4 ms·
I often hear about Americans having as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt… how do they get so much debt when their fees are only $9k a year? Where
by chrisseaton 5y ago
I often hear about Americans having as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt… how do they get so much debt when their fees are only $9k a year? Where is the rest of their debt coming from?
- cpitman 5y agoThe average student loan debt for a US undergraduate degree is ~$37k, which lines up with that $9k/year. When people talk about tons of student loan debt, they are invariably including graduate students getting professional degrees, like law and medicine. The average student loan debt after medical school is ~266k. But compared to the earning potential of a doctor (starting salaries between $200k and $500k), that isn't some unrecoverable debt load. The only people really screwed are the ones who decide they don't want to be a doctor a couple years in. https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#by-educational-attainment https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#by-educa...
- chrisseaton 5y agoRight - so in the UK the $12k a year also covers medicine etc.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoRight but the structure of professional education for things like medicine and law is completely different in the UK from the US so an apples-to-apples comparison isn't easily possible.
- lbotos 5y agoHere is an example: https://drexel.edu/drexelcentral/cost/tuition/undergraduate/ https://drexel.edu/drexelcentral/cost/tuition/undergraduate/ 18k a quarter for tuition alone.
- sgerenser 5y agoThat chart is for public universities (of which America has many excellent ones). Americans with tons of college debt are likely to have attended an overpriced private institution, and financed their room and board and books as well. That can add up to over $60k/year at prestigious private colleges and universities.
- chrisseaton 5y agoI guess comparing a country with a lot of private universities with a country with essentially no private universities doesn't give quite the whole story! Why leave out private universities I wonder?
- mbesto 5y ago> Why leave out private universities I wonder? Because it's not really a well thought out article. It looks more geared towards low value / low effort content that can be shared easily to make controversial (and therefore spread more) social media posts.
- HarryHirsch 5y agoLeaving out the private universities in a country that has (too) many would distort the sample.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThe prestigious colleges offer generous subsidies so most that cannot afford $60k effectively have much lower tuition. The non prestigious private universities whose lack of value is not yet known among its customers are the ones that cause problems for kids getting stuck with $60k+ per year annual costs.
- gandalfian 5y agoI'm guessing they have lots of regular state universities with reasonable instate tuition to average out the very expensive ones. In the UK 100% of universities decided to charge the highest allowed amount and there are no scholarships or discounts.
- carnitine 5y agoScholarships absolutely exist, it’s just often more expedient to give them as cash and allow the student to pay the loan down if they wish, given living expenses are often more of a barrier and the loan is on very generous terms.
- Darmody 5y agoThey get cheap money to pay their tuition fees so private universities raise their prices. If the bar to get that money was as high as the one to get a mortgage from the bank, universities couldn't simply raise the fees because most students wouldn't be able to pay.
- cftm 5y agoThis times a million.
- ryanhuff 5y agoMortgage rates in the US have been dirt cheap the past few years. They are currently between 2-3%. I don't think student loan rates are that low.
- Darmody 5y agoBut if you declare bankruptcy you can clear your debts but not the tuition one. You're stuck with it for life (or until you pay).
- denimnerd42 5y agoyou're only hearing about extreme examples of people getting worthless degrees from private universities fully financed. a degree is fairly affordable in the US. you can do first 2 years at a community college for no more than $2k/year and then can do the last two at a state university for 9-20k/yr. if you can get a degree that actually returns you money through an enhanced wage then you can pay that off no problem.
- ed_elliott_asc 5y agoWill that get you into a faang? Just curious!
- lordnacho 5y agoAren't all the top legal jobs in the US taken by graduates of quite expensive private schools?
- denimnerd42 5y agoYes, being a lawyer is an extreme example where you need both top grades and a top 20 rated school. I wouldn't recommend that career if your parents can't pay your way as the risk of not making it into a top legal firm even if you meet those requirements is still high.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago"Getting a job as a lawyer" != "getting a job at a top firm", though. And lawyers tend to get paid fairly well, even if not at a top firm.
- ch4s3 5y agoDo they offer a class focused on the interview like Stanford? No. Can you still cram interview problems until your eyes bleed? Yes.
- denimnerd42 5y ago
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoPart of the US tuition fees being so high varies. Is it a public or private school in a LCOL, MCOL, or HCOL area? A public school like NYU(~$55k) is going to cost way more than UW- Madison (~$19k) even though they're both public colleges and have some prestige associated with attending there. A private college in my state is similar to NYU. Columbia University is $33k/semester. So yeah a 4-5 year degree is basically a mortgage in some places.
- legerdemain 5y agoThis is a common misunderstanding, but NYU is not a public school.
- miguelrochefort 5y agoPublic universities in NYC are effectively free.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoMostly because the media discussion around tuition fees in the US is completely toxic and focuses on cases like students who have self-funded taught masters programs at elite-level private institutions.
- dudul 5y agoFirst of all, tuition is only one thing you need to pay for alongside many other things. Second, $9k is the average for an in-state public college. It is much higher for out of state public, or private institutions.
- nicbou 5y agoI studied in Quebec, where my tuition fees were around 4000 CAD a year. However, I also had to pay for rent, food, and a basic standard of living. That added up to around 20,000 CAD a year at the time.
- miguelrochefort 5y agoIn the United States you can get a 4-year bachelor’s degree for less than $5000. In New York City, public university tuition is $0. You can earn ACE accredited college credits online very cheaply. I’ve know people who earned 60 credits (a 4-year bachelors in 120 credits) in a year for $150 in total. Saylor.org is $25 per 3-credit course. Sophia.org is $80 per month. Study.com is $200 month and offers thousands of courses. You don’t even need a high school diploma to get started. My advice to smart kids around the world: Learn English, get your GED, take IELTS/TOEFL, earn 60-90 ACE credits online, and complete your bachelor’s degree in 1-2 years. The earlier the better.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoAlso, take CLEP tests. I'm not sure what the current price is, but I'm guessing it's in the neighborhood of $100. You can usually get 3 credits for passing the test.
- joshuahaglund 5y agoThey averaged the entire us University system, and only covered in state tuition at public university. In-state varies greatly, from $16,070 in NH, $14,440 in PA to $5,220 in WY. Out of state tuition is 2 to 4 times as expensive. I think 6 figure debt is often from private or advanced degrees. https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c... Edit: I also wonder what the living costs in other countries is. Do students in Germany pay for all their expenses too? Books, housing, food? Because your costs for a year are going to be another 15k or more, unless you can live and eat at home and walk to school.
- tanto 5y agoGovernment lends you up to ~880€ a month interest free if your parents earn less than 35k€ and gradually less until 75k€ parent household income. After university you have 5 years time until loan payments starts. Total payback is capped at 10k even if you have received more than that. If you can pay it back in full with one payment you only pay ~7.3k. With that money people are usually able to get an apartment or at least a room in a shared apartment and pay for food and books.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Books I've never understood this - don't universities in the US have libraries? Why does everyone need to buy their own books?
- wink 5y agoI think that highly depends on your subject. I know people that said it was expected to have your own copy of X,Y,Z because you needed it all the time and not just to look something up once a semester. Biology for example. For me with CS it also wouldn't have made sense to use the ones I bought in a library, because everyone would've needed them at the same time. But I can't complain, the cost was negligible, maybe 5-7 books under 100€ each, over the whole timespan.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
- martzy13 5y agoI could easily see someone racking up that much debt. It’s almost encouraged, as part of the whole “going to college experience”. You take out loans so you can pay for school, pay for room and board, and have enough money to buy toiletries and what not. if we take a look a few pretty common public colleges that people from my class went to: BGSU [1] - ~$28,500/year x 4 years = $115,000 Kent [2] - ~$30,000/year x 4 years = $120,000 In all fairness there’s financial aid, and scholarships, and plenty of ways to decrease costs (living off campus, or even living with your parents and commuting, if you live close enough and have/can afford a car). Or attending a 2 year college and transferring. Now imagine if you went to a private college (rumored to be a “better” education). An example near me: Case Western Reserve [3] - ~75,000/ year x 4 years = $300,000 Now on top of all that, remember that student loans are still loans, and as such have interest. So while you can defer payments on the loans while you’re still in school, interest still accrues on those loans for 4 years. And that’s just for an undergraduate degree. Someone with a masters has an additional two years of schooling, and more for a doctorate. [1] https://www.bgsu.edu/financial-aid/about-aid/cost-of-attendance.html https://www.bgsu.edu/financial-aid/about-aid/cost-of-attenda... [2] https://www.kent.edu/financialaid/tuition-and-other-costs https://www.kent.edu/financialaid/tuition-and-other-costs [3] https://case.edu/financialaid/undergraduates/cost-undergraduate-attendance https://case.edu/financialaid/undergraduates/cost-undergradu...
- martzy13 5y agoAnd this doesn’t even take into account “in state” vs “out of state” tuition rates.