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A couple of things have been running through my mind after reading this article:
Loans are not aid, loans are loans. When my Ds compared packages, we made a spreadsheet with tuition and fees plus room & board. Then we subtracted any aid that did not have to be paid back. Any of the rest of the COA was in the second section- where I plugged in my estimate for books and for actual travel to that school. Loans are not really aid.
The bigger thing that I see in this article, esp. in light of some of the threads here recently about the girl who did not want to pay off her loans and the ADHD guy who may or may not be taking college seriously in year two of a private with $32k in loans and is on academic probation.
These are recent examples of people here who have kids with some sort of coping issues (ADD/ADHD/LD/Depression/other mental disorders) We all have a family member who just does not seem to cope well with real life and we have read threads on that topic, too, so many here have adult relatives who are non-functional.
I think that when you are raising a kid who may seem to have some coping issues, the thought that your child can complete college seems to a "fix." You do not know how to teach your bright child how to cope with life and it seems so normal to hope that if they do the "normal" thing, attend and complete college, perhaps they will learn more about coping with life and will graduate ready to be independent.
As our poster whose D may not be capable of getting & keeping a job and paying back student loans has learned, coping with college may not equal coping with life. I think a bright kid can learn to cope with college- it is generally not 8-5 work, nor even 8-8 work! You are relatively alone, even in the big group; whereas working at a large company you need to get along with the group of coworkers and bosses, in college you can survive as a loner.
I have a family member, mid 30s who strikes me as very similar to the man who was the subject of this story, but with no loans. He is living with his mom and is way underemployed, he is brilliant, but, I think, depressive and does not have the best social skills. His mom is also brilliant, under-employed and actually dependent on other for her current living situation. If there were student loans in the mix neither of these people could cope with that!
A depressive or non-coping person can stay in the safety of academia for just so long, then real life must be faced. In reading about this case, I wonder if he is some one who was depressed and untreated as he functioned, but the depression may have caused the delay in finishing the degree and the student loans may have escalated if he used them to pay for living expenses.
In the case of young people I know now who are taking student loans, we have always suggested you not take loans for anything beyond tuition, earn your living expenses as you go. If this young man had only taken tuition amounts as a loan, given that he was at a public school, they likely would not have been any where near $100k total.
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