He wants others to pay for his choices.
I realize this thread is about a politician, but try to keep politics, by making generalizations about politicians etc., out of it.
The schools his kids chose matter not. The fact that he took out $340K in undergraduate loans is nuts.
We think he is nuts…but clearly, he doesn’t think so.
Honestly…how others pay for college doesn’t matter to me…at all.
Now…if he had asked my opinion…I would have told him he was nuts.
O’Malley and his wife are both going to receive pensions.
They can afford the school loans unless they have a lot of other debts outstanding? Do they?
I have no idea if he is nuts or not. But the decision to take out that much $ for undergrad loans - THAT is nuts. Whether or not he cares about my opinion matters not to me… I shall share it freely here 
Hope he has the means to repay it. Has he had to disclose his financial status or tax filing in conjunction with his running for public office?
Can’t find anything on Martin O’Malley.
Becsuse of pensions, all the politicians probably have net worths higher than stated.
http://www.supercompressor.com/culture/the-net-worth-of-every-2016-presidential-candidate
@mom2collegekids, our daughter’s school placed a high premium on community and preferred its students lives revolve around the school and the activities it provided–which we fully understood was its prerogative. The principal and some of our daughter’s teachers were actually quite open in their disapproval. It was too bad, because our daughter was happy, fully engaged, and a top student in her class. Anyway, it was a long time ago, and we ended up home schooling her, which turned out to be a great experience. The school just stopped being a good fit.
What I wonder about is what he’s going to do to send the two younger kids to college. More loans?
I don’t know anything about this guy, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a million-dollar job contract sitting in his desk and knew exactly where the money is going to come from in 2018 (or whenever). If so, this is no different from someone with a trust taking out loans to bridge the years till the trust matures and he’s rich. He’s got the money, it just isn’t in his pocket yet.
@northwesty, before slamming Clemson as “redneck”–which it’s not–it would be a good idea to at least be able to correctly spell foreign phrases. The French phrase that you tried to use is spelled “je ne sais quoi”. It’s kind of embarrassing to attempt to use foreign phrases but misspell them in slamming others’ social class.
As to your other points:
- He couldn't afford the College of Charleston; that's why he had to take out high-interest loans to pay for it.
- It certainly wouldn't be dumb to take out a lower-interest loan, even for a short-term need. Even if he had those college loans outstanding for 4 years only, that would be approximately $36,000-$45,000 in extra interest that he'd be paying, versus taking out a mortgage or having a loan based on his investment accounts. That'd be $36,000-$45,000 at a minimum frittered away unnecessarily. That is very poor financial management, and that's my point.
- So his daughter might have wanted to go to CofC for atmosphere or whatever. That's fine. My point is that doing so is a very bad financial investment, however. If a degree requires taking out 6 figures of high-interest loans, the degree had better be worthwhile on the job market, and not from a school ranked 13th in Southern Universities in US News, if there were other options available that would offer a stronger degree for a comparable or lower cost (and for a governor's daughter, clearly with some brains, surely there were). For that kind of degree, no high-interest loans- or loans at all- should be obtained.
Again, his decision is certainly his, but it just is not a good one from the perspective of the financial rate of return on investment.
Perhaps the kid who went to College of Charleston wanted a smaller school (though it is still around 11,000 students). However, Maryland has in-state public schools of various sizes (including UMBC that is similar in size to CoC, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland that is a small public LAC).
I take offense to the characterization of Clemson as a “redneck” school. It’s not. My S, who is the farthest thing from a redneck, loved Clemson. The number 1 feeder HS into Clemson is Wando, a public HS in an affluent area of Charleston. Having said that Clemson and CofC may appeal to different students. My D, who ended up at a private OOS LAC, had CofC as her safety and didn’t apply to Clemson. Charleston is a unique city and its charms lure many students to CofC.
Back on topic - I don’t care how much the Governor borrowed nor do I care about his kids’ choice of schools. However, I agree with those who said his situation is not a good example to relate to the real problem of college affordability. His kids had plenty of good, affordable options. They chose their “dream” school instead.
I don’t hold any brief for this guy, but it looks like he’s a career politician. Not sure where he’d get any net worth.
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I don’t know anything about this guy, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a million-dollar job contract sitting in his desk and knew exactly where the money is going to come from in 2018 (or whenever). If so, this is no different from someone with a trust taking out loans to bridge the years till the trust matures and he’s rich. He’s got the money, it just isn’t in his pocket yet.
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@Hanna That is a reasonable assumption for someone who’s an ex-Gov.
However, if it’s true that the loan-taking was done with the fair-assumption that post public-service, he’d be pulling in some huge bucks and be able to easily pay off those loans, then it’s really dishonest to be acting like these loans are a big financial burden and hardship. Real people don’t have these options.
People should not bank on money they don’t yet have (sorry for the bad pun).
He doesn’t have money issues. When he returned to Baltimore during the riots, he’d been in England doing some kind of work.
I think he does have some plan to pay off the loans in a lump sum. No one really thinks they are going to pay student loans the size of a mortgage one month at a time, not even someone who is used to paying for $10 million highway projects or $200M university expenditures.
He knows how to fund a political campaign and I think these lower cost student loans are part of the ‘plan.’ I don’t agree with the plan, and I really don’t agree with him or daughter making statements about what a hardship it is, but that just goes into my overall assessment of whether he’s going to go far in the presidential race.
He could go to any law firm in Baltimore and make plenty if he wanted to.
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I really don’t agree with him or daughter making statements about what a hardship it is,
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I agree.
Those claims are just ridiculous.
“@northwesty, before slamming Clemson as “redneck”–which it’s not–it would be a good idea to at least be able to correctly spell foreign phrases. The French phrase that you tried to use is spelled “je ne sais quoi”. It’s kind of embarrassing to attempt to use foreign phrases but misspell them in slamming others’ social class.”
Although I was born in the north, I’m an adopted/honorary redneck. I obviously can’t speak or spell french. : )
“1. He couldn’t afford the College of Charleston; that’s why he had to take out high-interest loans to pay for it.”
If O’Malley kept his kid home and sent her to UMD, that would cost him about $100k. About the same cost as CoC most likely (with the expected merit aid). He would have had to borrow for just about any college he sent his kid to. My guess is that in-state college would have been pretty much full sticker. So O’Malley couldn’t afford that either.
Clemson and CoC are different schools with different locations, sizes and vibes. The kid presumably wanted a school like CoC.
Just a quick correction on the Chelsea Clinton statement - she was in the public schools until they moved into the White House. HRC says they only put her in private school (Sidwell Friends) at that point for security reasons. Whether you believe her or not on the reasons, it is simple fact that Chelsea was in the public schools while they lived in Arkansas.