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Sure they can. By the time they are 18 they could have worked full time for at least 3 summers and part time during school. They could take a year off after high school and work full time. They could apply for many of the thousands of scholarships that go unclaimed every year. They could go into the military first for a couple years They could start their college education at a junior or community college.
it certainly can be done. I did it and watched many others do the same. And no one said they have to work at a Starbucks. Where the heck did that come from???..........
How so? Kids are 17 or 18 when they graduate from high school. You can't get working papers until 16. So, say they work for two years. Looking at my state, minimum wage is $14.13 an hour. Working say ten weeks in summer gets you a little more than $5000 before taxes. Tuition at the state university is $12K and change plus another $3K in fees per year. (Commuter, not living at the school, which tacks on another $13K.) Working two summers would not even pay for one year of school. Then there's several thousand in books you have to lay out.
As far as "all this unclaimed scholarship money", that's a crock. Most of those are restricted, such as only for twins named Murphy going to a specific school. My kid applied for tons of scholarships and got very little, mostly from local sources like the VFW. She ended up going to a private university the first year and then switched to a state university when she changed her major. The private university did give her some scholarship money and then, after seeing this guy on TV say to do this, we went back and requested that they "improve their financial aid offer", and they said, "OK, we'll give you another $5K. (Good advice for anyone going through this now.) But even her university had restricted scholarships, like one that offered money if you were of German descent.
I didn't say they had to work at Starbucks. It was just an example because it's a popular place for young people to work. Actually, my own kid worked at Dunkin Donuts in her Jr. and Sr. years of high school. (Not that I like the coffee at either place, lol.) Bought her own laptop, clothing, etc.
Yes, starting a community college is a good way to save college costs. My sister did that going for her degree as an adult twenty years ago. But I just looked up the current tuition of our local community college, and that's $8200 a year, too.
I agree that a kid should have a stake in their own education, no doubt. My daughter took the maximum in federal loans that she could get in her own name, and those are hers to pay off. Further, I said I would help her with her Bachelors (she ended up earning two) because it was important to me that she get a degree, which neither her father nor I had. (He contributed a minor amount as well.) We also told her that any other degrees were on her, and she found a way to get her Master's and her PhD without our assistance. She also got a scholarship in her Jr. year to study in China for a semester, and in her senior year, she found it cheaper to share an apartment with two other people than to live in the dorms, and she worked almost full-time hours that year at a bank.
So there are ways to get around paying full tuition, but still, it is very, very expensive, and the scholarship money people think is all over the place is very limited. In fact, her friend who was the class valedictorian really wanted to go to Columbia University, but even with their financial aid offer her parents could not afford the remaining tuition, and she went to Rutgers instead.
Almost all the people I know who actually paid for their own degrees did it by working full-time and going to school nights for years. Some of them received tuition assistance from their employers as a benefit.
Anyway, I was a single mom who rarely received child support from my kid's father, so I had no opportunity to save for her college myself. I did help her by taking loans (by the way, parents, it's cheaper to co-sign a student loan with your student from a private lender than to get those 8.5% Parents Plus Loans from the government), which are completely paid off. That was my choice.
I think the bigger problem is when parents save for the kids' college, the kids don't have ANY stake in their own education, then they party their brains out and drop out of school. Knew a few of those, too.
If I had a kid nowadays, I'd tell them to skip college and become a plumber. Save on college tuition and make bank.
You have got to be kidding, lol. You can't seriously believe that she's getting that nonsense from the mainstream media. In fact, that kind of opinion comes from a place that is the very antithesis of the MSM.
In fact, I'm not even sure which view is more ridiculous. Hers that the Chinese are buying up properties to infiltrate and take over the U.S., or yours that that type of nonsense comes from the mainstream media.
What I notice is that there are not very many articles on how people can cut back.
I do see a lot on how they are struggling and how salaries aren't keeping up.
Sorry, I wanted to try to be understanding, but I couldn't continue watching after the lady in red said she was struggling with $100K a year household income.
For starters, maybe not obtaining cars that cost $1,600 per month would help. Having the financial headroom to put $500/mo. away for her child's college education is not struggling. That is just old fashion savings. Plus, if the kid is a legit college student- academically superior and resourceful- he/she will be able to get by all on their own, anyway.
Not arguing that $100k isn't enough to live on but I will say that 100K doesn't go very far these days. Especially if you live in a major city like Dallas. Her only financial mistake is the cars and her cell phone sounds very high as I pay $170/month for two phones.
My wife and I make around $170k household each year and we aren't living it up necessarily. We can't take a vacation every year. We have zero debt except two mortgages (one is an income property) which is fantastic. But still we don't have disposable income like you'd expect. Our childcare alone is $1,300 a month which is cheap for the area. I can't save for a college education just yet because we are trying to fund our own retirement.
I do think kids should be funding their own college education. I'm not going to feel pressured into funding my kids through college. My wife and I both navigated paying for our own schooling. But I will help my kids if I am able to once the time comes.
[quote=Mightyqueen801;64773596]How so? Kids are 17 or 18 when they graduate from high school. You can't get working papers until 16. So, say they work for two years. Looking at my state, minimum wage is $14.13 an hour. Working say ten weeks in summer gets you a little more than $5000 before taxes. Tuition at the state university is $12K and change plus another $3K in fees per year. (Commuter, not living at the school, which tacks on another $13K.) Working two summers would not even pay for one year of school. Then there's several thousand in books you have to lay out.
As far as "all this unclaimed scholarship money", that's a crock. Most of those are restricted, such as only for twins named Murphy going to a specific school. My kid applied for tons of scholarships and got very little, mostly from local sources like the VFW. She ended up going to a private university the first year and then switched to a state university when she changed her major. The private university did give her some scholarship money and then, after seeing this guy on TV say to do this, we went back and requested that they "improve their financial aid offer", and they said, "OK, we'll give you another $5K. (Good advice for anyone going through this now.) But even her university had restricted scholarships, like one that offered money if you were of German descent. /QUOTE]
What are working papers? I asked several of my colleagues that grew up in a variety of states and no one has even heard of them.
I began washing dishes and bussing tables at 14 in Maine. Where I live in Wisconsin one can start work part time also at 14. After working full time during summers and school breaks, and part time during school I had my first year of tuition already paid for.
I applied for over a hundred scholarships (and drove my HS counselors nuts), and won over a dozen. For a couple of them I asked how it was so easy to get and they replied "you were the only one that applied.
There is no reason for you to be so rude.
Just because you or people you know couldn't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. I know plenty of those types. They were the ones heading to Florida for spring break on their student loan money while I (AND PLENTY OF OTHERS) worked every possible hour we could get during that time off.
What we're seeing now in terms of affordability will pale in comparison to what those reaching adulthood in the 2030's will experience. By that time living at home with your parents until age 30+ and/or multigenerational households will be the norm. People in their late 20s to early 30's will not be able to afford a home or pay off their college debt.
How so? Kids are 17 or 18 when they graduate from high school. You can't get working papers until 16. So, say they work for two years. Looking at my state, minimum wage is $14.13 an hour. Working say ten weeks in summer gets you a little more than $5000 before taxes. Tuition at the state university is $12K and change plus another $3K in fees per year. (Commuter, not living at the school, which tacks on another $13K.) Working two summers would not even pay for one year of school. Then there's several thousand in books you have to lay out.
As far as "all this unclaimed scholarship money", that's a crock. Most of those are restricted, such as only for twins named Murphy going to a specific school. My kid applied for tons of scholarships and got very little, mostly from local sources like the VFW. She ended up going to a private university the first year and then switched to a state university when she changed her major. The private university did give her some scholarship money and then, after seeing this guy on TV say to do this, we went back and requested that they "improve their financial aid offer", and they said, "OK, we'll give you another $5K. (Good advice for anyone going through this now.) But even her university had restricted scholarships, like one that offered money if you were of German descent. /QUOTE]
What are working papers? I asked several of my colleagues that grew up in a variety of states and no one has even heard of them.
I began washing dishes and bussing tables at 14 in Maine. Where I live in Wisconsin one can start work part time also at 14. After working full time during summers and school breaks, and part time during school I had my first year of tuition already paid for.
I applied for over a hundred scholarships (and drove my HS counselors nuts), and won over a dozen. For a couple of them I asked how it was so easy to get and they replied "you were the only one that applied.
There is no reason for you to be so rude.
Just because you or people you know couldn't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. I know plenty of those types. They were the ones heading to Florida for spring break on their student loan money while I (AND PLENTY OF OTHERS) worked every possible hour we could get during that time off.
Huh? How am I being rude? Excuse me, but it was you who was rather that way in response to my post, which I made the effort to answer factually. You threw the first grenade with your smarmy remarks denigrating parents who want to help their kids pay for college. There is nothing wrong with that. As I said, some of us wanted better for our kids than we had. Perhaps in Maine it was easier to get scholarships, but I am not lying when I tell you that when my daughter was applying, they were hard to come by. 2008, 2009.
You should read posts in their entirety before you dash off an answer. I clearly agreed with you that I know people who worked their way through college, too. And your snotty "just because you couldn't do it" is irrelevant since I didn't go to college in the first place, which you would remember if you had read through. (I went to secretarial school. You are probably too young to know what that was, but back then it was a valid way to enter the work force with office skills and then work your way up.)
It is good you worked your way through. Yay. But that does not give you the right to put down parents who help their kids with college or make unsubstantiated assumptions that our kids went to spring break in Florida on student loan money. In fact, my kid NEVER went on a spring break trip.
I suspect the norm is a hybrid like my situation where it was a combination of scholarships, loans and the student working, although I know some parents do pay the whole way for their kids if they have the means to do so.
Your field of study can also dictate college costs. If you are going for a general business degree to have a piece of paper to get your foot in a door for an interview, just about any college will do. If you are going after something specific, not every school may offer the course of study.
As for working papers, they are required for minors 14 - 17 to get jobs on the books. There are more restrictions for those under 16 than over. Most states require them. I guess yours does not.
The cost of everything is getting so ridiculous that it's outpacing even good jobs.
I have exactly the job I wanted, pretty close to my "dream" job, so my college degree(s) did what they were meant to do. I am as reasonably successful as anyone in this field can be. I'm probably top 15% at least. By the standards I had for myself 10 years ago, I'm doing better than I expected.
But I got priced out of housing seemingly overnight. It wasn't always like this. I was not priced out prior to 2020. Now I am. Housing went up so much so fast that even the top earners at my work are priced out. The entire field got priced out. Our recruitment fell through the basement.
I can't cut my spending enough to keep up with the increases. I'm already very frugal.
To put it into stark terms - when I first moved to my current location, I was paid 45k and got a 2br apartment for $725/mo. The job class now pays 56k but the same apartment costs $1500/mo. The same one. The SAME exact, unimproved unit, I just saw they listed it.
Over 10 years (it was 2012 I got that apt), that's a 24.4% increase in pay and a 106.8% increase in housing cost. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Last edited by redguard57; 01-28-2023 at 11:39 PM..
The cost of everything is getting so ridiculous that it's outpacing even good jobs.
I have exactly the job I wanted, pretty close to my "dream" job, so my college degree(s) did what they were meant to do. I am as reasonably successful as anyone in this field can be. I'm probably top 15% at least. By the standards I had for myself 10 years ago, I'm doing better than I expected.
But I got priced out of housing seemingly overnight. It wasn't always like this. I was not priced out prior to 2020. Now I am. Housing went up so much so fast that even the top earners at my work are priced out. The entire field got priced out. Our recruitment fell through the basement.
I can't cut my spending enough to keep up with the increases. I'm already very frugal.
To put it into stark terms - when I first moved to my current location, I was paid 45k and got a 2br apartment for $725/mo. The job class now pays 56k but the same apartment costs $1500/mo. The same one. The SAME exact, unimproved unit, I just saw they listed it.
Over 10 years (it was 2012 I got that apt), that's a 24.4% increase in pay and a 106.8% increase in housing cost. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
There is a beautiful circle here.
1. Sorry this broaches the political as macroeconomics sits at the intersection of governmental policy, taxes, central banking and banking.
A. Second quarter 2020 real GDP came in right at minus 31%. That number represented a direct threat to our way of life. Governmental and Fed Res. actions taken at the time and over the next several months were a masterclass in economic disaster recovery.
B. The next crew continued to leverage more and more money, giveaways and specific subsidies long after they were required in any real economic sense.
C. IMO we would have had an inflationary bump over the last several months anyway........however, over-priming made the problem much worse. Recall and I'll post numbers if you want to see them inflation began to creep into the system well before Russia invaded Ukraine and oil/gas spiked.
That's a long way of saying you voted for the guy who has more to to with interest rates being higher than they otherwise would be, I voted for him to per full disclosure. If mortgage rates had bumped 35 or 50 bps. you'd be able to afford the house you want (I think given numbers you've posted elsewhere - if I'm off I'm not off by much).
Another factor is you live in one of the prime CA escape zones for both remote workers and opt outs.
ETA - I failed to mention above the guy who more or less saved the world, Steve Mnuchin. He won't even be considered but that guy deserves a Nobel Prize.
Last edited by EDS_; 01-29-2023 at 09:04 AM..
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It was just an example because it's a popular place for young people to work. Actually, my own kid worked at Dunkin Donuts in her Jr. and Sr. years of high school. (Not that I like the coffee at either place, lol.) Bought her own laptop, clothing, etc.
