So apparently college loans are bad now?

[swissair81]

I'll admit I have student loans. I wouldn't have a college degree otherwise, and I certainly wouldn't have the opportunity to earn more and help my large family with a larger income. College is super expensive, and it really shouldn't be so bad. Since it is though- articles like this http://www.theblaze.com/contribution...izing-college/ make me super mad. I would have no extra money for college if it weren't for Pell grants and Stafford loans. So I would like to say thank you Mr Obama, for standing up to people like this and giving people like me a chance to succeed.

[AnnieW625]

I don't get it either and I didn't have college loans for my BA degree, but had I gone to grad. school or gotten a degree in something more scientific than mass communication then I definitely would have had them. I consider myself pretty middle of the road politically, but it is the type of conservatism that this women's group emits just makes me ashamed to even admit that sometimes I tend to vote Republican.

[Green_Tea]

I applaud Mr. Obama's efforts to make it possible for every American who wants to attend college to have a shot at it. I am certain that in spite of having two parents with advanced degrees that all three of my kids will need to take out loans to be able to attend college.

I have HUGE student loans from undergrad and two grad degrees, and have never once regretted borrowing the money. I consider them just another bill that I have to pay each month, not some enormous burden. I will be paying those loans off well into my 50s, but think the education I received was totally worth it.

[codex57]

I agree and disagree.

If you cut funding from state schools, but fund loans, that's just moving money from pile A and putting it to pile B. Still ends up the same. So why not subsidize if you're gonna cut funding from education? Maybe not the most efficient use of money, but when has the gov't ever been efficient?

If there is any "reform" to be done, it's to reform how they inform kids on the debt they're taking on, how it isn't dischargeable even in bankruptcy, and to really think about whether it's "worth" the debt or not. This sort of ties into her argument about how if you incentivise something, it's gonna be used.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't think the gov't should be subsidizing kids so they have several years to "find" and/or otherwise improve themselves in some abstract way. Also, I don't see the harm in letting the free market dictate how private schools are affected in this. If they can't hang in the face of competition from state schools, they should close. In particular, I see this in classmates of mine who went to Stanford and got a teaching degree. There's nothing wrong with a teaching degree. Noble profession. But why couldn't they gotten a perfectly good education at UC Berkeley? Now if Stanford wants to subsidize, that's fine. But if they won't for you, and you wanna be a teacher, that monster loan should be all on you. This becomes a much bigger deal when it's not a super prestigious private school. Should we be subsidizing loans to these mediocre/poor private schools when there are plenty of perfectly good state schools out there? The most egregious examples are those for-profit schools like Phoenix that basically scam people into signing up for degrees promising them the world when the school does/offers crap and is solely in it for the federally subsidized loans.

[California]

If public state univerities and community colleges were better funded, so that tuition remained affordable, that would really help this problem. DH works for a public university and the funding cuts are drastic.

The federal and state money that goes towards loans that pay tuition for places such as National University or other "nonprofit" companies that make a ton of money would, IMO, be so much better spent keeping public universities affordable and classes accessible at community colleges. National is definitely not the worst offender, it's just the first one that came to mind.

[swissair81]

Just to clarify- I am pro government assistance for public colleges and universities. I don't think the government needs to help students go to Harvard or Columbia.

[AnnieW625]

......Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't think the gov't should be subsidizing kids so they have several years to "find" and/or otherwise improve themselves in some abstract way. Also, I don't see the harm in letting the free market dictate how private schools are affected in this. If they can't hang in the face of competition from state schools, they should close. In particular, I see this in classmates of mine who went to Stanford and got a teaching degree. There's nothing wrong with a teaching degree. Noble profession. But why couldn't they gotten a perfectly good education at UC Berkeley? Now if Stanford wants to subsidize, that's fine. But if they won't for you, and you wanna be a teacher, that monster loan should be all on you. This becomes a much bigger deal when it's not a super prestigious private school. Should we be subsidizing loans to these mediocre/poor private schools when there are plenty of perfectly good state schools out there? The most egregious examples are those for-profit schools like Phoenix that basically scam people into signing up for degrees promising them the world when the school does/offers crap and is solely in it for the federally subsidized loans.

I agree with this 100 percent and this is where I tend to get a tad conservative. I completely agree that there could be a huge issue with students who are 18-19-20 yrs. old who go to college with absolutely no idea what they want to do and then end up with massive debt just trying to figure out what they want to do and IMHO their parents or gaurdians are partially to blame, they need to be able to reign their kids in and teach them the basics that things like student loans aren't free hand outs.

I hear you on the teaching degree thing too. My sister had the opportunity to get a teaching credential from a private university in the area where she lives (University of Redlands), but decided that for more than half the cost she could get one from the local state university (San Bernardino). She even turned down UC Riverside because she knew it wouldn't really make much of a difference where she got her degree from in the long run, plus the CSU was cheaper. I have a cousin who just finished her MPH from USC and I think my sister told me she has about $40k in debt right now and public health is one of those fields like teaching, and social work where I bet it takes a really long time to pay off loans because the jobs just aren't that high paying.

I have friends who have graduated from University of Phoenix, and one has done really well for herself (VP of Marketing and Data for a local bank), but I often wonder how much of that really could have been done at a state funded university for a lot less money even taking a limited amount of units due working full time.

If public state univerities and community colleges were better funded, so that tuition remained affordable, that would really help this problem. DH works for a public university and the funding cuts are drastic.

The federal and state money that goes towards loans that pay tuition for places such as National University or other "nonprofit" companies that make a ton of money would, IMO, be so much better spent keeping public universities affordable and classes accessible at community colleges. National is definitely not the worst offender, it's just the first one that came to mind.

Agree with you on both of these statements. I wonder though if the main problem is that there are just too many students going to college and that the trend happened so fast that the colleges, and state budgets were just so unprepared and there was no other way to make the issue better than to just start cutting things.

[JBaxter]

I just was a news report saying you should try not to have more student loans than what you intend to make your first year employed.
DH worked with a "girl" ~ 24 who had over 100,000 in student debt and started at 40,000/yr. She went to a out of state school and grad school

My oldest is in college now and will come out with about 20,000 for his degree. He did one year a community college then transferred. He intends to work and go to grad school.

It blows my mind kids are going to schools and ending up with so much debt when there are MANY less expensive alternatives .

[AnnieW625]

It blows my mind kids are going to schools and ending up with so much debt when there are MANY less expensive alternatives .

This is why I went to the state university I did vs. going somewhere more expensive like USC film school. I ended up not working in my degree field (and had I gone to USC or Columbia or what not, yeah I probably would, but I also would have had crazy amount of debt and this was in the late 90s, and there was no gaurantee I'd enjoy my field either), but I worked with a person who graduated from USC a few years after me and had way more debt and did the same job as me and it was kind of like satisfaction that I did the same job as someone who graduated from USC, and I got there with way less money. Starting salary then was about $35,000.

[niccig]

I completely agree that there could be a huge issue with students who are 18-19-20 yrs. old who go to college with absolutely no idea what they want to do and then end up with massive debt just trying to figure out what they want to do and IMHO their parents or gaurdians are partially to blame, they need to be able to reign their kids in and teach them the basics that things like student loans aren't free hand outs.

I'm back in school and just finished my undergraduate pre-requisite classes, many of my classmates are undergraduates and some are coming back like me.

I think part of the problem is that the numbers thrown around for tuition make no sense to some of the undergraduate students. Yes, they can add up the total amount of their school loans and there are calculators to work out your monthly payment after you graduate. But what's lacking is an idea of what their other monthly expenses will be. Yes, they know their expenses now, but they don't have an idea of how much a mortgage will cost per month, how much child care will cost and how much it will cost if only one parent works, and how much it costs to support a family.

They see the repayment will be $500 a month which doesn't sound like too much when they look at how much they think they'll earn. I had this exact conversation with someone considering my program at an expensive school. You can pay $8k a year at a CSU for 2-3 yrs for the masters program or pay $40K per year at a private school for 2-3 years. Yes the private college is higher ranked, but in this field, that really doesn't matter.

I know DH's aunt and uncle have tried to do this with DH's cousin, but he still choose an expensive school, it does have a better program for what he wants. Will it be worth it? I don't know. And that's another issue - is the better program really worth it, for many things, I don't think it is. I do think 18 year old and many families get blinded by the "best school" image.