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Not paying for your kid's college doesn't mean they don't go to college. I went to a very respectable state university with loans that I paid off within 3 years

Not paying for your kid's college doesn't mean they don't go to college. I went to a very respectable state university with loans that I paid off within 3 years after graduating. I've worked at some of the top companies in the world. It's very attainable and not unreasonable.

jartelt 6y ago
Totally agree. You can graduate from your state school with <$100k in debt easily. You can get much lower debt levels if you don't stay in the expensive dorms (with expensive meal plans) after your freshman year, if you plan ahead and graduate in 4 years, and if you apply for many local/state scholarships (in my experience the national scholarships are a waste of time). As an engineering student, you can also get paid internships each summer (can often pay >$10k) or can be a paid research assistant for a professor during the year for ~10 hours week (pays for groceries each week).
- totalminimalist 6y ago
  Or you can go in the Air Force, be a "civilian in uniform" (Air Force is really easy), and have Uncle Sam pay for your degree at night while you get free room and board, free meals, free medical and dental. It's an option for those people not opposed to military service. The AF really is an easy row to hoe. Personal experience. Show up with a clean uniform, good attitude, and everything is easy peasy lemon squeezy. My military service paid for my own degree. Nothing says crappy life like emerging from university behind the power curve because you're in massive debt, paying back student loans while struggling to pay rent, medical costs, transportation costs, ad astra... Start your working career not in debt. Just my 0.02. Editing to say that if you make the military a career, you can literally save almost your entire salary if your personal peccadilloes are minimal. I knew guys that decided 4 years was enough and emerged after 4 years with over 50k in savings while paying nothing and they also got the BA/BSc degree on Uncle Sam's dime. They emerged debt free, degreed, and ready to start the next stage of their lives. Doing 8 years gets you a masters all the while doing nothing but work a job with everything paid for. At that rate, you might as well do 20, marry another member and have a steady retirement at 39 or 40 with money enabling you to pursue a job you really love because you can afford to live where you want. Bonus: Tri-Care military medical costs $500 year on retirement. Cannot touch that out here.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  You can get much lower debt levels if you don't stay in the expensive dorms (with expensive meal plans) after your freshman year, As someone who lived off-campus the entire time and regretted it, I do think that spending at least freshman year in dorms is a really good idea to make friends and get to know the school's culture and environment. if you plan ahead and graduate in 4 years, and if you apply for many local/state scholarships (in my experience the national scholarships are a waste of time). My advice to my younger self would also be to take more student loans so I wouldn't have to work. I had to work to pay tuition, but working made keeping up with school impossible. Catch 22.
  - seattle_spring 6y ago
    > My advice to my younger self would also be to take more student loans so I wouldn't have to work. I had to work to pay tuition, but working made keeping up with school impossible. Catch 22. This is counter to my experience. I was able to work part-time jobs just fine, and having that experience made me a much more competitive candidate upon graduation.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Depends on a lot of factors -- morning vs. night chronotype, how close work is to school, how close school and work are to housing, how many hours work demands, whether your landlord is insane and kicks you all out with 3 days notice right before the semester to rent to a family, etc. I would still have worked most if not all of my summers, but never more than 5 hours a week during the semesters. My job, which I actually really liked, demanded 20, which also required another 6-10 hours commuting on top of 5-8 hours of commuting to school. I had also worked in tech for a year before starting school, so I was a bit less worried about having experience to list. And in the end it didn't matter because I started a company and ran that for 5 years instead.
      - jartelt 6y ago
        At least for me, the key was to keep it capped at 10 hours a week. With more hours than that I would have struggled to balance coursework, social life, work, and sleep. You definitely can't pay for everything on 10 hours a week, but it at least pays the bar tab...
eropple 6y ago
This is pretty much my own history, too. (I think I took three years to pay them off, too!) And yet, many--I'd say most--people out there don't want to be computer programmers or work in other technical fields. They still need degrees to be employable at all in most fields, and with the state of student debt, it's pretty reckless to just roll out claims like the ones you've made.
- seattle_spring 6y ago
  Reckless how? The point was to go to an affordable state school, not to just indiscriminately get loans to fund a $300k degree from the Art Institute.
  - eropple 6y ago
    "Affordable" is doing a lot of work there, particularly when before you didn't say "affordable" and did say "very respectable". I went to a "very respectable" public land-grant university in my home state and today that school costs $15K a year outside of room and board ($35K/year for out-of-state), and students should live on-campus at minimum the first year--so let's say, best case, you're looking at $70K for in-state. Plus living expenses, and despite your claims elsewhere in-thread I can personally attest that part-time jobs even ten years ago took a bite out of but did not solve the problem of food, board, etc.--so we're probably talking closer to $100K when all is said and done. Even if you assume some defraying of costs, a student loan bill of $50K (which was about what I left school with) is staggering for many non-technical folks, coming out of college looking at salaries closer to $40K than $100K when they can find a job at all. Further, the knock-on effects are financially hazardous. If you end up on income-based repayment because, y'know, jobs are hard to find unless you're a computer toucher and even then there probably aren't enough for everybody, you will be paying less-than-interest, and the principal only grows. Put frankly, I would advise the cultivation of more empathy for those not as economically advantaged as you or me. This stuff is staggeringly, mind-wreckingly expensive for people who aren't in tech, and yet functionally required because of the structures we have allowed to be built.
    - 6y ago

jartelt 6y ago

Totally agree. You can graduate from your state school with <$100k in debt easily. You can get much lower debt levels if you don't stay in the expensive dorms (with expensive meal plans) after your freshman year, if you plan ahead and graduate in 4 years, and if you apply for many local/state scholarships (in my experience the national scholarships are a waste of time). As an engineering student, you can also get paid internships each summer (can often pay >$10k) or can be a paid research assistant for a professor during the year for ~10 hours week (pays for groceries each week).

totalminimalist 6y ago
Or you can go in the Air Force, be a "civilian in uniform" (Air Force is really easy), and have Uncle Sam pay for your degree at night while you get free room and board, free meals, free medical and dental. It's an option for those people not opposed to military service. The AF really is an easy row to hoe. Personal experience. Show up with a clean uniform, good attitude, and everything is easy peasy lemon squeezy. My military service paid for my own degree. Nothing says crappy life like emerging from university behind the power curve because you're in massive debt, paying back student loans while struggling to pay rent, medical costs, transportation costs, ad astra... Start your working career not in debt. Just my 0.02. Editing to say that if you make the military a career, you can literally save almost your entire salary if your personal peccadilloes are minimal. I knew guys that decided 4 years was enough and emerged after 4 years with over 50k in savings while paying nothing and they also got the BA/BSc degree on Uncle Sam's dime. They emerged debt free, degreed, and ready to start the next stage of their lives. Doing 8 years gets you a masters all the while doing nothing but work a job with everything paid for. At that rate, you might as well do 20, marry another member and have a steady retirement at 39 or 40 with money enabling you to pursue a job you really love because you can afford to live where you want. Bonus: Tri-Care military medical costs $500 year on retirement. Cannot touch that out here.
nitrogen 6y ago
You can get much lower debt levels if you don't stay in the expensive dorms (with expensive meal plans) after your freshman year, As someone who lived off-campus the entire time and regretted it, I do think that spending at least freshman year in dorms is a really good idea to make friends and get to know the school's culture and environment. if you plan ahead and graduate in 4 years, and if you apply for many local/state scholarships (in my experience the national scholarships are a waste of time). My advice to my younger self would also be to take more student loans so I wouldn't have to work. I had to work to pay tuition, but working made keeping up with school impossible. Catch 22.
- seattle_spring 6y ago
  > My advice to my younger self would also be to take more student loans so I wouldn't have to work. I had to work to pay tuition, but working made keeping up with school impossible. Catch 22. This is counter to my experience. I was able to work part-time jobs just fine, and having that experience made me a much more competitive candidate upon graduation.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Depends on a lot of factors -- morning vs. night chronotype, how close work is to school, how close school and work are to housing, how many hours work demands, whether your landlord is insane and kicks you all out with 3 days notice right before the semester to rent to a family, etc. I would still have worked most if not all of my summers, but never more than 5 hours a week during the semesters. My job, which I actually really liked, demanded 20, which also required another 6-10 hours commuting on top of 5-8 hours of commuting to school. I had also worked in tech for a year before starting school, so I was a bit less worried about having experience to list. And in the end it didn't matter because I started a company and ran that for 5 years instead.
    - jartelt 6y ago
      At least for me, the key was to keep it capped at 10 hours a week. With more hours than that I would have struggled to balance coursework, social life, work, and sleep. You definitely can't pay for everything on 10 hours a week, but it at least pays the bar tab...

eropple 6y ago

This is pretty much my own history, too. (I think I took three years to pay them off, too!) And yet, many--I'd say most--people out there don't want to be computer programmers or work in other technical fields. They still need degrees to be employable at all in most fields, and with the state of student debt, it's pretty reckless to just roll out claims like the ones you've made.

seattle_spring 6y ago
Reckless how? The point was to go to an affordable state school, not to just indiscriminately get loans to fund a $300k degree from the Art Institute.
- eropple 6y ago
  "Affordable" is doing a lot of work there, particularly when before you didn't say "affordable" and did say "very respectable". I went to a "very respectable" public land-grant university in my home state and today that school costs $15K a year outside of room and board ($35K/year for out-of-state), and students should live on-campus at minimum the first year--so let's say, best case, you're looking at $70K for in-state. Plus living expenses, and despite your claims elsewhere in-thread I can personally attest that part-time jobs even ten years ago took a bite out of but did not solve the problem of food, board, etc.--so we're probably talking closer to $100K when all is said and done. Even if you assume some defraying of costs, a student loan bill of $50K (which was about what I left school with) is staggering for many non-technical folks, coming out of college looking at salaries closer to $40K than $100K when they can find a job at all. Further, the knock-on effects are financially hazardous. If you end up on income-based repayment because, y'know, jobs are hard to find unless you're a computer toucher and even then there probably aren't enough for everybody, you will be paying less-than-interest, and the principal only grows. Put frankly, I would advise the cultivation of more empathy for those not as economically advantaged as you or me. This stuff is staggeringly, mind-wreckingly expensive for people who aren't in tech, and yet functionally required because of the structures we have allowed to be built.
  - 6y ago