See:–http://gawker.com/martin-omalley-borrowed-like-a-zillion-dollars-for-his-1716739612
Sort of amazed, but it illustrates the profound cost and well, perhaps a lack of fundamental planning?
There isn’t a lot of detail provided but perhaps he was expecting a marked increase in income after leaving public service.
It just goes to show it’s not the size of house you live in…And as my parents used to say: it’s not how much you make, but how much you save.
@TiggyB62 Yes, indeed. As an old school rapper once waxed…“if it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”
Of course, that is way more than the in-state cost of UMCP.
Public service does not pay especially well and both he and his wife have been in public service virtually their entire careers, as was her father and many members of their families. Prior to going to the Governor’s Mansion their family lived in a modest home in modest neighborhood. And they have 4 kids who all went to private Catholic schools. Doesn’t really surprise me. I bet if we knew the financial situations/decisions of many folks we might be surprised. I’m glad people can’t see into my wallet just like they can’t see through my clothes.
I don’t care how much he took out in loans to pay for his kids college. It’s none of my business
As emilybee says, it’s none of my business… plus… so what? He has loans for his kids’ education… I can think of far worse things to get in debt for (big houses, fancy cars, luxury vacations)
Do I give two shakes about his level of debt? None, except that he was formerly the chief executive of his state, and has aspirations of the White House. He promulgates public policy at the highest level, and as such, by necessity, a higher level of public scrutiny is attached. From my vantage, it does provide a fairly stark example of the high cost of higher education…
Financial incompetence? $240,00 of Georgetown University education to become a public school teacher in Baltimore.
The repayment on those loans is only like $4,000/mo.
That leaves him $110,000/yr to live on, and that’s if the kids don’t contribute anything.
When he uses his own financial incompetence to sway public policy, I certainly care. His special snowflake of a daughter was allowed to 'follow her dreams". I guess Daddy couldn’t save (guessing a $250k+ dual income) and then couldn’t say ‘no’.
That’s what I don’t get - if he had zero loans before, that is, he owed his (nice) house outright, why can’t he take out loans for his kids to go to college?
Newsflash - someone making $100K per year with no debt can take out a 300K mortgage. So if you had a 300K mortgage, and paid it off while your kids are growing up, you take out a HELOC and slowly take money as you need it for college.
If you want to help pay for your children’s college…
Has he endangered his retirement? Probably not.
He’s entitled to borrow as much money as he wants, and it appears he and his wife have the income to pay off those loans. Personally, however, I’d be embarrassed to admit I took on that much debt to send two of my four kids kids to: 1) a pricey private and 2) an OOS public at full price, and then use that colossal debt as an argument in favor of a debt-free college education for all.
Not sure why none of Maryland’s perfectly respectable public options were so unacceptable to his daughters.
In Baltimore, almost all Catholic children go to Catholic schools, and I’d bet all white Catholic children do. Baltimore didn’t have federally ordered busing because most of Baltimore public schools are majority black and there is no way to achieve diversity by busing. His wife is a Curran, and that’s a family with many political figures in it. I think they made a poor financial choice to send their daughter to Georgetown and the second one to an OOS school they hadn’t saved for. Nancy Pelosi’s father was mayor, and I’m sure she went to Catholic school too.
It is ridiculous that he now claims college is unaffordable. It’s certainly affordable for dual income families who have lived in the same area (same home?) for 20+ years, who choose wisely, who either use savings or borrow responsibly. Mrs. O’Malley went to public university and law school (her high school probably cost more than either her college or law school). His daughter was able to go to Georgetown because she choose it and choose to afford it. As a taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for her choices.
Why is “college” treated as a single entity?
When the story about the pastor and his wife who lost their daughter to liver cancer and then they were saddled with 200K (after non-payment charges were added) of loans to pay back, the part that really annoyed me was that apparently she went to some “nursing school” that was barely licensed, not some HYPMS or something.
The more time people like O’Malley spend on saying “college is not affordable” the more I think “YES, some colleges are not affordable for some people - I can’t afford a Mercedes or a Porsche, so I cannot buy one.” WHAT is wrong with understanding that if you are poor, you either have to be a really really good student (as in top 1%) and the help to find a full scholarship to a four-year college, or you need to go to a community college first.
OR maybe, just MAYBE, get a job for a few years, and get tuition benefits, and THEN when you can afford it, go to college part-time. Part-time college was good enough for my aunt, who ended up a VP at a Fortune 50 company after having started as a secretary and worked her way up.
I know many people with big six figure incomes sitting on expensive real estate that borrow their kids education funds rather than selling or borrowing off the equity of their home, with plans to repay after they downsize. For some, it’s a sensible plan and not that big a deal.They can pay it off and it is how they choose to balance their money while giving their kids what they want to give them. They live a nice life raising their kids. It is way different set of circumstances than those making a lot less money and hard for a lot of people to understand. But it works for them. My guess is this family has the debt handled going forward.
“Public service does not pay especially well and both he and his wife have been in public service virtually their entire careers, as was her father and many members of their families.”
Public service pays EXTREMELY well once you stop working. Much more than a comparable private sector job does.
O’Malley is a governor and his wife is a state court judge. That means modest salaries but two plush public sector pensions. No stinking self-funded 401ks for the O’Malleys!!
With little or no obligation to save for retirement, the O’Malleys can pretty easily justify borrowing and servicing this amount. Especially once O’Malley turns his governorship and presidential run into a lucrative law practice, TV nattering job, and speaking circuit gig.
Although they were broke when they left office, Bill Clinton and Al Gore both now have way more money than poor old Mitt Romney does.
^But those people were/are not in a position to make public policy.