Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm not saying all students are saddled with six-figure debt. I'm saying I would be if I attended my alma mater in 2015.
I didn't qualify for many scholarships because I'm a white male and I had good (but not stellar) grades in high school. And although I could dunk a basketball in my youth, I wasn't good enough for an athletic scholarship, either. I had a friend from South Africa in the same boat that I was in. He applied for as many African-American scholarships as he could, but was turned down for all of them because he's whiter than sour cream. Definitely an A for effort, applying for all of them.
What I was able to do, with difficulty, when I attended school is no longer possible today. We should have empathy for the students of 2015 who are stuck between the Scylla of needing a degree and Charybdis of the financial impossibility of paying for it. "Lower your standards," isn't an acceptable solution.
AGAIN, please stop lumping decades of boomers together...some of us were still in high school when the 80's began and about to face adulthood in a bad economy. We have NOTHING in common with older boomers. And by the way, nobody paid my way or my husband's. We got scholarships and he joined the military. Our parents lovingly showed us an open door at 17 & 18. None of this "revolving door" stuff that the millennials use.
Right on. I graduated from high school in 1980 - and anyone who lived through the 1980s economy can attest to how horrible it was. Interest rates on homes, for instance, were in the teens!!!! Talk about not being able to afford to buy a house...sheeze.
Like you, my parents and my husband's parents expected us to move out of the house and into our adult lives when we graduated from high school. I moved out a few months after graduation, into a crappy apartment with two other roommates. I didn't have a car - I rode the bus to work. I worked 35 hours a week and went to community college for a full load. My parents paid for half my college tuition and that was it. They didn't buy my groceries, or pay my rent, or pay any of my bills, or carry me on their insurance. I was 18 - I was an adult and expected to take on adult responsibilities. Same with my husband for that matter.
I never even considered the idea of returning home to live as an adult. Honestly, the option simply wasn't there - not because my parents refused me, but because the very idea never entered any of our heads. In fact, from the time I got a job at age 15, my parents began scaling way back on what they spent on my clothes, any entertainment, gas, etc.
Oh, and my first car? I got it at age 17 - well, actually my mother and I shared it - and it was a 1969 Galaxy 500 Ford...with over 400k miles on it. I am totally serious. The vinyl head rests were held together with those little sticky things that you put on the bottom of a tub to keep from slipping! Yes, this was in 1979 - it was a ten year old car, and it drove fine even though it looked a little rough - that is, it drove fine till the drive shaft literally fell out of it while I was driving it to work at Burger King one day after school!
To clarify - my parents were not poor. My dad was in upper management at a large corporation. My mother was a stay at home mom. We lived in a custom built home and I had "luxuries" like a phone in my room, and a TV in the game room upstairs that I could share with my two brothers - WOOHOOOO! Life was good! I truly didn't expect anything more, because ALL of the kids I knew had the same sort of lives in middle class America in a mid size city in the late 1970s.
We should have empathy for the students of 2015 who are stuck between the Scylla of needing a degree and Charybdis of the financial impossibility of paying for it. "Lower your standards," isn't an acceptable solution.
"Lower your standards" is certainly an acceptable solution, however, if a young adult has unreasonable expectations or goals.
The average student loan debt in the US, by the way, isn't "six figures," by the way. It's $30,000.
But within that figure there is a very wide variation between states, schools, etc. From the article:
Quote:
Some states had average debt amounts as low as $18,656, while others topped $30,000. Between different colleges, average debt amounts ranged from $2,500 to $71,000.
Not surprisingly, the states with the highest student loan averages were all above the Mason Dixon line. However, some might argue that salaries in those areas also tend to be higher, so maybe it all evens out.
You know what - people need to be realistic. It's not realistic of me to want to buy a $600,000 home. Now - I could qualify for the loan. I could do it and be in debt up to my ears. Why should I "lower my standards?" Well, because it doesn't make good financial sense for me in the long run. Is it "fair?" Am I "selling out" or "selling myself short" because I don't buy the absolutely biggest house that I can qualify for? The answer to both is "no." No thanks.
Am I "selling out" or "selling myself short" because I don't buy the absolutely biggest house that I can qualify for? The answer to both is "no." No thanks.
That's how adults need to think.
The trick is to get to the position where you can buy the better house. That's what I learned in school.
I'm not suggesting that the track I took is for everyone. But I am certain that it was the best possible track for me. And I think it's a national embarrassment what we do to students these days. What was attainable for me should be attainable today.
Your question is indicative of the lack of reasoning ability coming out of our educational system. Nobody spends 10x their annual income on an apartment. The minimum income for that sort of purchase would be around $170k/year, and they would be spending 25k a year on a car. At that rate, you could spend $125 a day on cab fare and come out even.
There is no lack of reasoning. I precisely said they do NOT need to buy an apartment. Maybe you should actually pay attention before you criticize so harshly.
The trick is to get to the position where you can buy the better house. That's what I learned in school.
I'm not suggesting that the track I took is for everyone. But I am certain that it was the best possible track for me. And I think it's a national embarrassment what we do to students these days. What was attainable for me should be attainable today.
It IS attainable today for a minority of students - as it was attainable when you did it, for a minority of students. Attending a very expensive college has never been the most realistic choice for the majority of adults.
By the way, I don't want to "buy a better house." I have a house that fits my needs and wants and also doesn't burden me with a mortgage that's too high. I bought it with the idea of being able to afford the mortgage payments even if our life situation changed dramatically. That's how people should approach the whole concept of student loan debt as well, rather than "betting on the come."
I know alot of millennial waiting for their parents to die so they can inherit the $$. Than life will be better for them. The thing is for the people starting out now, the game is stack against the vast majority. Imagine just renting/buying in a major metro area. The amount it cost now is that it is a 2 person affair (husband/wife/roomate) rather than what a single person would be able to manage on their own.
Why does a single person in a super-crowded dense urban core need their own place?
And tell me WHEN in US history a single person making the median wage could ever afford the rent in an inner city without roommates? Oh right, you can't, because they never could.
I'm not saying all students are saddled with six-figure debt. I'm saying I would be if I attended my alma mater in 2015.
You, along with popular media, bring it up enough that it would imply that it is pervasive, which is hardly the case.
My son just graduated a top school with $5,000 in student loan debt. I can promise you there is no trust fund for my other son who is attending college now. He works and puts himself through school, just like the other one did. He will have a little more debt.
I'm freaking sick of the whining and the finger pointing.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
