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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Anonymous wrote:
Good. Your kids are responsible citizens. They don't protest. They focus on studying. Pay for them, they deserve it.
Most kids are not like yours. Just see what is happening on campuses.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Because what am I going to do with my $$ if I don’t spend it on my kids? We save for retirement, spend $ on vacations, and donate time & money to causes we care about but we don’t want more things. We don’t want to hoard our $. Plus, both of our kids are very anxious so if we can make things a little less stressful for them, we will.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the "skin in the game" arguments.

A college student's skin in the game is the time and effort they put into studying and learning and obtaining their degree.

Most 18 yr olds could not feasibly contribute more than a few thousand dollars and a work study job toward their college education anyway, which even for an in-state college would be nothing close to the total cost.

So when parents talk about forcing their kids to self-fund all or a portion of college, even if the parents can afford to pay for it, generally what they are talking about is having their kid take out large loans. This is incredibly irresponsible if you actually have the means to pay for it -- you're just sign your kid up for a usurious student loan system.

It's one thing to say "we can only afford to send you to XYZ public colleges, if you want to go somewhere else you will need to take out loans for the balance." That's reasonable. It's something else entirely to insist that an 18 year old be responsible for the high price of a college education simply on principle.

When you have “skin in the game”, paying 65K in tuition fees, you don’t risk your education by engaging in violent protests on campus. When you have “skin in the game”, you focus on your education, you focus on graduating on time.
If these students had skin in the game, they would focus on their education instead of creating the chaos we see in campuses throughout the country.
No surprise that most protests are seen in Ivy League schools were most students have their tuitions funded by their parents.

I disagree with many of the protesters' goals and find some of the slogans they're chanting to be offensive to me personally, as a Jew, but I also think this argument is stupid. I should load my kids up with student debt so they aren't tempted to protest against wars?