Generation Debt - college was a mistake?

O and indeed RLY?

They couldn't pay a dime towards it so I got amazing financial aid but I still cowered at the idea of the debt, worked half the time my classmates were studying and missed days at the start of term sat in the Bursar's office in tears because for the sake of $500 - at the US' most expensive college, $20k a year 20 years ago - they wouldn't release me to registration. British students have no idea of the horrors of the American system on this kind of basic level and I will always be sensitive to that bottom line regardless of my own relative privilege.

but uh anyway five years later i'm doing one, with zero financial support (or indeed loans, i have enough of them already thx), can't really explain why, and certainly can't say it's changed my attitude towwards postgrad study, which is that it's a big waste of time.

The scary thing is that, if you asked us on graduation day and then again 5 years later if we would go to law school again, many would say yes - but many, b/c of the debt alone, would say no.

And I know some other middle class kids now in school who have been there for years and have no specific aims when they get out.

So I think the problem in these particular cases is a lack of maturity or guidance to have a career plan. Maybe 18 is too young to decide what you're going to do for the rest of your life. (But it doesn't have to be for the rest of your life, genious.)

Unless you have a specific, well-thought out, realistic plan for what you're going to do after you graduate, don't spend time & money on an advanced degree from a school you can't afford. And don't keep changing majors. (You don't have to be what your degree says.)

600 dollar for day care?!?! WTF! Eeep, I just calculated what I would pay if I sent Ophelia to daycare and it's roughly the same. I didn't realize this because I'll only send her to daycare twice a week (starting next year). The only reason we'll be doing this is because we want her to be around kids her own age.

The 40-year-old upper middle class person gets help from his parents whether a fuckup or not, whether it's the courses or the money to buy a flat or help with kids' tuitions. People with money act feudally, and the more they have the more like that they act.

has anyone heard of the writer meghan daum? i know she wrote some personal essay about credit card and student debt (she lived in NYC) -- her solution was to move to Lincoln, Nebraska where the cost of living was much lower - I'd like to read a follow-up.

That's not really true. I know plenty of people who have become successful on their own. Anyway, the point I was making is that after they get through school, they shouldn't be getting help from their parents. But still going to them after their thirties, let alone forties shows a lack of motivation.

I totally agree with the going to mom and dad for a handout shows a lack of motivation, but often those are the only ones who will give or lend money due to lack of/bad credit history. I mean, my dad was a cosigner on my first auto loan. And giving money to younger generations (11k/year/recipient) is a GREAT way to minimize inheritence tax. It usually factors into folks' retirement plans.

I kind of feel like it gets offensive when a person constantly goes to mom and dad for money and never has to worry about bouncing a check or eating Ramen for a week until the next paycheck. This may sound like sour grapes, but, until you've done it and had to suffer the consequences, you really don't learn what it means to handle money and the saving thereof.

The day I pay off all of my credit card debt (~two years off), I will dance a jig.

It's offensive that you characterize all people with money that way. Certainly, many are, but I know enough that have not helped their children. But it's no different than saying all poor people are lazy. (Unless you're talking about the U.K now, and I admit I know nothing about the classes there.)

sorry to be naive but how do they pay the rent, bills, etc while at uni?

xpost

suzy is right, but is probably talking about a quite small part of the population. the whole 'going to parents for a deposit' thing is big with the upper-middle classes, but then, going by my office, the whole 'living rent-free with parents well into one's twenties' is big among working/lower-middle class folk...

also: state schools. if you're lucky enough to live in a state where the public university system is top-notch, you don't need to apply anywhere else and you'll save lots of money.

not so much in the uk (that said i got my fees paid, but for stipends you kind of have to do something the quangos like.

exactly -- i used to do this for a living!

I hear you. I had no clue about what any of that meant when I was applying for undergrad.. nor much of a clue about where to go, or how to plan, or anything. Parents too busy settling divorce to do much. Guidance counselors in shitty small town public high school - "uh, you can apply to [terrible local public college].." And then the top tier private schools that did admit me said we could afford to pay what, $24K/year or thereabouts? What a joke. I lucked into an excellent little state college that gave me a nice scholarship, but then I was dumb enough to turn around a few years out and borrow money for graduate school.

Higher ed is such a racket. I work at [exclusive private university] and they're always patting themselves on the back for aid packages that - at great cost to the university - make it accessible to students from all economic backgrounds. Somehow, seeing the student body and how they dress and what they drive and where they shop, this nevertheless seems to translate to most of the undergrads being very, very wealthy. I don't begrudge them their wealth but.. I saw it at my former grad school as well. It's allegedly open to everyone and everyone gets enough financial aid, and year after year the students there are extremely fortunate by the standards of anyone where I grew up.

That's an interesting article, by the way. I was so damned broke for a few years there while in grad school - now I have tons of trouble restraining myself from buying lunch out, buying nice clothes, just generally spending more than necessary. I did pay off one credit card but prob could've done it faster if I hadn't been procuring myself a nice new wardrobe for the job. Sometimes it seems like, what is the point of saving saving saving? Unless the housing market tanks drastically or I win the lottery, I'll never be able to afford a house in DC anyway.

Even though many elders look at Generation Xers' and Yers' financial attitudes with disdain , Draut said she is surprised by who feels most for this generation. “When I do radio interviews for the book, most of the sympathetic callers are from people over 65 who lived through the Depression. When they look at what young people are up against today, they feel a lot of empathy.”

True, but I think there's more a of a connection there than meets the eye though. The housing and education costs are a result of competition for having the best that money can buy, even if the buyers do not have the money - so they carry huge amounts of debt so they can live the way they think other people live, instead of living sensibly for their own means.

Again, I blame Reagan and Gekko. And raise you one TV.

The stuff about a lot of state schools being very good is true but not very helpful if you don't live in the same state or sometimes the same city as that school (true out-of-state tuition might be still less than another school nearer your home but we would now have to factor in, depending on age and, uh, already-out-on-their-ownness of the student in question, anything from room and board and travelling home sometimes expenses up to and including completely moving and leaving a job).

That being said if you can do it and get into a good public school I think that is a good option and you're probably going to get a better education than at a private since, as jbr said, top-rung publics are trying helluva harder than privates these days to usurp the rankings.

oh man big xpost that was kind of a response to a britishes way up thread and y'all messed it up.

Uh, this is Belgium: you can easily go to university by train (and live at home). Many will get a room, but if your parents can't pay a *regular* room, then you can stay at a dorm for a lot less money. Some will work during the three month summer holiday. Studying at university in Belgium is much cheaper compared to the US or the UK.

its kind of a shame how what you studied or where doesn't seem to matter to employers, but just the fact that you have it somehow.. helps. its kinda ridiculous.

The goalposts have moved a bit for people who are born into that kind of thing now, as the same house is now worth $350,000.

SO many people I know these days have two jobs, and I am one of the only ones I know of that owns a house. WHen I hear of many of my freind's credit card debt I wince.

OUr Baby-boomer parents were so into pressuring us all to go to college, but they never really knew what they were doing becuase it's not 1968 anymore.

IN Maine no one is studying to be a teacher anymore becuase at 25k a year starting they know they cant pay off their student loans.

Being a hairdresser rly would be a dream job though kinda? Like, some creativity, talking to people, nice environment, career structure... I guess teaching at a nice school would be too, I'm probably not saying anything at all here except that most office jobs are relentlessly crushing and awful, or were, to me.

But men in the prime of their working lives — 35 to 64 — were more likely to have jobs in the summer of 1983 than their successors in that age group are to have jobs now.

That is one reason it is necessary to look beyond the published unemployment rates to get a more accurate picture. The published unemployment rates count as unemployed only those who are actively looking for work. Those who have given up looking, or do not want to work, are not counted."

xpost

Everyone I know who's pulling themselves up by their bootstraps into college from uneducated/poor families seems to have a FAFSA advantage in that their parents aren't expected to contribute much. It's the "expected family contribution" that fucks me over and makes me almost unable to afford school. My family has a decent middle class income but we're pretty much estranged so I'm paying for college outta my own pockets, working full-time while doing school, until I turn 24 and the expected contribution won't be a factor anymore. I'm totally poor, barely able to afford textbooks/rent/psych meds. The idea of a parent helping their kids out is so foreign to me, especially if the offspring is basically my parents' age by then!

I think another factor is that the number of jobs that aren't soul-crushing, boring, low-paying jobs has dropped. Plenty of shitty work to go around if you want it.

I wish they'd just abolish that thing, the standards of the FAFSA are completely frightening and I'm not sure they ever reflected a time that existed.

i can say right now, in this market at least (denver, CO) - things are looking worse than ever since ive started glancing at employment ads (which was in 2002).

Thankfully, I applied for FAFSA just recently as a BARELY 25 year old with my own job/life, and did OK by it. Only "OK" though, as the post-bacc program I'm going into only qualifies for undergrad stafford loans BUT still costs grad school prices, wtf.

Nursing is an excellent job except for having to be a nurse.

OTOH, the ER nurse I know just put a down payment on a house with her signing bonus, so if you can put up with sickies rock on.

the problem is the schooling - if nurses can find jobs being RNs fairly easily with great pay, why should they want to instruct students?

Dirty little secret: Although I graduated -- i.e., finished major and participated in commencement -- I remain 5 credits short of full BA core requirements and do not have a diploma to this day.

Re Mike H, that's the norm for most of my friends. I didn't have debt from undergrad though it wasn't because my parents saved a dime, but I had a really top academic record from high school & got honors scholarships and other state scholarships and etc. Now I have debt but again, that was me being idealistic + stupid about humanities grad school and not knowing how awful it'd be. At least I have some tech skills thus make enough now to keep my head above water.

I, however, am going to grad school for library science in the fall. HOW PRACTICAL OF ME.

that, and my dad often surprises me with just how financially savvy he can REALLY be -- which leads me to believe that had he known the score that he might have saved/invested a little more to pay for college than he did.

yeah. It burns me up, not for me personally as I luckily ended up at a fantastic public college, but it was through no help of my high school's - and what this means is plenty of other kids just as deserving aren't getting the training/guidance they need to make it to college, which isn't fair at all. To this day I'm stunned at the utter indifference of my guidance counselor, when I was pretty desperate to get out of that town & deeply upset about not being able to afford nearly all the places where I was accepted, and had no idea what to do, and hell, I was one of their valedictorians, no slacker. He clearly, clearly didn't give a rat's ass if I ended up at the local community college taking remedial English.

(I would have been OK had I a) been smart enough to ask other adults about how college financing worked b) gone ahead and kept up a 3.0+ GPA in high school c) not fucked up at UTA, which turned out to be a decent state school. Stupid shit you do when you're 15 should not impact the rest of your life!)

I'm about ready to look into taking out loans to try and scrape by, but I'm either going to end up with a BFA or an English degree and teacher certification, neither of which gives me a lot of hope for paying off loans and moving somewhere I like. Or else I'll apply to a real art school and just go into massive debt and then fake my death.

GAH OTM

There's no reason I shouldn't have been able to get good advice on college. I graduated 6th in a class of 120 with a tough class schedule for all four years of HS, got damned good SATs all things considered, and should've had money thrown at me, but nobody told me where to go look for it. My parents didn't know anything about it (and were still in fallout mode of messy divorce), and guidance just didn't give a crap. Fast forward, massive debt piles. Gaaaaaah.

x-post gbx, it's my understanding that that's not at all the case -- that, in fact, the parents who can most afford to pay for school are the ones good at gaming the system so their kids suck up a lot of financial aid. ISTR reading a lot about this in recent years but I couldn't provide a cite if my life depended on it. What you describe certainly was not my experience.

This could work, but most people who are actually reasonably well-off probably aren't able to make it look like they have zero income for financial aid purposes. In any case, it seems like a risky strategy - for instance, what if you don't make it into those fancy-ass schools with generous aid?

Also, dad in this situation is crazy like a fox, and this "plan" of his is only gonna work if you happen to have a brood of super-bright kids that are pretty much guaranteed to get into fancy schools.

xp Ally's right, basically.

Do it, Mandee! I got a BA six years ago and I start hair school next month.

Being a hairdresser rly would be a dream job though kinda? Like, some creativity, talking to people, nice environment, career structure...

...and no danger of being outsourced, which is how my last two jobs ended (an advantage to becoming an RN as well).

My sister, on the other hand, was partially screwed over by my family. Apparently since state school was good enough for me, it was good enough for her despite the fact she was a national merit scholar and had her choice of scholarships at several schools. Between my dad going nuts about not wanting to pay, her completely misunderstanding how the student loan system worked (I have no idea if she even realized she could get loans), and my mom somewhat flaking out on her kids moving away, she ended up going to the same state school. So now she's pretty much debt-free after a full ride scholarship but has pretty much sidelined her ideas about grad school while she works a crappy job and plans her marriage. Urgh.

In my situation I would have paid exactly the same to go to Sarah Lawrence as the shittiest state school in Minnesota; that's how poor my family was then (and the most impoverished person in the college was from a res. near Hibbing). My dad basically did a runner my second year of college (they were already divorced) so me and my mom had to find a grand out of thin air/instalments.

Tad's story is like many I've heard but not yet related myself - you'd be amazed how willing bursars/Financial Aid officers are to say 'release home equity' to two working middle-class parents who only have that one home and two cars - they even tried it with my mom, who is the type of person who can tell you to fuck off and it doesn't hit you how badly you've been fucked off for DAYS. I know tons of middle-classmates whose parents made them this other classic offer: we can either pay our parental contribution to a snotty school OR you go to Madison (HS part deux, apologies to any Madison alums/residents who ran into a swarm of B-student refugees from St. Louis Park in crap US-make 'sporty' models) in the car you didn't get when you were 16.

We were very, very fortunate in having at least one counselor who 'got behind' applications and knew his way around bullshit and forms - the gifted/talented counselor; my normal assigned one was addicted to lib arts colleges in fucking Iowa and rural Illinois: pointless and boring. I was commended National Merit but as to community scholarships ALL had religious or ethnic affiliations and I really don't have ANY (I would have been quite happy to see an Atheist Scholarship Fund). My mom also knew the wheeze about it being useless to save if you were a single parent, which was fine because there were no savings to be made. Also it *should* go without saying that I had loans etc...

My middle class parents were astonished that I couldn't qualify for education loans due to their income in 1987. They helped me with tuition but basically nothing else; luckily for me I had the ambition to track down and win other scholarships or I would have had to graduate with more debt than i did. Not to mention that I worked two jobs all through college. My high school guidance counselor basically spent all her time with the GED-bound kids in my class, and the ones who were shooting for vocational school.

Also, a key reason I decided against law school and went the MBA route was the ROI.

(a) snob appeal -- the same reason why some people buy $500 ripped jeans @ bergdorf goodman; (b) they're too stupid and/or lazy for state u. but their parents are rich/alumni and they'll be damned if junior's going to state u.

OTMFM

I've often wondered about this...

Do you really think that people make THAT much a bigger deal about Ivies now vs any other top 50 school?

(c) because they are faculty brats from a certain group of colleges in and around the Ivies who have swapsies rights and a discount.

(d) Desire to LEAVE HOME, pure and simple.

Daria, I did party my way through the last half of HS while pulling down As and getting attention for work I was doing outside school and the one thing that did not make me adjusted to was the idea that I'd have to study hard for anything. You pay more for THAT in the long run than the good prep habits you've probably got.

yup. i also think that that is the REAL reason why native NJers look down on poor rutgers so much -- b/c unless you're from cape may or vineland, the main campus is NEVER that far from home (since NJ is such a small state).

Re teaching, there's a couple programs that will pay for you to teach in low-performing school and get your master's concurrently, if anyone is interested in that.

Nurses: I always thought it was a noble profession (though not anything that I personally would be good at) but interacting with a lot of them recently on behalf of my mom, I have been unimpressed. But, if any *caring* people want to enter this profession, I say, please do.

We should all join the Peace Corps. What is the cut-off age?

from a small town, middle-class academic household (allowing freebie tuition at some of these much-derided regional non-ivy expensive schools), smart (national merit finals, great ACTs, etc) but CRAP at math.

unfortunately, a combo of depression, boredom, and cluelessness ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED by parents & department that sees college as a kind of 4-year embattled utopia of "ideas" before the ravages life take you over + my own long-standing allergic reaction to "getting ahead in life" as a teenager (also tacitly encouraged) meant i pretty quickly felt pretty stupid and misguided upon exit.

a few years later i went back to grad school (parents: ELATED) and wahey, same story, same feeling, same position, only older. took me a looong time to figure this out.

now, i try to be pretty hard-headed about all this. certainly don't think my half-assed decisionmaking "deserves" anything other than what it has got me. you can't do anything but go forward. just kind of wish someone or something had given me a little system shock at some point.

I have a question though, which graduate programs typically offer funding and which don't? Is it people in arts and humanities that have to take out loans for grad school, or does it vary from school to school?

i took out loans cos one semester i only had one TAship and not two, and b/c the stipend wasn't enough to cover my life in the citay.

xpost yeah i've never understood that either. i can see a middle manager being VERY STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to sleepwalk thru some kind of part-time MBA thing...

Quite a lot of them know absolutely everything there is to know. It's amazing! I also appreciate how they give most girls extra special credit for knowing nothing. All this, and they're still so angry. It's like dealing with a bunch of far right evangelicals.

HI DERE

Although at Reading uni, a BA in Psychology is IDENTICAL to a BSc in Psychology. The way you get a BA vs BSc depends on what additional subjects you take for 2 terms in yr 1st year that don't actually count towards your degree.

I only picked it cos I didn't really give a shit what I did at uni I just wanted to get the hell out of Worcester.

Still, I get to be a smug bastard who works with computers now, so whatever.

My wife hasn't paid her student loans off at all, but I don't think they'll send the bailiffs over the Atlantic.

xpost this was 94-97, dunno if they still do it like that

I was fortunate enough to go when the grants were still reasonable, there was no need for a loan top-up and your LEA paid your tuition fees (dependent upon the course) entirely. Coupled with the fact that my lousy A-level results meant I went to the local Poly (and stayed living at home), my sandwich year was wage-earning and my Masters was covered by a Higher National Training scheme (income support plus a bonus, accommodation paid for as long as you lived on campus, food & books allowance), I left undergrad/postgrad life with no debts whatsoever.

It's the chunk of unemployment in my early 30s that's left me in a hole I'll never get out of.

For the B.S. degree, students must take the following additional courses:

* CSC 200 - Undergraduate Problem Seminar **
* MTH 165 - Linear Algebra with Differential Equations

** CSC 200 is required for the honors B.S. degree. CSC 200 is now an option for B.S. students. Those not completing the honors degree are expected to take an additional upper level CSC course (above 200 level) if they choose not to take CSC 200.

....

In addition to the core courses, the B.S. degree requires three** additional advanced courses in computer science (numbered above 200). Specialization is encouraged, though not mandatory: It helps prepare for participation in research and for senior-year independent work. Specialized tracks can be constructed from the following course topic groups; consult the advisor about track choice.

....

Students must also complete either a one-semester senior project (CSC 393) in one of the areas listed above or one additional advanced course in computer science (numbered 200 or higher) or mathematics (MTH 163, 164, 173, 174, or any additional mathematics course numbered above 200). Especially appropriate are the mathematics courses in probability, linear programming and game theory, chaos and fractals, discrete mathematics, logic, number theory and cryptology, combinatorics, and graph theory. Courses 200 level or above in other related disciplines (e.g., philosophy, linguistics, brain and cognitive science, or electrical engineering) will also be accepted. Either CSC 240 or CSC 242 (whichever is not used as a core course) can qualify as an advanced course for B.S. students. Supervised teaching (CSC 390) may not count toward advanced course requirements.

...

(FWIW, upper level classes in CS are just graduate classes with paper writing requirements slashed)

!!!!

My Dad keeps saying " your workplace will pay for you to get your masters" - that sounds very ridiculous to me. Why would they do that?

PhD grad programs tend to fund their students. Terminal master's don't. But there's a lot of variation depending upon program and student.

Some workplaces have generous tuition remittance policies. I work for a city government and they pay for a certain amount depending on whether you are full or part time. Other large corps might have so much money that they have it written into their policy that they offer a certain amount of tuition assistance. Besides improving your skills, making you a theoretically more valuable employee, it also theoretically keeps/makes you happy, which might tend toward you doing a better job. It's just a benefit or perk, like health insurance, offered to varying degrees depending on institution. (This is in the U.S. by the way.)

Mandee, don't let your parents ruin your hairdressing school dream.

at some places, you have to pay them back if you don't stay for a specified period of time!