Reply to Middle class families - Are you willing to take on a ton of debt for a top college?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No, I would not pick columbia and the debt. I can't think of any real world benefit other than bragging rights because you think the name sounds more impressive

[b]$280k debt can ruin your life.[/quote][/b]

It's not $280. You pay college expenses in after-tax dollars.  If you are in the 50% tax bracket, you have to make $140 per year to pay $70K.  That's $560,000 for four years.  More than 60% of our nation's college students are now taking five or six years to graduate (less so with the more prestigious schools, but WaPo did a story on this a year ago - many students have to take time off to work, or can't get the classes they need because they are blocked or have returned from a year abroad and can't finish), so that is $700K to $840,000 per student.  We have two in college right now - one will be a five year student.  So double, say, the $700K figure for a grand total of $1.4M to educate two kids.  Both got into Ivies. Both are at UVA, thank God.  And they love it!

[b]And for those who say "you should have saved".  We did.  Massively.  And both students' accounts were halved by the great recession as was our retirement.  [/b]We are now truly a member of the "sandwich generation" taking care of elderly parents, still reeling from costs of taking care of one parent in assisted living for 8 years, trying to plan for retirement (hah) and putting our young through college.  We haven't even gotten to grad school yet (law school is now $88K a year).

And for those who say "merit scholarships", there aren't any at the Ivy level, there aren't any at UVA except for Jefferson and Echols, and we are in the donut hole so get zero out of FAFSA save the $5500 loan that everyone gets.[/quote]

I smell something fishy about this statement. First, when you know you're going to be needing the money soon, you are encouraged to move to 50% + cash positions. Did you do this?

Second, did you do something stupid after the balances started to fall, like sell and move to cash? Did you continue to invest? Because most people who held their positions were back to black by 2010. Why weren't you? If your kids are in college now, then you had a few years after the bottom in late 2008/early 2009 to regain what you had lost. So something screwy happened here.[/quote]

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