Why are parents so reluctant to take out loans?

<p>In early 80’s I got through school with some contributions from my parents, a scholarship, and working part time during the school year and full time every summer. I just barely managed it. I don’t see how that could be done nowadays without significant financial aid.</p>

<p>Oh my goodness, I would never, ever expect my parents to do that! I know that they are not in a place where they can afford to pay for my college right now! If they ever are, that’s great, but I don’t think that they are obligated to pay for my college…</p>

<p>See below for what I’m responding to.</p>

<p>Very well put! </p>

<p>I’m finding so many posts in this thread that I could directly quote just to say “Bravo” - well thought out and perceptive. We all love our children, but at approximately 18 years of age, they should be adult enough to understand our financial situation and to appreciate whatever it is that we can do for them, at whatever level our family is capable of… not just ask for more blindly. We don’t do them any favors if they continue to believe the world will just hand it to them on a silver platter. My daughter has applied to both private and public schools, and we will wait to see where the financial aid packages fall. If the final distance between the two is not horrific, then we’ll let her go private if that is her dream. But it cannot be at the risk of our younger daughter’s future, or our financial security in our 70s.</p>

<p>Sorry - I couldn’t figure out how to post with this quote attached (Message #351):</p>

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<p>"Because I LOVE my child and do not want to teach him to live beyond his means or make stupid financial investments.</p>

<p>Because I LOVE my child and want him to understand that in this world, you eat what you kill </p>

<p>Because I LOVE my child and want him to have a wonderful life understanding he is not some precious snowflake in a socioeconomic vacuum, and that only the shallowest and least-reflective minds judge a person’s accomplishments based on where they went to school instead of WHAT THEY DID WITH THEIR EDUCATION </p>

<p>Because I LOVE my child and I want his future freedom to be as unbridled as possible. I want him to be able to afford to travel, to adventure, to subsist without worrying that I’ll die and leave him with a legacy of debt. Or that I’ll live, and drain every penny he might otherwise inherit because I was foolish and tried to buy him a pedigree that I had to finance </p>

<p>Because I LOVE my child, and want him to get along with all walks of life in the world, and to save him from a future wherein he’s posting idiotic and misguided prestige-fueled nonsense on threads :-)</p>

<p>Nrdsb4 makes a good point, that there are families where the previous generations may have been able to work their way through college, but the current generation cannot, due to the difference in the increase in tuition vs. the increase in pay for student jobs. So this may require the start of a new tradition of assistance.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, if the extra money is just not realistically there for the more expensive college, then that’s not an available choice.</p>

<p>"Being in the bottom 25% of the student body is a good place to be. Being in the top 25% means you could have attended a better quality school. "</p>

<p>I have to disagree. Especially in the STEM majors, studies have shown that students in the lowest 25 - 33% of the class have a significantly lower chance of actually graduating. The lowest kids tend to drop out, change majors, give up the dream… Even those in that position that do stick it out tend to publish less and be included in research less often. Going to an MIT type school simply based on the prestige would not be a great idea, unless your kid is of the type that will thrive in that cutthroat, competitive, difficult environment. Most prestige does not necessarily equal best school.</p>

<p>There might have been fewer diversions from a meaningful discussion if the OP had posited a $80,000 loan for a student to attend 4 years of a flagship state University rather than living at home attending community college then finishing up commuting to a nearby lower-tier state college. The cost differential is about right (at least here in California) and the noxious comments about “superior” people and elitism could have been avoided.</p>

<p>The principle remains. It is possible for a student to graduate in four years to a financially rewarding and interesting career and lifestyle taking the second route, but significantly more difficult and less likely to actually happen. If you could somehow devise a double blind experiment, cloning students and sending one clone on each route I’m pretty sure that would prove true. As a parent, I’d consider it a valid investment in my children’s future to dig down and take out the loans to let my kid through door #1 and not saddle him/her with debt when he/she starts out in life. Not everyone can do that - I certainly understand that - but for those who can, electing not to do so in favor of saving more cash for retirement (or buying fancy cars, vacations, or whatever other example you want to use) strikes me as a less-than-admirable lack of willingness to “pay it forward.”</p>

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<p>Approximate list price costs in CA (in-state, R = residential, C = commuter living with parents, including food, utilities, etc. consumed at the parents place):</p>

<p>UC 4 years: $132,000 (R), $96,000 (C)
CSU 4 years: $96,000 (R), $66,000 (C)
CC 2 years: $36,000 (R), $15,000 (C)
CC (C) + UC (R): $81,000
CC (C) + CSU (R): $63,000
CC (C) + UC (C): $63,000
CC (C) + CSU (C): $48,000</p>

<p>So there are a lot of cost tiers available in California for those who would pay list price. (And that does not include consideration of private schools, financial aid, and scholarships.)</p>

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<p>While many, perhaps most, in this thread will agree with you here, it is far too late if this is only looked at by the time the student is a high school senior, and the student and (high income so not getting financial aid) parents are facing $80,000 of loans because they just do not have the money, perhaps due to poor choices in the past about spending habits and the like. Berating parents for past poor financial decisions or trying to get them to take loans that they cannot afford (and may not qualify for) does nothing to find the student any college options that will meet his/her goals affordably.</p>

<p>The father of one of DD’s roommates is a very successful oral surgeon. he started out at the local CC because money was tight, transferred to the lowest cost IS public with his major to finish his UG, then on to that state’s medical college. He is a huge proponent of CC’s and sits on the Board of Regents for the CC system.</p>

<p>He is the proof that you CAN succeed even if you start out your college career in CC.</p>

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<p>So is [Aaron</a> Benavidez](<a href=“http://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/people/aaron-benavidez]Aaron”>Aaron Benavidez | Department of Sociology), who started college at Sacramento City College before transferring to [Berkeley[/url</a>].</p>

<p>Another student who started at a CC is [url=<a href=“http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/at-just-14-ucla-math-student-moshe-229359.aspx]Moshe”>Newsroom | UCLA]Moshe</a> Kai Cavalin](<a href=“Berkeley News | Berkeley”>Berkeley News | Berkeley).</p>

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It is possible to be successful with any level of education. For example, the founders of Virgin, Tumbler, Disney, and countless other successful companies were all HS drop outs. </p>

<p>A more relevant questions is by whether such choices decrease chance of achieving goals and if so by what degree.</p>

<p>Where are these references to “superior people” and “elitism” and “a better class of people” coming from? I don’t think I ever used those words. Was it my mention of the campus “ethos”. Are you saying you’d prefer that your child experience the culture at Podunk rather than, say, Harvard? Was it my reference to “undesirable elements”? Are you not concerned about the level of maturity and behavior that your child will be exposed to? Are saying that student behavior and maturity is the same regardless of the selectivity of the school?</p>

<p>This part of the discussion is relevant to the topic because part of what parents “buy” when they choose a college is the peer group to which your child will belong. Members of the student body create the campus “ethos”. They are the role models. They determine the level of instruction. Collectively, they establish standards of behavior.</p>

<p>Yes, there are good kids at every school. There is diversity but I think it is valid to speak of general differences among colleges. What price would you put on these intangibles?</p>

<p>Aren’t parents concerned about the kinds of attitudes and behavior their kids are exposed to? Be honest.</p>

<p>I find it strange that my comments are construed as elitist. How is it elitist for me to want the very best for all of your children regardless of your socioeconomic status?</p>

<p>collegehelp, here is a part of your post #237 that I found objectionable:

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<p>I went to a large, public, research university, which I suspect might count as “lower tier” in your world view. I didn’t notice an “undesirable element” there–at least, certainly no more than among the students I met in graduate school, who had gone to the “top” schools for undergraduate work . . . in fact, probably somewhat less. A lot of my contemporaries have faculty positions at research universities, and they constituted an excellent peer group, as undergraduates. They were not that hard to find.</p>

<p>You seem to have a rather strange and unrealistic view of the people who go to the “non-top” schools.</p>

<p>^ I’ll respond to that same quote: </p>

<p>Oh please! Puh-lease. “Undesirable qualities”? Give me those with “undesirable qualities” over elitist snobs any day (and in no way am I saying those at elite schools are elitist snobs- I’m saying that those who think that those who go to lower-tier schools are doomed to be with some weird “undesirable element”). </p>

<p>Weirdly enough, I didn’t choose my college friends by how ambitious they are. Most of my friends are decidedly not ambitious, but they are good people. If my future children act like my college friends- good people who would do anything for anyone- I’d count my blessings. Did my friends drink? Smoke weed? Have sex? Yup. The horror.</p>

<p>collegehelp -</p>

<p>While it is fine and good of you to want everyone’s children to have the best education possible regardless of their socioeconomic status, unless you are going to be the one who makes those great educations possible, you should just shut up about how other people spend their money. There is no job fairy out there to magically produce better paying work for many of the people who you think should take on a bunch of debt so that those strangers children can attend colleges and universities that you like better than the one’s those young people currently attend.</p>

<p>To date I have attended one Ivy peer undergrad LAC, one non-selective undergrad LAC, one big state U both as an undergrad and as a grad student, one Ivy U as a grad student, one not very selective private U as a grad student, and two different community colleges that are in two different parts of the US. I had excellent instructors at all of them, and less than excellent instructors at all but that non-selective LAC (probably because I only took one class there). I encountered excellent students everywhere. I also had run ins with not so excellent students everywhere. What I learned from this is that while it is nifty to be surrounded by lots of brilliant types, that does not mean that you in particular are guaranteed to learn more, or to be better prepared for life after college. Most of what anyone gets out of college is up to that person. </p>

<p>Your mileage, of course may vary.</p>

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<p>I think “high-density-smart-kid-selective-schools” (which I’m a huge fan of) have, well, a higher density of highly intelligent and immediately ambitious kids. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are more mature, however. There are plenty of immature kids at elite colleges. And as for behavior – come on, like “undesirable” behavior (drugs, alcohol) doesn’t go on everywhere? (I don’t count sex in there, because to me, it’s not undesirable.)</p>

<p>You don’t seriously think that there aren’t hard-working, ambitious kids with impeccable standards of behavior at East Podunk State – who just happen to come from backgrounds or social milieus where either going away to college isn’t on the radar screen, or who have money or other constraints such that East Podunk State is where they are at and that’s how it goes? Indeed, I think some of those hard workers who are working several jobs to get ahead put the “values” of elite school kids to shame, my own silver-platter kids included.</p>

<p>I keep coming back to this thread because something is bugging me.</p>

<p>I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no financial genius… but that $80,000 number that keeps getting bandied about? That’s the entry-level, in-state public school number for a 4 year residential college in NY. I know that’s the bare minimum I’ll have to pony up for each of my two kids, and I’m prepared to do it, though it won’t be easy. The difference between public and private - add in ANOTHER $160,000 over 4 years. How is that reasonable or even possible for middle class families who still have a mortgage, have more than one child, or possibly parents in their 50s? I’m truly amazed that anyone could say I just don’t love my children enough if I’m not willing to take on huge debt so that each could have a $240,000 education. Yes, my daughter has applied to a few private schools that cost very close to $60,000/year. But she has also already heard from us that most likely those schools will just not be possible unless she gets an almost unheard of amount of merit-based aid and/or need-based aid. I’d love to say we just have the total amount sitting, waiting, in each college fund, but it isn’t so. To have put away enough to cover a private college for two children would have required saving about $2400 a month over the last 17 years. Wow. You’d have to be a way better manager than I am to stretch even our OK income to cover life’s necessities and THAT! :-)</p>

<p>Anyway, just had to put in my 2 cents… we’re not really talking about $80,000 here.</p>

<p>YueYang, you don’t think your $2400 per month would have earned ANY income over those 17 years?</p>

<p>Point taken - music major here, not an accountant! Obviously there’s interest, but even saving an “extra” $1000 a month would be difficult for most families, and that’s just not going to get you to a private school education.</p>

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<p>Could the generally wealthier students at those elite schools have more money to spend on recreational drugs, including alcohol?</p>

<p>Indeed, those elite schools, which are coed non-HBU four year schools, often with fraternities and sororities or similar organizations, athletically inclined (after all, the Ivy League is an NCAA Division I sports conference), not that big, in the northeast, and mainly residential, seem to have characteristics indicating a higher risk of drinking and binge drinking according to [Binge</a> drinking, dangers of alcohol at College Drinking](<a href=“http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/supportingresearch/journal/presley.aspx]Binge”>http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/supportingresearch/journal/presley.aspx) .</p>

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<p>How about a comparison.</p>

<p>Dartmouth’s frosh class has about 1,100 students. The 25th percentile SAT scores are 670/680/680. I.e. approximately 825 students have each score or higher in the appropriate subsection.</p>

<p>Texas’ frosh class has about 9,000 students. The 75th percentile SAT scores are 670/710/680. I.e. about 2,250 students have each score or higher in the appropriate subsection.</p>

<p>Yes, Texas is about eight times as large as Dartmouth. But it still has more than two Darthmouths’ worth of “top students” mixed in to its huge student body. I.e. you can find twice as many “top students” at Texas than at Dartmouth.</p>

<p>Now, the worst students at Dartmouth may have better high school qualifications than the worst students at Texas. But should a high achieving student looking for similar high achievers really worry about the worst students, when there are plenty of similarly high achieving students at Texas?</p>