endofera
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Post by endofera on Jun 25, 2011 18:07:40 GMT -5
I am not sure the community college route into an engineering degree is really possible. My son began taking engineering classes and high level math and physics in his freshman year. I doubt our community college offers anything at that level. But most state colleges have an engineering degree offered, definitely Michigan does, and a 4 year degree at a state college including room and board and books is at least 1/2 that $185,000 figure.
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Poppet
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Post by Poppet on Jun 25, 2011 18:20:49 GMT -5
I am leery when all sorts of people keep writing articles about how not every one needs to go to college. I think to myself what they really mean is that people like me -working class girl, no one in the family ever went to college, not the world's greatest grades - people like me shouldn't go to college.
I think that's taking it too personally. As if the article is talking directly to you. It's not.
I take those kinds of articles to mean don't attend college if you're just doing it because someone told you to attend college though you don't really want to.
I take it mean don't attend college if you need to "find yourself" as one did in better times. It's an awfully expensive way to "find yourself and most times you find yourself in big debt.
I take it to mean don't attend college if you'd rather party.
Thinking people need to be in college. People with goals. People who are willing to DO THEIR OWN WORK. My God, the cheating that goes on in college is astounding. It doesn't surprise me that we have so many dumb college grads.
Motivated people need to be in college. People who want to be there.
We have too many sheep attending because they've been told over and over from their parents all the way to the high school counselors that they have to go to college to be successful and if they don't they'll be losers forever and ever, amen.
And society totally buys into that notion that one size fits all.
Well one size never did fit all and college isn't for everyone.
That's the message those articles you are leery of are trying to fight. Not everyone is destined to be a total failure if he or she does not attend college. There are people in this world who can be a success without college and no, I am not referring to the outlier Bill Gates.
Most of the debtors in the article seem like they just did what they did because that's the generic script they've chosen to follow. College even with big loans equals a job with big money.
Doesn't work that way anymore and we're hopefully slowly waking up to this fact.
Time for people to get off the assembly line of life and find different way to be successful without getting in so much debt.
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phil5185
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Post by phil5185 on Jun 25, 2011 18:22:22 GMT -5
I am not sure the community college route into an engineering degree is really possible. My son began taking engineering classes and high level math and physics in his freshman year. That might have been true long ago when I got my engineering degree, we lost a few credits in the transfer from CC to State. But now most states have worked out a standardization program between the state schools and the CC's - the classes are now accredited & normalized, any physics/ calculus, differential equations, logic that he takes at CC will transfer directly. The thermodynamics, kinematics, statics, dynamics, yada, will all be jr/sr level courses.
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blackcard
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Post by blackcard on Jun 25, 2011 18:34:43 GMT -5
Paid my own way through college just a few years ago. Did not borrow a dime. Took me 5 years instead of 4 though. 90 hours of community college, and the rest at a 4 year university. Almost every Community college credit hour transferred.
I honestly think that it has become a mindset that people think, or are brainwashed into thinking, that they must borrow for everything. College, car, house, appliances, vacations etc.
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steph08
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Post by steph08 on Jun 25, 2011 18:35:16 GMT -5
The last time I read a detailed article on college costs, the big number that kept getting thrown around also include the student borrowing money for a semester abroad, a summer program in Ireland. I studied abroad for a semester in London - one of the most expensive cities in the world. I paid tuitiona and room to my college, it paid for my classes, internship and flat in London. I had to pay for my own food, my own trips, my own tube pass, etc. and I didn't take out any additional student loans for it. I also traveled to Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Italy while there. Including all those travel costs (including flight from PA to London), food for three months, and an insane amount of fun and "stuff," I spent about $3,000. I highly doubt semesters or years abroad are adding significantly to any of those student loan numbers.
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bring in the new year
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Post by bring in the new year on Jun 25, 2011 19:23:13 GMT -5
Tometrader, You're right. But it's talking about people like me. People like me, people like my cousins.
Drill down on who they try and track into vocational program. Look at the socioeconomic breakdown on any high school that does tracking. Look at the analyst's comments on who college will be a better fit for. Tell me again how many upper class white kids are steered into the auto mechanics program even if they couldn't do fifth grade math. Tell me how many Hispanic kids are encouraged to take AP exams.
Because working class kids are always the ones who party it up for 4 years and they're the ones known for needing to find themselves? I don't think so. Those are middle class kids. And those middle class kids aren't the ones being told to learn how to be an auto mechanic.
Also, you seem to think that there are going to be jobs for people who don't go to college. Even the trades are highly computerized these days (maybe not plumbing) and the cars come fitted with their own on board diagnostics. If you don't want these hs grads competing with third world labor to see who can earn the lowest wage, all of our kids are going to have some kind of edge. Maybe it doesn't have to be college - but it sure as hell can't be some trade school stuck in the 1980's.
You say that college isn't for everyone and that's the message those articles are trying to fight. So who do you think believes it when they say college isn't for everyone? The kids where both parents already have a college degree or the kids (no matter how bright, no matter how motivated) whose parents don't have a degree and think it's probably a waste of money anyway?
If Bill Gates doesn't graduate Harvard, BFD. He spent four years in a very expensive private school, he got into Harvard and his dad's a lawyer. He had all the back up plans he needed and in house legal advice when he signed the deal with IBM. Contrast that to a working class kid - who would have ended up working for IBM in the same situation.
Same thing is true for the debt. What I've heard is that most student debt is actually to for profit schools which lack basic accreditation. How many upper class kids do you think get sucked into paying two or three times CC tuition to take classes with Phoenix?
I would be more enthusiastic about the CC route if I hadn't seen the stats on how many more people drop out of CC than 4 year. In places where Phil is right and they've standardized the transition from CC to 4 year that shouldn't happen. But across the board the drop out right was I believe over 50%.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2011 19:30:31 GMT -5
My wife's parents told her she could go anywhere she wanted to college, but if she wanted them to pay, it was 2 years at CC and then 2 years at a state school. She took them up on the offer.
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taz157
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Post by taz157 on Jun 25, 2011 19:31:53 GMT -5
I also think there is nothing wrong with taking classes at a local community college. It's by far cheaper than a state school. This is especially true for somebody who isn't quite sure what kind of degree they want. That's exactly what I did and my parents were footing the tab for tuition. I was responsible for books. I also had a part time job for spending money, along with paying my car insurance and gas. Granted, I did live with my mom when I went to the community college. While at CC, I decided what I wanted to major in and made sure that the majority of classes I took at the CC transferred to the 4-year university. Luckily, all but 1 class transferred to the 4-year university. After I got my AA, I transferred to a well-known and respected 4-year university and lived with my DH (BF at the time). My mom really wanted me to live in a dorm, but I had NO desire to live in a dorm. Thankfully, I had no SLs after I graduated and feel extremely lucky! Granted, someone having $240K in SLs and there chosen profession is social work. Are you NUTS!!!
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jun 25, 2011 19:54:37 GMT -5
If my husband's experience is any indication, many of his CC classmates should still be in 6th or 7th grade. I don't think they're learning-disabled, but just received such a substandard education many of them need 2-3 years of remediation before they're even at the CC level. I would imagine facing 4-5 years of school to receive a 2-year degree would drive many to say "Screw it, I can just go work at McDonald's." I'm sure there are many, many other factors as well, but this is the one that stuck out for me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2011 19:55:04 GMT -5
Some of the state schools in CA are no longer accepting transfers that they guaranteed from community colleges. They are too full and the budgets have been slashed so badly.
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Poppet
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Post by Poppet on Jun 25, 2011 20:32:07 GMT -5
The conundrum is: A degree is like the high school diploma now. Everyone needs one, but it's not that impressive anymore. Yet we have to spend tons of money on something that is now basically a piece of paper that gets us an interview and maybe, fingers crossed, a job. But only maybe because the umpteen other applicants also have the same degree. Even worse, having a degree no longer guarantees a lucrative career. We have people with degrees getting jobs in fields that do not need a degree. We've got a lot of highly educated restaurant servers and taxi drivers. Our credential loving society is flooded with degreed people. How long will something so ubiquitous remain valuable and sought after? How long do you think it will take before employers start using other criteria besides the degree? Perhaps applicants A and B have the same degree but applicant B has less or no debt and better almighty FICO score. B will probably get the job even though applicant A did all "the right things" by going to college and getting that degree but had to go into great debt to do it. Or maybe they'll hire applicant A because he's so in debt that he needs to keep his job to pay those student loans. Nice life, that. So many variables. Some good a lot more bad. What to do? Follow the herd or try something different? It's up to the individual to think for herself and decide. There is a real fear as you have shared that if you don't have a degree you'll never get a job. I think this is the scare nugget that perpetuates this broken system. Until that's broken we'll continue to see fools take on astronomical debt that will see them all the way to the grave.
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Cookies Galore
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Post by Cookies Galore on Jun 25, 2011 23:34:59 GMT -5
Damn, that's one hell of a Master's degree. I only assume so, considering I graduated from Temple in 2004 with only $19,000 in federal loans.
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cronewitch
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Post by cronewitch on Jun 26, 2011 0:14:16 GMT -5
CC was great for me. I didn't get a good education before college so needed some work to get up to college level. I tested at a 8th grade level in math because I stopped taking math at 8th grade. My schools didn't require math to graduate except two classes, I took remedial math in 9th grade and bookkeeping in 11th. But CC had a programmed learning center where you could study on your own so I studied for a week and got retested. I got a 12th grade level after that week and took algerba and got a B. Then I took about 3 more math classes and always got A's. One boy in my first algabra class flunked and took it over several times not sure he ever finished. My ex tried it and failed, he just couldn't learn it. He used the programmed learning center with help from staff, took a high school level class and worked hours a day on homework and just didn't get it. He didn't get a degree because we moved and he decided he didn't want to go for a few more years.
One reason CC might have more drop outs is the students are often older or less ready for college. I was about 23 and my husband was 40, I had a high school diploma but he had dropped out and got a GED in his 30s. Adult students usually have jobs that matter more than school and homes and children where an 18-20 year old is more likely to put school first.
The college prep classes in a CC don't mean the real classes are dumbed down. My accounting classes were good and when I went for my 4yr degree I was still able to have perfect grades in those classes and pass the CPA exam. I don't know if anyone ever cared where my degree started or ended.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Jun 26, 2011 1:44:20 GMT -5
Also, you seem to think that there are going to be jobs for people who don't go to college. There are. I have one of them. You do however have to be smart enough to get a base level of education on your own or get your foot in the door at a low level job (in my industry that means a help desk/call center) and work your way up. Nobody is going to hand you my job as soon as you graduate high school, but pretending you need to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to get a good job is missing the point. You're not supposed to be going to college just for the piece of paper, you're supposed to be there for the education. That means if you can find a way to get the required education in other ways, it's just as good. Employers value experience more than education anyway, so if you can get your foot in the door and learn on the job, you're golden. First though you have to realize that it's the education that matters not the degree. Some lazy ass HR people use it as a screening tool, but once your butt is actually in the seat, your boss won't give a crap where your degree is from or even whether you have one, he/she will only care whether or not you can perform.
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april47
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Post by april47 on Jun 26, 2011 3:44:06 GMT -5
Cronewitch, I found just the opposite years ago at CC. The older students did BETTER than the younger ones. They were there because they wanted to learn and better their selves, not because they wanted to party or it was expected of them. I loved schooI the second time around even if I did have a husband and 3 kids. I went to CC when I was 35 to get pre-requisites for nursing school. I got straight A's and ran circles around those kids out of high school. I had a professor tell me that was very common. Another benefit, by the time I was burned out, I was old enough to retire. I retired after 25 yrs as a nurse recently.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jun 26, 2011 7:23:02 GMT -5
I'd like to see more "too much student loan debt" stories that include people who did not get the degree or got snookered by trade schools. If you don't have much going for you to begin with, even minor amounts of student loan debt (say $5000 for a couple of community college classes) can be the beginning of a disaster.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2011 9:23:58 GMT -5
I guess I was lucky since we lived in Florida and my kids got Bright Futures which basically paid tuition and a stipend for books. DS went to UF 2001-2005 and had less than 10k out of pocket (which I paid for) which consisted of room, board, and an allowance and one years car insurance premium because UF has a rule about taking a summer term. He lived in the frat house and that was dirt cheap unlike sorority houses. I got a "raise" when he moved out of the dorm!!!! DD had the same but I had help paying for her college so I still wasn't out much financially and she lives at home except for 2 years of school, which ate up a lot of money. Most kids live somewhere close to a college and can go for a lot less if they live at home. Guess what? They all get the same starting salary regardless of debt or no debt.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 9:31:12 GMT -5
I'm one of those lucky ones who got an education at a private, expensive liberal arts schools and graduated with no student loan debt, my scholarship covered all but about $3k a year.
I had about $60k student loans from a private law school. It was well worth the money.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 9:32:28 GMT -5
I don't want my kids to live at home while going to college. There's so much more to college than classes, and I think the commuters miss out.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2011 10:01:28 GMT -5
They miss out on a lot of drinking and freshman antics. I wasted my freshman year as did my son and even DD got stupid but a lot of kids flunk out or lose that scholarship and that is no good. I guess the choice could be tons of school loan debt or very little. If a degree is important to you, you will make the sacrifices necessary for it and if that means you live at home and don't "party" so be it.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 10:10:20 GMT -5
They miss out on a lot of drinking and freshman antics. I wasted my freshman year as did my son and even DD got stupid but a lot of kids flunk out or lose that scholarship and that is no good. I guess the choice could be tons of school loan debt or very little. If a degree is important to you, you will make the sacrifices necessary for it and if that means you live at home and don't "party" so be it. It's not all about the drinking, its the friendships, studying together, going to campus activities, joining clubs and sports teams. My parents would not let me or my siblings live at home during college because they thought it was an integral experience of maturing and learning to live on your own. My parents did not go to college. We disagree, no biggie.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2011 10:18:52 GMT -5
She did all that. It wasn't like we lived 2 hours away. She could catch the university bus if she wanted to, if they weren't so disgusting. She did live away for awhile and having roommates was hard on her. But the REAL parent curse came true. I wanted her to have roommates that were more piggy than she was and she did!!!
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 10:20:49 GMT -5
She did all that. It wasn't like we lived 2 hours away. She could catch the university bus if she wanted to, if they weren't so disgusting. She did live away for awhile and having roommates was hard on her. But the REAL parent curse came true. I wanted her to have roommates that were more piggy than she was and she did!!! And there we go, one of life's important lessons, how to live with a slob. It prepares you for marriage.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2011 10:25:40 GMT -5
Heh, heh
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jun 26, 2011 10:30:42 GMT -5
My niece started at the community college to work towards an RN. She was young and immature and decided the program didn't let people graduate. Her words, not mine. So she enrolled in a surgical tech program at a different community college. She stayed with her in-laws during the week and came home on the weekends. Her mother-in-law says she was so bored that she studied all the time and that is how she was the valedictorian of her class. Anyway, it got her a great job and she makes more than her husband.
Her husband just passed his test to be a journeyman tool and die maker. He's hoping to get hired by a better company now that he has his card. He says he didn't care in high school about classes and didn't think about salaries until he was married and had kids. Some people take longer to grow up than others, too. The only good thing was he wasn't accumulating a lot of student loans while he grew up.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 10:40:27 GMT -5
A success story!!! My story is about 20K in loans for a phd program I dropped out in the 4th year....to have my lovely DD - totally worth it.....and I did get my masters It did take several jobs jockeying around, but I eventual parleyed that master in social psych (OH THE HORRORS!!!) into my current job - Manager of test development and analysis - for my current 88k gig. Not too bad. After I dropped out - I worked as a bartender until dd was 2, then entered the workforce at a huge disadvantage - I didn't know what windows was.....12 years later - here I am..... OMG - do you really have to add some hard work/thankless jobs to that degree? Maybe you do! Here's how I paid for law school. tuition at the time was about $15k to start and ended at $20k. I worked the summer before. 2 jobs, plus I cleaned houses on teh side. You can't work your first year in law school, but I worked at the YMCA anyway about 5 hours a week lifeguarding in exchange for a free gym membership and beer money. The summer between first and second year, I worked in a law firm during the day, waited tables nights and weekends, also cleaned houses. The second year, I worked in a law firm and also continued at the YMCA. The summer between second adn third year I continued at a law firm and the Y. The last year I worked at the law firm and the Y, and also was a house mother at a sorority, the same sorority I was in college, a different school. I got free room and board, phone, and $100 a week. I didn't work while studying for hte bar. My first job was an asst DA. I made $30k, so my hourly rate was probaby about $8 an hou,r, considering all hte hours I worked. I lived with my parents. But I loved the job and got great experience. My next job was running the county public defender's office. I hated it, but it paid well, adn I stayed long enough to vest my state retirement. I then went into private practice where I work half the hours I did as a gov lawyer and makes pretty good money for a lcol area.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jun 26, 2011 10:43:43 GMT -5
That sounds a lot like my DH... I think if he'd gone to college/tech school straight from high school it probably would have been a mistake. It was after working at a steel mill for $13/hr that he started to consider going back... by then he'd seen a few of the jobs out there for high school graduates and it wasn't pretty. He started school at 27 and has been on the Dean's List since he enrolled
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IPAfan
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Post by IPAfan on Jun 26, 2011 10:49:32 GMT -5
I know very few people with 6 figure SLs that made the right choices. One example of one of my friend's who has close to $200,000 in debt, but certainly made the right choice, is doing an IVY league residency right now for a very specialized area of medicine. He's already been offered over $300,000/yr starting salaries at a couple different jobs (in areas that have reasonably low COL at that).
I think midwesternjd has it right when she attributes the problem with student loans in part to students who don't pay attention to ROI. I feel that the schools are only doing what makes sense to charge as much as the next idiot is willing to pay. I think students are making a huge mistake to overspend on education (when much of the best education is self-education anyway). If the federal SLs don't get paid back, at least the money helped stimulate the economy by creating wasteful spending at Universities...so the federal government comes out ahead either way.
[rant] I personally made a difficult decision to go to a law school that was not nearly as "good" as several of the schools I could have gone to. I was ashamed of this decision for most of my time in law school, and even considered transferring to a "better" school after my first year (as the top in my class). I made the decision based on my career goals, and the idea that I couldn't do what I wanted (start my own practice) with a staggering amount of debt.
I felt a lot of self-loathing, and felt like I was going to law school with all the attorneys who were too stupid to cut it at a good school. The funny thing is that my classmates were of two varieties: 1) The ones who WERE too stupid to go to better schools; and 2) the ones who were too SMART to go to better schools. The entire cost of my law school education was about $40,000 + living costs. I graduated with a net worth of $30,000 instead of the typical -$100,000 for some of the schools that I could have gone to.
After seeing how much better off I am than the people who decided to stroke their egos at the expense of a lifetime of servitude, I think I made the right choice. I'm sure if I'd borrowed 6 figures to go to Harvard or Yale law school (which I couldn't have gotten into) then perhaps it would have worked out in the long run. But I see tons of people going to other "1st tier" law schools that no employer cares about, and taking on the same amount of debt. I think this HAS to be driven solely by the desire to appear smarter than the friends who go to 2nd, 3rd, or 4th tier law schools. I know a supposedly 4th tier law school that is ABA accredited and charges $5,000 per year in tuition for in state residents. It's in a LCOLA too! It's also the only law school in its state with a lot of very successful alumni.
[/rant]
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cael
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Post by cael on Jun 26, 2011 10:51:00 GMT -5
Who the **** takes out $240k in loans for college??!?! a good friend of mine graduated from a private university in Cambridge last spring with a master's in early ed. and she has about $60k in loans. She is still working in a day care making 15/hour, and has loan payments of around $500/month. My fiancé makes only about 60 cents less an hour than her and he has a GED and works in a warehouse. He's starting CC either in the fall or next spring and I hope we're able to pay out of pocket for it. I'm so happy my SL balance is down to $9500! I'm going to grad school at UMass and will hopefully get some scholarships, but it is way more affordable than a private college. Swamp, I 100% agree about commuters missing out. I commuted my first 2 years and lived away my last 2, and I wish I'd done the whole thing away.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2011 10:52:16 GMT -5
That sounds a lot like my DH... I think if he'd gone to college/tech school straight from high school it probably would have been a mistake. It was after working at a steel mill for $13/hr that he started to consider going back... by then he'd seen a few of the jobs out there for high school graduates and it wasn't pretty. He started school at 27 and has been on the Dean's List since he enrolled My DH did something similar. He had a 2 year degree as an optician and was working for a sole proprietor making about $8 an hour with no benefits when we started dating. He went back to school with the intention of becoming a doctor and got a degree in Biology, 3.9 average. He didn't score well enough on the MCAT to get into med school, so he went to pharmacy school instead. He also ended up with about $60k in student loans.
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