<p>This was sent to me, ironically by my uber-successful friend who, by the way, graduated from a top Ivy League school. I will say it made me think.</p>
<p>If I’m not allowed to post the link, just google “Rethinking College as Student-Loan Burdens Rise”</p>
<p>He is assuming that everyone is paying full freight & paying everything outright. Would HE have wanted to wait 10-15 years before he went to college? What doors are open to kids who have just a high school diploma? How many of our kids are ready to “start a business” with $10-20K @ age 18? Who says many of our kids are made to be salespeople or entrepeneurs? </p>
<p>Yes, debt is a huge issue, but there is the in-state Us & colleges & CCs that have some options available. It will be interesting to see what these men will be saying when their kids are 18 or so.</p>
<p>Although the above article is purely about money - and I’ve no notion poprockmom if your ‘uber-successful’ friend is a performer, wall street type, or entrepreneur - I’ve been wondering about whether we should encourage our son to get some experience living as a performer for a year or so before sending him to music school. Has anyone out there had a child do a ‘gap’ year and spend some time performing or trying to perform I should say? In our case, this is about contemporary pop/rock performing in local clubs - which in our case is Northern NJ and NYC (if he should be so fortunate!).</p>
<p>Just do not have student loans. IMO, it is worhtwhile to send a kid to college. My S. who wanted to quit after 2 years told me so and thanked me many times for not letting him quit. My D. would not be able to attend Med. School without college, so basically she had no choice. However, both had a grand 4 years. But I agree about loans, just do not have them.</p>
<p>I do think that rethinking college is something some kids should do. I worked at a school where there were a number of students who just plain were not ready for college. They ran up loan tabs and ended up dropping out. I think some students need to take it slowly … at CC. Some need to consider certification and apprenticeship programs. Others need to mature - that is, work awhile before they commit the money.</p>
<p>MOWC, your statement has me wondering… I think most kids could find ways of attending college without loans It would take more time, and a different mindset about college, though. I may start a thread on the topic. Thanks for making me think about it.</p>
<p>Feedthedream: you might ask this question on the music majors forum. Lots of opinions there on whether or not it is advisable to incur large amounts of debt in the pursuit of a music performance degree. Especially since the OP posted this article over a year ago and may not be currently following the answers.</p>
<p>eastcoscrazy,
"… I think most kids could find ways of attending college without loans "</p>
<p>-Exactly, very true. As an example, we paid one very low (in-state public) UG tuition for 4 of us and paying one (very high) tuition for Grad. school out of 3.
Explanation:
-Paid for our S’s UG - in-state public. He did not go to Grad. School
-Employers paid for my Hs and mine BS’s and MBA’s
-D. was on full tuition Merit award in UG (she could have chosen to go to place where we would pay full price, but for other family it could have meant loans). Here is the only high tuition that we are paying currently, her Med. School tuition where most are on student loans. However, I heard that even in Med. Schools, about 25% do not take loans.<br>
My family has proven your point 100% so far.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP- Once again, your family is a sample of ONE! There are students with non-working parents or from extremely low-income families. There are families who have had business reversals and fall into the middle ground of no merit aid and not enough money to pay. There are students who don’t have the academic record for merit awards.</p>
<p>Your family only proves the point that it worked for your family.</p>
<p>Our kids had no loans,either, but I’m not claiming that this works for all families.</p>
<p>Miami, that doesn’t always work. Even full Pell only covers about one third of the tuition at my public state U. Yes, you could go part time but then you have decreased aid and it’s difficult to find jobs in Michigan.</p>
<p>Not all state schools are inexpensive, and not all state schools offer merit awards to B+/A- students. They don’t all have grant money to offer to all instate students other than perhaps their most financial needy, and that might not be enough for those who are offered grants. Additionally, not all students can commute to their instate university. </p>
<p>One community college in our state is over $5,000 per year before buying any books and often one still needs a car to commute to the community college because public transit is truly not a realistic option from all locations where students reside.</p>
<p>FWIW, for our family, our younger son’s financial package was better at 2 private Us than our instate university as a resident. For argument’s sake, if he were to commute instate would have less expensive because we would not be paying for housing and a meal plan (10k). That option would have required that we purchase car (no public transportation) and expensive NJ auto insurance for a male under age 25. Our son’s housing/meal plan arrangements at his private U is actually $2,000/year less than at our public U!</p>
<p>I can only use my personal experience, I have no right to use others, it is their place to use them. I thought that we are sharing personal experiences here, sorry to enrage everybody with mine. We had choices though, our experiences did not happen out of luck. I am extremely sorry to asume that others also have choices. I will keep in mind that it is not true and that the only most expansive options are available. I am sorry to hear about that. However, I have another suggestion, as outrageous as the first one. Home equity is cheaper option than student loans. I understand that we might be very unique and home equity is not an option for vast majority and I will be bashed for that suggestion also. Sorry to have a different opinions than most here. Sorry if I did not include enough "sorry"s here.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, there is nothing wrong with your suggestions, other than some posters may have nothing better to do but monitor you incessantly. It gets really OLD reading their negativity, constantly. </p>
<p>I agree that the idea of no loans is not a novel idea, and using your home equity line of credit is a common way to pay for college.</p>
<p>I graduated with no debt (it was about 10 years ago).</p>
<p>My parents helped with college expenses but even if they hadn’t, I still would have been able to pay for all of my college with no debt.</p>
<p>Graduating with no debt meant that I had no car. I gave up ski passes. I worked during the school year (on campus) & during the summer. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend. But, it also have meant that I have no loans to worry about.</p>
<p>Do I expect my kids to graduate with no debt? Yes, absolutely.</p>
<p>That was also the experience of a younger friend’s mother who was surprised that her D received a far greater FA/scholarship package from a respectable private university than she did as an in-stater for her rather mediocre state U or the adjacent state’s state U where she’d be paying in-state rates due to some agreement. </p>
<p>In her case…no brainer…state Us were out…not competitive financially nor academically. </p>
<p>I had a similar experience myself when my near-full ride scholarship to my private respectable LAC made it more financially worthwhile to attend it rather than my local state/city colleges.</p>
<p>My parents helped with college expenses but even if they hadn’t, I still would have been able to pay for all of my college with no debt.</p>
<p>Did you have significant merit aid?
Virtually everyone unless their parents have a trust to pay for college or those who have a zero EFC at a school that meets need, graduates with debt.</p>
<p>Be sure and add your school to the thread of schools that give merit aid if you haven’t already done so.</p>
<p>I did receive cash scholarships that helped. And working summers and during the school year helped to.</p>
<p>I was dumbfounded when I graduated, and saw that I would have graduated debt free even without family aid. Going into to college, I never saw that possible, and was surprised. But it’s possible, and I didn’t have any special opportunities that others didn’t.</p>