<p>Bay, these are not community colleges. They are for-profit trade schools. They prepare you to be medical assistance, dental/vet techs, computer network engineers. Unfortunately, they charge like private schools, give loans like they are candy and do a poor job in career placement. They have them in CA and everywhere else. Westwood, ITT, Academy of Art, Kaplan. </p>
<p>All this talk of encouraging people to go into the trades should look at the educational vehicles for this. Not all community colleges offer these practical programs. </p>
<p>I just checked the tuition and fees for the local Kaplan. To get a diploma (not AA) as an LPN, the tuition is 28,000. Criminal Justice was 29000. do you know what you do witha Criminal Justice AA? Other than cop or Homeland Security jobs (which are not easy to get) you end up working security.</p>
<p>^Yes, I understand the proprietary schools’ costs, but the quote was “two year and proprietary institutions,” so I assumed that meant two-year institutions of any type.</p>
<p>Our local community college is $29,000 tuition (2 years) if you’re a non-resident and not in the regional student program. I have no idea why someone would do something like this as it would seem to be a waste of tuition money to me. If you add R&B, then you probably could get to $40K.</p>
<p>I always read that the average student owes $24,000.</p>
<p>I never read what the average parent owes on the loans they took out for their students.</p>
<p>I never read how much money people borrowed from their 401 k to pay their students tuition.</p>
<p>I never read how much money people have used of their equity in their house to pay for their students tuition.</p>
<p>I would love to see the real numbers, the real impact of college costs on the American economy.</p>
<p>…the unemployment rate is 9.1% and all I keep reading about is the newly announced layoffs of more and more american workers. People working for less and our paychecks being threatened by increases in taxation. </p>
<p>When is the average american family sitting at their kitchen table going to say “we are better off than we were five years ago.”</p>
<p>I don’t think those numbers would tell you anything about the “real impact” of college costs, because money is fungible. It might tell you whether the average person is saving for college properly or managing their debt properly. If you put all of your extra cash into a 401(k) or into buying a house, then of course you will have to tap those sources when it comes to paying for college if you haven’t set aside any savings for your kids’ college tuitions.</p>
<p>My point is that if someone is predatory here by making a loan to someone who is clearly unlikely to succeed or become employable, it is the schools…not the banks.</p>
<hr>
<p>Sorry, but as a former financial aid professional, I can’t let this one go without a comment. None of the financial aid professionals I know (and I know many) advocate student debt. In fact, they try hard to talk students out of borrowing. In the end, though, the school is required to certify a private loan if the student has room in in his/her cost of attendance to allow that loan to be certified. They sponsor budgeting workshops, loan debt workshops, financial management workshops. They even advise students to choose a different school sometimes … in order to keep the student from borrowing too much.</p>
<p>By the way, I never led a lamb to slaughter in all my years in financial aid.</p>
<p>Bottom line, people “need” what they can’t afford, and they will borrow to get it. I see it every single day, on so many levels … homes, vacations, cell phones, huge tv sets, cars, etc. It’s no different with school. Folks will borrow to get what they can’t afford. Fine, whatever. Just don’t expect me to bail you out. I live within my means. It isn’t fun sometimes … I’d love to have things I can’t afford … but somewhere along the line I learned self-discipline.</p>
<p>This is exactly the conversation we had with our financial planner a few months ago. His take on this was that the government loan requirements are likely going to become a lot stricter in the near future, which will effectively limit the ability of colleges and universities to raise their tuition as drastically as they have over the past few decades. </p>
<p>I think that if this happens, we’re going to see a restructuring of college fees, perhaps with cutbacks at some schools, especially those with smaller endowments and/or classes full of full-pay kids who may not be as bright as the loan kids of previous years. Then, there will be a lot of hand-wringing and editorial writing, and maybe some enterprising set of schools will come up with a creative way to do college differently. I can dream, right?</p>
<p>I’m no economics expert and I’m unlikely to see this change in time to benefit my kids (we are full pay and I have a freshman and junior in HS), but I believe it will happen. I just don’t see how the college loan programs can continue in this irresponsible manner.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, you and your friends may all work at ethical schools. IMVHO there are others out there. </p>
<p>My complaint is that the rules were changed in 2005(year?) to make private students loans not dischargeable in bankruptcy. I think that encourages irresponsble lending and should be changed. But the financial institutions wont ever let that happen. And they have bought both political parties.</p>
<p>If you think student loans s/b dischargeable through bankruptcy who do you think should be left holding the bag - the lending institution or the taxpayer?</p>
<p>I would actually hope that finanical institutions would lend less agreessively if the law were changed. But I would hope that fin institutions would pick up the defaults.</p>
<p>IMHO, we the taxpayers will pick up the problem for the debt that is currently not dischargealbe. There will be govt programs becuase people cant pay. I hope I am wrong, but I am not counting on it.</p>
<p>I think when students are taking out loans to go to dime a dozen schools or to major in some liberal arts degree with horrible career outlooks then yeah, we might create a little bit of a crisis</p>
<p>The plus side and problem side with the finacial institutions picking up the defaults is that they’ll scrutinize the applicant(s) much more closely. The up side is fewer defaulting loans but the downside is fewer loans overall - especially to those from lower income households or households viewed as any kind of credit risk. They may even start loaning only if attending certain colleges or pursue certain majors (computer science? - okay, art appreciation? - no way). This probably wouldn’t be as much of a problem at the top colleges or some state colleges since they already have fin grants for some lower income threshold but it would be a problem for others.</p>
<p>I’m not for the taxpayer picking up any of these defaulted loans and I do think that if that’s the way it’s structured it’ll cause even more problems since even more students would have the entitled attitude that they should be able to go anywhere they want, sign for any amount of loans, and not pay it back, and colleges would ratchet up the prices even more.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what happens now when a student loan borrower defaults? I have always thought that if the loan is guaranteed by the federal government and is non-dischargeable, it remains collectible throughout the borrower’s lifetime via garnished wages, withholding of tax refunds, and withholding of social security benefits. Is this correct?</p>
Full pay for instate at Penn State and Pitt is a bit more than $32k/year (those are the leaders). There are a number of state U’s that are more expensive than the UCs. In fact, given the quality of the UCs, they’re still quite a bargain - you can expect them to go higher.</p>
<p>UCSD, I agree, and hope that lenders use more judgement</p>
<p>Bay fed and private loans they can go after anyone who signs till the cows come home. I think that there is a limit to which any creditor can attach wages or SS (what percent)</p>
<p>Can we talk about this, because I think it still does, at least in CA. What state do you live in MisterK?</p>
<p>If you make $80K or less in CA, you can go to a UC tuition-free. Yes, you may still have to pay r+b but there are plenty of UCs and CSUs, so you should be able to find one within commuting distance of your home.</p>
<p>Let’s say you make $100K, and you are not eligible for FA, and your kid wants to live on campus at a UC, which will cost you about $100K for 4 years. The “formula” I was referring to, assumes you have saved $33K for your child’s education (1/3), that you can pay $8,300 for 4 years out of current income (1/3), and that you can afford to service a loan of $33K after graduation (1/3). If you have not saved enough, then the fed gives you even more leeway by giving your kid $27K in loans to take part of the burden off of you. This seems reasonable to me. What do you think?</p>
<p>“Ok how about a little sympathy for the first generation college student.”</p>
<p>-A little sympathy is an awesome concept…until you run out of somebody else’s money. Banks are nothing but institutions that hold somebody else’s money, the same goes for government. Government does not own a single penny, it holds money collected from taxpayers who sweat over them 8 or more hours 5 or more day a week. Until this point is clear, the discussion about education that one cannot pay for and would love banks and/or government to pay for is futile. If person is buying goods / services that person cannot afford, why this person holds everybody responsible for his/her irresponsible behavior. There are plenty of ways to get education that is affordable at each level, absolutely at each, since families that truly cannot pay qualify for need based FA (which is already somebody else’s money). There are also Merit scholarships that are supported priamrily by private and corporate donations and some by states that would love to retain the top and the brightest within state system. There are CC that are much cheaper and there are plenty of employers who despite harsh economic times continue paying for employees’s college education, there are athletic scholarships and I am sure many other programs supported by people who are willing to donate and spread already to others who are paying out of pocket. We do not need to ask for money that are stashed in banks for hardship times or paid to the government as taxes to support priamry government functions, with college education not being one of them.</p>