r/personalfinance • u/calonmawr10 • May 08 '20

Student Loans: a cautionary tale in today's environment Debt

I got into my dream school with a decent scholarship a couple weeks after the stock market crashed in 2008. My parents had saved diligently for myself and my twin sister in a 529 account, but we saw that get cut in half overnight. Despite all that, my mom told me to pick the school that would work best for me and to not worry about the cost because "we'd figure out a way to make it work". I applied for hundreds of external scholarships, but didn't get any. So, I chose my expensive private dream school, signed my life away to Sallie Mae (the solution to pay for it after my savings was exhausted, which I didn't know in advance), and started college in fall of 2009.

I was lucky to graduate with a good job thanks to the school's incredible co-op program, but also saddled with $120k worth of loans ($30k federal, the rest private). I met my amazing husband while there, and he was in the same boat. Together, we make a pretty decent living, but we currently owe more on our student loans than we do on our house. Even paying an extra $1k/month (our breakeven with our budget), it'll still take us many years to pay them off. It's so incredibly frustrating watching our friends from school (most of whom don't have loans) be able to live their lives the way they want while we continue to be slaves to our loans for the foreseeable future. No switching jobs because we want a new career, that doesn't pay enough. No moving to a different city, can't afford the hit to the salary in cheaper areas, or the huge cost of living increase in more expensive ones.

I'm happy with my life and that I was able to have the experiences I did (I absolutely loved my school), but not a day goes by that I don't wonder how my life would have been different if I'd made better financial decisions. Parents, don't tell your kids to follow their hearts if the only way there is through massive student loans, particularly if their career will not let them have any hope of paying them off. Students, have those conversations with your parents. If they say don't worry about it, question what that means and what the plan is. Now is the time to be having those discussions, before you've already registered for classes and are looking to pay that first bill. Don't make the same mistakes we did.

Edit:added paragraph breaks

Edit 2: Wow, I did not expect this to blow up so much! Thank you for the awards! It's reassuring (and a bit sad) to hear so many of your stories that are so similar to mine. For all the parents and high school students reading this, please take some time to go through the comments and see how many people this truly affects. Take time to weigh your college financial decisions carefully, whether that be for a 4 year school, community college, or trade school, and ask questions when you don't know or understand something. I hope with this post that everyone is more empowered to make the best decision for them :)

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u/the_eh_team_27 May 08 '20

Thank you for posting this. It's so important for teenagers in high school to hear stories like this. I think we often do a really terrible job at making kids understand what they're signing up for. Loans feel so abstract at that age. You're way more worried about missing out.

I'm sort of the opposite of your story. I had my dream school picked out, got into it, was gonna go, and then at the last second I was offered a full scholarship to a much less appealing school. It broke my heart at the time, but I decided to take the full ride and go to the school I didn't want to. And know what? I still had a blast in college, paid nothing, graduated, then taught classes while getting my Masters for free. So now the undergrad is pretty much irrelevant anyway because of the Masters, and no debt.

I've never regretted it for a second since the first year or so after making the decision. I'm not detailing this to rub it in or make OP feel bad, just to add another dimension.

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u/QuickguiltyQuilty May 08 '20

I had a friend in highschool face this same decision. She chose the not free ride school. I am only Facebook friends with her now, but she has said many times she was ABSOLUTELY wrong and wonders why no one stopped her.

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u/curtludwig May 08 '20

I have a couple of those friends and the reality is we did try to stop them but at 18 you're barely sentient and "think" almost exclusively with emotion. There's basically no reasoning with teenagers.

I was actually kind of lucky to have done poorly enough in high school that I really didn't qualify for an expensive school. I went to a small state college, got a good degree for not huge money and paid off my loans early. None of which happened because of good choices on my part, just luck...

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u/arora50 May 08 '20

Teenagers when analyzing 150k student loan.

It is only 1-2 years worth of salary, I can pay it off in no time.

Then reality hit after paying for rent, food, and car and realize it would take 10+ years to even put a dent into the debt

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u/ridge_rippler May 08 '20

Exactly this, it shits me that even adults tell me not to whinge about my HECS (Australian federal education loans) because I now earn good money. A lot of professions moved to full fee postgraduate entry so even with my parents support I ended up with $130k in debt from two degrees that I'm paying off at over $15k a year before I even add voluntary additional payments to it.

Choose wisely kids, those 7 years of uni with no salary and no super early in your career add up over a lifetime.

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u/kazosk May 09 '20

You must be earning over 150k annually if you're paying off that much per year.

Why are you doing voluntary repayments?

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u/ridge_rippler May 09 '20

I'm not, it was in reference to OP paying an extra 1k a month. Now that the repayment rates have changed in the last financial year it is 10% of my income

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u/mdfy May 09 '20

That's really expensive! it's definitely something that should be given more focus before entering university: how long and how much time will the degree take versus the difference that the degree will make to your life.

I went to Uni is Aus in 2008 and graduated in 2012 with only about $40k HECS debt. Only one degree and lucky for me it led to a high paying job straight up and paid the lot off within a few years.

I'm curious, what led you to 2 degrees and 7 years of Uni??

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u/ridge_rippler May 10 '20

Dentistry, 3 years of medical science and 4yrs of doctor of dental surgery. Some universities offer a 5yr undergrad entry program still. Considering I was on $80k a year working in logistics prior to that I'll have a fair few years before I break even financially, but in the long run it will be worth it

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u/cld8 May 09 '20

It is only 1-2 years worth of salary, I can pay it off in no time.

Sure you can, if you go back to live with your parents after graduating and use public transportation like you did in high school.

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u/Illumixis May 09 '20

What a first world absurdity that you just listed those two things like they're signs of destitution

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u/cld8 May 09 '20

For a young college graduate ready to go out into the world, they can be seen that way. If I just graduated with a degree, I want to go out to the big city and get a job and become independent, not move back in with my parents in my hometown. I know it's absurd, but that is the mentality many people have.

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u/BearTerrapin May 09 '20

I'm lucky but opposite scenario. Graduated college with scholarships at state school (and parental help) debt free and got a good job ten minutes from my parents so I moved back. It's not ideal if you wanna see the world, but at the same time when I move out it'll be into a house with no outstanding debts.

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u/cld8 May 09 '20

That's the best of both worlds! No debt, and no rent either. You will be off to a very strong start.

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u/username--_-- May 09 '20

I would love public transit. Get some exercise, get to do stuff while riding the transit, and can even nap on the way to work. Win-win.

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u/cld8 May 09 '20

Yeah, unless you grew up in a suburb like I did and the public transit was one bus that came every 30 minutes.

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u/YellowSteel May 09 '20

I had a coworker like this who went to a school out of state and came back. He's an Engineer like me but bought a car with a high interest rate on a 7 year loan and tells everyone about his finances and how he has basically no savings and has to live at home. We worked the same job but his debt was almost in near the six figs...

It's crazy to see a lot of people at my age go into insane debt to enjoy life and then it crumbles once they hit their late twenties.

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u/ashishduhh1 May 09 '20 edited May 11 '20

80% of adults are too stupid to pay off credit cards monthly, they're no better than these teenagers.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

yeah when you're in high school, literally no one is cautioning you to worry about the money. it's all just follow your dreams

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u/ps2cho May 08 '20

Follow that gender studies degree while wanting a big house and a convertible...It’ll all work out!

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u/lukeasaur May 08 '20

I feel like part of the problem is that it’s all shown as very all or nothing. One of my great passions is “pure” mathematics, but you can’t make a lot of money doing that (math can make money, but in stuff like actuarial sciences - which I don’t find interesting at all.) But I still wanted to study it. And I wanted to make money. So I buckled down for a computer science degree and minored in math.

And I still got to take awesome math classes every semester! And I really enjoyed it! And I’m making better than double what my math program friends make! I honestly think I enjoyed it more because I didn’t have to center my whole life around it, and I could pick the parts most interesting to me without needing to study every aspect (personally I don’t care for geometry and related fields, or anything “practical”, although it all blends a bit at that point.)

If you want to study gender studies, great! But if you want to make a lot of money, pair that with something that’ll help you get there. My brother’s a double major in CSCI and music, and yeah he has to bust his ass every semester to manage the credit load to graduate on time, but he loves it.

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u/Cartesianpoint May 08 '20

I also think that simply having realistic expectations and having some idea of what type of work you might want to do is extremely helpful. There are degrees and careers that are not known for their lucrativeness at all but are nonetheless essential and rewarding for a lot of people, like teaching. But if you decide to study something that isn't directly applicable to many careers or that is applicable to a career that doesn't earn much, it helps to be prepared for that and make decisions that will help balance out the challenges.

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u/Callsignraven May 08 '20

There is a huge benefit to getting a few jobs in high school to help students figure this out. Not just fast food jobs, but jobs with small businesses.

My parents had a home business that taught me I really loved sales. Without them dragging me to trade shows every weekend from when I was 12-17 I wouldn't have known that about myself. Having that knowledge really helped me pick the right career and degree.

I did 100% hate them for making me work all the time at the time, but it really helped me in the long run.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

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u/show_me_the_math May 09 '20

So much this. I have a sibling who never went to college but is far more social than me. He has been through quite a few jobs but continues to get excellent jobs through his connections. His most recent one pays more with better benefits than I have with my degrees and extensive experience. All because he is affable and puts himself “out there”.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

As a social person wjth introverted tendencies, being effectively social meant practicing. Getting better at being social and enjoying it takes a lot of trying and failing, but eventually the game of success or failure becomes a fun one.

If networking with the same (or similar) level of swagger that your sibling has is something that you see getting you what you want, you need to take a chance and work at it. Really, you do. Your choice is either a) learn a new skill to the best of your ability, or b) don't learn it and wonder what it might have been like to be 'born with social talents' (which is a total fallacy)

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

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u/clean_confusion May 09 '20

I agree 100% (as an introvert who hates networking) but I don’t think the person you were replying to was saying you had to do that - more that you should play to your strengths and either develop useful expertise or useful connections. I’m similar to you in that I spend my free time selectively with people whose company I truly enjoy, and that’s fine. But I balance it out in the workplace by having a niche area of expertise that other people find valuable.

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u/DietCokeYummie May 09 '20

Fair enough. All I am saying is that going to the bar entirely by myself has gotten me making good money with a bullshit degree. Can’t do it? Sucks but your battle is larger.

Not YOU but people.

I don’t ask for favors or hang out with these people. We just share a love for the same places.

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u/Bukdiah May 08 '20 edited May 09 '20

I always wondered why people had a rough time getting employed in STEM since I got all of my jobs myself. I remember having an intern with us and he was like, "How'd you get this job?" and I said something like "Oh, I just applied" and he was dumbfounded I didn't have a reference lol.

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u/fanzipan May 09 '20

Hats off to you. English lierature has to be one of the most difficult to achieve.

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u/Nutmasher May 08 '20

Good advice. Liberal arts degrees (languages, art, history, etc) are for teachers. If you must, tack on Communications or a business degree for a career. Otherwise, expect to be hustling tables for tips.

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u/DrEmerson May 09 '20

It's entirely what you do with the degree though. You don't have to be a famous writer or painter to be moderately successful. We may not be making the big bucks, but there is money in the arts. And you're right that it helps to know good business practices. That should be taught in all arts majors, but It's rarely included in any significant way.

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u/BoredofBored May 08 '20

Yes, exactly. I didn't want to go to college. Was told I had to, so I was looking at English or Philosophy. Ended up looking at career paths, and along with urging from my parents, ended up majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in philosophy. Really didn't like ME classes, but the philosophy classes kept me sane. Now I have a pretty great job and am one semester away from my MBA.

Tying back to the financial aspect, I ended up going to an out of state public university that was cheaper than staying in state (grew up in Illinois). I worked my way through college and graduated with $35k in loans. With the engineering job in the midwest, those loans were gone in the first two years of graduating. Would have been a much different life with a philosophy degree.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

I wish that I could tell American students that college will make you a better person (it likely will and you should go!), but unlike a total Canadian tuition of 50,000$ CAD, you guys need to make sure that there's a return on your >$100k investment.

Double major is the best suggestion I've seen. That, and get in your government's face about post secondary subsidies.

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u/Chipheo May 09 '20

Never know. Lots of philosophy majors at banks. But probably a lot tending bar, too.

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u/TimelyMath May 09 '20

If you're talking about philosophy majors at investment banks or hedge funds, those are philosophy majors from *Ivy League Schools*.

Big difference from a philosophy degree from University of Blub.

If you're in an Ivy League school and maintain a large social network, then you can easily get away with majoring in whatever the hell you want (classics is a popular major among folks who end up at IBs and big-three consulting firms, or so I hear). But for the rest of us, it's a bad idea to only major in philosophy (as a double major, fine).

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u/simmonsatl May 09 '20

it’s good you can handle ME. i think a lot of people on your same position wouldn’t be able to, tbh. i know i wouldn’t. but accounting and finance, i could and it landed me a nice job.

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u/BoredofBored May 09 '20

Eh, math was my lowest ACT score by far. Engineering, like most anything else, is about perseverance rather than innate ability or passion. Those things definitely helped, and I could tell some of my classmates really had a passion for various subjects, but even I found things that clicked for me that didn't for them, and there was plenty that they found intuitive that I really struggled with.

Basically, I push back a bit on not everyone being able to do something like engineering. If you're of average or better intelligence, you can do it. You might not excel, but you can do it.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

Wow. I really needed to hear that. I've been in and out of school for several years due to my career, and I'm finally going back to school full time switching majors to study ME from Biochem. Science isn't my strongest suit but I have an immense interest in it. Thanks!

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u/BoredofBored May 09 '20

Just don't get discouraged. It's hard for just about everyone. Study habits and time management will get you to the finish line. You only fail if you stop trying, but you start the road to failure by not adapting to set backs. If you fail your first test/midterm, you should be switching up your approach to that course. Seek out different study/homework groups. Go to office hours if that fits your learning style. There are also tons of online resources for every single engineering class. Otherwise, you'll likely perform similarly on the final. Plenty of classes will feel more like surviving than learning, so learn to survive.

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u/reversentropy May 08 '20

Tangentially related, but I'm glad you addressed the gender studies comment in the last paragraph. A lot of people have come to equate a college degree with some paper you trade your future employer for a job. A college education can get one much more than a job - a humanities education especially teaches the soft skills not only helpful for communicating effectively in a workplace, but also developing oneself as a critically thinking, cultured, empathic person.

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u/lukeasaur May 09 '20

Totally agree! I think there’s a huge amount of value in human history, politics, communications, etc. The only reason STEM degrees are worth so much that few people get them - they’re not inherently more valuable. The world needs people for all the jobs people do; it needs internal communications managers and marketing teams and HR staff sanitation staff and bartenders and plumbers. (COVID has really driven this in; a lot of people give “burger flippers” shit, but guess who’s essential in the end?) Just because those people’s jobs don’t strictly require higher education doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from it, both in and out of the workplace.

It’s good to think about the money aspect, but income is only part of the money equation anyways. I grew up in a pretty high income family, but we were always financially unstable because of their financial recklessness. My best friend comes from a family who was poor, but more financially stable than us because they knew not to put 30k of pointless “home renovations” that had to be removed because they were unsafe on credit cards. My parents wasted more money in a year than a lot of people lived on.

I think the most important lesson is to figure out what you want in life. I wanted certain things that cost a very large amount of money, which meant wanting a big income; what she wanted was to really understand the history of Central Europe and Central European immigrants in America and keep the lights on. So I studied computers and she studied history, and we’re both happy!

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u/bihari_baller May 09 '20

they’re not inherently more valuable

Eh, idk about that. They are responsible for a lot of the innovation you see today

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u/lukeasaur May 09 '20

I’ve been in the industry for years. There’s a handful of people doing innovation, but most of us are making shovelware mobile apps, doing unneeded middlemanning for insurance companies, adjusting reporting software to the new standard the regulators came up with this year, which offers no functional benefit but is legally required and means rewriting all your code... It’s the same with engineers.

And anyways, the lady who sold me a Mountain Dew every morning and would ask me about my day when I was in uni is the only reason I graduated, and if I didn’t graduate I wouldn’t be writing useful tech anyways. So I figure she gets some of the credit for everything I do - and there’s a whole lot of people like her in the world too.

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u/StatOne May 08 '20

Your entry matches very well what my life experience turned out to be regarding Mathematics, which my Bachelors is in. I obtained a minor in Computer Science and it was the field that I worked in right out of college. Mathematicians, were seen more as geeks in the real working world, I came to find out. Now, let my tell everyone, someone good in mathematics can do anything an engineer can do anything, plus a lot of other scientific fields, but those doing the hiring don't want to believe that; they want people with more practical knowledge of the field they are hiring for. You (and I) were wise for the additional training we took; that's what paid the bills.

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u/StarGaurdianBard May 09 '20

I went for nursing but had enough extra time during my first 2 years to study ancient greek, medieval, and ancient chinese history. Has absolutely nothing to do with nursing whatsoever but I love ancient/medieval history and my professor was an expert in the field of medieval history so it was a great time. As a bonus, she knew I was taking high level history classes on my own initiative and didnt grade my papers as hard as history majors so I got to enjoy just learning the stuff.

History still hasnt helped me practically but damnit as a mod of r/catapult_memes it means that I can defend the use of the catapult better than trebuchet brigaders who only know the meme.

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u/TantalusComputes2 May 09 '20

Lmao this is how I feel about CS, my minor. Majored in bioe because everything else sounded lame af at the time

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

[deleted]

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u/jellyrollo May 08 '20

Or do a double major in theater and business/management or design/tech so you can fall back on working behind the scenes if it turns out you're not star material.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

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u/jellyrollo May 09 '20

There are plenty of people making a good living on behind-the-scenes design and tech jobs in Los Angeles and New York. Maybe not so much in Peoria.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

Seconded. Just like if you want to work in tech, natural resources, government or anything else that relies on a region specific industry - you'll have to move.

The same goes for people who study design. There are plenty of jobs in big cities for designers or creative types, or in big companies if those same people want to work in marketing. If there's something that they should know upfront however, It's that those jobs are more rare, more desired and less plentiful outside of big urban areas.

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u/notpaigedtodothis May 09 '20

Honestly I wish I had been guided in a better way. My counselors were so determined that I would get nowhere with my chosen degree that they put down my choices so I was even more determined to succeed despite their “guidance”. I attended a great state school but got my degree in Latin. It was an amazing time and I still love Latin, but I don’t do anything with it. I worked in the car business after college until my soul died, then I became a teacher and I’m about to finish my masters in education. Looking back, there’s no way I could’ve afforded to student teach since I worked for the university during the day and another job in the evening. But I still wish I had chosen something a little more in line with what I’m doing now. Thankfully I got out with only $35k in debt and my husband and I are paying for my masters degree out of pocket. I think it was much less harsh of a lesson than it could have been, and I’m grateful that I took the path that I did. But my life could’ve been a bit easier if I had chosen a different path in college(also Latin is really fucking hard so my GPA could’ve been better).

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u/ImCreeptastic May 08 '20

TBF, I graduated in '08 and all my life I was told to just go to college and get a degree, doesn't matter what it's in because college. Yeah, that isn't exactly true anymore and who knows if it ever was true. I thankfully got a degree in something I love (History) and work in business. I got lucky.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

I always joked that when I graduated all the history factories closed. I graduated in History in '06 and ended up working in IT. I love it - I also would have loved to pursue academia - but it wasn't to be

It's never held me back, and now..14 years later...it never comes up.

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u/VROF May 09 '20

You can follow your dreams and get that gender studies degree and still get a job after graduation. College is more than the degree. If you want a job after school is over you have to form relationships with faculty in your department, take advantage of opportunities outside of school, attend conferences and events, do internships, work during the summer and build a resume.

I know plenty of people that went on to work for tech companies, car manufacturers, breweries and other industries with religious studies, gender studies, geography, and anthropology degrees. They had good grades, resumes that showed they had work experience, they had good social skills in interviews and they made connections that helped them look better over other candidates.

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u/ps2cho May 09 '20

So you agree it was a waste of time - they got a job without the degree doing anything for them.

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u/VROF May 09 '20

What? No. Studying what they loved helped give them the skills and references they needed to move on to a career. Because they loved it they got good grades, and were able to look good on paper.

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u/Jtwohy May 09 '20

I wouldn't say its a waste of time, education is never a waste of time. Every degree has its merits in the way that it teaches you how to think, Engineering, history, medicine and the other hard sciences all teach you how to diagnose a problem and solve it, English lit, theology, and soft science teach you to think in the more abstract. For a truly functional society it takes all types of thinkers

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u/ps2cho May 09 '20

It’s a waste of time in that instead of getting a garbage degree someone could have got something with value, enjoyed it and come out ahead. Gender studies and all the other trash degrees like that have no place putting our youth 50k in debt. It’s irresponsible.

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u/Jtwohy May 09 '20

I have an engineering degree, and I for one would never say that someone with a humanities degree wasted their time. I believe in interdisciplinary teams being the best way to find solutions to problems, as having many different backgrounds helps eliminate biases that are inherent in all of us based on our socio economic background as well as our educational background.

Education for the sake of Education is never a waste of time period.

youth 50k in debt

which is why I support education finance reform, some of our greatest minds have had humanities training (and in fact in the State that I received my degree from in a school exclusively from STEM, required about a quarter of your credits to be in the humanities and social sciences)

a garbage degree someone could have got something with value, enjoyed it and come out ahead.

what defines value? salary? Is art not a thing of value? what about books? Music? is fighting poverty and other socio economic issues not a something worth doing?

again in a functioning society it takes all fields of disciple to function. just because you don't assign something value doesn't mean someone else can't

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u/Clever_Owl May 09 '20

I used to think that was true, and regretted studying Arts, but it actually ended up very useful in several ways.

It gave me the edge over others in my field (writing-based) and it also allowed me to do short graduate-certificate courses when I worked out what I did want to do.

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u/StickInMyCraw May 09 '20

Like aim for the stars, after all we need people with degrees in gender studies and art and so on, but those are fields you really have to commit to and work hard in to make the student loan math make sense. I think a big mistake is assuming that every field has the same degree of competition for jobs and grad school slots after undergrad, which is not true. If you're getting a degree in computer science, you can afford to fuck around for a few years before getting serious. If you're getting an expensive degree in art history you have to be among the best of the best or it is just not financially viable.

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u/jellyrollo May 08 '20

My mom raising us singlehandedly while working two jobs made it clear that we needed to get very good grades and scholarships if we wanted to escape small-town poverty. Fortunately I got offered a few full-ride scholarships by good schools. Never once did I consider going to one of the schools that didn't want me enough to pay my way, because I understood our economic reality.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

My parents are both accountants so it was a little different for me but most of the people in the graduating class of my accelerated program in high school ended up going to expensive ass schools. My girlfriend is 1/4 mil in debt for just undergrad. I didn't mean it literally when I said "literally" lol but it is the reality for a lot of people.

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u/curtludwig May 08 '20

Maybe for you, I came from a much more working class background, I was much more aware of the money aspect. My high school also gave us a class on paying for school and how loans work... That said I lucked into the second best public school in the state.

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u/SERPMarketing May 08 '20

This is not true. There is plenty of caution towards money. Just because you weren't mindful, doesn't mean the rest of us weren't.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

Different people have different educations and backgrounds. I was aware of basic finances from my parents, but basic financial skills should be taught as a required class in schools.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

People don't teach finance or want to learn it. That's why people get saddled with bad debt on their crazy mortgage payments, insanely long car payments and crazy student loans.

Its insane

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u/mtcwby May 08 '20

Well not no one. I have a senior in HS next year and his brother is a sophomore. They know how much their college fund is, they've got the colleges narrowed down, and they're taking AP and CC classes to cut down the number of GE classes. They're very aware that not having student loans is a big deal. They don't hear about dreams from us they hear what kind of things do you enjoy doing? We've taken this follow your dreams thing way too far without any sense of reality.

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u/reversentropy May 08 '20

I'm a high school senior and received a full merit scholarship to attend a pretty mediocre university. I also got into a prestigious state school, but I was gutted when I didn't get into an elite private university I thought I loved. I ended up reluctantly accepting the mediocre school offer and scholarship, and for a while I felt kind of inferior to my friends who are going to Ivy League schools.

Since then I've realized the immense privilege I have with this opportunity to attend college for free, even if this college isn't the most prestigious (the economic fallout from COVID-19 sped up my realization up a lot). Before realizing that the "mediocre" university and scholarship is the right choice for me, I did a lot of serious self-reflection on my personal goals and values, which I think is difficult for a high schooler. You have to have a pretty good sense of self (academic goals, career goals, personal values, financial situation/planning) to make this decision of where to attend college, which takes some existential thinking. But most 18 year olds (myself included somewhat) are insecure and not self assured, so the easiest way to we make our decisions is to act on others' expectations coupled with our emotions in the moment. I count myself lucky that when it came time to make this big decision of where to go for college, I really tried to reason with myself and understand myself.

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u/username--_-- May 09 '20

The one thing i will mention is the flip side. There are certain opportunities you will not get by choosing the cheap mediocre option, but this isn't a case of studying gender studies at uber expensive school. It is more about a school that is highly respected in a field.

For example, my previous company's intern recruiters would fall over themselves to get recruits from a certain california school. Certain schools have companies and research opportunities you won't get at their lesser counterparts

5

u/landmanpgh May 09 '20

Yep. The argument against college tuition falls apart when you're talking about connections and the Ivy league. It shouldn't matter, but it absolutely does. The kid who has Harvard or Yale on his resume is getting the interview over the one with the no-name school every time. They may not always land the job, but it's pretty hard to find an Ivy league graduate who is struggling.

Unless they went to Cornell and ended up at a mid-range paper supply company somehow.

1

u/j0nny_a55h0l3 May 17 '20

Unless they went to Cornell and ended up at a mid-range paper supply company somehow.

'

Like The Office right?

20

u/Hmw07050 May 08 '20

The teenager likely needs a co-signer in order to get those loans (i.e. the parents). This would be a great time to discuss the financial reality of those hefty loans with the kids.

I know at 18 I understood what it meant to be in a massive amount of debt, which is why I chose to go to community college first. I’m glad my Mom discussed it with me before I made that huge decision.

I don’t think we should brush this off because teenagers are “emotional”. Many truly do not understand the financial implications until it is far too late.

24

u/rgrx119 May 08 '20

I was kinda the same in high school, didn't really have much motivation to go to college and had poor-average grades. I ended up in community college, stayed a few years too long, because I slacked off. 9 years later and with a little dedication, I finished with a Master's from an in-state school with no debt and a good paying job.

38

u/Rosicac May 08 '20

Well my daughter just chose the 15000 per year MORE college last week after our strenuous encouragment not to.... So 60000 in debt because she "liked" the school more. Don't know how else I could have handled it.

32

u/mermaiddiva26 May 08 '20

I went to a local state school that was not fun at all. No party scene whatsoever. I frequently told my friends who had student loans out the wazoo that instead they could go to a state school and use the difference in money they'd be saving on vacations if they really need ~the college experience~. I always went on a trip by myself over winter break and spent way less than I would have if I paid for a month of study abroad or a fancy, fun college.

20

u/spiderqueendemon May 08 '20

I sometimes reckon the relative comfort of my life compared to that of many of my high school classmates may be directly tied to the fact that my idea of a party was either a LAN party or involved lots and lots of polyhedral dice in school. Even the absolute cheapest community college there is can rustle up a D&D night if you've got a public library and rudimentary baking skills ready to hand. The Duffer Brothers' work on 'Stranger Things' may be inadvertently helping a lot of young people long, long down the line by reviving an interest in a hobby which, thanks to Discord and similar, can be done simply anywhere, so the right 'scene' and 'college experience' matters less every year to a certain type of person.

12

u/mermaiddiva26 May 08 '20

My school's official sport was chess 😅 there was also a board and brew nearby where people would hang out and play table top games. I got made fun of constantly for going to the polar opposite of a party school because the students were too focused on academics...ooooh that's such a bad thing right? I went to a STEM school and got an engineering degree and it's done me well so far. I can't imagine having to put away hundreds of dollars of my paycheck per month just because I wanted to go to a few parties in college.

2

u/Jtwohy May 09 '20

well you didn't go to the same STEM school i went to, we had parties

our motto was study hard party hard :)

1

u/VonCarzs May 12 '20

hundreds of dollars of my paycheck

did you get any loans at all?

1

u/mermaiddiva26 May 12 '20

I did not get any loans. I had a combination of the Pell Grant, merit scholarships for women and minorities in engineering, and working 3 jobs in college. I got my associates degree first from a community college.

I graduated a 1.5 years ago and have steady employment in a field of work related to my major and I just bought a house. Still driving around the same car I bought when I was 19. Maxing out my 401(k) and Roth IRA.

2

u/OccupyMyBallSack May 09 '20

Even the absolute cheapest community college there is can rustle up a D&D night

Did you go to Greendale?

1

u/spiderqueendemon May 09 '20

No, no. But I had some community college classes in high school that were free thanks to -well, my being in high school (can't say cheaper,) and we managed to organize something. Of course, it helped to come of age rather after the 'Satanic Panic' mess.

Some of the nontraditional students who basically mentored me in the hobby had wild stories about that era. Parents stealing their books and burning them, whole collections taken and dumped at Goodwill, finding a whole collection dumped at the Goodwill for a buck a book...sometimes there was a bit of an awkwardness when enough of the old-timers got to talking, but then they'd kind of realize they survived it and we'd get back to play. Lots of Lawful Evil religious zealot NPCs with that crowd.

2

u/j0nny_a55h0l3 May 17 '20

whatever happened to community college and then partying at the local state school? Its what we did after all.

14

u/AlgernusPrime May 08 '20

Sometimes, the experience may worth the price. I always wondered how life would be had I went to a 4 year school vs going to a community college and going to state school afterwards. I felt like I didn't really had a chance to connect with my college peers. No doubt a 4 year program will probably net me some closer friends. But, it's still a high price to pay even that.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '20

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1

u/ElementPlanet May 09 '20

Your comment is not remotely acceptable here. Please do not comment like this again.

3

u/BotCanPassTuring May 09 '20

Oooooof that is rough. As someone with no kids who was talked out of that decision by my parents I'm not sure what the right words are to affect a kid's decision. My parents talked me out of it by showing me the numbers of how much that payment would cost me and showing what could be bought with that payment.

As someone in my late 20's I thank my lucky stars every day my parents changed my decision.

1

u/Rosicac May 09 '20

We did that... Many times. For a while I just thought we'd "order" her to go to the cheaper school... But I guess we wimped out

5

u/StretchArmstrong74 May 08 '20

You couldn't have done anything differently. People act like no one has been telling kids that getting a shit ton of loans to pay for school is a bad idea but that's just nonsense. Even back when I was in school, which was 25 years ago, the prevailing wisdom was not to get bogged down with student loans, and people have been banging that drum ever since. If someone is still pretending that "no one told them not to" they are living under a rock.

The simple truth is that kids are emotional and are going to do whatever their hormones tell them they wanna do, regardless of the consequences, and years later they will blame everyone else for not telling them they were screwing up.

5

u/cld8 May 09 '20

The prevailing wisdom right now seems to be that education is the best investment you can make in yourself, the extra earning potential will cover the loans, etc. This is what students are hearing from their high school counselors and other adults they are supposed to trust.

2

u/curtludwig May 08 '20

I don't think theres anything you could do. The colleges have all sorts of inducements, pools and nicer dorms and whatnot which makes them think "oh this school will be so much better."

One of the best days I've ever had was the day I paid off my loans. The guy who sat next to me at work was a year older than me and had gone to an expensive private school while I went to "dumb kids school" but when my loan was paid off he had to take an extension for 5 extra years. We were working the same job, making the same money...

2

u/marefo May 09 '20

Was there any way for you to tell her no? Because I feel like my parents should have said no to me, but they didn't.

1

u/55xxx May 09 '20

Her debt or our debt? Her debt her choice. Your debt, its your right to say no. Lovingly....

-4

u/Illumixis May 09 '20

So sad because girls have so many terrible things pushed on them at big universities. (Group sex, tons of drugs, etc.).

2

u/Rosicac May 09 '20

This is extremely naive... I went to a tiny private school and drugs and sex and alcohol were everywhere

3

u/dirtee_1 May 09 '20

I was actually kind of lucky to have done poorly enough in high school that I really didn't qualify for an expensive school.

lol same here. And even though I never graduated at least I didn't waste TOO much of my parent's money and never got any loans either.

2

u/YesICanMakeMeth May 08 '20

Yeah. I just went to the school that my dad and uncles all went to. Luckily that's a cheap state school. Chose chemical engineering because I like chemistry, physics, math, and money. Really glad my parents pushed for a high paying job instead of "just follow your dreams, honey".

2

u/that_girl_lauren May 09 '20

Am I the only teenager that had a cost/benefit analysis spreadsheet comparing the financial impact of each school?

2

u/D_Tobey May 09 '20

Me too lol. Honestly, I don't get how people don't stress about the finances before choosing.

1

u/VROF May 09 '20

Another problem is high schools don't talk to kids about student debt, financial aid or even the cost of college. They push AP/IB programs hard and overachievers bust their ass for 4 years giving up a lot of their social life. When it is time to pick a school, you don't want to take the local CSU that offered you a free ride because that means you wasted your time. But most of the other schools you got into aren't affordable.

1

u/Neat_On_The_Rocks May 09 '20

It’s awful. 17 is the worst Time to be making those decisions. You’re old enough to make decisions for yourself and even think you understand the ramifications of what you’re doing. But I didn’t really properly understand how far I was setting myself back. 800/month for 10 years, and then 500/month for another 15 years after that. It’s ruining my life. If it weren’t for these loans I’d own a house and be a father right now. Instead I still rent and will probably never be a dad. It blows.

I can’t bring myself to get a second job and work 70 hour weeks for 3 years. I just can’t, I’d go insane and become clinically depressed. I guess that means I’m lazy? I sometimes think, man if I had just sold my life to a second job waiting tables nights and weekends I’d have paid it off by now.

1

u/simmonsatl May 09 '20

haha i’m the same. because i put little effort into high school (i still did well and was in some honors/AP classes, but wasn’t a go-getter by any means) i just kind of shrugged and went to community college my first couple years, which turned out to be great, and then transferred to a state school. i also had no real idea what i wanted to do out of high school, so committing to an expensive school didn’t make much sense to me. i found out what would work for me by taking a wide array for classes at community college, and i’m very happy with my job and life now.