Just Curious: Post if you have a Masters, Law or MD and your parents did not pay for college

[Anonymous]

My spouse and I began our legal careers in DC (1994) with more than $120,000 in accumulated college and law school debt. We paid all of our student debt ourselves (around 2001), bought our first car and house with our own money, managed to have four children who all attend private schools (again, without any grandparent/family help), and generally worked our way into the American dream of married 18 years, great kids, fulfilling careers, good schools, a nice house and fun vacations. Good luck with your dreams whatever they may be!

[Anonymous]

120,000 in college and law school debt for two ppl is nothing!! One law school degree today would cost at least 150,000 in debt. You also built your law careers in the mid to late 90 s wheni had to be a friggin idiot not to be able to get a job as a lawyer. Stop patting yourself on the back. It is a different world now.

[Anonymous]

If you recall the early 1990s -- when we came out of law school -- there was a recession and hiring freeze going on in the legal profession, so it was not the easiest time to get a job coming out of law school.

OP asked only if our parents helped to pay for our education, not if it would be more expensive to do so today (obviously). In addition, my husband and I worked part-time jobs throughout college and law school to help pay for our education and keep down our borrowing costs.

Yes, I think that we can pat ourselves on the back for maintaining a happy marriage for eighteen years, for doing our best to raise our children without family close by to help physically or financially, for working and assuming $120 K in various debt to finance our education -- and paying it off, and for committing to our jobs (I started in government) to get to where we are today. That requires no small amount of hard work, perseverance and sacrifice.

I wish you an equal measure of personal happiness and professional success in whatever you may set your heart to doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:120,000 in college and law school debt for two ppl is nothing!! One law school degree today would cost at least 150,000 in debt. You also built your law careers in the mid to late 90 s wheni had to be a friggin idiot not to be able to get a job as a lawyer. Stop patting yourself on the back. It is a different world now.

If you recall the early 1990s -- when we came out of law school -- there was a recession and hiring freeze going on in the legal profession, so it was not the easiest time to get a job coming out of law school ....

Yes, I agree with PP who graduated law school in the early 1990s; it was a very tough time to find a job. Perhaps not as bad as today, but pretty bad.

And while $120k might not seem like much debt now when starting salaries in BigLaw are about $140-160k, note that after I graduated law school in the early 1990s, my starting salary in private practice (post clerkship) was $49k. Starting law salaries boomed in the late 1990s, so it's easy to forget what life was like before then. The ratio of debt to starting salary definitely favors young lawyers these days. So, yeah, it was a different world. Just don't assume it was an easier one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I understand the value of money, but setting the expectation that you must work , when deep down parents will CYA, including getting you that govt job for $8/hr, is very different from saying to a 17 year old straight A student: no, we will not help a dime, we will not co- sign, and, no, we will not give up claiming you as a dependent because you owe us for room and board the past few years since I married your mom. Now, get out on good luck.

I doubt there is an income even approaching 1 million because AMT would phase out the personal deduction and so step parent would have little to gain by continuing to claim said student. I am sure it does alter the financial aid website at much lower levels. Profile schools require non custodial parent info either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not pay for my IVY league undergrad and med school education. They are ambassadors and my country paid for everything including 4 trips/year visits to my homeland!

Sounds like graft

[Anonymous]

OP, I am a physician and my parents paid for the whole thing.
Now, many of my friends had to take out loans and that took a hard situation and made it even harder. The debt itself is a strain and sadly, many of them who are in primary care can not repay the loans. Some are in their late fifties and still paying student loan debt. The average medical school cost will put a student into about $250K of debt, even higher for the private schools. Then there was that first degree that could easily cost $150K even at the State schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am a physician and my parents paid for the whole thing.
Now, many of my friends had to take out loans and that took a hard situation and made it even harder. The debt itself is a strain and sadly, many of them who are in primary care can not repay the loans. Some are in their late fifties and still paying student loan debt. The average medical school cost will put a student into about $250K of debt, even higher for the private schools. Then there was that first degree that could easily cost $150K even at the State schools.

Our parents, who earned nowhere near $1 million a year, paid for my college education, and that of my two siblings. They also paid for my brother's Masters in Education, so that he could become a school teacher. I studied law, came out with substantial debt, and spent a decade paying off my loans. My sister, top of her class at an excellent medical school, happened to meet and marry the son of a very wealthy family (the type of family that endows numerous things in a major American city). She is a practicing doctor, as is her husband, but they did not have to worry about paying off their loans. DH and I plan to pay for both college, and the graduate school educations of our children, I know that my sister and her husband do as well. The teacher and his wife also plan to pay for their daughters' college education, though they may be encouraged to apply to a public university.,

[Anonymous]

I got married at 20nduring my junior year and my parents stopped paying for anyhting. My husband worked and paid for my undergrad and grad school. I had minimal student loans. He always says it was his best investment.

[Anonymous]

Undergrad and law degree. Zero funding from parents.

[Anonymous]

I think parents who don't pay for their kid's colleges when they have the resources are big fat jerks.

[Anonymous]

Here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Undergrad and law degree. Zero funding from parents.

Same here - BA and JD, no help from parents.

I had to fund my education via part time jobs and student loans (which I will be paying off for a long time).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Merit scholarships would solve a lot of problems. They could, maybe, single-handedly solve the education problem in this country. Think about it: if you KNEW your child could get a free ride to school (lower grades, high school, college, grad school, whatever), wouldn't you do whatever you could as a parent to get that kid enthusiastic about school.

Of course, LOTS of colleges offer large merit scholarships to attract students, but because these schools aren't top 20 on the USNWR rankings, Striving Parents (TM) and their children aren't interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a spin off from FA thread. Post if you are from a family where your parents had join income of 1 Mill /year, but they refused to contribute at all to your education. Meaning you had to pay for your own undergrad, housing and support from age 18 on.

What FA thread are you talking about?