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Are Student Loans Burying Graduates?
DrHogie asks: "This is an interesting Op/Ed piece on student loans -- and how they bury the graduate in a load of insurmountable debt. As someone who is considering going back to college to finish his degree, are student loans (and the degree they get you) worth the debt load?" Update: 05/09 5:45 GMT by C :I apologize. The link in this story is bad, and I can't locate the original story on Yahoo. In the meantime, here's a replacement story in the same vein, and an article about student debt and how most college kids are having to work more to offset rising tuition costs. The original question is still valid, however. Is college getting to be too expensive for the average high school graduate?
Student loans are not that bad if you do what I did, put most of college on credit card... No, that's not right...
More seriously, student loans are not that bad, infact are a decent investment. For a lot of jobs a diploma really looks good, so you should be able to demand more, especially when just out of school since you need that better pay to pay off college. Also, you do not necessarily need to go to a huge named school to get a decent education. If you start with a local CC for your first year or so to get the gen-ends out of the way then go to a "real" state school you can get a decent education at a reasonable price. All said an done, I probably spent less on college then I make in 8 months. While that may seem like a lot, school loans tend to have lower interest rates and payment is deferred upto six months after you get out.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Nobody forces you to take a student loan. And by having them so easily available, it gives a choice of college when they would not have that choice. Now, that Visa that you got in exchange for a free T-Shirt that you racked up 15k on for beer and clothes... kill those.
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
My college saving evaporated in my sophomore year when my dad lost his company. If it wasn't for the federal school loan program (and getting lots of part time programming jobs), I would have had to drop out. The interest rates are extremely low (usually near the prime rate) and the cost to taxpayers is almost nil, AFAIK, so it's good for everyone.
I'll be paying $80 a month for the next 30 years, but I wouldn't have my current (great) job if I didn't have a degree, so in the long run, there's no question. Student loans are a wonderful thing.
The issues isn't loans; it's the outrageous cost of higher education. Tuition has risen MUCH faster than average incomes, often in the double digit per year range. So what it costs to go to college versus what you can save before toward tuition, and what you'll earn for the first ten years after graduation (typical payoff timeline) is really different now. Also, interest rates are much higher; my first undergrad loan was at 5%. My grad school loans were at 8.5%.
o sts/199 8/07july/straight_talk.html
Interesting link:
http://www.acenet.edu/washington/college_c
Grad school does not pay you. At least, not reliably. (Disclaimer: All of the following claims are about the humanities)
Also, most schools most certainly do offer subsidized, inexpensive housing to grad students. You're not entirely on your own. Living in cheap housing is a part of grad student life, and you're actually better off sharing a big old house with a bunch of fellow grad students than trying to live like a dot-com himbo in limbo the rest of your life. Living in cooperative housing is part of the grad school experience--and it's the greatest source of the intellectual stimulation you're in grad school for in the first place.
You'll have to get creative to find cheap entertainment, too, by the way. We had a neverending game of bridge running in the living room, which had modified "Tenement" rules. Anybody who had to go to class could pass on their hand to someone else, shouting which suit was currently trump as they ran out the door. In Tenement Bridge (not to be confused with Tournament Bridge, which is also a good way to make money) it was valid to end a really bad hand by saying "Who dealt this river of s**t" which, if the other players reiterated this code phrase, it was a reasonable point to break out into a "card fight" --google on "Ricky Lee" and "Cards as Weapons" for more info :)
Then there was "Mad Max Wednesday." The local movie theatre had a dollar off for the first show of the day, another dollar off on Wednesdays, and another dollar off for students. Movies were five bucks in those days, so we'd get everybody together to skive off early on Wednesdays to see a movie if there was something good on--for two bucks a head. The first one we saw was "Mad Max--Beyond The Thunderdome" which is how the practice came to be called "Mad Max Wednesday" or, conflating it with another contemporary movie, "A Mad Max Afternoon."
On the topic of funding, some of my fellow grad students in mathematics used to play tournament bridge and backgammon in the local bridge and backgammon parlors for money, two used to take alternate semesters off to work as traders at the Chicago Board of Trade. Another worked as an actuary alternate semesters, in a cooperative arrangement.
But be prepared to live on beans and rice for a few years. Dried beans cost next to nothing, onions and carrots are cheap, and do go to the farmers markets. Some indian shops and co-ops sell nuts and oats in bulk very cheaply. And you can't imagine how good a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a big cold glass of milk can taste sometimes. You can also find out when and where various receptions are being held on campus, and, well, dress nicely and eat up, it's expected! Do attend the seminar, too, though--you pick up a lot of interesting notions. This is called "participating in the life of the mind," and this, too, is expected.
Sure, it hurts your wallet in the short run... as does any good investment . Plus, it's a fun way of life--I did it for nearly 20 years, counting undergrad, MSc, a 2-year stint as a unix sysadmin in one of the departments, then as a grad student again to get my Ph.D., and then several years of research on postdoctoral grants and fellowships in North America, Australasia and Europe. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Plus, your alumni associations and your associations with alumni are an ongoing source of interesting correspondences and friendships for the rest of your life. As an alum, also, you have substantial influence in changing some things on campus for the rest of your life.
All in all, the plusses outweigh the minuses, but it's not a purely financial calculation.