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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am really LOLing at all the VA boosters who think UVA is on par with Columbia.

Ask yourself this. If you had the money and the kid got into both schools, which would you recommend? Columbia is the kind of school that comes with a wealth of connections and opens doors to elite society in the Northeast.

UVA can't give you that except maybe in VA. [/quote]

You have it backwards. People from elite backgrounds and a wealth of connections attend Columbia; they don't socialize with the kids on aid who have campus jobs and can't jet out to Killington every weekend or blow wads of money in NYC.  [/quote]

Well I disagree about but actually those weren't the connections I was referring to anyway. It's when you go to interview for an internship or entry level job and you get to talk to Columbia grads who would rather take a chance on you then on someone from another school. It's human nature.[/quote]

You DO know that this same thing happens with grads from pretty much every school (when they encounter other alumni in the workforce), right? Obviously it's not in a similar realm academically, but my sister went to penn state and pretty much every career opportunity she's gotten there's been a penn state connection - penn state is a huge school with a proud, enthusiastic alumni base and they're kind of everywhere. Having that commonality is an easy discussion point. I'm not sure your argument makes any sense. [/quote]

lol how many penn state grads are at The New Yorker? Maybe one? How many Columbia grads are at those kinds of magazines?[/quote]
ok, so she gets that $35K/year job at The New Yorker, has a $1000 student loan payment to pay, NY rent to pay, etc. You don't see a problem with this?

[/quote]
Good point. Student loans actually need to be, you know, repaid. Exactly how is a student supposed to take a job in journalism, art, publishing, etc. in a high COL city if he or she has a high three or low four figure loan payment to make every month?

Think with your heads, people. [/quote]

Think with yours. The OP said the PARENTS would be taking on the loans, not the student.[/quote]

Well then the parents need to repay them.  Will that hurt their ability to save for retirement?  Will it mean retirement has to be delayed for a long time?  My DH will be ready to retire when our youngest finishes college.  Repaying loans does not work with that plan.  Also, can they do the same for other kids in the family?  Taking out exorbitant loans for one child's education and then not doing that for the rest of the kids is setting up for a lot of family problems.

We've told our kids we can cover the cost of in-state public universities.  In reality, I'd probably be willing to stretch another $10K over that IF (big IF) a more expensive big brand name school would provide a real advantage for them pursuing a particular goal.  But not $40K extra per year.   This assume they have a particular passion that this one school can help them achieve. Otherwise, based on the many people I have worked with and been friends with over my life, I just don't see that the brand name schools offer some amazing advantage over state universities for undergrad.  I do think it matters in a lot of fields for grad school so the calculus changes there, but, again, at that point the student should have a particular goal and know how that school will help them achieve it.  [b]I'm not going to delay our retirement for years just so my child can go to Columbia to explore and figure out her interests[/b].[/quote]

:shock: selfish[/quote]

:shock:  balanced

Many people (including me) believe we owe our kids a college education.  Many such people (including me) also believe that "college education" does not mean, "the most expensive school DC can get into."

[/quote]

That's why you shoudl be saving ahead of time! The rule of thumb for middle class families is 1/3 savings, 1/3 cash flow, and 1/3 loans. Come on, anyone can do 1/3 savings for a 70k a year school. You have 18 years. You can't save up ~ 100k in that time?[/quote]

You realize that 1/3 savings needs to include retirement too? And saving for emergencies, major purchases, etc. And childcare is an exorbitant expense? Most families I know didn't start seriously saving for college until after the daycare bill started.

But, sure, lets say parents decide they want to cover a college that costs $70K at the time they start saving and they start saving when Jr. is a baby.  Assuming college costs don't rise faster than the returns on their investments (not always a safe assumption), a basic college savings calculator says they'll need to put aside about $1300 per month for one child.  The average family is 2 kids and you don't want to deprive either one so now you are saving $2600 per month or $31,200 per year.  And you haven't saved yet for retirement.  On a "middle class" income of $100-$150K you'd need to be saving more like half or more to save at that level for college plus a reasonable level of retirement.   Must be nice to live in your little bubble where "anyone" has an extra $2600 to stash away each month. [/quote]

We have saved like crazy and with a HHI of $210K, hoped for some help from Harvard for DC.  We can pay about $40/year.

Harvard gave DC $0, but with the option of a lot of loans.  We are unwilling to allow him to go into that much debt, or to take it on ourselves as we are approaching our retirement years.

So, no.[/quote]

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