And I feel like there need to be a solution. It’s college graduation season again, which means articles about high amounts of student loan debt, and the difficulty in paying them off. These articles annoy me greatly, but I don’t see a solution coming soon.
Way back when I was first getting serious about applying to colleges,* I did a good deal of research about financial aid and student loans. I saw what my loan balance was going to be (being the geek that I am, I used my graphing calculator to graph two different repayment options). When I went to visit schools, I always went to their financial aid seminars. Want to know how many of my peers were there? At each school I visited, I was the only child in the room. As my senior year went on, my history teacher had us read the Wall Street Journal Classroom edition. One month this included a piece about student loans. He told an anecdote about his son not paying his student loans, and collectors calling. One of my peers raised her hand “But, isn’t it our parents who will be taking out loans, and not us?”
Once I got in, I went to accepted student day at Alma Mater. I went to the seminar on understanding your financial aid package…and I was the only non-parent there. In talking to my peers, they did take the mandatory training online about student loans, but it went in one ear and out the other.
Fast forward to graduation time. Suddenly, people are going up the wall about consolidating loans, and paying them back. It was very frustrating to hear, as the information was available previously, but they had chosen not to hear it.
Owing to all of this information, I have a hard time drumming up sympathy for students stunned at their student loan debts. However, in my book the whole crux of the issue is that while the information is there for recent college graduates, they choose not to use it. Are there any solutions to that?
*Here’s something that I wonder about. I was a high school senior the fall of 2001. As such, a lot of my peers were seeing their college money go down the toilet. I wonder if that affects recent college grads.
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I feel for graduates, just because it is a tough job market…
In terms of ignorance about their financial aid package,it’s partially the parents’ fault. People 16-18 may not be the brightest bulbs, so I do have some sympathy.
Not excusing this, but were students expecting their parents to help out with their debt and then finding that their parents have lost significant income/jobless? Some people I went to school with received significant help from their parents afterwards.
I’m so of 2 minds about this. I want to say foreshame on you students for not understanding what you were doing but a large amount of responsibility does fall at the feet of the parents.
I got left with a large amount of student debt and I’m not really sure I got value for money for my student fees.
There are an increasing number of respected universities who are offering degree’s online. I’m not talking about the university of the Caribean. I mean like the university of london or the University of Melbourne, these are top 100 universities. I think we’ve got to look further afield to get value for money.
I’m thinking of doing further study through the university of london, their ecconomic programs is excellent.
I worked my way through junior college and there was a lot of value for my tuition. It was a real eye-opener when I wanted to transfer to Pepperdine and I asked them about tuition costs. It took the person almost 45 minutes of questioning before she would tell me the cost. It seemed unreasonably high, so I passed on attending, even though I had my heart set on it.
I read the memo from Sir John Templeton and he predicted that universities would be largely replaced by electronic devices and other self-paced technology. He was a brilliant man and I think he was onto something. Education can’t continue to increase at twice the cost of inflation.