<p>I’ve been reading these posts, and it appears that many posts are off topic. Of course in an ideal world we would all save and plan for contingencies. It would be terrific to plan for 16 semesters if we could. The truth is that the average family has $25K saved for each student. The 529 plans are useless and saving for college has been difficult for most families this last decade. In the best case scenario all students would graduate in 4 years with great grades. But, mental illness, physical illness, other real life situations happen. If a student is being responsible, most families would reasonably help as much as they could. Families with multiple children to put through college may not have that luxury. Parents who need to save for retirement would probably make a better choice throwing the extra expenses after 4 years onto the student who has a career lifetime to pay down the debt.
And the public colleges are not accepting responsibility for graduation rates.
My son was accepted at prestigious University of California campus’s and chose a lesser-known private college. The UC’s had all stated that a computer science major would (these days) need 7 years to graduate because they “were impacted”. That appeared to be honest, but there was an appalling lack of true disclosure. The truth was, they were cutting important classes in his major due to budget cuts.They were packing too many students into limited programs and then “weeding” them out with strict bell curves and unnecessary grade challenges in required core classes.What the UC’s are not discussing is that the usual state and federal aid grants and loans are only for 4 years. There is absolutely no discussion with the family of a prospective freshman on financing those extra years. My son’s private school choice gave him a generous scholarship, guaranteed 4-year graduation, and offers a 5-year Master’s program.They offer a partial scholarship for that 5th year.The room and board charges for the 3-year difference more than made up the cost difference between the private and public school.
If college were treated like any other major purchase in life, there would be strict disclosure laws, competition for consumers would drive the price down and the interest rate on debt would be similar to home loan debt.</p>