Comments on: Review: Debt-Free U

By: Georgia

Georgia — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:08:22 +0000

Our local high school superintendent had 8 children and knew the costs would be high. He went to the town our nearest state university was and bought a 2 story home. His kids were able to live there and he rented out the other 5-6 rooms and made enough to pay for the loan and most of the rest of the college fees. When his 4th son graduated, he sold the house and came out ahead.

His next children to go were triplets. So he found a bargain on a mobile home and bought it with the gain from the house sale. His last child also used the mobile home & it was sold after graduation for a profit.

There are many ways to finance some or much of college. Be creative. I didn’t have to be. I worked for one year before college and the summer between lst & 2nd years. I had no debt when I left. However, I went before student loans were available and my cost for tuition and room for the two years, at a private Christian college, was $1600. Yeah, not $16k, $1600. See what a difference student loans have put into the mix. As Thomas Sowell says, when you put a third party into the mix it causes all kinds of problems. Think college and medical costs.

By: jgonzales

jgonzales — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:31:32 +0000

I have to chime in on the idea of the classes being not available. I’m just beyond the traditional age for college and have many friends who either graduated recently from college or are current students. Many of them did have to take more than 4 years due to class availability. One of the biggest issues my friends ran into was classes being cut due to budget problems. We live in California, which has been known for its budget problems over the last few years. A lot of my friends would sign up for a class they needed to graduate only to find that since only half the expected number of students signed up, the class was canceled for budget reasons and they would have to wait another semester or year. I personally have tried to sign up for classes, only to find that half of the “basic requirement” classes were canceled due to budget cuts, leaving too many students trying to sign up for not enough classes.

While that’s happening at public universities, my sister attended a private university nearby. She did graduate in four years, but only because she took on 18 hour loads every semester including summer. Her private university also had problems with class offerings, so she took some of her classes, like PE, at a nearby community college during the summer. She worked her tail off and is the only person I know in our age group to graduate in four years.

By: Dan Brantley

Dan Brantley — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:37:54 +0000

I would advise everyone entering this stage to find out what the priority financial aid deadlines are and make sure you meet them (Many are Dec 1 of HS Senior Year) It can be surprising what is offered…
My son graduated from High School in May and was accepted at the University of Southern California, $55,000 per year tuition room & board etc. He received a total aid package of $40,000 per year. He was also accepted to Boston University, $54,000 and received $39,000 per year in assistance. He was not in the top 10% of his class, did OK on ACT and SAT, but not stellar; but he was captain of the Cross Country, and Soccer teams, active in church activities and an Eagle Scout. He chose to attend another private college that was “only” about $44,000 but their aid package made it comparable to USC or BU. And interestingly enough, comparable to the cost of attending the public University of Texas.
I would also argue that being in a larger school can make it harder to gain attention and experience than in a smaller school. One example is sorority rush at the University of Texas, 900 girls vied for about 500 slots. Chances are many of the 400 not accepted would be excellent members and leaders, but won’t get the chance.
Another note: there are other savings that people may neglect as well; for example since both sons are away from home with no vehicles, dropping them from the auto policy saves over $200 a month. I just call and add them for a month at Christmas and during the summer, then take them off again in the fall.
All that being said, saving for college is without a doubt the best, but to “forget about scholarships” and leave money on the table is crazy. And to not apply for a wonderful private college just because of the cost is also crazy. Apply, see what kind of package they put together and then decide.

By: Katie

Katie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:05:30 +0000

This is very true. I went to a huge state school and I did fine academically, but on a lot of levels I think at that point in my life I would really have benefited from more personal attention and saved myself a lot of trouble and flailing. Not every eighteen year old will thrive in the kind of fast-paced, self-directed environment one finds at huge schools, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing to keep in mind and be honest with yourself about.

By: tentaculistic

tentaculistic — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:50:32 +0000

I was lucky because I had 5 older siblings to teach me how to go to a good college on the cheap. So here’s the biggest secret out there for getting a good scholarship:
STUDY LIKE A MANIAC FOR THE *PSAT*

People tell you to study for the SAT, which is the score that colleges ask you about, but they don’t realize that the National Merit Scholarships are based on PSATs. The other thing is that people think that the SAT/PSAT is an intelligence test and so they shouldn’t study – BS. Studying makes a huge difference, in learning how to pace yourself, what logic the test writes to, tricks for how to get yourself unstuck. I actually had a tutor every morning for 1/2 hour for the math SAT prep, which I found difficult… paid off BIG-time, to the tune of nearly $120,000 in saved college tuition.

From personal experience, having a National Merit Scholarship opens doors like nothing else. Even though the Natl Merit scholarship itself is pretty small ($750/yr if I remember right), you’d be hard pressed not to get a full academic scholarship from your college. I ended up with 4 scholarships total (2 to fully cover studying abroad), and only had to pay room and board.

That said, I sorely regret the prestigious university I attended, and wish I had gone to the highly-respected state school that would also have been free. People have all kinds of odd ideas about state schools, and I think they over-estimate the importance of school attended. Unless you’re in a super snobby profession, the key part of the resume is the “bachelor” part rather than the school. I think school has more import for master’s and doctorate degrees though.

By: Sophie

Sophie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:01:50 +0000

Another issue in the public versus private debate is how prepared your child is to take the reigns on his or her own education. I received my undergraduate degree from a small university (3500 students), where I received in depth attention and guidance, not only from my advisor but from all of my professors, and where even my lecture classes were capped at 30 students. Now as a graduate student, I’ve been a teacher’s assistant in humanities courses for up to 250 students. In some ways these young people benefit from the size of their school: many of their professors are top researchers in their field, they can choose from an abundance of courses and extra-curricular choices, and they gain a “real world” vision of the type of competition they’ll face after graduation. On the other hand, even many of their upper level seminars are too big to allow a full discussion involving everyone in the class, and their professors (or often, their TA’s–masters or doctoral students with only slightly more experience than they have) are too busy to comment on their papers with much depth. The courses I assisted often included a handful of students who excelled despite what I perceived as a relative lack of attention (and often these young men and women gained important faculty’s attention by demonstrating this independence), another handful of students who were happy to quietly earn their “C” with considerably less work than they would have had to put in at a smaller school, and a sizable group who would have benefited from more guidance. I know that I would have been part of that last group and am glad that I chose a smaller, though slightly more expensive, private school.

I suppose also that this distinction would help or hurt graduates differently across different fields.

By: Deb

Deb — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:57:54 +0000

My husband and I went to our local public university as nontraditional students. I went to a regional branch and he went to another branch because he was majoring in engineering technology. The local public university gave us all sorts of fits with our credits. Our children grew up watching the hassles we had with the local public university. When it came time for our daughter to choose a college, we told her if she went to an in-state public college we could help her for 4 years, but if she went to a private college, she’d have to cover her last 2 years. She chose the private college because of the problems that we had with the local public college, another public college has a reputation for being a party school (it’s been in the news for student behavior problems), and another one was way too big (it’s one of the largest universities in the nation). Our son, however, will probably wind up at the local community college because he will need to prove that he can handle college classes first.
And that brings up another point. What I have been seeing is a push to send just about every student to college. Maybe we should rethink this push and give students other options.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:14:50 +0000

Seems to me the best solution in general is to go to a top tier public school. There are many public schools rated in the top 50 universities in the nation.

Johanna : I went to a large West coast public school with over 40k students. I only had a problem getting a class one time and I graduated in 4 years. From what I heard students in English major had a problem, but not in other degrees as far as I knew. My wife’s school on the East coast had over 30k students and she didn’t have problems either.

By: Carol@inthetrenches

Carol@inthetrenches — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:39:14 +0000

A dear lady I know had not worked most of her adult life. (Husband supported the household.) When it was time for her kids to go to college she sent them with her blessings and took a full time job to pay for it. Her entire check went to the college. The marketable skill she had at the time was typing so she became the typist for a pool of about six. Then came the first of the PCs. She cried and cried as she learned how to format documents without deleting the whole thing. Many times she had to start over after hours of work. She perservered. She faithfully worked until her kids graduated and then retired. We loved her and she was a very inspirational member of our team.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:56:00 +0000

@Ben: Certainly there’s something to be said for proactive planning, but the situation I had in mind was one where you know you need to take a particular class in a particular semester, but you can’t take it because it’s full to capacity with other students who also need to take it. I’ve heard that this can be a big problem at some schools, but I don’t know. But certainly it’s something to keep in mind when choosing a school.

And regarding the overall graduation rate, there was an excellent article recently in the Washington Monthly, called “College Dropout Factories,” that pretty well refutes the “it’s not the school, it’s the student” mantra.

By: Denise

Denise — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:52:17 +0000

Regarding the responses about the state schools taking five years to graduate instead of the four years to graduate with the bachelor’s degree. A person needs to be in contact with their advisor throughout their stay at the college. You are able to see what courses are offered in the spring and fall semesters and plan accordingly. You take the classes when they are offered and pass them. My first son is now graduating from a state college, a semester early with a double major, magna cum laude. He will now be going for his masters degree. My next children will hopefully do as well. I have seen some kids take five years to complete college, I think it is because they have not been on top of their courses like they should have been. It is not hard to do so.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:30:22 +0000

@johanna
From my experience, it is rarely the schools fault alone if a student takes longer than 4 years to graduate with a bachelor’s degree. If you plan ahead to make sure you are taking the courses that are only offered in either the spring semester or the fall semester when you should (and pass all of your classes, of course) then you should be fine. A counselor can be a great resource to make sure that this doesn’t happen but ultimately the responsibility lies on the student. Now if you change your major 18 times, that is a different story. However, in the end it just comes down to a little proactive planning, which I think is the answer to a lot of life’s troubles.

By: WendyH

WendyH — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:31:46 +0000

The military (National Guard) is how I paid for most of my college, although the current situation has changed significantly from when I went through, I never had to serve full-time like my nephew’s do today.

Depending on the career, one other thing to look for is relationships schools have with companies and other schools. It may be easier to study abroad or get an internship when starting out.

By: Claudia

Claudia — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:17:04 +0000

I think the biggest problem with colleges and that the focus of so many in the past 20 years or so has rapidly become making money not educating their students. I’ve worked with people who have graduated from private colleges, public colleges and technical schools as well as the experiences with taking college courses myself and with my own children. I’ve been significantly underwhelmed with the educations received. Some of the courses I have taken were so slow-paced and simplistic, it was ridiculous.
My son has a masters from B.U. – big deal. It cost him a fortune even with some assistance and it has not given him the advantages in hiring implied by being a private school alumni. I think Ivy league etc might help a bit when initially applying for jobs but after that first job no one really looks at your schooling anymore as you now have a job history.
There are colleges now who promise you will graduate in four years as the trend in both state “U”s and public schools to increase revenue has been to adjust class availability so that a four year degree inevitably takes five years.
One way not mentioned to get college funds is the military. My nephew is a Psychologist all through military assisted schooling.

By: Kate

Kate — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:10:33 +0000

#5–Johanna
Your impression that it takes longer to graduate from big state schools may be based on truth. I know that it is true for at least one state school in my home state. I personally know of several kids who are lacking one course to graduate and have not gotten their degree because they have to wait a year or more before that one course is offered again.
Another thing to look at is how soon a student is tied into a major–i.e. if he/she chooses to change majors, how many more semesters that will add at the end.
I wonder if that kind of information is available anywhere for families of prospective students.

By: Leen

Leen — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:49:39 +0000

I don’t like the thought of writing scholarships off completely. I got scholarships and ended up getting through undergrad and law school without any debt or loans. Especially for undergrad, there are lots of scholarships based purely on grades and not other status. If you work hard enough and get good grades you can get a lot of money. I had summer jobs where I saved all my money but never worked during the school year in high school. It totally paid off. Unfortunately, it took ten years to pay off my husband loans from both undergrad and law school but we did it last year! Neither of us are lawyers, and because I didn’t spend any money on law school I don’t feel bad about letting it “go to waste”.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:34:17 +0000

I second Kathleen’s comment on Ivy league schools giving a lot of financial aid. Stanford pays 100% of tuition for students from families making less than 100k annually, and Harvard has been paying 100% of tuition for families making 60k or less since 2006. For incomes up to 180k, the tuition at Harvard is no more than 10% of the yearly family income.

A lot of people assume that Ivy league schools will be expensive, but unlike many private schools, they are often cheaper than state schools for low-income students.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:22:44 +0000

On the choice between big state schools and selective private schools, I think there’s another side to the story. Kathleen mentions part of it. Here are a couple of other points:

Does he mention taking into account how long it’s likely to take to graduate? I always had the impression that at state schools (at least compared to top-tier private schools), there was a much greater danger of not being able to get into all the classes you need for your degree, and therefore not being able to graduate on time. If you take 5 or 6 years to graduate from a state school versus 4 to graduate from a selective private school, suddenly the state school becomes much less of a bargain. That’s *especially* true if you consider that an extra year in college is not just an extra year of paying tuition – it’s also an extra year of your life that you’re not working a full-time job with the benefit of a college degree.

Rather than looking at which school’s students have the lowest debt burden at graduation, I’d think a better measure of a school’s value would be the average debt burden 6 or 8 or 10 years after *matriculation*. I’m not sure if anyone collects statistics like that, though.

Another important thing to consider about a school is the percentage of students that fall through the cracks and don’t graduate at all. Probably the worst bargain of all is paying several years’ tuition and devoting several years of your life to college study, but ending up with no degree. And the last time I looked at those statistics, the highest graduation rates were all found at the top-tier private schools.

By: Mani

Mani — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:55:49 +0000

Trent – I have two children who will be joining college in a couple of years. I think keeping debt at the minimum while providing good education is very important. To teach your children about the value of money does not just save money but builds a discipline and culture for a lifetime. I also agree that children should be encouraged to earn some money while in college. This is a great and obligation free way to get started with working.

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:09:21 +0000

I agree with the premise that the student makes the difference between a great school experience (from kindergarten on up) and a mediocre/failing experience. And that for k-12 grades, the parents are the other major factor. Teachers can only do so much. You get out of school what you put into it.

My experience, and my daughter’s, was more in line with commenter #1 rather than commenter #3.