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Realistically though, they really did have no choice but to take out expensive loans for the best school they could get into. Long term, choosing to go to e.g.
by benrbray 8y ago
Realistically though, they really did have no choice but to take out expensive loans for the best school they could get into. Long term, choosing to go to e.g. a cheaper community college or not attending college at all costs much more than loans do (as long as the student works hard during college).
Part of the problem is that high school doesn't teach students a lot of the things they really should know for the real world. For the most part, the first two years of college are spent covering topics my parents learned in high school. The average student doesn't get to the real meat of their degree until their third or fourth year, which I think is a real problem.
But somehow this is how it works. Except in extraordinary cases, this is the path young people need to take to get a decent job.
- pc86 8y agoTo your first point, this might be the case if your choice is an Ivy League school or a state school. But for the average student, the choice is between a state school and a private university nobody outside of the region has ever heard of.
- mycorrhizal 8y agoOn your first point I really don't think this is true in CA with community colleges providing a solid (relatively easy) path to the UCs. I was able to go from a local CC to a local UC and because of that I was able to finish with no debt. This lack of debt has afforded me a great deal of flexibility after college which has so far worked out well for me. Things would have been way different if I had a bunch of debt hanging over me. Another positive about CCs is since they are so cheap you can actually take your time a find the right major for you. I tried a bunch of different stuff before something stuck and with the exception of opportunity costs that extra exploration cost me about $500. I consider that a pretty good deal.