I need to Finish!

[natshar]

I'm just curious which school you were attending, wow, $80K and that was for 3 years!  I would have thought some if not most of that would be grants and subsidies, with only a portion that you need to pay back as loans.

@bjchecung77 - 

This is from my offer letter for Rutgers. It's in a higher cost of living area than the Ohio, but it's still not super-HCOL like Cali or NYC either.

$17K tuition & mandatory fees
$14K housing & dining
$5.9K books, travel and misc
$38K TOTAL (rounded)

Zero financial aid coz parents make > $100K annual income (no Pell etc obviously). Got a similar offer at NJIT, but that also had $6K merit scholarship. Regardless, if I'd picked either college I could have hit $90K by the third year easy!  
Probably even more than $90K coz I like to eat a lot of burrito's.  
Without this forum and the advice people like you provide me free of charge, the college degree path was totally closed to me. 

Yikes. Is that per year or semester?

But also remember NJ has some of the highest costs of public universities in the country. Also living on campus (while it can be a fun and convinent experience) is $$. Many schools nowadays require on campus living if you straight out of HS and live more than X miles away from the university.

I agree that is expensive though.


The only thing is that 5.9k for books, travel and misc is an estimate. That isn't something charged directly to your tuition. That could easily be cheaper or more expensive depending on the students choices and their major.

[dfrecore]

I'd also like to say, and this is not without sympathy for your position, but you weren't "put in about $80,000 in debt"; you signed up for $80k worth of debt willingly.

I don't really think that's a fair assessment. If you don't know about something like this forum, you're going to be indoctrinated into thinking that going tens of thousands of dollars into debt is the only way to obtain a degree and this degree is essential to your future success in life. I would not say that college debt has been entered into entirely willingly. I think it's more under duress than anything else. An entirely legal form of duress, even.

Nope.  Entirely willingly.  Maybe THINKING that you need a degree makes you make bad choices - that does not mean that it was under duress.  Definition of duress: Duress describes the act of using force, false imprisonment, coercion, threats, or psychological pressure to compel someone to act contrary to their wishes or interests.

1. You don’t know people’s situation. You shouldn’t judge, certainly not without more facts. 

2. If you actually want to help people, acting sanctimonious and superior isn’t going to make them apt to actually listen to you.

1. I don't.  But I still know that going into debt for college is a choice.  I got offered a partial scholarship to Stanford when I was 17yo ($6,000 covered, "only" needed to pay $12,000 myself.  Each year).  I opted not to take their deal because I didn't want to go into debt.  I chose a cheaper college.

2. I wasn't acting sanctimonious or superior.  I said we were here to help.  But I don't like the "I got put into debt" because that's just not true.  The best way to help people is to tell the truth and work from there.  Otherwise, we should just tell OP to go ahead and continue on the path, because there's nothing wrong with it - right?  I mean, what's another $30 or $40k when you're already $80k in debt?

[rachel83az]

1. I don't.  But I still know that going into debt for college is a choice.  I got offered a partial scholarship to Stanford when I was 17yo ($6,000 covered, "only" needed to pay $12,000 myself.  Each year).  I opted not to take their deal because I didn't want to go into debt.  I chose a cheaper college.

2. I wasn't acting sanctimonious or superior.  I said we were here to help.  But I don't like the "I got put into debt" because that's just not true.  The best way to help people is to tell the truth and work from there.  Otherwise, we should just tell OP to go ahead and continue on the path, because there's nothing wrong with it - right?  I mean, what's another $30 or $40k when you're already $80k in debt?

1. A choice that entirely too many people feel compelled to make because of how the whole system works. Victim-blaming helps nobody here.

2. It's nice that you had the choice to go to another cheaper school. Until I found this path, which isn't well advertised, I also thought that the only way to get a degree was to go deeply into debt. My choices were "go $50-$80k into debt" or "don't get a degree and your employment prospects suck". I went with the latter. I do not fault anyone for choosing the former, especially when they feel they have no alternative.

[Vle045]

Welcome! I am in Ohio too! Did you calculate the cost of the 34 credits at TESU and will it be less than what you would pay at your current school? Do you work fast? If so, did you compare the cost of a competency based program?

Don’t get too caught up in some of the off track comments. I think some folks got a little caught up in semantics and lost sight of your questions.

@thecontrarian - wow, no grants at over $100k? Well, I guess that’s good to know since my son is going in to high school next year. We better start planning. He says he doesn’t know if he wants to go to college. I am hoping he does... at least for some sort of bachelors using these alternative credits, etc. At least then he will be able to “check that box”. He’s not really into any sort of trade. He just thinks he will magically be a pro gamer and youtuber.

[rachel83az]

He says he doesn’t know if he wants to go to college.  I am hoping he does... at least for some sort of bachelors using these alternative credits, etc.   At least then he will be able to “check that box”.  He’s not really into any sort of trade. He just thinks he will magically be a pro gamer and youtuber.

Have you suggested a marketing degree? If you don't know how to market yourself then you're not going to do well. Also, Game Theory recently released a 10-year anniversary video about just how much WORK goes into maintaining the Game Theory network of channels. If he hasn't seen that, it might help persuade him that he should at least have a backup degree of some kind.

[thecontrarian]

@dfrecore - just out of interest, after you opted out of Stanford, did you try regular college first before getting into remote/testing out?

@Vle045 - yeh, I did get a little bit of merit scholarship at one in-state place, but not much in the overall picture. I was thinking about taking on the loan with my parents co-signing all the way as late as March this year, but I just couldn't do it in the end. The big problem for me too was not being 100% sure on career path other than as a CPA which didn't seem that strong reason to spend $150K on a Degree. Some of my friends wanted to do medicine, law etc and for them I could understand taking on the debt, but that's not my thing.

The freshman lifestyle did appeal to me though I can't deny it.  

I'm still gonna check that box though but with the help of my new best friends here!  

[dfrecore]

@dfrecore - just out of interest, after you opted out of Stanford, did you try regular college first before getting into remote/testing out?

Yes - I got a full scholarship to a nearby state college.  I just hated everything about it - hated the dorms, hated the food, hated the classes, hated it all.  Dropped out after my 3rd semester with a 1. something GPA.  One thing I found I did not hate - working! Thankfully, because this was Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley was a thing, and jobs were VERY easy to come by in the early 90's.  I started working full time by 19, got my own apartment, and could support myself on $9/hr.  I quickly worked my way up, and went back to the local CC here and there taking courses, and had a much better GPA by the time I finished there.

[Vle045]

He says he doesn’t know if he wants to go to college.  I am hoping he does... at least for some sort of bachelors using these alternative credits, etc.   At least then he will be able to “check that box”.  He’s not really into any sort of trade. He just thinks he will magically be a pro gamer and youtuber.

Have you suggested a marketing degree? If you don't know how to market yourself then you're not going to do well. Also, Game Theory recently released a 10-year anniversary video about just how much WORK goes into maintaining the Game Theory network of channels. If he hasn't seen that, it might help persuade him that he should at least have a backup degree of some kind.

That is an interesting angle.  Maybe I will.  He does still have some time left.  He’s in 8th grade now.  But anything business would be good because if he *really* continues to not want to formally go to college, a Marketing degree might be do-able with alternate credits and whatnot.  

[dfrecore]

1. I don't.  But I still know that going into debt for college is a choice.  I got offered a partial scholarship to Stanford when I was 17yo ($6,000 covered, "only" needed to pay $12,000 myself.  Each year).  I opted not to take their deal because I didn't want to go into debt.  I chose a cheaper college.

2. I wasn't acting sanctimonious or superior.  I said we were here to help.  But I don't like the "I got put into debt" because that's just not true.  The best way to help people is to tell the truth and work from there.  Otherwise, we should just tell OP to go ahead and continue on the path, because there's nothing wrong with it - right?  I mean, what's another $30 or $40k when you're already $80k in debt?

1. A choice that entirely too many people feel compelled to make because of how the whole system works. Victim-blaming helps nobody here.

2. It's nice that you had the choice to go to another cheaper school. Until I found this path, which isn't well advertised, I also thought that the only way to get a degree was to go deeply into debt. My choices were "go $50-$80k into debt" or "don't get a degree and your employment prospects suck". I went with the latter. I do not fault anyone for choosing the former, especially when they feel they have no alternative.

1. Again, "feeling compelled" to make a choice is not under duress.

2. Thinking that you only have 2 choices, and not like, a thousand or more options (there are 4,000+ colleges in the US), is sad, but not anyone else's fault.  I have a hard time believing that if you were accepted into an expensive school, that you didn't know that there might be cheaper options?  Even at 17, I knew that Stanford was too expensive and that I had to choose something cheaper.  I was not especially savvy - it was just common sense.

My kids are much more savvy, because I am much more savvy, but even they know that there are different priced colleges.  My son said "how about if I go to XYZ school on an ROTC scholarship", and I said "how about you look at how much it costs for dorms for a year and multiply that by 4 and tell me what you think." He just went to the website, looked it up, and said "oh. Expensive.  Ok, I'll do something else."  He's not brilliant.  He makes all kinds of ridiculously stupid suggestions, and does dumb stuff on a daily basis.  But even he knew that $60k was a lot of money.

Not sure why your feelings are supposed to be "the truth" or that I can't feel compassion for someone who made bad choices and want to help them make better ones in the future; and I don't see how any of this is "victim-blaming" or whatever. It's not. I'm just saying that being truthful about things is a better way to be.  It helps you make better decisions going forward if you can see the truth for what it is and then move forward with more and better information.