Yes, a lot of people do exactly that. ^^^
It’s unlikely the O’Malleys lived in the governor’s mansion full time, or that it saved them any money. They still have their home in Baltimore, less than an hour away, and they had the expenses for that. Mrs. O works in Baltimore, so if she didn’t live there, she’d have the commuting expense (it’s about an hour, but more for commuting).
Post #58 expressed it best. His borrowing had nothing to do with affording a state U or higher ed in general or his ‘plan’ for education. Side issue.
<<<
I think it is unfortunate that O’Malley decided to include information about his own family’s education debt for a private U and an OOS U when announcing his proposal for debt-free graduation for students at their own home-state public Us. This confuses two separate issues.
<<<
Right…because tax-payers would really freak out if they thought he might be supporting an idea that a kid should be able to go anywhere, instate, OOS, public or private…for free.
This is not an issue. Maybe he was saving cash for something else. Like a campaign or something. The point is he can easily pay it back out of his earnings
Is it common in many cities for the K-12 schools to have that level of religious segregation with respect to “almost all” Catholic K-12 students attending Catholic schools?
Baltimore was one of the only cities that did not have court ordered busing in the 70’s because the majority (by far) of the children in Baltimore city schools were black and it wouldn’t help to bus them to other schools. Catholic schools didn’t cost much (or anything), it’s a predominantly Catholic city, so they just went to Catholic schools. Carmelo Anthony who is from West Baltimore (where the recent riots were) went to Towson Catholic. Many of the better athletes are recruited to the very competitive suburban Catholic high schools.
Many cities used to rely heavily on Catholic schools. Those schools were free or cheap because they were staffed with nuns. Catholic schools must now hire lay teachers, are no longer free and no longer affordable to urban families. Baltimore is still supporting the catholic schools, but other cities that had a large number of catholic parish schools like Philly, NYC, Boston, St. Louis have fewer catholic schools now.
Hmmm, what I can find on the web indicates that Baltimore is no longer predominantly Catholic. Of the approximately half who indicate a religion other than “none”, Catholics are about a quarter of those (or about an eighth of the total population).
,<<<
twoinanddone wrote:
In Baltimore, almost all Catholic children go to Catholic schools, and I’d bet all white Catholic children do.
[QUOTE=""]
mom2collegekids wrote: I didn't realize that went on in Baltimore. I know that it kind of does in NOLA.Is it common in many cities for the K-12 schools to have that level of religious segregation with respect to “almost all” Catholic K-12 students attending Catholic schools?
[/QUOTE]
There was a time, and it was awhile ago, that if you were Catholic, you were pretty much expected to have your kids in the parish school. At that time, tuition was extremely low. I can remember my parents paying as low as $11 a month…for all kids (not each)! lol
However, in places like NOLA, the Catholic school enrollment was still very high (at least up until Katrina).
Catholic school enrollment seems (to me) to vary by how high an area’s property taxes are. When we lived in northern Alabama, Catholic school enrollment was very strong, but then parents weren’t paying so much in property taxes. When you’re paying a lot in property taxes, you will feel like you’re really “double paying” if you put your kids in private schools. At that point, the middle class can’t often afford it.
When we lived in southern Calif, we didn’t live in a “bedroom community” so our property taxes weren’t crazy high either…so the Catholic school option was popular and there were waiting lists.
I don’t know about the busing part of it, but there was definitely mandated school desegregation in baltimore. I know, because I was one of the kids forced to move from a mostly white elementary school a block away, to an all black school a mile away.
There was no busing provided, so I had to walk a path that included crossing a major busy boulevard by myself. In my new class, I was the only non-black kid.
Hmmmn, to say the loan was not an issue is not entirely true. Both the governor and his daughter have said it was a hardship…
A hardship?
Compared to what, I wonder?
NOT going to college?
Earning and saving the college funds in advance?
Having people GIVE the money to you?
Winning Merit scholarships?
Being able to default on your debt?
I’m just reporting what the collective thoughts were of the former Governor and his daughter. That said, it seems their is an inconsistency of what may have been said, and the financial reality (perhaps they had planned all along to borrow the money)-- but who knows?
@JustOneDad, this is an interesting way to think about hardships.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought about them the way you did – by comparing them to the alternatives.
When my kids were in high school, the whole family thought that the early start times – which required them to get up before 6 a.m. – were a hardship. But maybe we would have looked at the situation differently if we had considered the alternatives. What alternatives were there? Dropping out? Homeschooling – something none of us would have liked? A private school that started later – which we couldn’t afford? Boarding school – which was also too expensive?
Perhaps we would have resented the early hours less if we had thought about the alternatives.
Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators: ‘There are two big issues I’ve seen when people try to develop public policy from the extremes: first, we end up with great talking points and political rhetoric, but without any viable, realistic plan to get to the end goal, or (2) we end up creating programs that focus on the wrong demographic. Maybe what we should take from Governor O’Malley’s experience is asking whether there should be better safeguards in place to prevent parents from going $335,000 in debt!’"
Mark Kantrowitz, senior vice president and publisher at Edvisors and a leading number cruncher on student aid and loans, ran the numbers: “Nine federal parent PLUS loans totaling $339,200 works out to be $37,689 per loan. That is greater than the federal parent PLUS loan amount borrowed by 99.9 percent of parents.”
I am not sure we can safeguard people from themselves. But I don’t want to be paying more money (it all ends up being taxpayer funded) to help anyone who chooses to borrow so darn much. As others have pointed out, there are less expensive alternatives. I don’t think the Governor is actually saying that he thinks he should get help because he borrowed so much … I think it’s probably more of the “I feel your pain and want to help” thing … but focusing on his choice to borrow so much ends up putting the focus on that choice.
Maryland, in particular, was known as “the Catholic colony” from the very beginning. Literally, Catholics immigrated to Maryland because they knew it was the one colony/state that they could expect to be friendly to their religion. It was a place of refuge for persecuted Catholics from England. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore (the first Governor of the colony of Maryland) was Catholic, of course (and the state flag is his two familes’ coats of arms).
Georgetown University was founded (January 1789) in Maryland to be the first Catholic college in the new world, about a year and a half before that part of the state was donated to the federal government to become the District of Columbia (July 1790). For Maryland Catholics, Georgetown is still the school they mostly aspire to. It’s no wonder he sent one of his daughters to GU.
The Catholic tradition is Very Strong in Maryland, especially in its traditional heart of Baltimore (once upon a time, there were no DC suburbs).
FCDad has his history right.
MD’s Charles Carroll of Carrolton was the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who was Catholic. His cousin John Carroll was the first Catholic bishop in America and the founder of Georgetown.
At its peak in the early 1960s, Catholic schools enrolled 12% of all school children in the U.S. Probably more like 30-50% in blue collar Catholic enclaves like Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston, etc. Only 3% of the students were non-Catholic. Today that’s down to 5% of U.S. school children and 14% of the enrollment is non-Catholic.
The tradition still runs strong in many places but it is very different for my kids than it was for me. Catholic school staffs were 90% nuns back in the day; today that’s probably 5%.
Except that HE is the one whose daughter used the family debt to promote debt-free college education for all. If folks are confused about his proposal, it’s because of his own method for promoting it. His DAUGHTER emailed the following in support of the campaign:
Sorry, this sounds a lot like having your cake and eating it too.
Except that none of that is relevant to public policy. The fact that anyone choose to send their kid to a private college – Catholic or not – is a personal choice, and should not be used to develop public policy just bcos the Gov wants to share that he “feels our pain.”
Yikes … putting it out there as you just did, Lucie, makes me cringe. Sorry, young lady … but the choice your family made was not the only choice available to you. Cry me a river.
I can’t BELIEVE this thread has had 78 comments… We all need to get a life! 