her career. The one positive for her: as a teacher, she'll have a pension, so she will be able to retire.

at least she got the education appropriate to qualify for a public school teaching position! i know some that are decade #2 under massive private religious school debt who found out they only qualified to teach in that school's private schools b/c of what they majored in. they earned a degree and went through a 'teaching program'-but not a degree or program that met that or nearby state's public school credentialing criteria. it was there in the school catalog but they ignored it b/c that's where they wanted to go/where generations of family had gone (and were generational in massive student debt never spoken of to the younger ones).

 

[MrsPete]

I have some friends go through the ROTC program on full scholarships ...

I'd say being on scholarship in college ROTC is a job. They are required to do so much, and some of them get a monthly stipend as a part of their compensation.

Similarly, I'd say being a college athlete is a job. They're required to practice, attend study halls, etc. And they're paid in tuition.

I was an RA -- Resident Advisor -- in college. That was a job, and I was paid with housing. Worked out great for me because it was tax-free.