Crazy Debt....What were the parents thinking???

DmitriR
Sat, 02 May 2015 20:28:32 +0000

True, but I was just highlighting the fact that the dad wasn’t very supportive of the mom’s point about finances and the fact that some of the people commenting were dismissive of her concerns. (I remember one poster repeatedly suggesting that the parents should just go ahead and borrow the $20,000 for the first year at the expensive school to avoid upsetting the son even though the mom was unsure about the family’s finances as well as the son’s commitment to academics). The fact is that people will give into ideas that they think are bad (cosigning for loans that they aren’t sure they can afford, for example) just to avoid having tough conversations with their spouses or children. It happened to work out better for that family but it wasn’t easy and there are many families who would have given in and borrowed the money.

IBR and ICR plans like the ones described in that article aren’t going to save people from those kinds of mistakes.