Looking back, do you wish your child attended the least expensive college?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The "cheapest" option, community college, wouldn't have been a good fit for me because of my field of study, it was also a situation where, at least at the time, the kids from my high school who went to CC did so because they didn't know what else to do or because they didn't get into the closest state university. I took a couple classes over the summer there and it was like being back in my worst gen ed classes in high school with other students sleeping, being disruptive, etc.

I sometimes wish I had chosen the cheapER option that still would have been a good fit for what I wanted to do- I still would have had to take out loans but not as much. Ultimately, the small college I attended helped me achieve my career goals and I was able to pay off my loans eventually, but it did hamper my choices in my 20s/early 30s.

Bingo. Folks who recommend CC for an above average student are idiots. Outside of maybe a random single course to take over the summer and transfer in (if your university will even allow it), it’s a pointless waste of time and just ruins your social life and segue to university. You miss out on all the freshman connections.

You’re an idiot.

This forum is full of people who would send OTHER people’s kids to CC. Or are trying to rationalize why their unmotivated kid went to one or why they are control freaks who forced their kid(s) to live at home and commute to a local college. If your kid is bright, CC is a waste of time and just produces atrophy and torpedos your kid’s social life and experience they’ll get out of university once they transfer. Lot of fun being the weird CC transfer kid doesn’t have any friends from freshman year.

20,000+ student universities are nothing like what you describe here.

Oh really, did you go to a state school? How many community college transfer friends did you make? And that was presumably 20 or 30 years ago before social media and cell phones. Unless you're transferring into a college you already have a lot of best friends at, it's going to suck.

Are you 12 with this kind of thought process? Not every kid needs a clique of people to navigate the world-especially at the college level. Grow up and consider that what you require is not what everyone does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The "cheapest" option, community college, wouldn't have been a good fit for me because of my field of study, it was also a situation where, at least at the time, the kids from my high school who went to CC did so because they didn't know what else to do or because they didn't get into the closest state university. I took a couple classes over the summer there and it was like being back in my worst gen ed classes in high school with other students sleeping, being disruptive, etc.

I sometimes wish I had chosen the cheapER option that still would have been a good fit for what I wanted to do- I still would have had to take out loans but not as much. Ultimately, the small college I attended helped me achieve my career goals and I was able to pay off my loans eventually, but it did hamper my choices in my 20s/early 30s.

Bingo. Folks who recommend CC for an above average student are idiots. Outside of maybe a random single course to take over the summer and transfer in (if your university will even allow it), it’s a pointless waste of time and just ruins your social life and segue to university. You miss out on all the freshman connections.

You’re an idiot.

This forum is full of people who would send OTHER people’s kids to CC. Or are trying to rationalize why their unmotivated kid went to one or why they are control freaks who forced their kid(s) to live at home and commute to a local college. If your kid is bright, CC is a waste of time and just produces atrophy and torpedos your kid’s social life and experience they’ll get out of university once they transfer. Lot of fun being the weird CC transfer kid doesn’t have any friends from freshman year.

20,000+ student universities are nothing like what you describe here.

Oh really, did you go to a state school? How many community college transfer friends did you make? And that was presumably 20 or 30 years ago before social media and cell phones. Unless you're transferring into a college you already have a lot of best friends at, it's going to suck.[/quote

I transferred from a 4-year to 4-year college in junior year, and so did a close friend. Neither of us had any problem making friends. Community college students had an advantage over us, too--most community colleges have many of their students transferring to the same 4-year university, so the chances that a friend is going, too, are pretty good. Similarly, many Penn State students at branch campuses transfer to University Park with a good number of friends.

I'm sorry your experience was different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "cheapest" option, community college, wouldn't have been a good fit for me because of my field of study, it was also a situation where, at least at the time, the kids from my high school who went to CC did so because they didn't know what else to do or because they didn't get into the closest state university. I took a couple classes over the summer there and it was like being back in my worst gen ed classes in high school with other students sleeping, being disruptive, etc.

I sometimes wish I had chosen the cheapER option that still would have been a good fit for what I wanted to do- I still would have had to take out loans but not as much. Ultimately, the small college I attended helped me achieve my career goals and I was able to pay off my loans eventually, but it did hamper my choices in my 20s/early 30s.

Bingo. Folks who recommend CC for an above average student are idiots. Outside of maybe a random single course to take over the summer and transfer in (if your university will even allow it), it’s a pointless waste of time and just ruins your social life and segue to university. You miss out on all the freshman connections.

You’re an idiot.

This forum is full of people who would send OTHER people’s kids to CC. Or are trying to rationalize why their unmotivated kid went to one or why they are control freaks who forced their kid(s) to live at home and commute to a local college. If your kid is bright, CC is a waste of time and just produces atrophy and torpedos your kid’s social life and experience they’ll get out of university once they transfer. Lot of fun being the weird CC transfer kid doesn’t have any friends from freshman year.

20,000+ student universities are nothing like what you describe here.

Oh really, did you go to a state school? How many community college transfer friends did you make? And that was presumably 20 or 30 years ago before social media and cell phones. Unless you're transferring into a college you already have a lot of best friends at, it's going to suck.

I think you may be making up this whole situation where kids lose touch with the massive networks of nova public schools. The friendless kid after high school was going to have a hard time in the dorms and as a transfer. Maybe you aren’t from around here?

Kids have been attending NVCC and transferring in to VT, JMU, Redford, and GMU for a long time with great success. I think you forget that in FCPS, graduating classes have between 6-800 kids. these large state schools often have huge contingents of FCPS high school friend groups that span adjacent grades. These groups are inevitably enmeshed with people met in the dorms or frats and sororities, but an easily tappable network exists. And kids hang out over breaks with people local and away at school. A lot of my friends would come to our school for weekends to party and hang out. It wasn’t some nice neat line in the sand you want to envision.

While I am still friends with some of the folks I met in the dorm, I am also friends with some kids I went to high school with and was through college.

Anecdotally, I knew about 10 kids that transferred to big state schools after CC and it worked out great. From those that transferred to my school, it was like they were always there. And those were folks who were in my extended friend group. There were probably more that I didn’t know about.

Ultimately, it’s just not practical to waste 90k on an English degree for dorm life. People have and will continue to use CC for a number of reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words from my 26 yr old niece who ended up at an instate due to cost over a private LAC where she would've had to take out a loan even though she *really* did not want to go to instate. She got a great job out of college, now close to making six figures.

"I'm so glad I went with in state and didn't have a loan. I see all my friends who went to more expensive schools struggling to pay their loans, some moving in with their parents. I have enough saved now to buy a small condo."

My niece spoke to my soon to be college freshman about college costs and loans. She convinced my DC to take the good in state option, and save your money.

THIS is awesome. Sounds like a great kid passing on good advice!

We have always told our kids that we have a budget and we will not sign for any loans over it (if they felt strongly it would be their option to do so). Their grandparents have contributed to their college savings in addition to our contributions which has given them enough for most in-state schools so they are very fortunate. #1 DC is at an OOS private school within budget with no regrets (got in to more and less expensive and chosen school was in the middle). #2 DC is narrowing down options - 4 remain with one over budget school to discuss but probably will get dropped by child, again it is DC decision.

Good plan. Going into major debt is not smart. However, your kid can only take $5.5K in loans per year. Anything more would have to be parent loans (or grandparent loans)---kids cannot get them themselves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words from my 26 yr old niece who ended up at an instate due to cost over a private LAC where she would've had to take out a loan even though she *really* did not want to go to instate. She got a great job out of college, now close to making six figures.

"I'm so glad I went with in state and didn't have a loan. I see all my friends who went to more expensive schools struggling to pay their loans, some moving in with their parents. I have enough saved now to buy a small condo."

My niece spoke to my soon to be college freshman about college costs and loans. She convinced my DC to take the good in state option, and save your money.

THIS is awesome. Sounds like a great kid passing on good advice!

We have always told our kids that we have a budget and we will not sign for any loans over it (if they felt strongly it would be their option to do so). Their grandparents have contributed to their college savings in addition to our contributions which has given them enough for most in-state schools so they are very fortunate. #1 DC is at an OOS private school within budget with no regrets (got in to more and less expensive and chosen school was in the middle). #2 DC is narrowing down options - 4 remain with one over budget school to discuss but probably will get dropped by child, again it is DC decision.

Good plan. Going into major debt is not smart. However, your kid can only take $5.5K in loans per year. Anything more would have to be parent loans (or grandparent loans)---kids cannot get them themselves

It’s $5.5k for freshmen, $6.5k each for sophomores and juniors, and $7.5k for seniors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words from my 26 yr old niece who ended up at an instate due to cost over a private LAC where she would've had to take out a loan even though she *really* did not want to go to instate. She got a great job out of college, now close to making six figures.

"I'm so glad I went with in state and didn't have a loan. I see all my friends who went to more expensive schools struggling to pay their loans, some moving in with their parents. I have enough saved now to buy a small condo."

My niece spoke to my soon to be college freshman about college costs and loans. She convinced my DC to take the good in state option, and save your money.

THIS is awesome. Sounds like a great kid passing on good advice!

We have always told our kids that we have a budget and we will not sign for any loans over it (if they felt strongly it would be their option to do so). Their grandparents have contributed to their college savings in addition to our contributions which has given them enough for most in-state schools so they are very fortunate. #1 DC is at an OOS private school within budget with no regrets (got in to more and less expensive and chosen school was in the middle). #2 DC is narrowing down options - 4 remain with one over budget school to discuss but probably will get dropped by child, again it is DC decision.

Good plan. Going into major debt is not smart. However, your kid can only take $5.5K in loans per year. Anything more would have to be parent loans (or grandparent loans)---kids cannot get them themselves

It’s $5.5k for freshmen, $6.5k each for sophomores and juniors, and $7.5k for seniors.

OP here. This is new and helpful info for me, thank you. So basically if he wanted to attend a school over what we were willing to pay, I could tell him he would only be approved for the amounts above? Is this some sort of standard amount banks approve? I want to make sure I am correct in my info before going to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words from my 26 yr old niece who ended up at an instate due to cost over a private LAC where she would've had to take out a loan even though she *really* did not want to go to instate. She got a great job out of college, now close to making six figures.

"I'm so glad I went with in state and didn't have a loan. I see all my friends who went to more expensive schools struggling to pay their loans, some moving in with their parents. I have enough saved now to buy a small condo."

My niece spoke to my soon to be college freshman about college costs and loans. She convinced my DC to take the good in state option, and save your money.

THIS is awesome. Sounds like a great kid passing on good advice!

We have always told our kids that we have a budget and we will not sign for any loans over it (if they felt strongly it would be their option to do so). Their grandparents have contributed to their college savings in addition to our contributions which has given them enough for most in-state schools so they are very fortunate. #1 DC is at an OOS private school within budget with no regrets (got in to more and less expensive and chosen school was in the middle). #2 DC is narrowing down options - 4 remain with one over budget school to discuss but probably will get dropped by child, again it is DC decision.

Good plan. Going into major debt is not smart. However, your kid can only take $5.5K in loans per year. Anything more would have to be parent loans (or grandparent loans)---kids cannot get them themselves

It’s $5.5k for freshmen, $6.5k each for sophomores and juniors, and $7.5k for seniors.

OP here. This is new and helpful info for me, thank you. So basically if he wanted to attend a school over what we were willing to pay, I could tell him he would only be approved for the amounts above? Is this some sort of standard amount banks approve? I want to make sure I am correct in my info before going to him.

Those are the maximum amounts of federal student loans that dependent (students who aren’t older than 24, orphaned, parenting, married and/or military members) students can borrow per-year in their own name without needing a co-signer. Students don’t need any financial need to borrow the $27k in unsubsidized loans. Unsubsidized would generally mean interest accrues during school. Students with financial need get a portion of that $27k to not accrue interest during school. The interest, in that case, is subsidized. You would need to fill out the FAFSA yearly for your child to get these. Your child can accept or decline them each semester, however, they don’t “roll over” to the next year. For example, if you decline the $5500 loan for freshmen year, your child still can’t take out more than $6500 for sophomore year. The ability to take out the $5500 is gone at that point. But they could still take out the $6500 that sophomores get, for sophomore year.

Here is the DOE website on it: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans


Would highly recommend avoiding Parent Plus Loans, 401k loans, HELOC loans or private bank loans (i.e. Discover Student Loans). Families do take those out, and that’s where the “$100k in student debt for undergrad” horror stories come from. But I don’t think $20k or $27k in student debt is a big deal for most degrees, especially if it’s one of the only ways a student can attend college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "cheapest" option, community college, wouldn't have been a good fit for me because of my field of study, it was also a situation where, at least at the time, the kids from my high school who went to CC did so because they didn't know what else to do or because they didn't get into the closest state university. I took a couple classes over the summer there and it was like being back in my worst gen ed classes in high school with other students sleeping, being disruptive, etc.

I sometimes wish I had chosen the cheapER option that still would have been a good fit for what I wanted to do- I still would have had to take out loans but not as much. Ultimately, the small college I attended helped me achieve my career goals and I was able to pay off my loans eventually, but it did hamper my choices in my 20s/early 30s.

Bingo. Folks who recommend CC for an above average student are idiots. Outside of maybe a random single course to take over the summer and transfer in (if your university will even allow it), it’s a pointless waste of time and just ruins your social life and segue to university. You miss out on all the freshman connections.

You’re an idiot.

This forum is full of people who would send OTHER people’s kids to CC. Or are trying to rationalize why their unmotivated kid went to one or why they are control freaks who forced their kid(s) to live at home and commute to a local college. If your kid is bright, CC is a waste of time and just produces atrophy and torpedos your kid’s social life and experience they’ll get out of university once they transfer. Lot of fun being the weird CC transfer kid doesn’t have any friends from freshman year.

I’m glad that finances aren’t a concern for your family. Hopefully though, your child is mature enough to understand that not every family has the money to send their kid for 3-4 years and pay their rent + tuition.

How would you not know finances are a concern? You had 18 years to prepare. If family funding is tight, you had better be on your kid's butt to have strong high school marks, so they can maybe get into a top 50 university with the best financial aid and/or you can shop around tier two and three universities for merit awards.

I do not think there's any value in making your kid be the smartest in the room at community college for a year, let alone two. And frankly, I'm struggling to think of 24 let alone 60 credits worth of courses a smart kid with a bunch of AP credits would even find value and transferable value in. CCs are last chance colleges and places for nurses and dental techs, not places for 90 percentile smart kids who have a shot at VT and UVA.

Wow you sound really out of touch.

I have worked in higher education for decades. I've literally never seen a smart, accomplished teen end up in community college. It's more-so a message board hypothetical than a real thing. It's honestly pointless. If you have great high school marks, you can get a boatload of merit from some excellent colleges. There are thousands of universities between the Ivy League and UVA and community college. I mean, come on. "Saving" a few bucks to deprive your kid a freshman year experience and letting them be the genius in a room full of burnouts? Why? How is that inspiring? How does that make them a better student? How does that help their goals? It is legitimately harmful.

If they're a mediocre high school student, want to pursue a trade, want tech certs, want to be a nurse or dental tech, sure, go to community college. Otherwise, avoid.

I have to agree that you sound extremely out of touch. And times are changing. Schools do not give a ‘boat load’ of merit. After *some* merit, kids still have hefty tuition bills. This is why people are choosing CC. I agree that it can be dispiriting to go to CC especially if you were expecting a 4 year experience. But that is life.

NP. Name some of the schools that do not offer a "boat load." There are 4,000 colleges in this country and I guarantee that there are schools that would offer your kids sizable merit. It really depends on their stats and what schools you apply to.