Why pay all of kids' college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I know is by the time my kids are old enough to buy a house, the average price is north of $1 million around here. If they are saddled with loans, they will never own a home.

Why can't they just move to a low cost of living area? It's how my MD brother in law paid his full med loans off. Why do you expect your kids to buy in a million dollar house area?

Why should they? Imagine the shame when for the parents when their friends learn that their kids fled the area because they were too poor to afford living there.

I'm trying to figure out if you're trolling on this one. Or I hope you are because otherwise you're absurd.

Do you think Cleveland has the same numbers of UMC people who have well rounded educations as the DMV?

I doubt it does, but in any case if that's so then it's a feature, not a bug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

Leaving aside most of your post, I'll address this point: College costs have risen at a far greater rate than inflation has, such that for the most part, students cannot work their way through college as they could in the past. If parents don't pay for their kid's higher education, then the kid is unlikely to pursue it.

My oldest sibling attended MIT from the of 1969 to spring of 1973. In 1969, tuition was $2,150 and a dorm room and meal plan together cost about $1,800, for total annual cost of about $4,000. The minimum wage in 1969 was $1.30 per hour. Therefore, MIT tuition (only) was 1,654 times the minimum wage.

Today the tuition (only) is almost $62,000 ($61,990) and Massachusetts minimum wage is $15 per hour. Therefore, today’s MIT tuition is 3,334 times the local state (higher than the federal and most states) minimum wage. Room and board for one academic year is now just over $20,000, compared to my sibling's $1,800.

Bottom line: Your experience of fifty years ago is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe in cutting corners and working harder to fund my childrens' full college educations. The difference to me is that my kids are paying all of their own way in graduate school. The bar raises with each generation.

We live way under our means so we can pay for a state college and grad school. I'm not ok with loans. We live in a tiny house in a a less desirable neighborhood, don't vacation, nothing expensive and save. I don't get this attitude of not saving and living well and telling your kids they are on their own with education.

[Anonymous]

The problem here is wealthy parents call themselves middle class and expect financial aid/merit aid and because of income it's not coming. So, either you save or pay out of pocket or you find some kind of justification like skin in the game to force loans. I don't get it. I don't care about fancy stuff, a nice big house, or clothing. I care about my kids future and that future includes me doing everything I can to get them through grad school debt free. It may just be a state school but debt free is our goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

Totally agree. Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My oldest sibling attended MIT from the of 1969 to spring of 1973. In 1969, tuition was $2,150 and a dorm room and meal plan together cost about $1,800, for total annual cost of about $4,000. The minimum wage in 1969 was $1.30 per hour. Therefore, MIT tuition (only) was 1,654 times the minimum wage.

Today the tuition (only) is almost $62,000 ($61,990) and Massachusetts minimum wage is $15 per hour. Therefore, today’s MIT tuition is 3,334 times the local state (higher than the federal and most states) minimum wage. Room and board for one academic year is now just over $20,000, compared to my sibling's $1,800.

Bottom line: Your experience of fifty years ago is irrelevant.

$4000 was a lot of money in the early 1970's. You could buy a new car for $4000, and my parents were not about to buy me a new car any more than they were going to send me to MIT when the local commuter school was good enough. They didn't pay for that either, I had a co-op job with a local company and earned most of my college expenses myself.

My parents didn't believe in that "follow your dreams" nonsense, the purpose of college in their mind was to secure a middle management position at a large corporation, which is what my father did using the GI bill after WWII. As a kid growing up in the Great Depression, he never even thought about going to college and would probably have spent his life in a factory if not for Uncle Sam. He never spent any time dreaming about things that would have been impossible and he thought it was his duty to keep me aware of my limitations also.

The expectation that parents will supply most of the money for college perpetuates the belief
that education for its own sake is a privilege reserved for students who chose their parents wisely. There needs to be a way for students from middle class backgrounds to aspire to something more than what their parents have in mind for them. That was relevant then and is still relevant today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The expectation that parents will supply most of the money for college perpetuates the belief that education for its own sake is a privilege reserved for students who chose their parents wisely. There needs to be a way for students from middle class backgrounds to aspire to something more than what their parents have in mind for them. That was relevant then and is still relevant today.

Also in the 1970's universities offered academic scholarships that did not require financial need. Today most all scholarships require documented financial need, based on the parents income and assets. Universities consider it an anathema to offer money to middle class students who don't "need" it.

Even if you win a merit based scholarship from an outside organization, the school will deduct the value of that scholarship from your financial aid offer, so you are right back where you started from.

So the three ways that a student can attend college today are:
1. Choose wealthy parents who won't mind writing big checks for you to "follow your dreams".
2. Choose poor parents so that you qualify for Pell Grants.
3. Take out loans. Try to choose a major that will allow you to earn enough to get your loans paid off before you retire.

Working your way through college with a summer job is all but impossible today so we won't mention that anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

Because 99% of success is what you do at college, not where you go. Same once you get into the real world workforce. I want people working for me who do an excellent job, where they went to school doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.

I do get that college tuition is substantially more than it used to be, has risen much faster than the cost of inflation. But still, that doesn't mean you have to cut corners so tightly as to possibly cut back on retirement, or constantly live on a very tight budget. And it doesn't mean that you must work even harder to cover 100 percent of your kids' tuition.

I expect to cover at least two years of state school tuition, maybe 3 for my kids. They can make their own choices from there.

Discuss.

If you can't than don't. But it is nice not having debt.

[Anonymous]

For 4 years of private undergrad - i got 2 years worth of merit scholarships, my parents paid for 1 full year, I took on debt for the other 1 year. Looking back, it taught me a lot about the value of money, how to think about paying off debt, how compounding interest works, etc.

I paid everything off in about 3 years of graduating - i want to say it was about $30K. I got the other $20K funded through more school facilitated merit scholarships I applied for every semester. THIS was probably the single largest benefit from my parents making me pay for 1 year of school - I realized if I dont get aid for this, I will have to pay it, and it will suck, and I dont want to have to pay for any longer than I have to.

I lived in NY in a literal living room for about 2 years, paid around $1500 / a month in rent, I think did a 50% 401K contribution so like $1K a month? But still got it done. This was back in 2010.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My oldest sibling attended MIT from the of 1969 to spring of 1973. In 1969, tuition was $2,150 and a dorm room and meal plan together cost about $1,800, for total annual cost of about $4,000. The minimum wage in 1969 was $1.30 per hour. Therefore, MIT tuition (only) was 1,654 times the minimum wage.

Today the tuition (only) is almost $62,000 ($61,990) and Massachusetts minimum wage is $15 per hour. Therefore, today’s MIT tuition is 3,334 times the local state (higher than the federal and most states) minimum wage. Room and board for one academic year is now just over $20,000, compared to my sibling's $1,800.

Bottom line: Your experience of fifty years ago is irrelevant.

$4000 was a lot of money in the early 1970's. You could buy a new car for $4000, and my parents were not about to buy me a new car any more than they were going to send me to MIT when the local commuter school was good enough. They didn't pay for that either, I had a co-op job with a local company and earned most of my college expenses myself.

My parents didn't believe in that "follow your dreams" nonsense, the purpose of college in their mind was to secure a middle management position at a large corporation, which is what my father did using the GI bill after WWII. As a kid growing up in the Great Depression, he never even thought about going to college and would probably have spent his life in a factory if not for Uncle Sam. He never spent any time dreaming about things that would have been impossible and he thought it was his duty to keep me aware of my limitations also.

The expectation that parents will supply most of the money for college perpetuates the belief
that education for its own sake is a privilege reserved for students who chose their parents wisely. There needs to be a way for students from middle class backgrounds to aspire to something more than what their parents have in mind for them. That was relevant then and is still relevant today.

You missed the point entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For 4 years of private undergrad - i got 2 years worth of merit scholarships, my parents paid for 1 full year, I took on debt for the other 1 year. Looking back, it taught me a lot about the value of money, how to think about paying off debt, how compounding interest works, etc.

I paid everything off in about 3 years of graduating - i want to say it was about $30K. I got the other $20K funded through more school facilitated merit scholarships I applied for every semester. THIS was probably the single largest benefit from my parents making me pay for 1 year of school - I realized if I dont get aid for this, I will have to pay it, and it will suck, and I dont want to have to pay for any longer than I have to.

I lived in NY in a literal living room for about 2 years, paid around $1500 / a month in rent, I think did a 50% 401K contribution so like $1K a month? But still got it done. This was back in 2010.

Most of us who graduated couldn't afford $1500 a month rent and $1K 401K so nice brag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

Because 99% of success is what you do at college, not where you go. Same once you get into the real world workforce. I want people working for me who do an excellent job, where they went to school doesn't matter.

PP used MIT as an example. Do you really think that comparing career earnings from MIT graduates and graduates from commuter schools would result in the MIT degree not mattering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get this new expectation that the average middle class person is supposed to save to pay for 100 percent of their kid's college. Growing up, everyone had loans, I knew of almost no one who didn't have loans to pay off. Some incurred additional debt from grad school. They've all done just fine.
Discuss.

When I was in high school (50 years ago) a recruiter from MIT told me that my parents would have to make some sacrifices if they wanted to send me there, they might need to eat out less often and my mother might have to give up her fur coat. This is flawed in several ways:

1. My mother did not and never had a fur coat, and I could not remember the last time they ate out. He just assumed that because we lived in a nice suburb we were rich.

2. My parents did not want to send me to MIT, I wanted to go there. I don't understand where the expectation came from that parents should pay for their kids to go to college. The only reason some parents want their kids in an elite school is for the bragging rights, not because the student actually wants to go there. Other parents think that if they are paying the tuition they should choose their student's major and course schedule. On the whole the elite schools end up admitting students for the wrong reasons and end up perpetuating the privilege of the wealthy class instead of admitting the scholars who want to study hard and learn.

Needless to say, I never went to MIT, I attended a local school within driving distance. My parents let me live at home for free and drive their old car to class but that didn't actually cost them anything. I paid my way through graduate school by working as a teaching assistant and choosing a grad school in a flyover state with a comparably lower cost of living. The TA gig did not come with health insurance and that caused some problems when I started to develop medical issues, but that is another story.

Five decades later I have worked with people who did attend MIT and other elite schools and they were no better than me. We both ended up in the same type of jobs and careers.

Because 99% of success is what you do at college, not where you go. Same once you get into the real world workforce. I want people working for me who do an excellent job, where they went to school doesn't matter.

This should be true but very obviously isn’t. I’m sure I’ve gotten jobs, or at the very least, interviews, as a result of going to an Ivy League university that I wouldn’t have gotten had I gone elsewhere. My major had little to do with my career field, and while it’s true that I spent about 30 hours a week working in my field as an extracurricular activity when I was an undergrad, I still suspect it was the name on my diploma, not the work I put in, that helped make me successful.