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Post by Mayleng on Jun 2, 2012 16:04:54 GMT -5
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Post by momfromma on Jun 2, 2012 16:13:20 GMT -5
My son ran in the room a couple of minutes ago to talk to me about this ad.
I told him this was why I was favoring mandatory financial classes to be added to the mandatory classes before HS graduation. This is the perfect example of something that could have been avoided. There was no way he was going to make enough money to cover this loan , not at least before a long time.
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Post by healthy11 on Jun 2, 2012 17:59:04 GMT -5
Clearly, if the fellow had received honest answers from the admissions people at the culinary school in the first place about job placement and salary potential, he might have "steered clear" of the place. It sounds like he was also headstrong and estranged from his parents, who might've otherwise helped him understand what he was getting into, loan-wise. I think it's important to note that he says it was the PRIVATE student loan terms which got him into the deep trouble, because "he was paying a 19% variable interest rate – nearly triple the capped interest rate on federal unsubsidized loans." I feel bad for him, but it doesn't sound like a high school financial class would've been enough to prevent this student from getting into the bad situation all-around.
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Post by healthy11 on Jun 3, 2012 15:57:09 GMT -5
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Post by kewpie on Jun 4, 2012 12:58:46 GMT -5
This is ridiculous. I wonder if this guy even looked at his community college for a similar program. Or even a CC program in another city? Did he get carried away with snob appeal?
My son is getting a great education from the local CC at no cost except for supplies. In fact, when one of the chefs from the pricey Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, came to substitute teach, he was amazed at the order and precision of the students. He said there was almost nothing for him to do.
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Post by healthy11 on Jul 24, 2013 10:43:52 GMT -5
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Post by majorv on Jul 27, 2013 22:16:08 GMT -5
Wow, that is such a shame that that guy's life has been ruined because of those loans. You know, I like to think that young people have a good head on their shoulders, but sometimes I think that because of their relative lack of experience at life, that they can be as gullible as they come. I'm sure our daughter is going to have quite a bit of student loan debt after vet school. I know there are special loans available for those going to school for the health professions but I still plan to help her understand the terms of those loans so she isn't going into this blindly.
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Post by healthy11 on Jul 27, 2013 22:34:31 GMT -5
Majorv, has your daughter been accepted to a vet school yet? My nephew apparently still has a few more prerequisite classes to complete before he can apply, but I know it's a huge concern about whether he'll get in... FWIW, I recently heard that Auburn University in AL has a program that produces the most "sniffer dogs" for drug and explosive detection in the country.
For what it's worth, on the subject of loans and how little kids understand about finances, my son's job is located in a city with a depressed economy, and high home foreclosure rate. (He is still not 100% sure that he'll get a permanent job offer after his summer "internship," but his boss told him things look promising. My son needs to find a place to live around there, since his college apt. lease runs out soon.) I guess the boss mentioned how, "house prices are so cheap, you could buy a place and the mortgage payment would be less than renting an apartment." There are small 2 br. places in the old part of the town for less than $50K. That idea appeals to our son, because he really wants a place with a garage, so he can work on his car/motorcycle, etc.
While it may be true that the basic monthly repayment amount for a $50K loan at today's interest rates is under $350/month, and he can't rent an apartment for that amount, he seemed unaware about the fact that he'd need to add the cost of property taxes, insurance, legal fees & closing costs, not to mention having a downpayment to start with, and then plenty of reserve savings to take care of maintenance and repair issues, etc. Obviously, owning a house also means losing all "flexibility" if his job doesn't work out, and he needs to move elsewhere. I am dumbfounded over how young people today seem oblivious to the longer-term implications of their choices, and many just live "in the present." Needless to say, if they don't obtain knowledgeable adult advice, it's easy to get into financial binds. Our kids may technically be "of legal age" to make their own decisions, but they still need our guidance.
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Post by michellea on Jul 28, 2013 7:08:17 GMT -5
Majorv - I agree with you completely when you say, "I think that because of their relative lack of experience at life..." they are not always in the positions to recognize or appreciate risks and long term consequences. Young adults with their lack of experience, lack of knowledge, and undeveloped frontal lobe - suffer a bad combination of circumstances/attributes to make life decisions. And, I think that there are sinister organizations that prey on this.
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Post by majorv on Jul 28, 2013 20:41:20 GMT -5
She's working on her vet school application right now. She's signed up to take the GRE one more time to see if she can score better. She's shooting to have her application complete by Sept. She graduates next Saturday with her bachelor's degree in Animal Science (YAY!!!) and will be taking two classes at the university that are prerequisites for vet school (they weren't required for her degree).
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Post by healthy11 on Jul 28, 2013 21:00:25 GMT -5
Congrats to your daughter, Majorv! May she continue to excel in all her endeavors.
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Post by SharonF on Jul 29, 2013 13:27:36 GMT -5
Sad how Congress (and some in society) keep up the spectacle of public hand-wringing and hot-air fests about the unbelievable costs of higher education, but nothing changes. In my opinion, Representative Virginia Foxx embodies a large part of the problem. Chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, she has bragged that she got her bachelor's, master's and Ph.D without borrowing a dime. And then she says she has "little tolerance" for today's students who graduate with debt. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/representative-virginia-fox-on-student-debt_n_1431050.htmlDr. Foxx got her undergrad degree in 1968. Yes Virginia, a half-century ago you COULD work part-time and earn enough to pay your way through college. But that ability, and the quaint village of Mayberry, disappeared quite awhile back. Wages have been flat for decades while tuition and many other expenses have skyrocketed. Too many in Congress either believe today's kids are just too lazy to earn $30,000 a year AND still go to school full time...or too many in Congress believe parents should just magically have enough money to put their children through college without having to borrow. I also watched a Fox TV interview with Congresswoman Foxx (online), where the network tried to give her the benefit of the doubt about her "little tolerance" comments. I wanted to hear her side of that sound bite. What did she REALLY mean by her comment? Was it taken out of context? Well, she prattled on about the need to find a "long-term solution" to the high cost of tuition and kept saying government loans to students are the real reason that colleges keep raising tuition. Maybe so. But then what? If you are college-aged now, WHAT CHOICE do you have? WHAT CHOICE do parents have? If Congress were to slash Pell Grants and Stafford loan programs tomorrow, would tuition suddenly drop? I doubt it. Political jawboning about the "need for long-term solutions" while trumpeting the benefits of our "opportunity society" ring very hollow to me. Under FAFSA, federal loans made up less than 25% of what we borrowed for my kids' college. Private loans (at a fraction of the feds' interest rates) make up the bulk of my kids' loans. I say fed loans in past tense because the interest rates were so high, we have paid them all off. We continue to pay on their private loans, but at least the interest rates are FAR lower. We were painfully aware of the danger of borrowing the relatively large amount of student loan money that we did. We took that calculated risk. We didn't see any other choice, despite what Rep. Foxx claims. Working part-time as a janitor while going to college, like Ms. Foxx did, was enough to pay her tuition in 1968. But part-time work at minimum wage would barely pay for college textbooks today, let alone cover tuition, room and board, and mandatory fees. I do NOT believe that Congress should try to fix the problem by setting tuition rates at colleges (public or private). However, I would like members of Congress to live in this century and acknowledge that yesterday's solutions do not solve all of today's problems. (Putting away my soap box now....) |
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Post by SharonF on Jul 29, 2013 13:28:18 GMT -5
Sorry--for some reason my post appeared twice. I can't find a "delete" so I'll just replace the duplicate text with this.
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Post by kewpie on Jul 31, 2013 9:23:09 GMT -5
>kept saying government loans to students are the real reason that colleges keep raising tuition.<
That makes no sense at all. If students didn't have loans at all then they would not attend college.
I have been signing on-line petitions left and right but some politicos just don't get it. My college tuition was affordable back then at about $100 per semester. The books cost more!
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Post by healthy11 on Jul 31, 2013 16:15:17 GMT -5
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Post by mamak on Sept 24, 2013 12:42:49 GMT -5
After seeing tenants 19-20 year old applications with 70K - 80K in student debt and working in as waitresses we came to the conclusion that although not very prestigious a state school paid as we go was what would work for our family. My daughter chose one away from home so we provided her rent and a small amount for food. Only enough to make her want to also have a small income of her own to help. I have for the last year been selling vintage and slightly used things on ebay which has been enough to cover her tuition and rent. My son wants to go locally to the state college so I guess I will continue doing this for a few more years. This is something that can be done on a very part time basis with little overhead.
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Post by healthy11 on Mar 22, 2014 12:18:11 GMT -5
The following article points out 7 different Federal Student Loan payback plan options: www.learnvest.com/knowledge-center/demystifying-student-loan-repayment-options/Private loan programs are not the same, but I hope the information above is helpful to some people with Federal loans. Re: private loans through Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest lender and servicer of private student loans, appears to be among the leading practitioners of auto-defaults, according to consumer complaints. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week issued an urgent warning to the public about the dangers posed by auto-defaults, the industry-wide practice of lenders placing borrowers’ private student loans into default simply because the borrower’s co-signer -- often a parent or grandparent -- had died or declared bankruptcy. www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/sallie-mae-simm-death_n_5212024.html |
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 22, 2014 20:48:27 GMT -5
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Post by SharonF on Apr 23, 2014 6:44:41 GMT -5
Our local community college has announced it will no longer accept Federal Direct student loans (also known as Staffords.) That community college has 75,000 students. Why did it stop accepting federal loans? The main reason: because the default rate on federal loans by students who attended that school is so high that the community college was in danger of losing other types of federal aid, such as Pell Grants. There are plenty of other reasons. Only 10% of students at that community college receive subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans. But 57% receive Pell Grants. So the college had to protect that Pell grant money. And it costs the college staff hundreds of thousands of dollars to handle the paperwork for federal direct loans. So the college decided to stop accepting federal loans as a way to pay for tuition. The community college acknowledges this will be a big hardship for some students who don't qualify for Pell grants and have fewer alternatives to pay for college. I think this is yet another sign of the MESS that higher-education funding has become. Most students cannot afford college, even community college, without loans. But when they graduate, many cannot repay those loans. Or repay them on time. The federal government cracks down on student defaulters by withholding other types of federal aid to the college the attended. Which solves nothing. www.wcnc.com/news/local/CPCC-opts-out-of-federal-loan-program-student-surprised-256116961.html |
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Post by empeg1 on Apr 23, 2014 23:26:19 GMT -5
Actually, Healthy, you have to pay the max amount on the loan for 10 years and then the rest can be forgiven if you are in a public service job, including working in education in a low income school area. I know. I am carrying Parent Plus loans for my youngest daughter and I work in an inner city school district. I explored the above option carefully.
Yes, paying for college is a real MESS. The expense of college is so high that only the well to do can afford to send their kids to college. My daughter will have $20,000 in student loans after graduating. I am selling my home this summer and sizing down. I will pay down my loans and hope to pay hers off, as a graduation gift for my senior as of next year.
Oh that I had accepted that job offer I received in Vancouver all those years ago directly out of graduate school. If we lived in British Columbia, the province would pay for my daughter to attend university, if she attended school in the province where she lived and if she promised to work in the province for 2 years after graduation. Now THAT is a good deal! BTW, on the news today, guess which country has the fastest growing middle class? Canada. Yes. they pay higher taxes than we do, but they get something for it!
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Post by eoffg on Apr 24, 2014 7:23:27 GMT -5
Healthy, you wrote: It's a great deal for them, but puts the financial burden on the rest of us taxpayers...
Which is of concern?
Here in Australia, further education is rather seen as investment in individuals.
Where their further education will be returned to community, with the benefits of a more highly educated community.
Everyone has automatic access to an inflation indexed loan, to cover whatever fees their are.
Repayments only occur, in years when their income exceeds $53,000. When 4% of their income will be claimed.
Up to 8% at $100,000.
But their is no requirement to make any payment any year, until one earns more then $53,000.
So that education loans, aren't something that people ever really think about.
As we only have pay it back, when we can afford it.
Though the major current issue here in Australia?
Is with our medical system.
Where the Govt is considering introducing a $6 fee, to visit a doctor?
Which will occur after 12 visits to a doctor in one year.
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Post by sleepy on Apr 24, 2014 7:33:29 GMT -5
Here in Australia, further education is rather seen as investment in individuals. Where their further education will be returned to community, with the benefits of a more highly educated community. Everyone has automatic access to an inflation indexed loan, to cover whatever fees their are. Is the ability to gain admission to a university more stringent than in the US? While we have very selective institutions, there are many schools where breathing is the only requirement. I know this sounds harsh on an LD board, but there are many kids in the US that go to universities and colleges that truly are no where prepared for a variety of reasons to succeed and not just those that have LDs that were not given an appropriate education. I can't see our country being able to finance university or college for anyone who wants to go when a very large portion of those who start never finish due to academic reasons. |
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 24, 2014 9:21:31 GMT -5
Eoffg, Sleepy's comments are very true. It's not only students with LDs who have difficulty completing school. Another concern is that increases in college costs (tuition, room & board, etc.) have outstripped inflation for many years, and there's little reason for colleges to reduce costs, when students have an attitude about "who cares, the government will forgive my loans." Obama's 2011 Plan requires borrowers to pay 10% a year of their discretionary income—annual income above 150% of the poverty level—in monthly installments. Under the plan, the unpaid balances for those working in the public sector or for nonprofits are then forgiven after 10 years. Max Norris, a 29-year-old lawyer for the state of California, illustrates the potential costs of the program. He pays about $420 a month to the Education Department on his $172,000 in debt, which he says fails even to cover the interest owed. But his out-of-pocket expense falls to $100 monthly after aid from his school, University of California's Hastings College of Law. Mr. Norris, who makes $60,000 a year in his job, would have about $225,000 in debt forgiven after 10 years, assuming he stays in public service and his salary rises 4% annually, according to a repayment calculator created by the New America Foundation, which advocates less-generous forgiveness. He said he learned of the programs before enrolling. "My intent the whole time in going through law school was to take advantage of this program," he said. A report Monday last week from the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank, offered one of the few preliminary examinations of the programs' impact. The most popular plan could cost taxpayers $14 billion a year if it becomes available to all borrowers as Mr. Obama has proposed, while fueling tuition inflation, it said. "Loan forgiveness creates incentives for students to borrow too much to attend college, potentially contributing to rising college prices for everyone," the study said. The authors recommend scrapping the forgiveness provisions. Another option might be to "cap" the amounts. time.com/72786/the-next-massive-bailout-student-loans/ |
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Post by eoffg on Apr 26, 2014 6:43:31 GMT -5
Sleepy, admission is competitive, and their are always more applications that placements.
Though our community colleges offer the first 2 years of most university courses, with associate degrees. Which are a little less rigorous, and provide students who may not succeed at uni, to at least get a 2 year degree.
But international students are our countries 4th largest industry.
So that their up front payments, help cover the deferred payments of locals.
Yet this might turn around before too long?
As these international students are going back and helping to develop universities in their own countries, which before long, will be gain equal recognition for quality.
Where given their lower cost of living. Australian students might go to their universities instead?
Though we are moving into an age of global education, where the old idea of Western countries as the 'developed countries', is disappearing.
Or maybe turning around?
In a world of equally developed countries, countries will only be able to compete on 'cost of living'?
Where Western countries have out priced themselves.
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Post by empeg1 on Apr 26, 2014 20:49:59 GMT -5
Effog, the situation in the U.S. is very different. Tuition, even in public colleges and universities, is prohibitive. My youngest is a Junior this year. She works 10 hours a week, since freshman year and also works in the summer. If she had to work more hours during the school year, for her, it would mean she would have to take a reduced load, thus just extending the costs of college. Unless students have parents who are well to do, student loans are necessary. I know I made some financial decisions that financially ware not the best for me, but for my daughter, and her development as a young adult, the decisions I made have been more than justified. I think of the changes these years at university have brought my daughter, I know what she has experienced has been life change. And, I am not just thinking of academics. Living away from home has brought remarkable changes. My daughter has grown in leaps and bounds, as a person, intellectually, as an adult, in every way possible from her experience in class and outside of class at university. I hope that if I sell my home this summer that some of the profits will go to a gift for her at graduation; I will pay off her $20,000 in student loans. And me? I carry loans as well, as there is no way I could fund her education on my own. The above was simply a choice I made for something that was not only important to her but important to me. She has fulfilled my expectations of her while in college and more. But, the issue of college costs and student loans has simply got to be addressed, hopefully, by lawmakers who live in the 21st century.
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Post by dw on Apr 27, 2014 8:34:48 GMT -5
One of the biggest problems in college costs is that public universities, though now half the cost of private colleges, approximately, don't get the big investment and subsidies that they originally received from their states. The states set up their public colleges and universities.
I know I will really make my advanced years known with this: My college tuition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 1969-1975, undergrad, was $123 per semester. I had an Illinois state scholarship, funded by the Illinois legislature, which paid my tuition, granted to all students in the upper 15% of their HS graduating class. I attend a private college in Illinois for one of the years, and my scholarship paid the tuition there, too. It was hard for my parents to pay the room and board costs the first year, so I got summer jobs to help out. It was affordable due to the state of Illinois subsidizing the U of Ill. Over the past 3 decades, the state's subsidies of public universities has gotten smaller and smaller, and now the tuition is $11K per semester, I think. Even if inflation had raised my tuition of $123 x 40 in the past 40 years, if the state subsidies had been the same, the tuition would be $4920. Instead, tuition is 80 times greater than it was 40 years ago.
With my first nursing job in 1975, I was so happy that I was making $6/hour. Now I make 8-9 times that. So my wages have gone up 8-9 times over the course of my career, but college tuition costs at state colleges has gone up 80 times.
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Post by jisp on Apr 27, 2014 14:14:46 GMT -5
The fact that states continue to underfund their state Universities speaks to how little we value higher education. It is hard to make a case for higher education when we have members of congress who do not have advanced degrees and when leaders in industry (such as Google) diss liberal arts education.
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 29, 2014 23:56:35 GMT -5
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Post by healthy11 on Jun 7, 2014 21:43:58 GMT -5
According to news.yahoo.com/obama-executive-steps-student-loans-233611442--politics.html Obama on Monday will announce he's expanding his "Pay As You Earn" program that lets borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their monthly income in loan payments, the White House said. Currently, the program is only available to those who started borrowing after October 2007 and kept borrowing after October 2011. Obama plans to start allowing those who borrowed earlier to participate, potentially extending the benefit to millions more borrowers. Also related to the topic of student loans is the following article which discusses parents' willingness to help repay them for their kids: finance.yahoo.com/news/parents-grads-those-student-loans-135638764.html |
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Post by healthy11 on Jun 16, 2014 16:42:48 GMT -5
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