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Quote:" If financing a car is poor planning than I would never own a reliable car. I can also kiss ever owning a house goodbye."
That is either a sign of poor occupation decisions, or a lack of qualified skills.
Quote:"College is an expensive venture (like cars and houses) that most people can't fork over all of the money for right away."
You still have not answered my question, so I will repeat it. "When did you start saving for your children's education?" (If you have any). On this end, started when I was straight out of college, so I had over 2 decades to save for it. Avoided the PPPPP.
This stuff is NOT rocket science.
Illogical on all counts.
First, about grandparents mistakes. Seriously, you want to hold people accountable for their grandparents mistakes??
My grandparents were dirt-poor children of immigrants who grew up in NYC during the depression. The fact that their children survived to adulthood was accomplishment enough.
My parents were the children of the children of those dirt-poor immigrants and grew up in the 50's - got married just out of high school, as did most people, and didn't even go to college until much later, at which time they were able to pay for it themselves - it was actually pretty cheap back then. They were the first in their families to go to college.
Times were different for our parents and their parents....college was cheaper, a lot of people didn't go at all - it certainly wasn't something people saved for when their kids were small - and things have changed dramatically since then. Now college is super expensive (it's outpaced inflation considerably) and almost everyone seems to go.
Unless people's parents and grandparents were time travelers, you can't possibly blame them for "poor planning."
My personal experience while looking for a grad program in geography with a good but not great profile (3.5 GPA ~1500 GRE):
Offer 1) MS. Full tuition + $23k fellowship + 2 paid conferences
Offer 2) PhD. Full tuition + $50k fellowship
Offer 3) MS. Full tuition + 18k stipend
Offer 4) PhD. 1/4 tuition (but was in-state, so full tuition) + $22k fellowship/stipend
Offer 5) PhD. Full tuition + $28k stipend
The distinction I am making between stipend and fellowship is that the stipends were working as an RA while the fellowships were working on my own self-directed research.
And this was for geography. While it is an in-demand degree right now, there is not a lot of research funding. The department I choose with a geosciences department that offered a geography and geology degree. Every single geology grad student was fully funded with tuition + minimum $23k stipend. From the first year masters students all the way up to the dissertation PhDs.
My personal experience while looking for a grad program in geography with a good but not great profile (3.5 GPA ~1500 GRE):
Offer 1) MS. Full tuition + $23k fellowship + 2 paid conferences
Offer 2) PhD. Full tuition + $50k fellowship
Offer 3) MS. Full tuition + 18k stipend
Offer 4) PhD. 1/4 tuition (but was in-state, so full tuition) + $22k fellowship/stipend
Offer 5) PhD. Full tuition + $28k stipend
The distinction I am making between stipend and fellowship is that the stipends were working as an RA while the fellowships were working on my own self-directed research.
And this was for geography. While it is an in-demand degree right now, there is not a lot of research funding. The department I choose with a geosciences department that offered a geography and geology degree. Every single geology grad student was fully funded with tuition + minimum $23k stipend. From the first year masters students all the way up to the dissertation PhDs.
There is a lot of money out there for grad school
A 1500 is pretty impressive. That is great funding for geography. I never knew. The best I ever heard of in my field was a 25k RA stipend. Our fellowships were 18k, but only 1 student from each class got one and unfortunately the university typically reserved it for in-state applicants.
Smart kids don't pay much for college at all. Top 100 school and you are looking at around 15-20k in debt which is a great return on investment. The problem is when kids who should not be in college start school and never finish.
One problem is that recent college graduates are too young--that is, they haven't been in the work place long enough to establish a trend or pattern to determine whether or not they will attain middle-class status, or better. The jury will be out on these graduates for quite some years to come..and these are ones graduating with loads of college debt. It's just too early to pass judgement..
THIS.
Let's see- three grandparents from Russia, one who died on the docks of pnemonia. His American-born wife with two years of school and then into the factories and housecleaning. My mother dropped out of high school to go work in the Navy Yard because there were clerical jobs with the war.
Father one of ten of Russian immigrants, a tailor and his wife. Everyone finished high school.
Father drove taxi and mother waitressed on occasion. No one gave any thought to the future due to their own problems.
I didn't understand interest rates until my 30s. I did drop out of college after two years because I hated it as a means of learning and didn't see where it would lead to a job and already owed $5k (1973) and worked almost full-time anyway.
Really does depend on who your parents and ancestors were/are.
I don't remember if 529 plans existed when I was in high school. Or IRAs for that matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marie5v
First, about grandparents mistakes. Seriously, you want to hold people accountable for their grandparents mistakes??
My grandparents were dirt-poor children of immigrants who grew up in NYC during the depression. The fact that their children survived to adulthood was accomplishment enough.
My parents were the children of the children of those dirt-poor immigrants and grew up in the 50's - got married just out of high school, as did most people, and didn't even go to college until much later, at which time they were able to pay for it themselves - it was actually pretty cheap back then. They were the first in their families to go to college.
why wouldn't all students just default and declare bankruptcy? The bankruptcy only shows on your credit report for 10 years (31-32 years old) and only actually impacts your credit score greatly for 1-2 years. It would be in every students best interest to declare bankruptcy if their loans were 30k+ right when they graduated and most students wouldn't have any equity so it would work perfectly. This is what happened to med students and part of the reason you can not default on them. Med students were graduating and defaulting during residency. Then they finished residency with no debt and were making 200k+.
Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy even if you default unless you can prove an undue hardship which is impossible to prove. In other words you default your credit gets screwed and you still have to pay.
This will just be a huge government bailout for folks underwater. I'm all for refinancing these loans, but since they were given out with a guarantee of not being dis-chargeable, it wouldn't be right to allow them to be discharged now.
We need to reassess how we give out loans, and then maybe we could make new loans dis-chargeable.
There is no refinancing for student loans. Its also not right that student loans don't have any statue of limitations, debt collection practices, and are treated very differently then all other types of unsecured debts. You say its a huge bailout and thats not right, so then the bailout for housing was wrong too?
So you're telling me to start a fund for kids I may never have? You sir (or ma'am) have lost all credibility with this argument.
Unless you have perfect clairvoyance, you never know. Why carry life insurance, health insurance. car insurance (unless all are legally required). Run with scissors. Play with matches.
Case in point: things happen. Got snipped when I was fairly young, as I planned for no children. Stuff happens.... got a divorce... Now just about to have a kid (not genetically mine) go to JHU. Glad I hedged my bets, as 7 years there is going to hurt.
Planning for the unknown has some advantages.
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