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That is part of a parent's responsibility!!
How do you think an 18 year old can pay for college?
Sure - if the parents are sitting on all kinds of money but I know a woman (divorced without support) who put her only daughter through a fairly exclusive college and this woman is still paying off the loans while the daughter makes over $90K a year, is married to someone also doing well.
Why should someone with a lower paying job take out the loans and have to pay them off for someone who will make significantly more?
An 18 year old often can pay for college by getting the right degree that will be in such demand that the first employer pays off any loans.
Grew up in a regular middle class town and everyone I know paid for college between some combination of student loans, work and scholarships....
When did this become the parents responsibility?
I think one reason that tuition keeps going up and up and up is precisely because for so many parents, college for their kids is a status symbol for the parents. They can brag to their friends that their kid is at such and such college, no matter that the kid is partying the whole time. The universities know full well that people won't blink an eye at 2nd and 3rd mortgages and going deeply in debt for this. All the universities have to do is keep promising that a degree will automatically mean a great and high paying job.
College tuition is the one thing unaffected by the recession or belt tightening, people will pay any amount so there's nothing keeping tuition rates down or even close to reasonable.
Sure - if the parents are sitting on all kinds of money but I know a woman (divorced without support) who put her only daughter through a fairly exclusive college and this woman is still paying off the loans while the daughter makes over $90K a year, is married to someone also doing well.
Why should someone with a lower paying job take out the loans and have to pay them off for someone who will make significantly more?
Because the government considers it partly the parent's responsibility to pay for the college education of children under 24 years old.
That's why the less money the parents make, the bigger the grants the students get. And the more money parents make, the less grants the students get.
There are student loans and parent loans. Since this woman you know has the loans in her name, not her daughter's name, that indicates that the women wasn't a low earner at the time her daughter went to college. The government makes parents who earn more take out 'parent loans.' Students whose parents earn less money can get 'student loans.'
And this woman and her daughter chose for her to go to an exclusive college. She didnt' have to have that expensive education. Even so, many exclusive colleges have scholarships and other funding for children from lower income families. Either she didn't financially qualify or she didn't chose an exclusive college that was well funded.
I think one reason that tuition keeps going up and up and up is precisely because for so many parents, college for their kids is a status symbol for the parents. They can brag to their friends that their kid is at such and such college, no matter that the kid is partying the whole time. The universities know full well that people won't blink an eye at 2nd and 3rd mortgages and going deeply in debt for this. All the universities have to do is keep promising that a degree will automatically mean a great and high paying job.
I'm sort of shocked by your believing that parents view college as a status symbol. It sounds like you don't believe college isn't a necessity. Yikes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute
College tuition is the one thing unaffected by the recession or belt tightening, people will pay any amount so there's nothing keeping tuition rates down or even close to reasonable.
It's going to go up even higher. My state's govenor just cut 50% of the fundng to the state colleges in my state. 50%! The universities will have raise tuition to cover those losses.
Let's see. An 18 year-old is an "adult," per the government, but the government has also dictated that parents MUST foot the bill for their offspring's college education.
How was the government able to make this rule without any input or approval from voters? How were they arbitrarily able to make this rule and what makes this rule stick? (Who governs the rule?)
Since "the rule" was not always in effect, when did it go into effect and by what process did it happen? I seem to have missed the process and all of a sudden we have this new "RULE."
College has always been elective for those who can afford it and those who could not afford it either did not go, or worked their way through. Now with this new rule, adults are going to college and getting loans that the government is making money off of . . . is that correct? If not, what is their motive?
A college student doesn't necessarily have to go into debt just because their parents aren't footing the bill. I've known many college students at my place of business who pay for their own college as they go along. They're working their butts off now so they won't have to go crazy later on having student loans hanging over their heads.
Give one actual example of a true college student paying for college as they go along. Not someone gettng company-sponsored tution reimbursement or the like, someone actually pursuing a bachelor's degree. You don't need to name names, of course.
Give one actual example of a true college student paying for college as they go along. Not someone gettng company-sponsored tution reimbursement or the like, someone actually pursuing a bachelor's degree. You don't need to name names, of course.
At my place of business, I've known many --- and they weren't getting company sponsored reimbursements or anything else. I'm not talking about big-name schools. I'm talking about community colleges where these young people were pursuing a Bachelors program. Keep in mind, these "kids" used their tax refund money, salaries (most worked one full time and one part time job to do it), buying text books used on the internet, doing some kind of "work-study", and doing whatever else they had to do to get their degree and be debt free upon graduation.
At my place of business, I've known many --- and they weren't getting company sponsored reimbursements or anything else. I'm not talking about big-name schools. I'm talking about community colleges where these young people were pursuing a Bachelors program. Keep in mind, these "kids" used their tax refund money, salaries (most worked one full time and one part time job to do it), buying text books used on the internet, doing some kind of "work-study", and doing whatever else they had to do to get their degree and be debt free upon graduation.
It can be done.
Well, you're not pursuing a bachelor's degree at a CC.
There are dozens of threads like this on CD, but the reality is, I do not know anyone who has gone to college w/o some help from someone, be it a parent, a grandparent, student loans, scholarships, etc. ALL of my friends and my kids' friends' parents paid the vast majority of their kids' college expenses. I see that you cannot actually give an example of a specific student. It is also entirely possible that you don't know the whole story with some of these students. "Work-study" is a form of federal aid, for example.
There is NO WAY one could work 1 1/2 jobs and take more than one course per semester, which would mean graduating in 20 years, 13 years if you took a course every summer as well. At some point in time, credits expire as well, so it might be totally impossible to attend college in that manner.
How was the government able to make this rule without any input or approval from voters? How were they arbitrarily able to make this rule and what makes this rule stick? (Who governs the rule?)
Congress. Voters approve via voting in members of congress who in turn vote about these issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by imcurious
Since "the rule" was not always in effect, when did it go into effect and by what process did it happen? I seem to have missed the process and all of a sudden we have this new "RULE".
College has always been elective for those who can afford it and those who could not afford it either did not go, or worked their way through. Now with this new rule, adults are going to college and getting loans that the government is making money off of . . . is that correct? If not, what is their motive
All of a sudden?
I can tell now that it has been in effect since the mid-70s, probably much earlier than that. My parents were financially responsible for my oldest sister's college tuition when she went away to college in 1974.
She had to live away from home, never coming home in the summers, and completely support herself for a couple of years, before she could declare herself financially independent of my parents, who were wealthy. There were many different criteria she had to meet to be considered financially independent in the eyes of the government---it's not something someone can do easily or overnight.
Even though my parents were weatlhy, my father only wanted to pay 1k per year for her education. (1k per year is what it would have cost for her tuition if she lives at home and went to the university in town, but she wanted to go to a different college and live in a dorm.) That's why she worked hard to have herself declared financially independent---so she could benefit from the grants she didn't qualify for under my father's income.
When I went to college in the early 80s, I couldn't even get student loans in my own name because my father made too much money. The government forced him to take parent loans in his name.
So, stop acting like this is all of a sudden. This isn't new. If it's new to you, maybe your parents didn't make enough money to be required to pay, or maybe you didn't go to college before you were 24. (Only you can possibly know the reason you were unaware of this and think this is all of a sudden.)
Parents with the financial means have been financially responsible for a portion of their children's educations for at least 4 decades, maybe more.
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