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Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

46 points by option_greek 11y ago

treerunner 11y ago
No doubt higher Ed is a mess in the US but this could just as easily be an article about attachment parenting gone array. The article mentions that their son is waiting on a dream career in Hollywood. One would think that critical skills gained from a media studies degree would be useful in unpacking the myth of cracking into the big time. Perhaps he would have a better chance if he took himself out of the multitudes of the uninspired waiting to be discovered and instead did something to help his family with their problem.
barney54 11y ago
These are important stories to hopefully make people thing more critically about not only the value of college, but the value of your degree. For example, a degree in journalism today doesn't really seem to convey much value.
brador 11y ago
What would it take to completely wipe out all student debt? In theory, could a Presidents pen stroke do it?
- DrScump 11y ago
  Obama has already done such a giveaway, writing off student loans for certain schools that were paper mills and shut down once they got any scrutiny. The loser? Taxpayers. Instead of discharging that debt, he could have offered to apply that balance to genuine, accredited programs (e.g. if the student had $80K in debt principal, she could get the first $80K taken from that balance instead of new debt). In other words, they made that money commitment in search of a degree -- they shouldn't just dump all that on the taxpayers with no societal gain from it. Another parallel taxpayer-funded debt reduction done by the current administration was to change such windfalls to non-taxable (as regular income, as it always had been), again at the expense of other taxpayers.
monroepe 11y ago
A Bachelor's degree doesn't really do that much for you these days. It's become like a high school diploma was 30 years ago (which almost no one paid for). I keep trying to advocate that people not go so far in debt for a college degree. For med school or law school (although I would argue that this is not a great investment with the current glut of law school grads) it makes sense to go into debt of that size. But I don't think you can or should justify student loans of over $10k for undergrad. Maybe you could stretch that to $20k, but I wouldn't (and didn't). If you can't afford a college don't go there. I left college with ~$3k in student loan debt. I went to a liberal arts college that costs ~$60k a year with room and board. My family definitely could not have afforded to send me there, but I got a lot of scholarships and financial aid. I ended up with a job that had nothing to do with my education there. I value the experience I had there, but it was not worth $60k a year by any means. There is a lot of benefit to college education, but not everyone needs to go to their dream school. Not everyone drives their dream car or lives in their dream home.
- jsudhams 11y ago
  Completely agree that degree should not be forced to get a job... US should keep the tradition job for skill than a degree otherwise USA will endup like India
- odonnellryan 11y ago
  Few friends went to a state school in NJ and lived at home - literally could not get cheaper than this situation for us - and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans. Yes, they did work part time. But 100-200 a week from a part time job doesn't go far. That's gas and lunch. They certainly got some aid other than loans, but I do not know the level of scholarships they received. Might have been their problem!
  - kamaal 11y ago
    >>and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans. Doesn't seem much, if you continue the same student life style after getting a job, that kind of debt can be seen through in 1.5-2 years. After that every thing you earn is yours.
DickingAround 11y ago
$200k for journalism and media studies was a bad investment. It's a tough message, but you have to invest in education more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best'.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  Indeed. Although I have respect for the highly educated journalists... the industry has been demolished by online blogs. The popularity contest that is the online blogosphere is more important financially than hard work and legitimate, high-quality journalism that they teach. There's almost no money in that business anymore.
  - wmil 11y ago
    Besides that most of the top papers only hire from the top ivies. Which generally don't even have journalism programs.
- SmokyBorbon 11y ago
  > you have to invest...more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best' You do realize you're on a ycombinator website right?
- larrywright 11y ago
  $200k for many majors is a bad investment. There are a handful of careers where that kind of education investment will pay off (technology, medical), but most will not.
  - gk1 11y ago
    Even for majors with high post-grad salaries (eg, engineering of any kind), you can get a degree for much less than that.
- duncanawoods 11y ago
  It was $129k for the journalism degree. The $189k is the combined figure for both their sons.
ams6110 11y ago
Never cosign a loan. There is one reason that lenders required a co-signer -- they know that the borrower is high risk for defaulting. If you can't afford or didn't save for college, go to a cheaper school. In-state tuition and fees at most state universities is more than it used to be but still generally under $10K a year. There is no reason to go into six-digit debt for an undergraduate degee. With very few exceptions, once you get your first job, nobody cares where you got your undergrad degree (if even then).
- tw04 11y ago
  Given that you can't get out of student loan debt through bankruptcy, they're at basically no risk. It might take them your entire lifetime to collect, but they'll get it eventually unless you happen to kill yourself at a young age.
  - lxmorj 11y ago
    What happens if you stop living in the US? (I realize very few people would do this, but I'm curious)
    - cpursley 11y ago
      If you leave the US, you don't stop being a US Citizen unless you revoke your citizenship. And most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts. Also, expect to see more of these types of rules, since many student loans are backed by US Government entities: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/22/irs-gains-power-get-tax-scofflaws-passports-revoked/77417570/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/... > A new enforcement provision passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this month allows the government to revoke the passports of seriously delinquent tax scofflaws — people who owe more than $50,000 to Uncle Sam.
      - GFischer 11y ago
        "most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts" How will they know? AFAIK, my country, which has pretty lenient rules, only asks for proof of no criminal record at the time the application is filled. On the other hand, you can and will be extradited to the U.S. if you were found breaking their laws and their legal system does ask.
tailgate 11y ago
At this point I wonder if they're better off selling their house and moving to Mexico or something.
carsongross 11y ago
a bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies. He's especially interested in a Hollywood career, but has found it hard to land a job there. These folks went into debt to the tune of nearly 4x the average american pre-tax income, for a theater degree. No, the lenders shouldn't have let them do that... but come on.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Journalism and media studies is actually not a theater degree, its a non-theater degree (in a different, low-paying field); its a worse choice than a theater degree for someone trying to get a theater career.
- gk1 11y ago
  Astronomical tuition costs for _some_ colleges is a broken system... Taking out massive loans to attend those overpriced colleges is a bad decision. I can at least sympathize with 17-year-old kids who sign papers without adding up the numbers, but can't feel bad for parents who willingly let this happen.
- JPKab 11y ago
  Agreed. I went to an affordable, in-state university. My father was wise enough to advise me that I was taking on debt for myself, and should think very hard about the economic consequences of my decision. Some parents are just way too nice to their kids, and these two are in that bracket. I've found it very amusing as I've grown up to notice this is a pattern in otherwise well-meaning, financially successful baby-boomer parents: in stark contrast with my father and other parents like him, they seem to encourage their children to pursue their dreams without any regard to reality. I suspect my father's financial struggles gave him a sense of practicality that some of the executives I work with never had in advising their own kids. I have 3 executives I've reported to in the past year. One of them subsidizes her 30 year old daughter's life of studying Middle Eastern cultures. Another subsidizes his son's death metal band (which he abandoned his Music degree midway for), and the third is paying for his daughter's failing business, openly complaining about the fact that she doesn't seem to show up for work very often and has hired people despite lacking revenue to even pay for herself. Parents enabling bad decisions is never a good thing.
pessimizer 11y ago
Shouldn't it? They're under 60 and they cosigned on $200K of debt. If they really thought that that they could afford be retired right now, coming up with another $200K should only take a few years between the four of them. They'd still be retiring earlier than anyone that I know who isn't wealthy. Ideally they'd have cut the taps at some point before their child spent $130K on a "journalism and media studies" degree in order to be an actor, but I understand that nobody's invented a time machine yet.
replicatorblog 11y ago
I was a writer for Wired Magazine for three years and never took a single class in journalism, and nothing beyond the required english classes in college. I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless. For-profit schools like the University of Phoenix get a lot of negative press, but how about these little known colleges referenced in the story that charge nearly as much as top of the line schools? Sadly, many colleges (most?) are simply outgrowths of an overgenerous loan subsidy program run by the government. If you want to enter a credentialed field, be it education, medicine, or law—by all means get a degree. Likewise, if you're going into a highly technical field, it's a wise investment to study intensively. Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks. In 90% of creative fields you're much better off just "doing it." I got my job at Wired by writing on my blog and getting the attention of the editor-in-chief. If you want to be a filmmaker, make films—same with music, art, etc. I essentially got paid for my "graduate school" in writing. This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities. Also, we should be talking more at the political level about vocational education and non-degree training programs to prepare people for the workforce.
- intopieces 11y ago
  >I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless. Do you have a source for this? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the exact opposite. [0] >Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks. Source? Again and again, people only seem to look at the cost of education like education is a product that you buy at a store that could be gotten cheaper if you follow this One Weird Trick. College education is an experience, an exposure to new ideas, a gradual development of ancillary skills. >This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities. Why would anyone bother to get an affordable degree when they are "in most cases... next to worthless?" Again, another person who went to college advocating that other people don't go to college. Every time this topic comes up, people who have clearly benefitted from higher education start claiming no one else needs a college education. The same attitude that led us into the student loans debacle -- "education is a product" -- is the same attitude that pervades every thread about this topic, but somehow the participants think they've 'hacked' the system by advocating people not get an education. It's bizarrely short sighted by otherwise educated individuals. [0]http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
jackcosgrove 11y ago
For that amount of money, the parents could have purchased a cheap condo for each of their children, and have the children rent it out as a source of income that would be more stable than a knowledge economy job attainable with their children's interests. Or the child could live in the condo. At this point, a condo is actually more useful than most degrees.
seivan 11y ago
Not looking forward to the large groups graduating with gender/culture/journalist degrees. A large generation lost. The smarter ones will figure out how to squeeze money from government grants like they do in Sweden.
n0us 11y ago
"Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with the U.S. Navy." Smart move. Maybe he will pay it all down some day. In this thread there are a lot of people saying you shouldn't take out a lot of loans to get a degree like journalism, and you shouldn't. I agree that is the type of degree that I would encourage someone to get as a second major, and/or from a state school. Part of the problem here is that all of these people's parents grew up in a different time period where having a technical major was less important, schools were much cheaper, and it was easier to find jobs in general. Combine this with the utter lack of skilled and proper advising for freshmen coming into college. You get there and you are 18 years old, have little concept of money and underdeveloped judgement skills. Then you go to your advisor who is a scatter-brained English professor with books all over his office. Advising for him is just one of those things you have to do as a professor but he isn't really there to advise and has no idea what to tell you, or his 100 other advisees. So then he asks you what you like and you tell him you like writing. There you go, major in journalism. Even then, some people might want to sign up for CS or Business but they lose the class signup lottery because those departments are under funded and don't have enough sections. Then they lose again for the next 3 semesters and are forced to declare a major in classes that they already have experience in. There is no point where they explain the value of a degree to you and it can be difficult to understand for most people until they are 2 or 3 years in and suddenly realize that they are stuck in this path and can't go back to change majors because it would take more school and they can't take on more debt. You can't drop out and start over later because then you have to start paying those loans and don't have a degree at all. tl;dr; it isn't just these kids making bad decisions, it is a dysfunctional system that leads people down paths that are convenient for the school, not necessarily for the students.
- JPKab 11y ago
  "Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with the U.S. Navy." So his mother and father, who both work for the Navy on the taxpayer's dime, got their son connected with an internship program for the Navy on the taxpayer's dime. I have no doubt that this was 100% through merit, and had nothing to do with both of them having jobs there. The Navy has another paid-internship and training program for college graduates with no job: it's called ENLISTING.
sakopov 11y ago
While majoring in Computer Science at MU, not a fancy school by any means, i had a job in my field on the third year of school and by the time i graduated i had a few years of development experience. Most folks I communicated with in school had similar experience. Those who didn't were typically foreign students. Do other majors not work this way? It baffles me how someone went through their college career, at a prestigious school at that, and couldn't get some kind of job/internship.
TrevorJ 11y ago
If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's your debt.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's your debt. Actually, if you co-sign, its both, and primarily the son's.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    My point is, one of personal responsibility. You are agreeing that if the need arises you are willing to be 'on the hook' for the money owed. It isn't their son's debt that is keeping them from retiring, it is the choice that they made to co-sign the loan.
ck2 11y ago
$130k on a journalism degree which is rapidly becoming a professional blogger? This is a first-world, lack of common-sense problem.
wmil 11y ago
The real solution to this is to open up some kind of bond market for majors. Bundle up a bunch of student loans by major and create a partly public partly private debt obligations. Schools have far too much incentive to lie about the value of different degrees. Parents and high school advisors don't have the necessary information. A market device would give students the feedback they need to plan their futures. Plus if large employers ever complain about the skills that grads are lacking, they can be asked to invest in the appropriate student loan category.
- pigpaws 11y ago
  large corps already complain about not having enough 'skilled' labor, so they just abuse the H1B visa system. They don't actively invest in the skill set of their own workforce, let alone that of the upcoming students.
- tacostakohashi 11y ago
  There is already a lot of information available about the labor market in general, and colleges are also required to provide gainful employment statistics for graduates. Despite this, it seems that many students make poor decisions, probably for more subtle reasons (easy availability of loans, wanting to experience college, wanting a gap between school and work, etc). Securitizing student loans by major and having a liquid market for the securities is an interesting idea, but its hard for me to imagine that the information provided would have any impact on this problem. If students, counselors, etc already ignore the plentiful labor market statistics available, a I'm sure they'll have no trouble ignoring a proxy for those statistics.
cpursley 11y ago
I wonder if allowing bankruptcy for student loans would allow the market to price them correctly (based on job prospects, etc)?
rayiner 11y ago
I see a lot of people blaming the government for college costs, but the fact is that, unlike for graduate school loans, the amount of guaranteed undergraduate loans individuals can take on is capped at $12,500 Stafford + up to $5,500 in Perkins loans. Beyond that you need parents to sign on for PLUS loans, which require a credit check. The real problem is that we've been indoctrinated to overvalue education and artificial college rankings. If you're a Virginia resident, going to UVA will cost you almost $30,000 a year, in-state, including room and board (unless your parents happen to live in Charlottesville). But you can go to George Mason for only $11,000 a year living at home. But few people who can get into UVA go to GMU because you're giving up a lot of job prospects in the process, plus have to deal with the "commuter college" stigma. And employers don't really ascribe a much higher value to a UVA education versus a GMU one--they just want to sort people who managed to get into UVA from people who didn't.
andmarios 11y ago
From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if everything went well, they would already have retired. In contrast, European Union asks Greece (and other PIIGS countries) to set the minimum retirement age at 67 if it wants to stay a member...
- GFischer 11y ago
  Indeed. My country follows EU very closely in this, and I don't expect I'd be able to retire before 65 if I stayed an employee, and it's very, very likely the law will be changed to a minimum retirement age of 70 during my working life (social security is very close to defaulting).
- theandrewbailey 11y ago
  > From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if everything went well, they would already have retired. Things would have to have gone really well to retire before 60 in USA. Most Americans don't even consider retiring until at least that, often 65.
cryoshon 11y ago
All of the people here writing about how these people shouldn't have picked non-STEM majors are missing the point entirely. These people in the article are the population we've got, not the population we want to have; Monday morning quarterbacking is completely useless, as the debt is already accrued. To state it again: this is the population we actually have. They are not technically skilled, but they are educated and heavily indebted. They were told "go to college, get any degree, and you will have success." This was not accurate, and now, we have an entire generation that is suffering. Student loan debt is smashing the potential of the millenials and is now increasingly seen as a massive burden on their parents and (mostly uncreated, due to insufficient funds) children as well. Large-scale debt relief is mandatory at this point, as all of the money siphoned to debt maintenance is severely limiting the amount of demand that the economy's primary consumers are able to create. Millenials aren't buying homes, aren't having kids, aren't buying cars, aren't able to put their parents into nursing homes, etc. The parents of the millenials typically have some wealth that can be extracted, and so, it's on the chopping block. This is why loans have cosigners-- so that their bank accounts can be emptied, too. Debt slavery is the reality we live in, and predictably, debtors parents aren't thrilled that their retirement is being siphoned away by their children's debt. As I said, this debt is a massive drag on the economy, and debt relief is mandatory. Unfortunately, there's not so much going on politically right now, so I think that a mass student debt boycott is a better decision. It's unlikely that the lenders will be bankrupted, but it'll send a message at least. Sure, they'll ruin everyone's credit and dock people's wages, but that can only be sustained until there's white riots due to poverty. And it'll probably take riots to end this debt slavery-- it takes riots to fix things in a broken country.
will_brown 11y ago
It is important to know and not perpetuate the myths about student loans... -Federally guaranteed student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy (it is just a different standard than other debts); and -Federal plus loans (a type of educational loan for parents) can also be discharged, not just through bankruptcy but also directly through the US Department of Education, for example one program is for permanent and total disability, and with the aging population more and more parents with $100,000's in loans for their kids will be eligible for this discharge.
- otterley 11y ago
  > -Federally guaranteed student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy (it is just a different standard than other debts) As a practical matter, it is not dischargeable. The standard is nearly impossible to meet.
  - will_brown 11y ago
    >The standard is nearly impossible to meet. Not really, the standard is "undue hardship". The problem is the myth...Of ~900,000 bankruptcy filings in 2014 only ~700 listed student loans as a debt to be discharged, of that number do you know how many were successfully discharged? The truth is of ~900,000 bankruptcies vastly more were eligible to have student loans discharged but didn't because they didn't even try. As a lawyer I have personally worked with a client to have a >$100,000 parent loan discharged directly with the US Dept of Education, and in no way would this client come close to being eligible for a normal bankruptcy.
    - otterley 11y ago
      Did the lender contest? Was the bankruptcy actually adjudicated? Your client may well have just gotten lucky. The Brunner test is a tough one to pass.
      - will_brown 11y ago
        Discharge through bankruptcy and discharge through the US Dept of Education are different reliefs. In bankruptcy, available statistics show educational loans are discharged, in whole/part, 50% of the time when attempted. My client's loan was discharged through the US Dept of Education. Unlike bankruptcy a lender can't contest, there is no adjudication because the matter does not go to court and a lawyer really isn't needed. It surely isn't luck. While most people falsely believe student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, even more don't even have any idea there is a separate process to discharge student loans directly through the US Dept of Education.
gd78 11y ago
Wow, living in Germany I graduated in CS with ~7k in loans. Just the idea that a government does not pay its childrens education is freakin me out and from my perspective seems to be a neo liberalism horror story.
- pigpaws 11y ago
  college professors in the States need to be compensated at the same rate as company CEOs. EVERYONE 'deserves' a flat screen 4k TV, a brand new car every 3 years and 7%+ gains on any and all investments, otherwise, it isn't "fair".
  - tostitos1979 11y ago
    Umm .. no. As someone who was a lecturer for a top CS dept, I can tell you that professors do not get compensated the same as CEOs. You can use google to check salaries for public university professors in many places (since this information is public). When a CS PhD accepts a job at a University, they take a pay cut from what the private sector pays. A full professor makes under 200K, and that is at the top of the stack. The average take for assistant and associate profs (at top CS schools in North America) is more like 130-140K. Not what CEOs make!
    - Futurebot 11y ago
      Not to mention how many professors are being replaced by adjuncts ("Overall, non-tenure- track faculty, often known as adjunct or contingent faculty, now account for three-quarters of the instructional faculty at non-profit colleges and universities across the country."): http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforce http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforc... Those adjuncts are often contingent, low-paid workers: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many-adjunct-professors-food-stamps-n336596 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your-professor.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your... http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive-if-professors-are-paid-so-little/ http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive... The numbers you present themselves are in the top 25% or 33% (depending on which measure you look at) of earners as professors, all inclusive. The idea that most professors are well-compensated on the whole is absurd. Wasn't the old deal supposed to be "decent compensation, but not great, made up for with great benefits and tenure?" Now it's "terrible compensation and no benefits, no tenure." Of course, the person you're responding to seems to be making their comment sarcastically in any case.
gd78 11y ago
Wow, living in Germany I graduated in CS with ~7k in loans. Just the idea that a government does not pay its childrens education is freakin me out and from my perspective seems to be a neo liberalism horror story.
duked 11y ago
I don't want to be harsh but the reality is either you can afford to try a very hard path such as "bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies." where it seems competencies don't really matter or you push your kids to study something where the odds of finding a jobs are higher. Unfortunately it seems like, journalism, acting, professional sports is not about talent but about who you meet and when :/ May be I'm a pessimist but that's how I feel about certain jobs/career paths.
joshstrange 11y ago
Guidance counselors across this country are massively failing the students who turn to them for... guidance. Mine pushed me into AP/Honors classes for subjects I had almost zero interest in causing me to get B's when I could have easily gotten A's in the regular classes (Comp Sci was the exception, I'm glad I took the AP version of that, at both A and AB levels). Even with my score on the ACT being very good I wasn't able to qualify for certain loans through my college (and some privates ones/grants) due to a lower (un-weighted) GPA which increased my tutiation. This coupled with a complete lack of understanding how student loans work or what I would be responsible for (I take 100% responsibility for this failing I just wish there had been more education on the issue). Now I've got some ~$60K left in student loans and I didn't even finish college because all of my job prospects said they didn't care about a degree if I could do the work required (software engineer). I am, thankfully, able to make the payments on them but (and again, I take full responsibility) student loans were practically billed as "Free money" and just "something everyone did"... The "good debt" to have... What a load of BS. I liked my college experience and the life-long friends I made but knowing what I know now I might have cut my college even shorter or possibly not gone as I was able to get a part-time job (I could have worked full time if I had wanted) in my first semester at school in my field... This will not hold for all majors of course but the college (and high school) system sells college as a job ticket and that couldn't be further from the truth in today's world.
mwhuang2 11y ago
I recommend the book "Worthless: The Young Person's Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major" by Aaron Clarey for a brutally honest, if exaggerated, take on higher education and employment.
swalsh 11y ago
It's amazing that someone with virtually no life experience (12 years in grade school?) has to make this huge life decision on what they want to go to school for. Do they want to be an artist, maybe an engineer? They then get thousands of dollars in loans to go pursue it. It's probably the second biggest monetary investment in their life (if they buy a house), but probably the least educated investment. Now, some people get amazing help in high school while making this decision. They have extremely intelligent parents, a very supportive school counselor/teachers etc. But a lot, and I know this from experience have zero help. I know today that if i'm going to invest a hundred thousand dollars in a college education I should probably try to know what the market 5+ years from now will be (good luck with that) maybe I should know what the ROI is on that degree... maybe I should know how competitive the labor market is/will be. When i was 18 graduating from school I had zero help with this process. Zero. I was told "pursue what you love". How do you expect an (average) 18 year old to make this evaluation? In my perfect world, we would increase business taxes to pay for higher education, those taxes would then be given directly to programs. Programming industry needs more programmers? easy give more money to computer science education. Students of course will still apply to programs they're most interested in, but in a competitive industry they'll get rejected BEFORE they make the major investment. If it takes a congressional act to change industry taxes, you can be assured someone is going to do some studies on how much each program will need. It's better to have a professional do that, than to hope the student maybe looks into it. Finally how many jobs ask for a bachelors that just don't need it? If you start asking companies to pay for that education, they might make a better evaluation if its necessary. Things just get more efficient, perhaps less "fair", but I don't life crippling debt is fair either.
jld89 11y ago
Just go for a few years and get your degree in europe. Education in most countries is almost free of charge (between 100€ and 500€ a year) So you can get a degree for 7k€ (if you live relatively well if you are thrifty it will be less than that. this without working part time, this includes living expenses) per year. So in total 21k€ max. That is 23k USD(Jan, 2016 rate). That is what you would pay in 1 year in a low level college in the US, without the living expenses! (All this even if you are a foreigner) Why pay that when you can study in the Sorbonne or in the Freie Universität Berlin? There are even degrees in English. Admittedly one needs to talk the language (french, german) but it is definitely worth it. Not to talk about the experience you get for the money. PS: This is what I did, currently doing my masters degree in Engineering in France.

46 points by option_greek 11y ago

No doubt higher Ed is a mess in the US but this could just as easily be an article about attachment parenting gone array. The article mentions that their son is waiting on a dream career in Hollywood. One would think that critical skills gained from a media studies degree would be useful in unpacking the myth of cracking into the big time. Perhaps he would have a better chance if he took himself out of the multitudes of the uninspired waiting to be discovered and instead did something to help his family with their problem.

barney54 11y ago

These are important stories to hopefully make people thing more critically about not only the value of college, but the value of your degree. For example, a degree in journalism today doesn't really seem to convey much value.

brador 11y ago

What would it take to completely wipe out all student debt? In theory, could a Presidents pen stroke do it?

DrScump 11y ago
Obama has already done such a giveaway, writing off student loans for certain schools that were paper mills and shut down once they got any scrutiny. The loser? Taxpayers. Instead of discharging that debt, he could have offered to apply that balance to genuine, accredited programs (e.g. if the student had $80K in debt principal, she could get the first $80K taken from that balance instead of new debt). In other words, they made that money commitment in search of a degree -- they shouldn't just dump all that on the taxpayers with no societal gain from it. Another parallel taxpayer-funded debt reduction done by the current administration was to change such windfalls to non-taxable (as regular income, as it always had been), again at the expense of other taxpayers.

monroepe 11y ago

A Bachelor's degree doesn't really do that much for you these days. It's become like a high school diploma was 30 years ago (which almost no one paid for). I keep trying to advocate that people not go so far in debt for a college degree. For med school or law school (although I would argue that this is not a great investment with the current glut of law school grads) it makes sense to go into debt of that size. But I don't think you can or should justify student loans of over $10k for undergrad. Maybe you could stretch that to $20k, but I wouldn't (and didn't). If you can't afford a college don't go there. I left college with ~$3k in student loan debt. I went to a liberal arts college that costs ~$60k a year with room and board. My family definitely could not have afforded to send me there, but I got a lot of scholarships and financial aid. I ended up with a job that had nothing to do with my education there. I value the experience I had there, but it was not worth $60k a year by any means. There is a lot of benefit to college education, but not everyone needs to go to their dream school. Not everyone drives their dream car or lives in their dream home.

jsudhams 11y ago
Completely agree that degree should not be forced to get a job... US should keep the tradition job for skill than a degree otherwise USA will endup like India
odonnellryan 11y ago
Few friends went to a state school in NJ and lived at home - literally could not get cheaper than this situation for us - and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans. Yes, they did work part time. But 100-200 a week from a part time job doesn't go far. That's gas and lunch. They certainly got some aid other than loans, but I do not know the level of scholarships they received. Might have been their problem!
- kamaal 11y ago
  >>and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans. Doesn't seem much, if you continue the same student life style after getting a job, that kind of debt can be seen through in 1.5-2 years. After that every thing you earn is yours.

DickingAround 11y ago

$200k for journalism and media studies was a bad investment. It's a tough message, but you have to invest in education more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best'.

dragontamer 11y ago
Indeed. Although I have respect for the highly educated journalists... the industry has been demolished by online blogs. The popularity contest that is the online blogosphere is more important financially than hard work and legitimate, high-quality journalism that they teach. There's almost no money in that business anymore.
- wmil 11y ago
  Besides that most of the top papers only hire from the top ivies. Which generally don't even have journalism programs.
SmokyBorbon 11y ago
> you have to invest...more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best' You do realize you're on a ycombinator website right?
larrywright 11y ago
$200k for many majors is a bad investment. There are a handful of careers where that kind of education investment will pay off (technology, medical), but most will not.
- gk1 11y ago
  Even for majors with high post-grad salaries (eg, engineering of any kind), you can get a degree for much less than that.
duncanawoods 11y ago
It was $129k for the journalism degree. The $189k is the combined figure for both their sons.

ams6110 11y ago

Never cosign a loan. There is one reason that lenders required a co-signer -- they know that the borrower is high risk for defaulting. If you can't afford or didn't save for college, go to a cheaper school. In-state tuition and fees at most state universities is more than it used to be but still generally under $10K a year. There is no reason to go into six-digit debt for an undergraduate degee. With very few exceptions, once you get your first job, nobody cares where you got your undergrad degree (if even then).

tw04 11y ago
Given that you can't get out of student loan debt through bankruptcy, they're at basically no risk. It might take them your entire lifetime to collect, but they'll get it eventually unless you happen to kill yourself at a young age.
- lxmorj 11y ago
  What happens if you stop living in the US? (I realize very few people would do this, but I'm curious)
  - cpursley 11y ago
    If you leave the US, you don't stop being a US Citizen unless you revoke your citizenship. And most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts. Also, expect to see more of these types of rules, since many student loans are backed by US Government entities: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/22/irs-gains-power-get-tax-scofflaws-passports-revoked/77417570/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/12/... > A new enforcement provision passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this month allows the government to revoke the passports of seriously delinquent tax scofflaws — people who owe more than $50,000 to Uncle Sam.
    - GFischer 11y ago
      "most nations won't allow you to become a citizen if you have foreign debts" How will they know? AFAIK, my country, which has pretty lenient rules, only asks for proof of no criminal record at the time the application is filled. On the other hand, you can and will be extradited to the U.S. if you were found breaking their laws and their legal system does ask.

tailgate 11y ago

At this point I wonder if they're better off selling their house and moving to Mexico or something.

carsongross 11y ago

a bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies. He's especially interested in a Hollywood career, but has found it hard to land a job there. These folks went into debt to the tune of nearly 4x the average american pre-tax income, for a theater degree. No, the lenders shouldn't have let them do that... but come on.

dragonwriter 11y ago
Journalism and media studies is actually not a theater degree, its a non-theater degree (in a different, low-paying field); its a worse choice than a theater degree for someone trying to get a theater career.
gk1 11y ago
Astronomical tuition costs for _some_ colleges is a broken system... Taking out massive loans to attend those overpriced colleges is a bad decision. I can at least sympathize with 17-year-old kids who sign papers without adding up the numbers, but can't feel bad for parents who willingly let this happen.
JPKab 11y ago
Agreed. I went to an affordable, in-state university. My father was wise enough to advise me that I was taking on debt for myself, and should think very hard about the economic consequences of my decision. Some parents are just way too nice to their kids, and these two are in that bracket. I've found it very amusing as I've grown up to notice this is a pattern in otherwise well-meaning, financially successful baby-boomer parents: in stark contrast with my father and other parents like him, they seem to encourage their children to pursue their dreams without any regard to reality. I suspect my father's financial struggles gave him a sense of practicality that some of the executives I work with never had in advising their own kids. I have 3 executives I've reported to in the past year. One of them subsidizes her 30 year old daughter's life of studying Middle Eastern cultures. Another subsidizes his son's death metal band (which he abandoned his Music degree midway for), and the third is paying for his daughter's failing business, openly complaining about the fact that she doesn't seem to show up for work very often and has hired people despite lacking revenue to even pay for herself. Parents enabling bad decisions is never a good thing.

pessimizer 11y ago

Shouldn't it? They're under 60 and they cosigned on $200K of debt. If they really thought that that they could afford be retired right now, coming up with another $200K should only take a few years between the four of them. They'd still be retiring earlier than anyone that I know who isn't wealthy. Ideally they'd have cut the taps at some point before their child spent $130K on a "journalism and media studies" degree in order to be an actor, but I understand that nobody's invented a time machine yet.

replicatorblog 11y ago

I was a writer for Wired Magazine for three years and never took a single class in journalism, and nothing beyond the required english classes in college. I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless. For-profit schools like the University of Phoenix get a lot of negative press, but how about these little known colleges referenced in the story that charge nearly as much as top of the line schools? Sadly, many colleges (most?) are simply outgrowths of an overgenerous loan subsidy program run by the government. If you want to enter a credentialed field, be it education, medicine, or law—by all means get a degree. Likewise, if you're going into a highly technical field, it's a wise investment to study intensively. Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks. In 90% of creative fields you're much better off just "doing it." I got my job at Wired by writing on my blog and getting the attention of the editor-in-chief. If you want to be a filmmaker, make films—same with music, art, etc. I essentially got paid for my "graduate school" in writing. This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities. Also, we should be talking more at the political level about vocational education and non-degree training programs to prepare people for the workforce.

intopieces 11y ago
>I think we need to do more to help educate parents and prospective students that in most cases a college degree is next to worthless. Do you have a source for this? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the exact opposite. [0] >Most psych/business majors would be better served working their way up through the ranks. Source? Again and again, people only seem to look at the cost of education like education is a product that you buy at a store that could be gotten cheaper if you follow this One Weird Trick. College education is an experience, an exposure to new ideas, a gradual development of ancillary skills. >This is easier said than done when most entry level gigs require a college degree, but you can still get an affordable degree at most state universities. Why would anyone bother to get an affordable degree when they are "in most cases... next to worthless?" Again, another person who went to college advocating that other people don't go to college. Every time this topic comes up, people who have clearly benefitted from higher education start claiming no one else needs a college education. The same attitude that led us into the student loans debacle -- "education is a product" -- is the same attitude that pervades every thread about this topic, but somehow the participants think they've 'hacked' the system by advocating people not get an education. It's bizarrely short sighted by otherwise educated individuals. [0]http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

jackcosgrove 11y ago

For that amount of money, the parents could have purchased a cheap condo for each of their children, and have the children rent it out as a source of income that would be more stable than a knowledge economy job attainable with their children's interests. Or the child could live in the condo. At this point, a condo is actually more useful than most degrees.

seivan 11y ago

Not looking forward to the large groups graduating with gender/culture/journalist degrees. A large generation lost. The smarter ones will figure out how to squeeze money from government grants like they do in Sweden.

n0us 11y ago

"Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with the U.S. Navy." Smart move. Maybe he will pay it all down some day. In this thread there are a lot of people saying you shouldn't take out a lot of loans to get a degree like journalism, and you shouldn't. I agree that is the type of degree that I would encourage someone to get as a second major, and/or from a state school. Part of the problem here is that all of these people's parents grew up in a different time period where having a technical major was less important, schools were much cheaper, and it was easier to find jobs in general. Combine this with the utter lack of skilled and proper advising for freshmen coming into college. You get there and you are 18 years old, have little concept of money and underdeveloped judgement skills. Then you go to your advisor who is a scatter-brained English professor with books all over his office. Advising for him is just one of those things you have to do as a professor but he isn't really there to advise and has no idea what to tell you, or his 100 other advisees. So then he asks you what you like and you tell him you like writing. There you go, major in journalism. Even then, some people might want to sign up for CS or Business but they lose the class signup lottery because those departments are under funded and don't have enough sections. Then they lose again for the next 3 semesters and are forced to declare a major in classes that they already have experience in. There is no point where they explain the value of a degree to you and it can be difficult to understand for most people until they are 2 or 3 years in and suddenly realize that they are stuck in this path and can't go back to change majors because it would take more school and they can't take on more debt. You can't drop out and start over later because then you have to start paying those loans and don't have a degree at all. tl;dr; it isn't just these kids making bad decisions, it is a dysfunctional system that leads people down paths that are convenient for the school, not necessarily for the students.

JPKab 11y ago
"Sean is now pursuing another bachelor's degree, this time in computer science, from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He is paying for this degree as he goes, with help from an internship program with the U.S. Navy." So his mother and father, who both work for the Navy on the taxpayer's dime, got their son connected with an internship program for the Navy on the taxpayer's dime. I have no doubt that this was 100% through merit, and had nothing to do with both of them having jobs there. The Navy has another paid-internship and training program for college graduates with no job: it's called ENLISTING.

sakopov 11y ago

While majoring in Computer Science at MU, not a fancy school by any means, i had a job in my field on the third year of school and by the time i graduated i had a few years of development experience. Most folks I communicated with in school had similar experience. Those who didn't were typically foreign students. Do other majors not work this way? It baffles me how someone went through their college career, at a prestigious school at that, and couldn't get some kind of job/internship.

TrevorJ 11y ago

If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's your debt.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> If you co-sign a loan it's not your son's debt, it's your debt. Actually, if you co-sign, its both, and primarily the son's.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  My point is, one of personal responsibility. You are agreeing that if the need arises you are willing to be 'on the hook' for the money owed. It isn't their son's debt that is keeping them from retiring, it is the choice that they made to co-sign the loan.

ck2 11y ago

$130k on a journalism degree which is rapidly becoming a professional blogger? This is a first-world, lack of common-sense problem.

wmil 11y ago

The real solution to this is to open up some kind of bond market for majors. Bundle up a bunch of student loans by major and create a partly public partly private debt obligations. Schools have far too much incentive to lie about the value of different degrees. Parents and high school advisors don't have the necessary information. A market device would give students the feedback they need to plan their futures. Plus if large employers ever complain about the skills that grads are lacking, they can be asked to invest in the appropriate student loan category.

pigpaws 11y ago
large corps already complain about not having enough 'skilled' labor, so they just abuse the H1B visa system. They don't actively invest in the skill set of their own workforce, let alone that of the upcoming students.
tacostakohashi 11y ago
There is already a lot of information available about the labor market in general, and colleges are also required to provide gainful employment statistics for graduates. Despite this, it seems that many students make poor decisions, probably for more subtle reasons (easy availability of loans, wanting to experience college, wanting a gap between school and work, etc). Securitizing student loans by major and having a liquid market for the securities is an interesting idea, but its hard for me to imagine that the information provided would have any impact on this problem. If students, counselors, etc already ignore the plentiful labor market statistics available, a I'm sure they'll have no trouble ignoring a proxy for those statistics.

cpursley 11y ago

I wonder if allowing bankruptcy for student loans would allow the market to price them correctly (based on job prospects, etc)?

rayiner 11y ago

I see a lot of people blaming the government for college costs, but the fact is that, unlike for graduate school loans, the amount of guaranteed undergraduate loans individuals can take on is capped at $12,500 Stafford + up to $5,500 in Perkins loans. Beyond that you need parents to sign on for PLUS loans, which require a credit check. The real problem is that we've been indoctrinated to overvalue education and artificial college rankings. If you're a Virginia resident, going to UVA will cost you almost $30,000 a year, in-state, including room and board (unless your parents happen to live in Charlottesville). But you can go to George Mason for only $11,000 a year living at home. But few people who can get into UVA go to GMU because you're giving up a lot of job prospects in the process, plus have to deal with the "commuter college" stigma. And employers don't really ascribe a much higher value to a UVA education versus a GMU one--they just want to sort people who managed to get into UVA from people who didn't.

andmarios 11y ago

From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if everything went well, they would already have retired. In contrast, European Union asks Greece (and other PIIGS countries) to set the minimum retirement age at 67 if it wants to stay a member...

GFischer 11y ago
Indeed. My country follows EU very closely in this, and I don't expect I'd be able to retire before 65 if I stayed an employee, and it's very, very likely the law will be changed to a minimum retirement age of 70 during my working life (social security is very close to defaulting).
theandrewbailey 11y ago
> From a different point of view, the parents are age 57 and 59 and if everything went well, they would already have retired. Things would have to have gone really well to retire before 60 in USA. Most Americans don't even consider retiring until at least that, often 65.

cryoshon 11y ago

All of the people here writing about how these people shouldn't have picked non-STEM majors are missing the point entirely. These people in the article are the population we've got, not the population we want to have; Monday morning quarterbacking is completely useless, as the debt is already accrued. To state it again: this is the population we actually have. They are not technically skilled, but they are educated and heavily indebted. They were told "go to college, get any degree, and you will have success." This was not accurate, and now, we have an entire generation that is suffering. Student loan debt is smashing the potential of the millenials and is now increasingly seen as a massive burden on their parents and (mostly uncreated, due to insufficient funds) children as well. Large-scale debt relief is mandatory at this point, as all of the money siphoned to debt maintenance is severely limiting the amount of demand that the economy's primary consumers are able to create. Millenials aren't buying homes, aren't having kids, aren't buying cars, aren't able to put their parents into nursing homes, etc. The parents of the millenials typically have some wealth that can be extracted, and so, it's on the chopping block. This is why loans have cosigners-- so that their bank accounts can be emptied, too. Debt slavery is the reality we live in, and predictably, debtors parents aren't thrilled that their retirement is being siphoned away by their children's debt. As I said, this debt is a massive drag on the economy, and debt relief is mandatory. Unfortunately, there's not so much going on politically right now, so I think that a mass student debt boycott is a better decision. It's unlikely that the lenders will be bankrupted, but it'll send a message at least. Sure, they'll ruin everyone's credit and dock people's wages, but that can only be sustained until there's white riots due to poverty. And it'll probably take riots to end this debt slavery-- it takes riots to fix things in a broken country.

will_brown 11y ago

It is important to know and not perpetuate the myths about student loans... -Federally guaranteed student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy (it is just a different standard than other debts); and -Federal plus loans (a type of educational loan for parents) can also be discharged, not just through bankruptcy but also directly through the US Department of Education, for example one program is for permanent and total disability, and with the aging population more and more parents with $100,000's in loans for their kids will be eligible for this discharge.

otterley 11y ago
> -Federally guaranteed student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy (it is just a different standard than other debts) As a practical matter, it is not dischargeable. The standard is nearly impossible to meet.
- will_brown 11y ago
  >The standard is nearly impossible to meet. Not really, the standard is "undue hardship". The problem is the myth...Of ~900,000 bankruptcy filings in 2014 only ~700 listed student loans as a debt to be discharged, of that number do you know how many were successfully discharged? The truth is of ~900,000 bankruptcies vastly more were eligible to have student loans discharged but didn't because they didn't even try. As a lawyer I have personally worked with a client to have a >$100,000 parent loan discharged directly with the US Dept of Education, and in no way would this client come close to being eligible for a normal bankruptcy.
  - otterley 11y ago
    Did the lender contest? Was the bankruptcy actually adjudicated? Your client may well have just gotten lucky. The Brunner test is a tough one to pass.
    - will_brown 11y ago
      Discharge through bankruptcy and discharge through the US Dept of Education are different reliefs. In bankruptcy, available statistics show educational loans are discharged, in whole/part, 50% of the time when attempted. My client's loan was discharged through the US Dept of Education. Unlike bankruptcy a lender can't contest, there is no adjudication because the matter does not go to court and a lawyer really isn't needed. It surely isn't luck. While most people falsely believe student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy, even more don't even have any idea there is a separate process to discharge student loans directly through the US Dept of Education.

gd78 11y ago

Wow, living in Germany I graduated in CS with ~7k in loans. Just the idea that a government does not pay its childrens education is freakin me out and from my perspective seems to be a neo liberalism horror story.

pigpaws 11y ago
college professors in the States need to be compensated at the same rate as company CEOs. EVERYONE 'deserves' a flat screen 4k TV, a brand new car every 3 years and 7%+ gains on any and all investments, otherwise, it isn't "fair".
- tostitos1979 11y ago
  Umm .. no. As someone who was a lecturer for a top CS dept, I can tell you that professors do not get compensated the same as CEOs. You can use google to check salaries for public university professors in many places (since this information is public). When a CS PhD accepts a job at a University, they take a pay cut from what the private sector pays. A full professor makes under 200K, and that is at the top of the stack. The average take for assistant and associate profs (at top CS schools in North America) is more like 130-140K. Not what CEOs make!
  - Futurebot 11y ago
    Not to mention how many professors are being replaced by adjuncts ("Overall, non-tenure- track faculty, often known as adjunct or contingent faculty, now account for three-quarters of the instructional faculty at non-profit colleges and universities across the country."): http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforce http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforc... Those adjuncts are often contingent, low-paid workers: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many-adjunct-professors-food-stamps-n336596 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your-professor.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your... http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive-if-professors-are-paid-so-little/ http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive... The numbers you present themselves are in the top 25% or 33% (depending on which measure you look at) of earners as professors, all inclusive. The idea that most professors are well-compensated on the whole is absurd. Wasn't the old deal supposed to be "decent compensation, but not great, made up for with great benefits and tenure?" Now it's "terrible compensation and no benefits, no tenure." Of course, the person you're responding to seems to be making their comment sarcastically in any case.

gd78 11y ago

duked 11y ago

I don't want to be harsh but the reality is either you can afford to try a very hard path such as "bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies." where it seems competencies don't really matter or you push your kids to study something where the odds of finding a jobs are higher. Unfortunately it seems like, journalism, acting, professional sports is not about talent but about who you meet and when :/ May be I'm a pessimist but that's how I feel about certain jobs/career paths.

joshstrange 11y ago

Guidance counselors across this country are massively failing the students who turn to them for... guidance. Mine pushed me into AP/Honors classes for subjects I had almost zero interest in causing me to get B's when I could have easily gotten A's in the regular classes (Comp Sci was the exception, I'm glad I took the AP version of that, at both A and AB levels). Even with my score on the ACT being very good I wasn't able to qualify for certain loans through my college (and some privates ones/grants) due to a lower (un-weighted) GPA which increased my tutiation. This coupled with a complete lack of understanding how student loans work or what I would be responsible for (I take 100% responsibility for this failing I just wish there had been more education on the issue). Now I've got some ~$60K left in student loans and I didn't even finish college because all of my job prospects said they didn't care about a degree if I could do the work required (software engineer). I am, thankfully, able to make the payments on them but (and again, I take full responsibility) student loans were practically billed as "Free money" and just "something everyone did"... The "good debt" to have... What a load of BS. I liked my college experience and the life-long friends I made but knowing what I know now I might have cut my college even shorter or possibly not gone as I was able to get a part-time job (I could have worked full time if I had wanted) in my first semester at school in my field... This will not hold for all majors of course but the college (and high school) system sells college as a job ticket and that couldn't be further from the truth in today's world.

mwhuang2 11y ago

I recommend the book "Worthless: The Young Person's Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major" by Aaron Clarey for a brutally honest, if exaggerated, take on higher education and employment.

swalsh 11y ago

It's amazing that someone with virtually no life experience (12 years in grade school?) has to make this huge life decision on what they want to go to school for. Do they want to be an artist, maybe an engineer? They then get thousands of dollars in loans to go pursue it. It's probably the second biggest monetary investment in their life (if they buy a house), but probably the least educated investment. Now, some people get amazing help in high school while making this decision. They have extremely intelligent parents, a very supportive school counselor/teachers etc. But a lot, and I know this from experience have zero help. I know today that if i'm going to invest a hundred thousand dollars in a college education I should probably try to know what the market 5+ years from now will be (good luck with that) maybe I should know what the ROI is on that degree... maybe I should know how competitive the labor market is/will be. When i was 18 graduating from school I had zero help with this process. Zero. I was told "pursue what you love". How do you expect an (average) 18 year old to make this evaluation? In my perfect world, we would increase business taxes to pay for higher education, those taxes would then be given directly to programs. Programming industry needs more programmers? easy give more money to computer science education. Students of course will still apply to programs they're most interested in, but in a competitive industry they'll get rejected BEFORE they make the major investment. If it takes a congressional act to change industry taxes, you can be assured someone is going to do some studies on how much each program will need. It's better to have a professional do that, than to hope the student maybe looks into it. Finally how many jobs ask for a bachelors that just don't need it? If you start asking companies to pay for that education, they might make a better evaluation if its necessary. Things just get more efficient, perhaps less "fair", but I don't life crippling debt is fair either.

jld89 11y ago

Just go for a few years and get your degree in europe. Education in most countries is almost free of charge (between 100€ and 500€ a year) So you can get a degree for 7k€ (if you live relatively well if you are thrifty it will be less than that. this without working part time, this includes living expenses) per year. So in total 21k€ max. That is 23k USD(Jan, 2016 rate). That is what you would pay in 1 year in a low level college in the US, without the living expenses! (All this even if you are a foreigner) Why pay that when you can study in the Sorbonne or in the Freie Universität Berlin? There are even degrees in English. Admittedly one needs to talk the language (french, german) but it is definitely worth it. Not to talk about the experience you get for the money. PS: This is what I did, currently doing my masters degree in Engineering in France.