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.
LOL, medians are most representative, as that means as many borrowed less as borrowed more. Mean averages can mislead.
Not in this case. It is useful to see the whole problem by multiplying the average times the number of members. Can't do that with median. And it is particularly meaningless if there is a class, which I suspect there is, with very large debt. That would be those who went on to graduate school or professional training.
Nonsense, my middle class relatives all had/have 529s. Plus kids get scholarships, grants, etc. And they can w-o-r-k, too.
I grew up lower middle class, but my ratio of debt/tuition, room, and board was under 17%.
It was cheaper then! The massive increases in college costs have happened from the early 1990s forward, but have spiked worse since the mid-late 2000s.
I worked too and it didn't come close to paying the bills, and that was in the early 2000s when a public university cost about half of what it does today. I was also in the top 5% of the class so I got pretty much every academic scholarship available.
With costs upwards of $20,000 per year a kid today would have to have a job making at least ~32-33K a year to pay tuition and live low. Commanding that kind of salary is not particularly easy for an 18 year old to do. They would have to make at least $15 an hour and, more importantly, get full time hours. If you choose to work that much your grades suffer if you take a 15 hour course-load. The sweetspot for me was about 25-30 hours. When I tried to do 40, I'd fall asleep trying to study.
With costs upwards of $20,000 per year a kid today would have to have a job making at least ~32-33K a year to pay tuition and live low. Commanding that kind of salary is not particularly easy for an 18 year old to do. They would have to make at least $15 an hour and, more importantly, get full time hours. If you choose to work that much your grades suffer if you take a 15 hour course-load. The sweetspot for me was about 25-30 hours. When I tried to do 40, I'd fall asleep trying to study.
That is why IMO kids should go to community colleges, state run, for first 2 years, work while enrolled, and save, save, save for years 3 and 4. Grad school can easily be employer paid.
No matter your federal debt load, it'll all be forgiven in a decade of govt or non-profit service.
Educate these kids not to take private loans, and have each class come with a little credit card like statement that'll show how much money that class will cost over 20 years of paying the minimum. Make the kids think about the money they are borrowing.
Between my spouse and I, with all our sheepskins, we kept our total student loan debt under $15,000 and that was with expecting much higher than average salaries. Multiple jobs, scholarships, sharing rooms in off campus housing, taking the bus, taking classes at the community college in addition to at the state university, and minimizing borrowing just because the money was there.
The average student debt load is comparable to the average new car loan, I could go out and "buy" a new car tomorrow and it wouldn't move my needle a bit, so how can these people not scrape together 10% of their discressionsry income.
Even the MSW with their $90k in debt and $30k in salary will pay next to nothing for their degree after the ten years passes.
No matter your federal debt load, it'll all be forgiven in a decade of govt or non-profit service.
Educate these kids not to take private loans, and have each class come with a little credit card like statement that'll show how much money that class will cost over 20 years of paying the minimum. Make the kids think about the money they are borrowing.
Between my spouse and I, with all our sheepskins, we kept our total student loan debt under $15,000 and that was with expecting much higher than average salaries. Multiple jobs, scholarships, sharing rooms in off campus housing, taking the bus, taking classes at the community college in addition to at the state university, and minimizing borrowing just because the money was there.
The average student debt load is comparable to the average new car loan, I could go out and "buy" a new car tomorrow and it wouldn't move my needle a bit, so how can these people not scrape together 10% of their discressionsry income.
Even the MSW with their $90k in debt and $30k in salary will pay next to nothing for their degree after the ten years passes.
I don't get the obsession with PSLF. A lot of times those jobs require a salary sacrifice more than IBR payments would be at any time.
No matter your federal debt load, it'll all be forgiven in a decade of govt or non-profit service.
Educate these kids not to take private loans, and have each class come with a little credit card like statement that'll show how much money that class will cost over 20 years of paying the minimum. Make the kids think about the money they are borrowing.
Between my spouse and I, with all our sheepskins, we kept our total student loan debt under $15,000 and that was with expecting much higher than average salaries. Multiple jobs, scholarships, sharing rooms in off campus housing, taking the bus, taking classes at the community college in addition to at the state university, and minimizing borrowing just because the money was there.
The average student debt load is comparable to the average new car loan, I could go out and "buy" a new car tomorrow and it wouldn't move my needle a bit, so how can these people not scrape together 10% of their discressionsry income.
Even the MSW with their $90k in debt and $30k in salary will pay next to nothing for their degree after the ten years passes.
Sometimes that works out for folks. I don't regret my 55k student debt.
Despite people foaming at the mouth at the unfairness of it all and people living up to their responsibilities etc, it will probably come to a crash and be written off. Just like the huge write offs all those financial institutions got when the recession hit - after they bent the rules, deceived and manipulated. Of course, we all know its fair to give huge write offs to corporations with their nameless shareholders, but not individual real people.
I guess.
Even better is when those same institutions started purchasing up all the inventory at rock bottom prices, and then rented it right back out to people, of course increasing rental rates substantially along the way.
Then they shouldn't have a problem paying the loans back.
Yes, Federal loans should be fine. It's the private ones that can really be an issue, because they are eligible for neither PSLF nor IBR.
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.
