Parents and student loans

[chuckman]

A rebuild is already in progress: I and several friends with several people who went through ~$30-40K boot camps for software dev/engineering or Sales/Marketing/Design & have seen 3-5x Y1 ROI on it. Primary education is coming ala Stephenson's Diamond Age. The opportunity cost of non traditional education is approaching sub 20% that of a 4+ year degree, and the time commitment is closer to ~12%. Go to Lambda School, get a $200K TC remote software job and do a night B.S. at Georgia Tech, Stanford or Bizerkly who'll give you work experience credit on your way to getting a MBA through them.

The current university education system prioritizes teaching what keeps the teachers employed, not what the market wants. If you're non STEM, you need to go into a work study program that has minimum intern time requirements before you graduate. If you're not going to THE best school for your program, the financially prudent thing to do is go instate & save money until you can transfer or graduate. I know plenty of people from when I went to college who're B.A. in lib arts bullshit & spent 3-4 years managing retail before going into the trades full time because they were making more money putting decks in on the weekend then in their 9-5.

I do agree that the models are shifting to commonality of distance education and non-traditional education with some programs fast-tracking, but we're still talking single percentage numbers of how many hundreds/thousands of colleges and universities. I do think these programs will pick up speed and grow. Also reformation in the way of assessing the type of liberal arts prerequisites required for STEM as well as the need for, prevalence of, and robustness of non-STEM degrees.

Currently nursing is seeing more second-degree students than any other program, often for the very reason you mentioned: leaving behind a $10/hour job with a fill-in-the-blank BA/BS that has little market or applicability.

[TMS951]

Where are Jays kids in all of this? Why are they not paying it? What did Jay expect, did he even read the loan terms? Why was this a surprise to him, I'm sure it was spelled out in the loan.

What were his kids majors? Did they actually goto college for something with a career path?

The whole student loan forgiveness thing is to me utter bullshit. There are people out there who made serious sacrifices to pay their loans. There are people who chose majors that were not fun or that interesting, but they knew it would have a job at the end that justified the loan. But the people who took loans for a dumb degree with no career path and made no sacrifices to pay it off get a pass?


I think the student loan debt issue is an issue because of bad advice to kids. What 18yo old should be making these choices? Where are their parents in this decision. Personally I think parents should be on the hook for their kids loan debt. The parents likely encouraged their little precious to goto college. The parents should have helped their kids pick a degree that justifies a loan. The parents after 18 years of raising their kids and watching their performance in school should have known if their little precious was going to do well in college or just party.

I personally take issue with how many kids were given loans and how easy it was to get them. I think to get loans you should have had to have really good grades in high school. I think you should have to major in something with a good job at the end or be convincing that you chosen major has purpose.

To those points what super super pisses me off is we are talking about forgiving these debts, and totally silent on redoing the system so that these debts don't happen again tot he next generation. we are fixing nothing and history will repeat itself.

Sucks for Jay, but he was a full adult when he decided he should take loans for his kids to goto school. It seems his kids should not have gone to college and he didn't have an income to justify the loan he was taking.

[rero360]

I didn't take out any loans for my first degree, just used Montgomery GI Bill and NY State tuition assistance. I then exhausted the remaining amount and started using my post 9/11 GI Bill for trade school (machining) When I decided to pursue a second bachelor's my life was completely different and I decided to take out loans in addition to the post 9/11 and then Voc-Rehab. I've racked up a decent amount of student loans however I'm not concerned about it as this degree is actually worthwhile (mechanical engineering) and when I graduate in the spring I will be able to start paying the loans down rapidly. I'm anticipating to be able to pay off all the loans within 7 years. Having just refinanced my mortgage from 3.5 to 2.4 that will certainly help, plus I've been able to chip away at the credit card as well.

[Esq.]

A rebuild is already in progress: I and several friends with several people who went through ~$30-40K boot camps for software dev/engineering or Sales/Marketing/Design & have seen 3-5x Y1 ROI on it. Primary education is coming ala Stephenson's Diamond Age. The opportunity cost of non traditional education is approaching sub 20% that of a 4+ year degree, and the time commitment is closer to ~12%. Go to Lambda School, get a $200K TC remote software job and do a night B.S. at Georgia Tech, Stanford or Bizerkly who'll give you work experience credit on your way to getting a MBA through them.

The current university education system prioritizes teaching what keeps the teachers employed, not what the market wants. If you're non STEM, you need to go into a work study program that has minimum intern time requirements before you graduate. If you're not going to THE best school for your program, the financially prudent thing to do is go instate & save money until you can transfer or graduate. I know plenty of people from when I went to college who're B.A. in lib arts bullshit & spent 3-4 years managing retail before going into the trades full time because they were making more money putting decks in on the weekend then in their 9-5.

Is there a difference between getting an education and "what the market wants"? Universities were not originally designed for, conceived to, nor structured to "get a job". We used to understand that there WAS a difference, somewhere along the way the lines got blurred.

[Allen]

Is there a difference between getting an education and "what the market wants"? Universities were not originally designed for, conceived to, nor structured to "get a job". We used to understand that there WAS a difference, somewhere along the way the lines got blurred.

Absolutely there's a difference. But legions of high school guidance counselors that have parroted the line of you need a BA/BS to get a "job" have been focused on their own metrics: successful placement in either a university, .mil or .gov programs. Their incentives are short term & misaligned, as opposed to long term and aligned with the students.

I have no problem with you spending 4 years debating Kant while trying to get laid, or whomever the Cambodian equivalent is, just pay your own way, and do something useful afterwards.

[Slater]

There's probably some jobs listed as requiring a degree that a reasonably intelligent high school graduate could perform.

[HCrum87hc]

I finished Clemson many moons ago. They’ve tried begging money from me for years. I always reminded them I paid my tuition and fulfilled my obligation. Eventually the “Director of Institutional Giving” sent an email asking for me to remember my alma mater in my will. I looked up her salary and she made $170k. I replied to her saying her salary indicated the coffers were well stocked and to never bother me again. One huge cost of higher education is to pay for b.s. administrative positions created like the one I mentioned. Certain deans make $400k. I understand the need to keep gears greased and moving, but the student loan funding stream has allowed the creation and of useless, overpaid bureaucrats. With so much online learning, I’m hoping Covid might re-index cost for education.

You too? I graduated from Clemson in 09 with a BS in civil engineering. I had just under $50k in loans at the time (ended up paying nearly $65k in all), due to me goofing off too much freshman and sophomore years and losing my scholarships. My mom cosigned on the loans, but I made sure she never paid a dime towards them.

I think the average undergrad debt at the time was $20k. I could have gotten my scholarships back if I got my overall gpa over 3.0. I worked my butt off junior and senior years to bring it up, but I only graduated with a 2.97....

Thankfully, my mom paid for my senior year as a gift. She felt it wasn't fair to pay for my sister's wedding and not gift me anything. I didn't argue. My wife graduated with no debt (she's the smart one that worked hard to keep her scholarships). We managed to pay it all off in about 5-6 years and were completely debt free (besides the house) in 7-8 years. We could have done it sooner, but graduating with a civil engineering degree (with an emphasis in construction management) in 09 was not great timing. It took me nearly 2 years to find a job in my field. Thankfully, once I did, it's been a good career path. I'm in the local public sector now, which doesn't pay a ton, but it's fairly competitive, and the other benefits more than make up for it. My friends in the private sector make better money, but they lament the long hours, expensive insurance, stress, and time away from family.

Paying that loan off was a huge weight off our shoulders. Losing those scholarships is probably my biggest regret in my 33 years. I sure would like to have had all that money over the years, but as a stupid, young college student, that was something future me would worry about.

Speaking of Clemson begging for money, we despise getting those mailers from them. They got more than their fair share out of my wife and me. Whenever they call asking for money, I just block the number.

[Dr. Bullseye]

I collected student loans for years. I worked in a collection agencies doing this as well as a law firm. At the law firm our client was the Department of Justice and we sued in their name. I am telling you this because I do know a little bit about the dark side of student loans.

You do not have to cosign for your child if that child lives independently. Send your student to a junior college, community college or whatever for two years. During that time establish a residency for that child other than your home. Then have the student transfer to a four year college with the loan in his/her name.

The two year college first will acclimate your child to college and costs very little. But, nowadays. I would not even think of going to college unless there was a practical, money oriented course of study that child wanted. So, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Nursing, pre-Med. yes. But no Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Art, History, Political Science and so on. There are no jobs for those majors. You student will be better off learning the construction business in terms of money than one of those 1960's-type Majors.

[AKDoug]

You do not have to cosign for your child if that child lives independently. Send your student to a junior college, community college or whatever for two years. During that time establish a residency for that child other than your home. Then have the student transfer to a four year college with the loan in his/her name.

I'd love some assistance on this. My daughter (21) has been out of the house since 18. She took two years off then decided to go to college. The college demanded she still fill out FASFA information with our (the parent's) income as well. By FASFA rules they aren't independent until 24. She didn't qualify for any aid due to me being a bottomless pool of money in their eyes, so she applied for an State of Alaska student loan, which requires a credit score of over 650 to not need a cosigner. She lives by cash so she has no credit, so we'd have to co-sign. Due to Covid, she just kept working because she saw no value in paying a bunch of money for online classes. Currently she is devouring accounting classes on YouTube with the assistance of her ex-CPA grandmother.

[Mozart]

My take:

Government shouldn’t be in the business of intervening financially on anyone’s behalf. That being said:

They’ve been giving trillions to the big banks for a decade now. They’ve given billions to many other corporations for COVID stimulus. They’re running the debt up faster and faster and faster. So yes, they should forgive all student loans or at the very least, make them interest-free. Because it would be nice for us useless eaters to catch a break along with everyone else, while the gettings’ good. Shits’ going down the tubes anyway, might as well make a difference for the little guys . . . . Kind of a nihilistic populism