Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 14:00:44 GMT -5
It extends even to grad school. I am currently in grad school and our school wants parents' financials up until you are 30! Apparently, being 25 with an undergrad degree doesn't indicate you are an adult. They still take your parents' $$ into account.
That is flipping insane. You can sort of see the logic in kids being "dependents" until age 24 because let's face it, most kids are these days. But 30? Huh? I know at least four people in grad school and none of them are getting help from their parents aside from the occasional pat on the back.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Apr 12, 2011 14:06:08 GMT -5
My ex-bf had a similar experience as audreyalice re: dependent status and the FAFSA. I watched/listened to him spend WEEKS cajoling, begging, bribing his mom to give him her tax info (I think all he really needed was her AGI). She didn't want her SSN "out on the internets" and flat-out refused to give him any info. He finally told her that he & I were going to get married so he wouldn't have to drop out of school... she filled out the FAFSA the next day, amazing Thankfully my parents were more cooperative, but the under-22 "dependent" status really does a disservice to some students. As far as costs go, I was lucky enough to get a full tuition scholarship to a private college (more than made up for it in law school, but that's another story). I worked PT during the school year and FT during the summer to pay for room & board. Despite this, I don't think that the "work your way through school and you won't need loans" philosophy applies to everyone. I'm a huge proponent of doing your research on career choices before getting into debt, looking for alternate means of funding, getting your gen-ed credits out of the way at a community college - but I also recognize that the way I do things at 27 is not the way I would have done them at 18, and I can't fault anyone for making an error in judgment at such a young age.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 14:14:42 GMT -5
A little, but $765/month is still workable.
When I went to school in 2002 I was paying $650 a month plus utilities just to rent a room in an apartment, with cockroaches, in the belly of a freeway, across from a park that was a notorious place for drug dealing. I was lucky to get it. It really depends on where you live.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Apr 12, 2011 14:16:38 GMT -5
I was paying $650 a month plus utilities just to rent a room in an apartment, with cockroaches, in the belly of a freeway, across from a park that was a notorious place for drug dealing. Well duh, that is what you could afford and therefore deserved. If you had just worked more at a better job ::Grumbles:: entitled poster thinking she deserves to live without cockroaches.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 14:20:11 GMT -5
When I went to school in 2002 I was paying $650 a month plus utilities just to rent a room in an apartment, with cockroaches, in the belly of a freeway, across from a park that was a notorious place for drug dealing. I was lucky to get it. It really depends on where you live.
True. Man, I miss that apartment. $300 per month and I had the biggest bedroom I've ever had with a walk-in closet, bathroom right across the hall, washer/dryer, dishwasher, huge living room, everything brand new, really good fitness center, and free parking.
*grumbly*
Ah well, DF is paying the rent this month so I really can't complain.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 14:22:53 GMT -5
lol DQ! I graduated with a ton of student debt while working mostly full time. During the time I was paying that much for a one bedroom (my school kicked you out of the dorms after freshman year and they cost about the same anyway) I was earning around $6.50 an hour - a minimum wage retail job. Working full time has been shown to have a bad effect on grades - it's pretty hard for most people to do well at both. Besides - at the ripe age of 18 I was pretty crappy at making good financial decisions.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 14:27:45 GMT -5
I had the biggest bedroom I've ever had with a walk-in closet, bathroom right across the hall, washer/dryer, dishwasher, huge living room, everything brand new, really good fitness center, and free parking. I was so jealous when I visited friends who lived in LCOL areas! I think it is possible to get a degree without a lot of student debt but there are some tradeoffs too. If you work a lot you may not be able to take an unpaid internship and without the internship it can be difficult to get your foot in the door. Or your grades may suffer. It's a pet peeve of mine when people won't acknowledge that college costs have gone up greatly and that it is putting a lot of stress on students and families.
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msgumby
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Post by msgumby on Apr 12, 2011 14:37:46 GMT -5
Oh and another thing I forgot about people mentioning taking community college classes, that won't always get you very far. Not all colleges take transfer credits from community college. I had enough AP/community college classes to get an associates degree (and my husband had spent 2 years taking classes at his local state college while in high school) and nothing transfered at all. Initially I was a little pissed, but then when I got to my school and actually took the classes there, I realized the classes were so far beyond what we had covered in community college that I shouldn't have been able to get any credit for those classes. So if your college accepts transfer credits, that's great, but not all colleges do and you can't always save yourself time/money by taking classes at a community college.
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Post by tea4me on Apr 12, 2011 14:41:39 GMT -5
My pet peeve is when people don't think they can work and go to college at the same time. Are they special?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 14:45:33 GMT -5
My pet peeve is when people don't think they can work and go to college at the same time. Are they special? I think you can work and go to college at the same time - I just don't think it's going to cover the full cost for most people. A doctor I used to work for covered undergrad and graduate school by working in the fields during the summer. That's pretty hard to imagine now. My college advisor paid for undergrad/graduate school at Harvard by house sitting for a wealthy couple in the summer. Things have changed.
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Post by rmtvbrooks on Apr 12, 2011 14:49:09 GMT -5
I worked at a small two-year college that had a really low tuition (about $80 per credit hour). The fees, of course, racked up pretty quickly, and for some students the dorm and dining plan were an added expense. Even for a resident student staying in the dorms, the annual cost of attendance was probably around $8000. Many students qualified for pell grants, but that only covered a portion of the monies needed. So it was understandable that some students needed to take out some loans. However, the problem was this: students would get substantial financial aid refunds (amounts in their financial aid package that exceeded the amount needed). The funds were disbursed to a special debit card set up for that purpose. Instead of setting that money aside or paying back some of the loan or saving it for the following semester or year, students would go out and buy expensive clothes, fancy rims for their cars, etc. One guy even called the financial aid office one day to ask when his refund would be disbursed. He was told the date, and his reply was that "the rims I want for my car won't be on sale then!" If student loans are used RESPONSIBLY, they can be kept to a reasonable level. However, very few 18 year olds are prepared to use debt responsibly, especially if their parents are not responsible either. More should be done at the high school AND college levels to educate students about the ramifications of student loan debt and ways they can keep it under control. Student loans are necessary in some cases, but steps should be taken by the individual students to keep that debt as low as possible.
One lady that I worked with at the college had a son who was going to be attending in the fall. He took out some loans to pay for school. His mom is going to begin making some payments on the loans for him. It will reduce the amount he has to pay back later, plus it will help build a credit history for him. She will pay what she can, and the rest will be up to him after he graduates.
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stats45
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Post by stats45 on Apr 12, 2011 15:02:01 GMT -5
Why would colleges stop raising their prices when the federal government pays a good amount of the cost and loan limits and Pell Grants are already at very high levels?
If you want prices to go down, you have to remove some of the subsidies to higher education or change how the money is distributed. The incredible amount of federal subsidies for higher education:
(1) makes a bunch of programs viable that are not needed in the job market (2) encourages weak students to attend college because it provides them money at a lower cost to them than working (3) drives up the cost of education
Just like health care, education has to be rationed in some way to make the costs turn in the right direction.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Apr 12, 2011 15:08:24 GMT -5
I don't know if they changed it again but back in 2005 they stopped rewarding Pell Grants on individual (student) income, parental income was now factored in just like for loans. Many people saw their Pell Grants reduced or completely disappear (me being one of them).
Then at least from what I remember you don't get a lot of Stafford loans either. Subsidized and Unsub are capped at $5000 and $5500 for your last two years of college, it's not much more than that when you are a freshman/sophmore. The amount you can get becomes less and less the longer you go.
I realize that that is still $10,500 for two years but that is way less than the $100k or more everyone on here rants about.
Personally I think the price jack up is due to the private loan sector which operates like a bank loan, you can get as much as you are approved for just like if I walk into a bank today and ask for a personal loan. Yet they are not dischargable like federal loans.
Sorry but I don't think a lot of 18 year olds (shit most ADULTS aren't capable as evidenced by the housing bust) are capable of realizing that just because Sallie Mae approved you for $60k worth of loans does not mean you NEED that much.
I stuck with federal aid only and I didn't graduate with near the debt that my friends who took out private did. I also have lower interest rates, even at 8% (where it is capped) the loans would still not be near what some people I know are paying on their private student loans.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 15:14:13 GMT -5
Sorry but I don't think a lot of 18 year olds (shit most ADULTS aren't) are capable of realizing that just because Sallie Mae approved you for $60k worth of loans does not mean you NEED that much.
Kids can make dumb mistakes with money, that's for sure, but personally I think 18 is a FINE AGE to learn how to manage your own finances, or at least how NOT to make decade-ruining mistakes. It should not take years of adult trial-and-error (or a college degree for that matter) to work out the fact that a $60k loan when you're only going to make $35k upon graduation is a Bad Idea.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Apr 12, 2011 15:18:02 GMT -5
Kids can make dumb mistakes with money, that's for sure, but personally I think 18 is a FINE AGE to learn how to manage your own finances, or at least how NOT to make decade-ruining mistakes.
Who teaches them? My dad and my grandmother are very financially savvy and went over with me all the loan programs and costs.
My guidance counseler tried to cram Sallie Mae down my throat every time I saw her. Sallie Mae also certainly is not going to be interested in making sure I know before I sign the dotted line, they are protected because most contracts state that by signing it you understand it.
I do think you should have the common sense to know taking out huge loans that aren't dischargable unless you drop dead is a bad idea, but apparently I am the minority.
There needs to be better finanical aid education and it SHOULD NOT be brought you to via Sallie Mae or whoever the loan company is.
Guidance counselers should also just stick to listening to how much life sucks for teenagers and not try to be finanical aid counselers.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 15:24:45 GMT -5
There needs to be better finanical aid education and it SHOULD NOT be brought you to via Sallie Mae or whoever the loan company is.
I'll grant you that but honestly, I think "don't take financial advice from people who want to sell you things" is more common sense than a lesson you need to learn. I could be wrong about that, but it always seemed obvious to me.
Ask 100 car dealers and all 100 will tell you that you can afford a car. But you're the only one who actually knows if you can afford a car, and why would you listen to the people who are trying to sell you a car?
My guidance counselor was a ditz too but it never occurred to me to ask her about loans anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 15:31:05 GMT -5
I didn't learn much about finances until I came on this board . . . pretty much everyone I knew was a mess and thought that was the way you had to live.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Apr 12, 2011 15:32:25 GMT -5
One of the counselers was also a "college counseler", but she took it upon herself to also try to give FA information.
I'd already done my own homework long before the mandatory sit down all junior/seniors had to do with her so I knew that I wanted nothing to do with Sallie Mae. I started to wonder what she was getting out of it because she would get very adamant with me about applying with them when I told her no thank you.
I had it all planned out before I even took the ACTs. Life took a little detour when I transferred. Which I will grant did save me a lot of money but may have possibly shafted me when it comes to applying for graduate school. Crossing my fingers that since I am not going straight thru that my 5 years of practical lab experience outweigh my final GPA.
20/20 hindsight it should have occurred to me that transferring might make it a little more interesting to apply to graduate school but at the time I was busy doing all the "right" things to avoid massive student loan debt.
I don't regret the decisions per se, but I wish I had thought about some things a little bit harder. My GPA is meaningless currently and had no barings on my current or previous employment, but now I have to actually USE the sucker and it's dawning on me that there was a bigger trade-off than I had anticipated.
Does not help that not a single person has been able to tell me how my GPA will be handled since I technically have two (one for each school) instead of one single GPA reflecting all four years.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Apr 12, 2011 15:38:17 GMT -5
Don't forget the colleges that are supporting their sports programs and $2 million a year coaches through tuition.
I know that our athletic program is wholly self supporting. The university does NOT support those $2 million salaries of coaches. I suspect that this is the case of most major universities that have nationally ranked sports programs.
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strider
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Post by strider on Apr 12, 2011 15:43:47 GMT -5
Don't get me started on FAFSA. I could have gotten a free ride because we were DIRT poor until I was 16. Then around my 17th birthday my mom got a fantastic job and made tons of money. They then based my FAFSA on my mom's income. Kind of hard to have savings when you had no income before. I would have gone to school nearly for free based on the year before.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 15:44:07 GMT -5
How student fees boost college sports amid rising budgets
By Steve Berkowitz, Jodi Upton, Michael McCarthy and Jack Gillum, USA TODAY
Linda Randall says her daughter, Randi-Lyn, a student at Radford University in southwestern Virginia, is not a "die-hard" follower of the Highlanders sports teams.
Even so, by the time Randi-Lyn graduates in 2012, her parents probably will have paid an average of nearly $1,000 a year in fees to the school's athletics department. They just didn't know it from the school's billing statements or website.
"We're looking at five years because she changed majors. That's $5,000," Randall says. "That's one of her loans. That would have paid rent off-campus for a year. It's kind of disheartening. I don't think I'd have as much of a problem with it if I knew I was paying it. With what we're paying, it doesn't seem right."
Like most other schools in NCAA Division I, Radford relies on student fees to help support ever-expanding athletics budgets. Many schools, including Radford, do not itemize where those fees go for those who pay the tuition bills, USA TODAY found in an ongoing examination of college athletics finances. The amounts going to athletics are soaring, and account for as much as 23% of the required annual bill for in-state students.
Students were charged more than $795 million to support sports programs at 222 Division I public schools during the 2008-09 school year, according to an analysis of thousands of pages of financial documents. Adjusting for inflation, that's an 18% jump since 2005, making athletics funding at public schools a key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education.
At nearly all schools, various mandatory fees are tacked on to tuition, and can cover everything from student health care to computers. But the largest portion often goes toward running the school's athletics department. In exchange, students typically get free or reduced admission to sporting events.
But when demand exceeds available student seating, some students can get shut out. Many aren't interested in the games anyway.
"She does go to some of the games," Linda Randall says of her daughter, "and it's nice that they let them in free. ... But she's going there for the (academics); she's not going to fund athletics."
There were 42 Division I athletics departments that reported receiving no student-fee money in 2009, but some of those schools say student-fee money is included in institutional funding provided to athletics programs. Many schools help cover the gap between their athletics departments' expenses and revenue because they regard sports teams — especially football and men's basketball teams — as important parts of campus life and excellent vehicles for generating publicity and alumni support.
A University of California-Berkeley faculty group seeking ways to reduce the campus' financial support of athletics acknowledged in a recent report that besides having a "significant" impact on the school's $250 million in annual academic fundraising, Cal's wide-ranging and successful sports program "adds to campus spirit and unity, provides free advertising for the campus, helps in branding, and provides a link and outreach to alumni."
But at NCAA Division I schools, athletics spending has been rising at a faster rate than increases in academic spending, prompting various higher-education groups to call for a change in priorities.
At least six schools — all in Virginia — charged each of their students more than $1,000 as an athletics fee for the 2008-09 school year. That ranged from 10% to more than 23% of the total tuition and mandatory-fee charges for in-state students, the primary customers at most public universities.
Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the organization's annual Trends in College Pricing report, asks: Is athletics "10% of what you're getting out of college?"
At least five states, including Virginia, ban or limit the use of public and/or tuition money for athletics. For some schools in those states, relatively large fee charges become an alternative. In other states, on top of dedicated fees that might or might not have been approved by students, athletics departments often get other financial support from their schools.
The Randalls are not the only parents who were unaware of the scope of the athletics fees. Among the 20 schools nationally that had the highest estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009, based on a USA TODAY analysis, 15 schools confirmed that they do not disclose their per-student athletics fee charges on their billing statements, websites or in other official school publications.
Officials at four of those 15 schools — Radford, James Madison, Longwood and Norfolk State, all of which are in Virginia — said the information could be found in an appendix of a state report.
At Virginia Military Institute, the athletics fee figure is "buried in our budget," says Col. Stewart MacInnis, a spokesman. "I had to go dig it out myself. It's not where anybody would go look for it. You've identified a weak spot."
Some schools don't reveal how much students pay toward athletics, to try to avoid controversy.
"Why would you?" asks Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance at Cleveland State, which was just outside the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics-fee charges.
" ...Whenever we spell something out, somebody decides they don't want that service. We don't spell out in tuition that 1.8% of it goes to run the religion department. 'I'm an atheist. Why should I pay for them? I'd never go to any of their courses.' "
'A matter of transparency'
Schools' reluctance to make public how much athletics departments get from student fees runs counter to federal, and some state-level, efforts to require greater transparency of college costs.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 this year began requiring schools to annually report to the Education Department separate figures for tuition and required fees. (They had been allowed to report a combined figure.)
Starting in July 2011, schools with the largest percentage increases in price over the previous three years will be listed by the department and required to report the reasons for the increases and what will be done to cut costs.
In May, the University of California system voted to force greater disclosure of how its schools use money from a fee that can fund certain programs, including athletics. Each campus will have to maintain a website that says how the spending of that money compares with the spending recommended by the campus' student-fee advisory committee.
In June, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics advocated making student fees apparent as a means to reform athletics spending.
"At a time when the cost of attendance at college is going up at a very high rate, it's a matter of transparency and fairness and equity that people ought to know what they're spending their money on," commission co-chairman William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at that time. "I think that is a way of bringing pressure to bear — this transparency and this exposure of revenues and expenditures — and beginning to put a hold on, to tamp down, the rate of increase (of spending) in intercollegiate athletics."
After Kirwan's comments, USA TODAY found that two schools in the Maryland system were among the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009. Maryland-Baltimore County specifically disclosed its athletics fees on its website and the university system's; Towson provided only the amount of what the bursar's office's website called a "University Fee."
"We do not itemize each cost or fee," bursar Thomas Ruby says. "We do not get into that detail. That's how this university operates."
Kirwan said in early August that Towson's athletics fee is "in the public domain" because it was discussed at a system board of regents public meeting, but "it isn't as transparent as I think it should be. It ought to be more transparent on the website, and it will be addressed."
Within two days, Towson's athletics fee — $767 per student for the 2010-11 school year — had been posted on the university system's site; it remains unspecified on Towson's site. (Following this story's original publication on Sept. 22, Towson began showing its specific athletics fee information on the university's website.)
The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, plans to survey students to see how many are aware of athletics fees. But even the center acknowledges that increasing accountability is tough — mostly because even if students are aware of the fee, they rarely are clear on the true cost, administrative director Matthew Denhart says.
Many students pay their college bills with loans, so they don't think about what the true cost will be. And third-party payers — parents, scholarships, Pell Grants — pass on the cost to someone else.
"There's a lot of, 'I'm not paying for it anyway, so why fight it?' " Denhart says.
'Absolutely getting nothing' from fee
There are those who are trying to fight athletics fee increases or the fees themselves.
Kentucky state Rep. Joni Jenkins filed a bill this year to prohibit public universities from charging commuter students mandatory athletics and meal-plan fees. Her bill was never taken up by a state legislative committee, but she says she plans to refile the bill soon so it will be heard in the next legislative session starting in January.
"I represent a middle-class district where parents are struggling and students are struggling," Jenkins says. "So many of the students from my district are part time because they can't afford to go full time, and they have to work, and they are absolutely getting nothing out of that athletic fee."
She believes commuter students and others should be able to opt out of paying athletics fees, although she acknowledges that for "some of the smaller schools that don't have the same revenues, (an athletics fee) does keep their non-revenue sports going."
At Montana, however, the student body rejected a proposed athletics-fee increase, overriding action by elected student leaders. Representatives from the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM) approved a plan to boost the athletics fee to $144 annually from $92, but other students were so outraged that they forced the issue to be put to an all-campus vote in May. The plan was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio.
ASUM President Ashleen Williams, who supported the fee increase, predicts the issue will come up again in the fall. "Sometimes you have to make hard decisions," she says. Relying heavily on ticket revenue to fund athletics is a "really risky game" because sales — which have been Montana's largest or second-largest revenue source each of the past five years — can wane if teams don't win.
Hawaii's athletics department had been trying to rely on the $23 million a year it generated from ticket sales, donations, television and marketing, plus an additional $10 million in direct and indirect support from the university. But by this summer, the department had accumulated about $10 million in debt and was adding to that at a rate of $1.5 million to $2 million a year. Over the objections of undergraduate and graduate student organizations, the state board of regents voted in July to impose an athletics fee for the first time.
Beginning in January, students will be charged $50 a semester, an amount that is projected to increase the athletics department's net revenue by about $1.8 million a year; the fee money will be available for any purpose except staff compensation or benefits.
"It showed a pretty messed-up sense of priorities," says Amy Donahue, chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Graduate Student Organization's advocacy committee. "If we're going to pay, it should reflect the priorities of the university and benefit the entire university community."
Associate athletics director Carl Clapp says the department hopes the fee will have such a benefit.
Athletics "is by no means the most important part" of the university, Clapp says, but "a strong, successful athletic program is very important to the connection with alumni, donors and leaders in the state, and it magnifies the university not only in Hawaii but beyond the state. That's the visibility that the athletics program can have."
'We don't ask where it's going'
At some schools, students have been willing to approve fee increases for a variety of purposes.
In March 2009, Bowling Green students voted to approve a $60-per-semester fee to help finance the construction of a new campus arena/convocation center — and the measure carried by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. (The school won't collect the fee until the arena's completion, scheduled for 2011.)
Also that month, Utah State students voted 53% to 47% to more than double their athletics fee to nearly $120 a semester as part of a funding plan to help the school have a more viable program in the NCAA's elite-level Football Bowl Subdivision.
There are students who say they don't mind paying sizable athletics fees, regardless of whether the fees are specifically disclosed. James Madison University was another school among the top 20 in estimated per-student fee charges that did not disclose its specific athletics fee ($1,080 in 2008-09, according to the state report the school cited). Student body President Andrew Reese says that "it's not cause for much concern for (students)" because the school provides free admission to events, puts student sections in prime seating areas, and "athletics is a very big part of the student culture."
Cleveland State junior Andrew Sobczak says, "I personally would like it if I knew what I was paying for — and where the money was going." But he has no problem with most of his overall fee money going toward intercollegiate athletics: "How much? That can be questionable. But I think it should. If you want to go to school, part of the whole school atmosphere is sports as well."
If students know little or nothing about general fees, Sobczak says, it's partly their own fault for not being more educated consumers. "We don't question it, we don't ask where it's going, we don't do any of that. So it's definitely partly our fault that the system works that way."
Boyle, Cleveland State's vice president of business affairs and finance, says that if students don't want their money going toward sports, there are options such as online schools and schools such as the University of Phoenix that do not have sports.
At Cleveland State, general fees are considered part of tuition, Boyle says. The money from collected fees generally is sliced up three ways, he says. About 40% goes to paying off debt from new student buildings. About 45% goes to athletics. The rest funds activities such as student government.
Linda Randall says being told about Radford's athletics fee "up front would have been better. We still would have sent her there. She loves it. She's happy. But it would have been nice to know."
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Apr 12, 2011 15:49:03 GMT -5
Kids can make dumb mistakes with money, that's for sure, but personally I think 18 is a FINE AGE to learn how to manage your own finances, or at least how NOT to make decade-ruining mistakes.
I don't know... I've met some very naive (or maybe just sheltered or maybe a tiny bit delusional?) 20 somethings... I think maybe I was born skeptical (or maybe it was having 3 older siblings) because things that seem 'obvious' to me - especially when it comes to other people's goodwill toward me (they must want something or be getting something out of the deal after all) seem to elude other people.
I've often wondered how people can keep doing the same things over and over and hoping for a different outcome...
It doesn't seem like rocket science: if you are using a square peg that's not fitting into the round hole - maybe you need to pick up a different peg or try a different hole. You don't spend YEARS trying to make it work.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 15:50:17 GMT -5
Also from USA Today:
"The average coaching salary of the 65 schools that reached the NCAA tournament is about 1.3 million, not including benefits, perks and incentives."
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Apr 12, 2011 15:52:07 GMT -5
Even if you learn after the first $60k, you're still on the hook for the first $60k. That's still a pretty big chunk of change that you are on the hook with for years to come.
A lot of posters on here started out with a lot of debt before they got serious and buckled down to fix things.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 16:09:09 GMT -5
True. I guess I'm kind of a hard-ass in the sense that I'm not in favor of anything resembling "18 year olds are stupid, so let's cater to that."
Which isn't how I'd describe what you're saying, drama - it's just that's how it often seems to come across.
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msgumby
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Post by msgumby on Apr 12, 2011 16:21:43 GMT -5
tea4me - not everyone can work while going to college. My college was designed to be a few full time jobs already - so you couldn't feasibly work while attending classes (unless you wanted to have your degree take 8 years). It was set up so that classes would be 10-20 hours/week, labs could be another 10 hours/week, and homework would easily take 60-80 hours/week. Most classes were at least 20 hour/week time committment and there were a handful of classes that (on their own) require 50+ hours/week of work, so it really would be impossible to take more than 1-2 classes at a time while working. We all worked through evenings and weekends doing homework, and tried our best to manage to have some fun on a friday night or a saturday afternoon. You could have worked if you had taken a 50% class load, but you had to petition each quarter you wanted to take a reduced course load and it wasn't really set up to be done that way - it would take you a really long time to get your degree. Also, generally jobs aren't flexible to allow you to arrange for time to attend classes, lab sections, homework sections, and group meetings whenever those end up being scheduled and changing on a 3-4 month basis. While some may be able to work in college, not everyone can. I'm very grateful that my parents realized that I could not feasibly complete my coursework while working during the school year and helped me out. I'm also grateful that the school had financial aid so that my husband didn't have to work or end up with tons of student loans.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2011 16:24:59 GMT -5
What really amazes me is how many people think college is optional. My daughter borrowed $17,000 a year for 4 years to attend pharmacy school. It was worth it. She started at almost twice what her teacher mom was earning.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Apr 12, 2011 16:37:30 GMT -5
What really amazes me is how many people think college is optional. My daughter borrowed $17,000 a year for 4 years to attend pharmacy school. It was worth it. She started at almost twice what her teacher mom was earning.
Pharmacy school is a slam dunk. Many majors are not.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Apr 12, 2011 16:42:13 GMT -5
What really amazes me is how many people think college is optional. It is. I truly believe there are kids who don't really need to go to a traditional College/University to get a degree to be productive in life. I think sometimes the 'pressure' that they've got to have a 4 year degree to be successful (or to get a job) causes more difficulties for some kids than it ought to.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Apr 12, 2011 16:42:54 GMT -5
The Federal Stafford (sub and unsub) limits have changed a little bit recently, but for years, they looked like this: Freshman: $2,265 sub $4,000 unsub Sophmore: $3,500 sub $5,000 unsub Junior: $5,500 sub, $5,000 unsub Senior: $5,500 sub, $5,000 unsub Grad: $8,500 sub, $10,000 unsub
That meant that the max student loan debt you could graduate with (going for 4 years) was $32,765. The grad student limits went up during the 2007/2008 school year, but not by much. I don't know if the undergrad limits have gone up or by how much. (I only know the limits went up because I was in the middle of grad school at the time. I got $18,500 in loans in 2006/2007 and then $20,500 in loans for 2007/2008.)
My cousins have all started college in the last couple years (with one more starting next year). The advice I game them was that if they could afford the school with financial aid including the federal loans, they could afford it, but if it required them to take out a private loan (or their parents to take out a private loan) they could not, and they needed to look elsewhere.
I also have a hard time completely blaming the private schools. (Though I am happy to blame the for profit schools.) One of my cousins is at a prestigious and expensive private school. The school does not do merit based aid on the theory that if you were accepted, you obviously deserve merit aid. So instead, its all financial need based. They use the FAFSA to help determine family contribution. And they stick hard and fast to that number. If my cousin were to go out and apply for more private scholarships, the school would reduce the amount of aid they give her so that her family always has to pay the amount they determined the family should pay. Students can cover some portion of their family contribution with loans. However, the school places even stricter limits on the amount of the loans than the federal government does. They do this to ensure that none of their students will graduate with crushing student loan debt.
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