So I was that kid that most of my friends went to Michigan or Michigan State (and a few ivys to make it interesting) and I stayed home and went to Wayne State but first year Community College. When you don’t have money you don’t have that many choices. ?. I was on Michigan’s campus so often visiting my girlfriend now my wife that most of my friends thought I went there. Bars, Law Library, etc etc. So heh, not so bad. I got the Michigan Experience at a fraction of the cost… Lol.
But I understand what the poster meant about commuter schools. For me Wayne was a commuter school but some people even back in the early 1980’s were on Apartment /Dorms. It’s no fun going to a school that half of the people go home on the weekends. I don’t have an issue at all with that point of view. It’s pretty obvious that not everyone has that luxury. To me it was getting educated so my children would have choices and that they do. Again, when you don’t have money lots of time the choices are made for you. But looking back, I had fun, went to parties, had friends etc. It was my reality and I don’t feel left out at all. For my kids their reality is different. Not necessarily better. My daughter goes to Beloit. It is an OOS for her but a commuter school for many that go there. Not really a big concern.
@natty1988 Part of the problem deals with the actual costs of college in comparison to American household incomes. The median income of a household in the US is just above 60K per year. Just based on that fact, there is a large portion of the “middle class” who could not afford a large loan payment and some of their home environments are not much better either.
The loans issue affects all income levels in my mind (unless you have a median household income or lower trying to attend tippy top schools or you have saved enough money or make enough money to afford any school). And that criteria doesn’t cover a lot of student households.
97% would need FA or scholarships to afford a $70,000 per year private university (resident).
71-83% would need FA or scholarships to afford a $25,000 to $35,000 per year in-state public university (resident).
49-61% would need FA or scholarships to afford a $15,000 to $20,000 per year in-state public university (commuter, including live-at-home and commuting costs).
27-44% would need FA or scholarships to afford a $8,000 to $13,000 per year community college (commuter, including live-at-home and commuting costs).
Sometimes the school the student wants to go to is close. A friend lives in the flagship city. Her son came home every Sunday to do his laundry and eat with his parents (and his cousin came too). I don’t think his experience was diminished by going home a lot, he just had cleaner clothes than most college kids.
I went to school less than an hour away from my home. I could have gone home all the time but never did. Even for Thanksgiving, I went home for dinner, then back to campus. I found my home to be chaotic and noisy compared to college, not a cozy refuge or a way to keep from growing up. My brothers, their friends, the dogs, my grandfather whistling ALL the time…too noisy for me.
With basic loans it really is just like a car payment - not difficult to pay off.
I was noting the average level of indebtedness for each Morehouse graduate this year was $101,000…this isn’t a car payment, it’s a life trajectory-altering burden akin to a mortgage payment, and few people who comment here would recommend incurring that level of debt for a bachelors degree.
I’m in that group. It in no way means my other statement isn’t true as well.
The 101K is debated. Folks derived it merely by dividing out the guess of 40 million and 400 graduated, but if the figure is lower as has been stated in other publications, that number is lower too. Morehouse listed their average debt per grad as much lower (in the 30s? - I didn’t memorize it).
@CTDadof2 , car loans are getting there but they aren’t st the 14-15 year mark yet. As a parent who immediately started paying PLUS and spent that period of time doing so, I can tell you it’s a rough go, and we do not qualify for financial aid.
One of the figures mentioned was $14 million. Seems like $14 million and $40 million could easily be misheard if someone were talking to you. $14 million gives a figure more like $35k per student, which more closely matches with Morehouse’s $31k per student debt plus a small amount of parent debt. The $101k per student from the $40 million amount would mean that each student has $70k of parent debt as well as $31k of student debt, which is somewhat hard to believe.
There is no tax burden if he spreads out the payment over multiple years to avoid the gift tax. In addition, his wife can give an equal amount to the same people without incurring a burden.
Per Morehouse CDS’, the amount of student-only loans last year was $6.9M. And the amount of Parent Plus loans (from prior year, since teh current year is an estimate), was $30.5M. Add the two together, and you approximate $40M, not counting tax impact. (Assuming I’m interpreting line H1 correctly?)
If those numbers are correct ($40M in loans for one class), I think Morehouse should be ashamed that it encourages poor students to assume that kind of debt. It’s a good school but it is going to be very hard to get out of that debt no matter how educated you are or how much prestige the Morehouse diploma brings. If $101k is the average debt, some must have $200k. If this were a for profit school, the public would be up in arms over those numbers but here we’re just say “Oh, how nice for this class.”
I think Smith can get around the tax issues by setting up a fund that each student can apply to to have the loans paid.
The CDS H1 numbers appear to be for all students. Federal grants are listed at $6,099,897. For the number of students in one class at Morehouse (396 graduating seniors or 611 frosh listed in the CDS), this give a number far larger than the maximum Pell grant.
But if the numbers are for all 4 years, wouldn’t one student’s four year debt be about the same? School is reporting the numbers for 4 years of students but a graduating student would have 4 years of debt.