I disagree with you northwesty on Denver public schools. I assume you are referring to East as the only acceptable school, but I was going to send my kids to TJ (we moved just a month before high school started, but that’s where they were registered to attend), and of course many go to GW to the IB program, others go to School of the Arts. Many of my daughter’s friends went to Littleton and Arapahoe which of course you can do if you live in the city limits, unless they went to the Catholic high schools. I know TJ grads at Yale and Brandeis, GW grads at Syracuse and Swathmore.
Of course the Superintendent of Public schools’ children go to public school in Boulder, so DPS is not good enough for his snowflakes.
Two – I’m not totally plugged into all the nuances of Denver public schools like TJ. Littleton and Araphoe prove the point – they are suburban public high schools used by city dwellers opting out of Denver public schools.
Except for East, everything else you name is a specialty school – arts, IB, charter, etc.
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Parents went to catholic school, grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc, for generations have all gone to catholic school.
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that’s how these things go. I went to an all-girls school. When I’m in Calif during the fall and attend a football game at the all-boys school, it’s like a family reunion. Not only do I see my relatives, but tons of old friends, their kids (some who current students or graduates), their siblings (who I’ve known just as long because they went to school with my siblings), and their parents (who fed me many a meal). Lots of marriages come from all of this.
My own kids are having that experience as well. One of my younger son’s housemates is a friend from his Catholic school days. Another of his med school classmates is a former high school GF. Another one is a classmate and best pal since the 3rd grade. GF was a high school classmate.
That said, none of this justifies all this debt. I don’t know anyone who has debt from putting their kids thru K-12…and most aren’t earning that much.
Yahoo News has a story about a younger person with similar issues:
22-year-old college student blows her $90,000 college fund and blames her parents
What irks me about Gov. O’Malley is that he wants the government to solve problems (which will of course impose costs and obligations on others) that he created due to his own poor decisionmaking. Hasn’t he ever heard of personal responsibility?
There are many educational options in Denver Public Schools, but northwesty is right: the top schools in DPS are the magnet/charter programs such as the School of the Arts, School of Science & Technology, and the IB program. None is very easy to get into – DSA is by audition/portfolio; DSST is by lottery, although every year 98% of the slots are filled by kids from DSST midde schools; and the IB program is self-selecting, with plenty of kids dropping out because the workload is too tough.
That said, I don’t think most of the suburban schools are that much better. I think suburbanites fool themselves into thinking they are; and their perception is that DPS has “gangs” which is of course code for African American kids. Ironically. there’s never been a shooting in DPS… can’t be said for those “safe” suburban Denver schools!
Fair disclosure: daughter went to East, son to DSST.
A 22 year old makes poor financial decisions and refuses to accept personal responsibility for her own bad decisions.
Martin O’Malley makes poor financial decisions and refuses to accept personal responsibility for his own bad decisions.
His daughter states that the family couldn’t afford her choice of college but they went ahead with it anyway. To add insult to injury, he wants the rest of us to pay for his own bad decisions.
@HappyAlumnus, you can say the same nonsense over and over again. Doesn’t make it true; although some people may be fooled.
I would do what I said until I was the second wealthiest person on earth. I don’t have a big enough ego to be number 1. I also wouldn’t want the financial system to collapse by my doing this deal too much.
The 22 year old’s story is a bit different, altho I see your point.
Even tho an 18-22 year old is an adult, I can’t imagine having a child with a $90k college fund gift from the grands and not having a “talk” with them about how to split that over 4 years. It’s like the parents turned a blind eye to the clothing spending and Europe trip.
The parents also never had any expectations for her to have a job.
That said, did the parents contribute nothing during those 3 years of college?
The difference in Denver is that all those opportunities at East, the IB program at George Washington, DSST, School of the Arts exist, and students can apply to them. We chose TJ over those other opportunities and even over Catholic high schools. Those opportunities don’t exist in Baltimore, and there isn’t the option of enrolling in suburban schools while living in the city like students from Denver can do at Littleton, Smoky Hill, some of the Aurora schools. What would you have done if your children didn’t get in to DSST or East? You had options. Baltimore families really don’t have public options in the city.
There certainly have been guns brought to Denver schools, recently to Lake Middle school. A Montebello student was stabbed to death several years ago at the school. My kids were on lock down while at a private school in Denver, and in fact a classmate was shot by a pellet gun while on the playground (shot came down the alley from someone shooting in a back yard). Thankfully, no one killed, but I had a little panic attack as I drove up to work the lunch room and was told someone from the 1st grade class had been shot, especially since I had two first graders at the time.
@dstark, if you find it acceptable for Gov. O’Malley to take out $339,000+ in high-interest loans in part so one child could attend a less selective school when there were surely better and cheaper choices, and so that both children could take low-paying jobs, when the family admittedly couldn’t afford those choices, and then to demand that US taxpayers pay for his decisions, then you’re welcome to pay those additional taxes, and I trust that you’ll be first in line to do so.
“and then to demand that US taxpayers pay for his decisions,”
Has Gov. O’Malley demanded the US taxpayer pay for his loans?
What I think he is proposing is a policy which will make paying for college less expensive for everyone. He is just using his family’s experience as an example.
@emilybee, yes, he has demanded that (1) capital gains tax rates be eliminated, so all income from investments be taxed at ordinary income rates, which are higher, and (2) corporate tax rates be increased so that he and others with college debt can have it reduced.
It will make paying for college less expensive for SOME people, but certainly not all, and it will impose extra costs on people who save for retirement, companies and others.
That’s what I was wondering, emilybee. For as bad as his decision was to take out all these loans (wouldn’t he have to qualify for them?) where is he asking for others, whether it be via student loan reform or whatever, for the rest of us to pay his bills? These loans are not discharged via bankruptcy or even death, IIRC.
Here’ is the article on the spoiled, entitled girl with the college trust fund she squandered, justifying her wardrobe purchases and trip to Europe as “education related”. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-college-student-blows-inheritance-bert-show-205833329.html The author implies that she could have gotten a work-study job. Um, no, she wouldn’t qualify for that.
Candidates can spew all they want. They can’t “demand” anything. And proposals to change the capital gains tax or corporate tax rates are probably to benefit… who, his constituents or the wealthy or both? The FAFSA asset protection keeps going down. He’s gotta hate that.
That is an insane commute. More likely they had an apartment for the work and school week but their legal domicile was the governor’s Manson.
Annapolis high school is NOT known to be a great public high school, although overall the county public schools are fairly decent. You’ll find several private schools in Anne Arundel County and Annapolis. The Key School in Annapolis (tuition in the mid 20,000’s, maybe higher) is a popular choice but there are others.
That said, I also see people just sticking with family tradition in Baltimore. It’s understood that Baltimore Catholic families send their kids to Catholic schools because they did. This means no matter how good that Annapolis high school is, public or private, the children attend the “family” schools.
“he has demanded that (1) capital gains tax rates be eliminated, so all income from investments be taxed at ordinary income rates, which are higher, and (2) corporate tax rates be increased so that he and others with college debt can have it reduced.”
No, he has proposed those policies, not demanded them. That is what people who run for office do - they proposed policies and hope enough people support the policies they proposed enough to vote for them. Then, if they are lucky enough to get elected Congress has to craft a bill and pass it for it to become law.
I actually support both those tax proposals and neither my H and I or my son took out any student loans and he just graduated with no debt at all.
“The author implies that she could have gotten a work-study job. Um, no, she wouldn’t qualify for that.”
I didn’t see where work-study was implied - just that she could get a job. My S didn’t qualify for work study and still was able to get a job on his campus. Not every campus job is a work study one. She also could get a job off campus. Plenty of kids do that, too.
The other thing about this story is that she didn’t blow $90K as $60K must have gone to paying for her first 3 years. She “only” blew $30K. Which is obviously bad enough, but I think it’s disingenuous to say she blew $90K. That being said, it’s also true that the $60K will be wasted if she doesn’t end up with a degree.
