Student Loans: a cautionary tale in today's environment

[u/calonmawr10]

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 :)

[u/allnadream]

Absent a massive amount of student aid/scholarships, I feel like private universities are almost never the way to go. Maybe it's because I'm fortunate to live in a state with really good public universities, though.

[u/LilJourney → u/allnadream]

Where we live, we have good public universities - that give very little in financial aid. With 4 kids in a row now, we've been able to attend private colleges cheaper than what the local public universities would have charged. Usually the public tuition is lower, but the housing costs / fees are much higher and private colleges have more in-school scholarships/grants to give out.

[u/TEXzLIB → u/LilJourney]

Did you and your SO have a college fund? How much did you save / month for it?

[u/LilJourney → u/TEXzLIB]

No college fund. We pay as we go - due to a large family and fluctuating income never had a chance to set one up.

The kids work over the summer after high school / during college and have earned between $6k and $8k a year which covers a big chunk of it. And I mean work - 2 jobs, all the O/T they can get. As parents we do the same. Helps that the household costs go down as each kid moves out - but that's offset by the college costs going up as time passes as well.

Definitely build a college fund at all possible. Doing it as we have has been a struggle - every year there's a risk a job loss or other event will create a financial disaster. But for those with a high school junior or senior I just want to stress that it is possible, it is doable, and you don't know until/unless you apply and see what you get. I just hate it when parents say they "know" they couldn't afford a private school, or "know" they can't afford for their kid to go to college - so they don't even let them apply.